I'm back in Houston. So, no, Mom, you don't have to call out the National Guard to come find me. I want to move to Austin though. Its got personality, hills, and a lake. How could you go wrong? The hot weather even seemed more temperate there than here.

The conference went really well. They even nominated our paper for "Best Paper" of the conference. That was cool. We stayed in a posh hotel (Sarah and I shared a room and it took both of our hotel per diem to pay for it). We ate really well at fun resteraunts. I ran into two professors from Tech (Tsiotris & Calise), one who recognized us and one who didn't. I ran into an old mate from when I worked at Langley (though I didn't have much to say to him). And I met up with David Cohen (David Cohen, from high school!) who I haven't seen in like 6 years. But we got along great - no awkward pauses or no lack of conversation! It was fun to see him again and catch up on funny things and gossip and such.

Last night sailing rocked. Another close finish (we got third).

My house is so empty. Cari moved on Tuesday, and Kennda is on perpetual work travel. It will be nice living "alone" for a little while. At least I'm alone until Nick moves in and converts my puppy room into his dance studio (in my mom's words: wonder who's next? maybe a hair stylist or makeup artist who can set up a mini-salon... or a circus tight rope artist who can install a high wire... or an olympic gymnist with mats and a balance beam... the possibilities are endless).

Anyway, today's entry is the last you'll hear of Cari - the kick ass roommate -'s exploits in America. In the future it will all be funny French stuff. Cari was insistant on leaving on Tuesday (she was driving to California before flying to France), despite having no clear time constraints. Anyway, she ended up leaving at 9:30 p.m. 9:30 p.m.! She drove through the night (stopping to nap in a Best Western parking lot) and was still driving when we spoke to her on Wednesday afternoon. Houston to L.A. without stopping!

But this was only the end of Cari's exploits. When Gavin and Jen came to pick up Bennet (after Cari left) at my house (they were babysitting the dogs while I was in Austin) - they noticed there was no sign of Tang (Kennda's cat). They looked around (making sure that he hadn't locked himself in the bathroom cabinets, which occurs more frequently than you'd expect). They found him sitting outside the back door in the pouring rain staring in forlornly. We are only left to wonder how long Tang (an indoor cat) had been outside without Cari noticing.

Maybe later I'll start talking about Bennet's new un-neutered male marking behavior or how despondant he is with Cari gone (he keeps going into Cari's room and sighing loudly, I'm sure he'll get over it).