Congratulations are in order for my young Fort Wayne friend Zach Klein, who has achieved the American dream at the tender age of 23: Selling his new-media internet company to deep-pocketed old media — story here — for big, big bucks. Selling price undisclosed, but you can bet there are many digits to the left of the decimal point. Enough that he will be buying the drinks next time, and every time until I get bought out by Barry Diller, too.

I met Zach when he was still in college and we were two of the very few bloggers in town. He was home from Wake Forest for the summer, interning at Lincoln National (and not liking it too much). We had our own Meetup, at Chili’s on Coliseum Boulevard. We had margaritas, which I think were purchased illegally, because Zach was not yet 21. It’s not every day that I get the opportunity to contribute to the delinquency of a minor at my age, so you can see why I remembered it.

I have to say, his company’s main site, CollegeHumor.com, gives me the willies. In my day, when we wanted to humiliate someone who was passed out drunk, we just took a photo — Sharpies never entered the picture. (Please don’t get me started on The Shocker.) And yet Zach is the guy for whom the phrase “what a nice young man” was invented. He stopped after one margarita at our Meetup. I don’t think he even owns a Sharpie. Although maybe he’s just continuing the long young-person’s tradition of bullshitting his elders. It’s entirely possible.

Zach’s blog. His Flickr page. His Vimeo page, another of his startups. Invest early.

UPDATE: Oh, and not to pile on, but Fort Wayne Observed takes note of what my ex-employer thought this story was worth. To recap, this is a local kid (now lives in NYC, but parents and siblings still in the Fort), about to become a multimillionaire at 23, previous stated interest in becoming a patron of his hometown’s worthy causes, background story on file and winner of the newspaper’s own high-school scholarship competition six years ago. This story was, wait for it … a one-paragraph brief in the business digest. The other paper wrote nothing. Well, Zach always was modest.

More bloggage today:

Another friend sent me a link to one of his friend’s photos — you know, we should start an internet networking site…oops, Zach is already hooked up with one of those, too… — of the Gay Games, last month in Chicago. Endlessly fascinating stuff — ballroom-dancing lesbians and no-surprise-there bodybuilders, and my personal favorite: Brokeback Mountain on ice. A great gallery. Enjoy.

I know I used a version of this picture before, several sunflowers-in-the-silver-pitcher episodes ago, but this is why I bought this thing. It might as well get its publicity.

It was a sunflowery day, the kind of day that makes you wish summer would never end, even though I noted with chagrin today that I must start monitoring the front window again. As the sun creeps south, it lengthens its reach into the living room and threatens to bleach the furniture. In winter, a sunny day means the blinds stay closed most of the day. And now…

…I’m starting to sound like Lileks. A better solution: Get some of that bleached-muslin furniture and let the solar radiation make it even whiter..

Finally saw “Syriana.” And finally, was grateful that I’d waited for the DVD, because this is a movie that requires a second viewing, preferably the next day, to sort everything out. But I’m glad I did. Everybody talks about the stars of a movie, and so it seems everyone knows George Clooney packed on a toddler’s weight in fat to play a CIA agent, but why doesn’t anyone ever talk about Chris Cooper? He’s, like, the greatest character actor since Gene Hackman, and I didn’t even know he was in this thing. In the last several years I’ve seen him play a horse trainer, an orchid thief, a Kansas state police detective, a homophobic Marine and now an oilman, and he just disappears into every character. I’d hire him to train my horse and run my oil company, I would. I think he could do it.

Anyway, it’s hard to say what “Syriana” is about, because if I say, “It’s a demi-thriller about the complexities of the global oil business,” that sounds pretty boring, and it’s not, really. You should see it, if you haven’t already, if only for Tim Blake Nelson’s speech about corruption. (“It keeps us safe and warm!”)

Not much today, as I’m busy and blah blah the usual excuses blah blah. Ashley, our regular commenter and longtime pen pal, was in both the L.A. Times and Sun-Times yesterday, and he wasn’t even charged with a felony, AND the stories were on two different topics. Links at his joint.

Meanwhile, as the nation’s threat level remains at red, I’m continuing my pie-related counterprogramming. Today: Mmm…blueberry.

…means pie level peach.

I mean, you can’t mess around when you’re at level red. Mere coconut cream ain’t gonna cut it (so to speak). Desperate times call for heavy pie artillery. So it’s peach today, because nothing’s better.

Could have done a better job on the crust, though, and certainly on the picture. I was in a hurry.

Just one bit of bloggage today: This Slate piece, pointing out how often terror-spotting technology — drones and satellites and so forth — is trumped by plain old police work:

Border patrols and detection devices are necessary tools. Like locks on the front door, they make it harder for terrorists to make plans and wreak havoc. But there’s always a back door or window that can be pried open. Preventing that from happening requires good intelligence, and good intelligence requires contacts with the sort of people who hang around the dark alleys of the world.
There’s a broader lesson here, and it speaks to the Bush administration’s present jam throughout the Middle East and in other danger zones. If the British had adopted the same policy toward dealing with Pakistan that Bush has adopted toward dealing with, say, Syria or Iran (namely, it’s an evil regime, and we don’t speak with evil regimes), then a lot of passenger planes would have shattered and spilled into the ocean, hundreds or thousands of people would have died, and the world would have suddenly been plunged into very scary territory.

Police are nothing without informants, who are frequently criminals themselves. A useful lesson to remember.

Was droll Jim Romenesko having a bit of fun when he wrote this item? I think so:

Tori Daugherty’s complaint about the cursing in “All The President’s Men” got two grafs in Deborah Howell’s WP ombud column Sunday. The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel devoted 22 grafs to the 15-year-old girl’s appearance in the big-city paper.

Here’s the WashPost column. Here’s the 22-graf story-about-the-story. Here’s the part I noticed: A teenager is interested in working in journalism, but not if people are going to talk the way they did in “All the President’s Men.”

“I find it ignorant that a person who writes and a person who uses language would use language in that way,�? she said of the journalists portrayed in the film.

The story is unclear, but the chain of events seems to be: She saw the movie in journalism class, and brought her case for its offensiveness before the principal first. Unsatisfied, she then wrote to the Washington Post, demanding answers, because she’s considering journalism as a career but “I don’t want to be around (that kind of) language a lot.�? The ombudsman thought her letter was adorable and patted her wee head:

“Yes, Tori, many journalists curse,�? Howell wrote in The Post. “They curse when their computers break down, when people lie to them, when they make mistakes and when they’re on deadline. But usually, they’re nice to people…Please don’t think that cursing is a prerequisite to be a journalist. A promising young journalist who does not curse would be a welcome addition to any newsroom.�?

Awww, how sweet. When I read that, I knew that not only does young Tori have a future in journalism, she’s management material. In fact, she might as well just bypass the newsroom entirely and go straight to an endowed chair at the Poynter Institute. And then, as these incidents frequently prompt me to do, I took a trip down Memory Lane.

(Gilligan’s Island-style swimming-screen effects here.)

We had a girl like that in our college newsroom. She was a transfer, from a small Catholic girls’ college that couldn’t take her all the way to a journalism degree. Catholics speak of “formation,” the molding of souls and intellects and the rest of it, and this girl was well-formed, in more ways than one. You could have balanced a demitasse cup on her head all day, and it wouldn’t wobble. I recall her face held one expression, which suggested she had just smelled something offensive. And she had many opinions about her new school. I only recall one: That the deadlines in journalism class were impossible. The newswriting class was 90 minutes, and the way the drill usually worked, you got an assignment in the first half-hour, and then had an hour to write your story, due at the end of class. This was simply ridiculous, in her opinion; the nuns gave you a week. (Of course the class was structured this way for a very good reason — the ratio of assignments-that-must-be-finished-in-an-hour and those-that-must-be-finished-in-a-week is, for a beginning reporter, pretty lopsided. So you might as well get your practice before your paycheck depends on it.)

This was in the days before people felt the need to inform total strangers of their sexual history, but I’m pretty sure she let us know she was wearing the letter V and would be until her wedding night.

And the punchline: She was a faultless beauty. Blonde, clear skin, fine features. She could have stood toe-to-toe with Grace Kelly and not blinked.

She disapproved of swearing, too, which is probably why she wore that expression all the time, because the walls of our college newspaper office were covered with graffiti, much of it obscene. (There was a list of euphemisms for masturbation that covered a quarter of a bathroom wall and may have been the root cause of her distress, as it included the phrase “polishing the bishop.”)

Anyway, I don’t know if this story has a point or what, but as I recall, she really, really didn’t fit in, which could say as much about us as her — we were all pretty insufferable back then. But she still found a career in journalism. Believe me, I was shocked to discover this, but a few months ago I got an e-mail from my friend Deb, who as a fellow Catholic-school transfer took a particular interest in her, informing me that not only was our former classmate gainfully employed, she was …wait for it… a columnist.

I looked up her portfolio. She still disapproves of many, many things.

So be not discouraged, Tori. I’m sure your path through the dirty-talking portion of the newspaper business will be straight and swift. Columnists frequently have doors they can close and lock. Better yet, many work from home.

Bloggage:

I never liked Joe Lieberman. I never understood the need for Gore to choose a “values candidate” after Clinton, as the voters had pretty overwhelmingly demonstrated that they considered what Clinton did forgivable. (If you were one of those upset by Clinton’s shenanigans in office, consider the alternative. Doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?) He always had that listen-to-me-the-orthodox-Jewish-sage thing going on, but in the end, a veep is always a shrug issue, for a voter — what can you do? No one votes for a veep.

I like him even less today. John Scalzi sums it up pretty succinctly.

I read Nora Ephron’s “I Feel Bad About My Neck” yesterday. I would add it to “On the Nightstand,” but it never made it that far; I realized I’d read most of it before in various magazines, and the parts I hadn’t read I consumed while making dinner. Wide margins, generous line spacing, not very thick to start with — you know the drill. That didn’t make it unenjoyable. I will always enjoy Nora Ephron’s essays, no matter what. When I was in that graffiti-smeared college newsroom, Ephron was my role model, and still is, in many ways. Her deft touch is one I’ve aped all my writing life, and I’ve never forgiven her for stopping for so long, to make all those awful movies (with the exception of “When Harry Met Sally…”). I guess she had her reasons.

That said, there’s no single essay in here that comes close to the best of her earlier work, but ah well, the book’s about aging, so you can’t really expect it, can you? Still, very enjoyable. You could do worse.

Maureen Dowd used the phrase “came a cropper” in her column today (TimesSelect link; don’t bother), and she used it correctly. It was almost punctuated correctly, too, but we should maybe not ask too much. I’ll settle for proper usage, particularly of phrases you see used incorrectly all the time.

A nit-picker who wanted to be absolutely correct would write “‘came a cropper,” if you’re interested. The phrase comes from foxhunting and means, literally, to fall off your horse and hit the dirt. You need the apostrophe to indicate the first word is abbreviated; it’s “became a cropper,” i.e. a farmer, by embracing the farmer’s workplace head-first. I never understood the phrase until I saw it, punctuated correctly, in a photo caption for a book about foxhunting. (I think it was the famous picture of Jackie Kennedy going off, headfirst, wearing white string gloves, looking fab as usual.) Anyway, that explained it for me, and ever since, I’ve been noticing how many people get it wrong. “Came a-cropper” is the usual screwup, which suggests bonny lasses walking through fields of rye, croppering or whatever.

“Hear, hear” — that’s another one. It means, “listen to what this person is saying, because it’s the truth” or, simpler yet, “I agree.” And yet, at least 50 percent of the time it’s used, it’s written “here, here,” and I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, unless you’re summoning a waiter. I found it in a novel written by an author whose work I respect, and I sent him an e-mail pointing it out. No reply.

As usual, The Straight Dope gets it right.

Tack/tact — I sprout more gray hairs every time I see this one. It’s a sailing term, and refers to the zigzag course boats must make as they sail into the wind. If you’re approaching a port that lies directly in the eye of the wind, you have to get there via a series of 45-degree course adjustments. “Let’s take another tack,” means, “Let’s approach this from a different angle.” And yet, I always, always see it written “tact,” and who the hell knows what that means, because I sure don’t.

Please don’t get me started on the anxious/eager difference, which isn’t difficult to understand, and yet even editors can’t get it right, many days.

And people! The principles of one’s faith? Are TENETS! Not TENANTS!

Bookmark this site. It’s a good reference to keep handy.

UPDATE: A commenter in the Ruins thread points out that a “copse” is, by definition, a small group of trees, and so you don’t need to say “copse of trees,” as I did in that post. Hmm. Good point, but I’m calling poetic license on that one. I’ve never heard the word used alone before. My online dictionary tells me its roots are in the 16th century word “coppice.” I guess if you said, “Henry, amble over to that copse and fetch me a fern,” probably people wouldn’t know what you were talking about. As when you use the phrase “‘come a cropper,” perhaps. As my daughter says these days: what-evuh.

Couple bits of bloggage:

The Poor Man answers all your Mel Gibson questions. Including the one that most interested me: Q: Gibson apparently blew a 0.12 on a breathalizer, which is only 150% the legal limit. What is that, like 3 beers? I barely even mention the Jews until I’ve put away a 20-pack. Is Gibson a wuss?

This is perhaps of local interest only, but perhaps not: Jack Lessenberry appreciates Maryann Mahaffey, longtime Detroit City Council president, who died last week. A fine portrait of what old-school liberals are, in their Platonic ideal. Bonus, a four-paragraph summation of what’s wrong with newspapers these days, at the very end.

Amy Welborn linked to this interview on Mercatornet.com the other day, about the Gardasil HPV vaccine. Pay special attention to the questions. For the sort of smug tut-tutting we’ve come to expect from religious conservatives, it really can’t be beat: …not everyone who contracts cervical cancer does so through her own fault, so to speak. So to speak. Through her own fault. What a fine Christian. Most days I’m not for bomb-throwing, but I think this commenter on the issue over at Alicublog cuts right to the heart of things: The argument comes down to this. Both sides know that people are going to have sex before marriage, the difference is the so-called liberals believe that they shouldn’t suffer and die for it, whereas conservatives think suffering and death is exactly what the f*ckers deserve.

Yup.

Another busy day today. Have at it in the comments.

I didn’t tell the whole truth; we went to Mackinac Island for a long weekend. I’m not one of those nervous souls who frets constantly about getting robbed, and I normally don’t have a problem with announcing when I’m going to be gone for a while. But this was a short stretch, and I just imagined telling the police officer, both of us regarding the kicked-in window, “Well, yes, I guess some people knew we were going to be gone…Who?…Um, well…”

The fact is, most criminals are pretty stupid. The few who aren’t probably don’t get their targets from reading blogs, though. But you never know.

However, it was time to introduce Kate to her adopted state’s most famous tourist trap, and the last weekend in July seemed the perfect time to escape lower Michigan’s heat and breathe in the clear, cool air of the straits. Uh, no. The heat wave followed us there, not as bad as downstate but plenty bad in a place that is, by and large, without air conditioning. (Even the hotels.) We slept on top of the covers and sought out shade, but still had a good time. The picture shows Kate getting in the local FTF spirit, i.e., Fleece the Fudgies. We didn’t stay at the Grand Hotel — and thank God, since it requires men to wear ties in public areas after 7 p.m. — but one of our last outings was to climb the long hill and see the famous veranda. I figured on being shaken down, but choked on the price. I would have paid $12 for the three of us, but that’s $12 per person. They employed a nice lady in black linen to enforce the perimeter. Forget it. This is why websites were invented.

We stayed here. No huge complaints, other than the vague not-quite-rightness that comes from spending three nights in a place where the prime directive is not “Make guests happy” but rather “Maximize profits.” I’m sure running a hotel, let alone a resort, is complicated beyond belief, but it seems that once you make the prime directive pleasing your customers, a lot of the rest falls into place. Instead, the place was staffed by seasonal help from overseas (we saw this phenomenon at Cedar Point last summer, too), all of whom behaved as though making a decision without upper-management approval would be met with immediate flogging. The food was merely OK, the in-room shampoo the worst ever, and the fan provided for our room — an absolute necessity in the heat — wouldn’t reach the window from the closest outlet without running the cord across the main drawer in the dresser, and then just barely. The maid, from eastern Europe, didn’t understand what an extension cord was. And, in the great tradition of the island, admission to the five-story tower that offered such nice views of the water was extra. Five bucks a head, in fact. To climb some stairs and look around. Please.

But the place had one huge asset — the Great Lawn. Two football fields dotted with comfy Adirondack chairs facing the lake. Even in the sun it was tolerable, as it caught the breezes that always seem to pour through the straits, no matter what the weather. Alan bought Kate a kite, and they flew it Saturday and Sunday:

(That’s Alan, being supportive in the background.)

We had a nice time, but came home poorer. But isn’t that always the story, even for short vacations?

I did some reading while I was up there. A book review, of Scott Smith’s “The Ruins,” coming sometime tomorrow.

Sorry for my absence of late. I’ve been redecorating my office, or rather, Alan has. Also, I have nothing to say, but a lot on my mind, meaning not much to write about. (Although I drafted and trashed three posts in the last day.) So I’m taking the rest of the weekend off, and I’ll be back with pictures late Monday.

In the meantime: I’m very pleased with my new room. It no longer has even a hint of Baby. The walls have changed from lemon yellow to a cool, mind-soothing sage, and we installed the two-inch wooden blinds I’ve been coveting. I hung my framed “Nighthawks” poster, and the Russell Chatham poster, and my fellowship diploma/group picture and a bulletin board. Needless to say, we got new electrical outlets and switchplates, too. I took a close look when I turned on the new ceiling fan today.

Both screws were aligned perfectly vertical.

My man.

Back in a few. You all have a good weekend, too.

When Alan started work in Detroit and I was back in Fort Wayne getting us ready to move, I became enamored of a show called “Sell This House,” in which a reliable supply of clueless would-be home sellers learn — yes, learn — that before you put a house on the market it’s a good idea to remove your 500-piece teddy-bear collection from the dining room and maybe dust a bit. The usual professionals with mystifying job titles (“staging expert”) give them tips on how to do quick-n-dirty spruce-ups that will get their house sold.

Alan came home for weekends that month, and I tried to get him interested. He found it unbearable. He has bottomless contempt for quick-n-dirty, at least when it comes to home improvements. “They’re PAINTING WALLPAPER?” he moaned, five minutes into the first episode, just before stalking out of the room. I’m sure he’d support a bill that would sentence wallpaper-painters to lengthy prison terms.

So this week we’re working on my office, formerly the baby’s room. Yesterday the peaceable-kingdom wallpaper border bit the dust, and yes, as per our luck in all wallpaper matters, it was seemingly affixed with superglue. Then he set to work on the outlets, which had never, ever been removed for painting, at least not in the last 15 years. You want to see what drives Alan up the wall? Look at this specimen, clotted with layer after layer of very un-Alan-like workmanship. His lip curls with contempt. There’s just no substitute for doing it right the first time, is there?

P.S. When he dismantled the existing shelving system in the garage and found that, paradoxically, he was actually able to store more stuff without shelves than he was with them, he said, “I suspect this was the work of a General Motors engineer.” No idea, so no comment.

Bright, sunny morning. Alan’s on vacation all week; Spriggy’s getting a haircut this morning; Project Table reaches a turning point. I have one story to finish, then jury duty in the latter part of the week. Jury duty! In Detroit! This is why we live in Wayne County, so that we can be called for jury duty in Elmore Leonard country, not out in suburbia somewhere. I hope you know that I speak from the heart when I say: I can’t wait.

Really, I can’t. I love jury duty, even though it’s always the same for a journalist. You sit around, you shuffle here and there, and if it ever gets as far as questioning by an actual attorney, you always get the hook. (I was a peremptory challenge in a federal case once — such a proud moment.) Lawyers don’t want journalists on their juries, for several good reasons and a few bad ones. This, however, is my first time as an unemployed journalist, so maybe things will break differently this time. But I doubt it.

First rule of jury duty, for everybody: Bring something to do. I recommend a book, although you may prefer knitting. Whatever, but make sure it’s something that will keep you happily occupied for at least two or three hours. The ability to pass a 120-minute block of time with minimal resources is a dying trait in this great land of ours, as evidenced by the giant televisions everywhere we go, tuned to Oprah or Maury or some other nightmare. In my first try at jury duty, in the federal case, I read a big chunk of T.C. Boyle’s “World’s End” and had a wonderful, peaceful morning. In my last, the pool was parked in front of a big, loud TV. Bummer. And still, jurors had difficulty sitting still for the hour or two it took the parties upstairs to settle the case and send us all home. ADHD seems to be a culture-wide affliction.

So, the bloggage: Last Sunday the New York Times business-section front was a long, thoughtful analysis on the future of the Ford Motor Co. by the excellent Micheline Maynard. This Sunday the Free Press used their business front to bring us the grumpy opinions of a bunch of GM retirees. It would be one thing if these guys had anything interesting or insightful to say. But what do you say about quotes like these?

Ed Kulba, an 80-year-old GM retiree and World War II veteran, doesn’t see the benefits (of a possible GM merger with Renault or Nissan). He started working in a Detroit auto factory when he was 17. He cringes at the thought of a French or Japanese company controlling GM.”This is what us World War II veterans went over to fight for, so we could keep it American,” Kulba said.

I missed that part of my World War II history. Of course, I was educated in Ohio.

Thanks to Amy Alkon for pointing me toward this ESPN.com story on the death of Pat Tillman. I was struck by the attitude of the officer in charge of the investigation, who suggests that the atheist Tillman family needs to “let go, let God,” essentially:

Kauzlarich, now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested the Tillman family’s unhappiness with the findings of past investigations might be because of the absence of a Christian faith in their lives. In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: “When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don’t believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don’t know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough.”

Demanding competency and accountability for the needless death of a fine young man = the desperate flailing of a godless family. Huh.

For years, advertisers and those who sell time and space to them have run panting after one market: Women. Broadcasters speak of “the demographic,” which is, basically, women age 29-50, roughly — women in their peak buying years. The thinking is: Men buy golf clubs and beer, and women buy everything else, so that’s who you go for. Virtually everything on TV that isn’t sports-related is aimed at them, including TV news, with its steady diet of fear-tainted boogeymen — sexual predators, germs and Things That Can Kill You AND YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW IT. So what happens, after years and years of this?

Men are leaving TV news. Gee, I wonder how that happened.

P.S. Of course, the pay in TV news is roughly the same as in acting: A few titans earn millions, and millions of peons earn nothing.

The Yarn Harlot — love that name — writes about writing. Truer words, etc. (Thanks, Mindy.)

On to Project Table!

It occurred to me not long ago that unless I croak before my time there’ll be a new laptop in my future. This is a thought simultaneously thrilling and terrifying — of course I want a new MacBook Pro, but what will I do with all my old stuff? My laptop, like no other computer I’ve owned, has insinuated itself into my life in all the ways we were told the machines would, back in 1984. It has my music, my pictures, my finances, my work. I take 95 percent of my notes on it. There are folders upon folders labeled “Knight Ridder rants” and “secret project,” and a brand-new one called “ringtones.” (I’m going into the business; I hear it’s growing.)

If it died tomorrow — knocking wood furiously — I’d be bereft. I’d be out of business. On the other hand, I could buy a new MacBook Pro with a clear conscience. So there’s that.

Sorry for the day off yesterday; we had houseguests. We actually had guests twice in the last few days — for dinner on Saturday and dinner/overnight Monday. I took the recycling to the curb yesterday and noted eight wine bottles. (The beer bottles are returnable, and go in a separate bin.) I guess we had a good time. Actually, I remember all of it, and we did, except for the sailing. On Saturday it was blistering hot and there was too little wind; we got killed by blackflies. On Monday it was blistering hot and there was too much wind, necessitating reefing and scrambling and waves crashing across the bow. But no blackflies! That was good. John and Sam were our guests Monday, and brought their GPS, aka “the crumber,” a device that drops breadcrumbs as you perambulate around the forest. When we got back he synced it to Google Earth and displayed our route, and revealed that he also has a utility that will sync with his digital camera, so that we could download all the pictures we took and show, precisely, at which latitude and longitude they were taken.

If I’m attached to my computer, John is really, really attached. He and Sam were returning from a month in the U.P. “It’s so nice to transition back into wireless broadband,” he said. I could absolutely identify.

I have no bloggage, except to note that the president said a boo-boo word, and once again, the nation’s editors are wringing their hands over what to report about it. I swear, it’s like watching Scarlett and Mammy argue over whether it’s proper to show one’s bosom before 3 o’clock — in 2006.

Off to Ann Arbor for sunstroke the art fair! Pictures and a report, perhaps, later.