Art and Ellen Litman are dear, dear friends of ours and we've traveled with them to many places--and if you don't believe it, just browse around this site.

Anyway, the four of us spent a lovely weekend at the U. S. Grant Hotel in San Diego recently and this post has some information on things to do and see thereabouts.

Christmas is such huge fun for us that regardless of how crappy the year may have been, it's a wonderful time of year.  Sue and I had Thanksgiving dinner at our place and decided that it would be cool to have Christmas dinner at our place, too--fancy china, Christmas china, sterling, crystal, etc., etc.  All that hoopla, together with putting together great meals, and watching Christopher and Brooklyn have such fun, made the holidays this year special for us--again.

Following on the success of last year's father/son camping trip, Duane reserved a larger group camp site this year and the group included some ladies--Jennifer, Nicole Ammons (Scott's wife--they're next door neighbors to Jennifer & Duane), and Brooklyn--as well as their dogs, Finn and Gabby.  I joined them again so there would be a token old goat and a photographer. 

In June 2011, we spent two weeks in our timeshare at Newport Coast Villas.  It was the most relaxing vacation we've taken in years.  Many mornings, we'd start reading after breakfast and ask each other what we wanted to do that day, and after deciding, "Oh, how about nothing?", we'd go back to reading.  There's plenty to do in those parts, and we enjoyed some lovely excursions, but gee, what a great vacation.

Customs scheduled a meeting of the Trade Support Network's Trade Leadership Council in New York.  Ostensibly, since AAEI paid for the meeting room, holding the meeting in New York saved money for Customs.  Factoring in all the travel expenses, it's still unclear to me how it saved money, but I hadn't been to New York since New Year's Day 2007 and it worked for me.

To Maintain A Healthy Level Of Insanity: