November. Five Things.

5 Quick updates:

1) Three Cheeky pieces since I last checked in.  Dance.  Quick interview with Ashley Greene from Twilight.  Holiday Theater Round-Up.

2) Been working on two video editing projects, one for a networking series called Fusion and one for Chicago’s incredible City Farm.

3) This week I’m on staff at the RSNA, huge radiology conference.  I mean huge — somewhere around 40,000 people and every inch of McCormick Place.  Conventions are cool to me.  Temporary, microcosmic universes where everyone has one thing in common, plus all those little nuances true to any convention (the ladies who take all the free pens, the overpriced sandwiches, the name tags on lanyards, the expo hall buzz).  Not only have I met some very interesting doctors and medical technology reps from all over the world, I’ve also seen my fair share of mammograms and biopsies demonstrated on silicone falsies.

4) Thanksgiving with the fam was fabulous.  Food, loved ones, food, nice weather, food, laughs with the family, food, Matt came in for under 24 hours despite his brutal work schedule, food, the Marriott beds are the most comfortable things on earth, food, The Mall On Black Friday.  It’s just a quick drive down to South Bend, IN, though I learned the hard way never to over-inflate one’s tires.  Car sputtered and vibrated on the highway anywhere over 60 mph.  Guess who got a realignment and front tire replacement for Hannukah?  Dad to the rescue.

5) Matt and I made a monster trip to Ikea, and on the way (kind of on the way) we stopped at a cemetery in Forest Park, where some distant relatives are buried, to do some genealogy research for my dad.  Matt and I made a video of this wonderfully random mash-up of errands, which I’ll cut together and post as soon as Matt finds that little cord for his camera, which is not a standard USB cord.  It took us 3 hours to assemble his desk.