A couple of quick things

Now that the torture post is out of the way, I think I need to make up for lost time and get with the posting. So a few items that warrant your attention.

First, get well soon, Todd (and thank you for not infecting Trish or me), if for no other reason than the sanity of your wonderful fiancee.

Second, I really don't have a second but these things seem to work best in threes and I wanted to build up to the next one.

Third, final and most important, congratulations niece Madeline and nephew David. Madeline graduated this last weekend from Central Catholic High School in Portland. The whole family visited for the weekend to see her matriculate as well as to see if Rose Princess Madeline would be crowned Rose Queen. (Alas, no, but it went to one of her best friends of the group, so that's a plus.) She may not have won the crown, but she did snag a couple of scholarships and is heading to Seattle University this fall.

David graduates from All Saint's School today and is heading to Central Catholic himself this fall. (And David, good timing. Nothing is worse than being a Freshman in high school while a sibling is a Senior. Trust me on this one. And Tom, no "Gee, I don't remember that at all" comments on this one.) Turns out it is not just the family that thinks David is smart. One of his classes next fall will be Honors Geometry/Trigonometry. (I took regular old Trig as a Junior and never touched math again.) That is something you would expect an exceedingly geeky kid to take, but David didn't get any of his Uncle Dan's genes in that regard and is pretty damn cool. So I envision a scenario where David teaches all the geeky kids how to be cool by being comfortable with themselves and they teach David.... well, not math, because her clearly knows that, so I don't know what they teach David and since I cannot finish this little scenario I will distract you with a Real Genius clip as a cautionary note to David about studying too hard.