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robertsloan2 @ 12:27am: Two-chapter day on the 11th -- 92,948 total
Nanowrimo 2009 Supergoal: Three Book Year:


Medicine Show, Nanovel Two 2009


And I still have to copy-paste Kartchottee or it comes out Kamchatkee. For all I know that really is a Tlingit sounding name or a legitimate Tlingit name. Ow ow. Or it's something completely different and would mangle it. At least Kartchottee is an actual Tlingit family name. Like someone who's got English as a second language deciding to use Taylor or Jones as a character name for an English speaker character. At least I hope so. But I can do more research in the edit stages anyway.

The main thing is to make sure that it is absolutely spelled consistently throughout the novel so that if later research gives me a better name, I can change it by Global Search/Replace instead of having to hunt down every instance and missing one, so that later readers ask "Who's Kartchottee" or "Who's Kamchatkee?"

Maybe some character will get it seriously wrong because he has trouble pronouncing it. hehehe...

nicosian @ 9:45pm: Went down to U of T bookstore, got a copy of the dutch grammar book I'm working on that I keep renewing from the library, and a book on Dutch verbs.

Then off to Spadina-chinatown, for vietnamese food and some chinese bakery goodies, and off to yarn shop of massiveness for shorter needles and stitch markers.

THEN. rode the bus most of the way home, effed up the route and walked 8 more blocks.

DAMN HELL I AM SO TIRED. SO MUCH WALKING.

jeaniris, posting in ficinabottle @ 7:19pm: Dream of Death
Title:  Dream of Death
Characters:  Miles, Claire
Rating:  PG
Summary:  After the bomb goes off Miles ends up in the cabin

http://jeaniris.livejournal.com/2964.html#cutid1

joncwriter @ 4:02pm: [Writing] You can get me wasted, you're the one I cut and pasted
So yes...most of the day wasn't spent writing but doing some errands and goofing off, but considering it's a day off and a good time for me to unplug myself from the stress of work (not to mention not really having many days anymore where I can truly goof off for most of the day), starting the writing day about 2:30ish is a decent sign. It's 4pm and I've already got a few hundred words down.

Music today? Dishwalla's And You Think You Know What Life's About and Superdrag's Headtrip in Every Key, both from 1998. :)

So I've been thinking the other day that once I'm done posting the trilogy up at edencycle (just a few more chapters, kids!), I may have a bit of fun and post the original, The Phoenix Effect. It's not nearly as good as the trilogy, and there are large passages I snagged from it for A Division of Souls and elsewhere, not to mention a cyborg subplot that I ended up tweaking to create the alien Meraladians instead. Still, some of it is a fun read and you'll get to compare and contrast this version with the later one! I'll let you all know if/when this happens.

Okay, back to writing...I got a big chapter (a rather important climax for the whole trilogy coming up soon, ya know) that I gotta work on. :)

dsgood @ 3:43pm: Happy Birthday, coraa!!

Apologies to those whose birthdays I missed.

robertsloan2 @ 2:49pm: Medicine Show started! 5,196
Nanowrimo 2009 Supergoal: Three Book Year:


Medicine Show, Nanovel Two 2009


The first chapter is done! I got up this morning after taking yesterday to rest -- lost my one-day lead, but I really needed to relax, read something I hadn't written offline, sleep a lot and enjoy the post-noveling relaxation I usually give myself when I reach The End. I'm still right on target if I do another chapter today and if I do two, well, then I'm making a strong start again.

It's fun. My shaman's name is Kartchottee, actually a family name for a Raven family, but at least it's actually in Tlingit and I'm not mangling them that horribly. I know him a lot better now. But I still have to copy-paste his name in because every time I try to spell it out, I mangle it. I need to really watch that throughout this book.

I also had to look up Arcadia Evans in Raven Dance and have that sitting next to me so that I don't contradict anything Malcolm revealed about his past five thousand years later without good reason.

zephre @ 12:18pm: practicalities
Despite the patronizing headline, I did find this article helpful.

5 Things You Didn't Know About Veterans (And How You Can Support Them)

Veteran's Day only happens once a year, but our nation's veterans need our support year-round. We've pulled together five facts about U.S. veterans, the great organizations that are supporting them and how you can help any time of the year.

missy_useless, posting in ficinabottle @ 6:43pm: Three ficlets
Title: The Point of it All
Character: Juliet (Jack/Juliet and Juliet/Sawyer)
Rating: PG
Spoiler warning: post The Incident
Word Count: 393
Disclaimer: Lost is not mine.
A/N: for mollivanders. Also for un_love_you: This isn't about you at all.

(Sometimes she still holds her breath)


Title: The End is All We Can See
Pairing: Ana/Jack
Rating: PG-13
Spoiler warning: post The Incident
Word Count: 377
Disclaimer: Lost is not mine.
A/N: for ozmissage. Also for sacred_20: Crusade.

(They arrive on the third day)


Title: You'll Still Be Here Tomorrow
Pairing: Jack/Boone
Rating: PG
Warning: post The Incident
Word Count: 236
Disclaimer: Lost is not mine.
A/N: for janie_tangerine. Also for sacred_20: Suffering.

(They meet at the funeral of a woman named Joanna)

sartorias @ 8:12am: 11/11
Everyone Sang

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

-- Siegfried Sassoon

zephre @ 10:17am: it all happened again and again and again and again and again
On this Day of Remembrance, two songs by Eric Bogle about the First World War, lest we forget...

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda (YouTube)

The Green Fields of France (YouTube) (performed by the Dropkick Murphys; video is historic photos)

And now some concerns for the servicemembers and veterans alive today, from Democracy Now! Because a 'thank you' means more when it's backed up by decent support and care:

Study: Over 2,200 US Veterans Died in 2008 Due to Lack of Health Insurance

Sexual Assaults, Inadequate Healthcare Among Spate of Issues Facing Women Servicemembers

And my usual barrage of quotes for the day:

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official...
~Theodore Roosevelt

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.
~John F. Kennedy

It doesn't require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder, and if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed, it won't be U.S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the Senate.
~George McGovern

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

colourmayfade, posting in ficinabottle @ 1:48pm: fic: atlantis falls again (ensemble apocalyptic fic)
Title: atlantis falls again
Characters/Pairing: ensemble; pairings all over the place, but mostly cannon
Word Count: 6,300
Rating: R for safetly
Warnings: character death; post-S5 apocalyptic fic.
Summary: it's redemption they're looking for — and no, they won't find it here.

dragonmyst @ 9:00am:

To those who have served our country to protect the rights and privileges my children and I enjoy...
Thank you.

To those who have sacrificed time with their loved ones so they may serve
Thank you.

I appreciate you.


Dad, thank you. served 1977 to 1999
Grandpa, thank you. Served during the Korean War (pulled guys out of the swamps in rescue missions)
Grampie, thank you. Served in WWI in Europe

jer_bear711, posting in fangs_fur_fey @ 9:27am: Topic of the Week - An Army of One
In honor of Veterans Day/Remembrance Day, I came up with a new topic (last year we discussed weaponry).  How do we portray the military (and other large governmental units) in urban fantasy?

In traditional/epic fantasy, fighting wars is usually considered a noble deed. Oftentimes, the alternative is annihilation of the heroes' people, their home, and All Things Good.

But as in other matters of morality, war is more ambiguous in urban fantasy than it is in traditional fantasy.  Good and evil aren't always clearly delineated in our contemporary times, right?

With its emphasis on the individual, does urban fantasy often portray large units such as the military and government agencies as the Big Bad?  Are they more likely to be the thing to escape than the thing to join?

The shadowy super secret agency is, let's admit it, a staple of urban fantasy. Even when the hero or heroine allies with it, he or she is often frustrated by bureaucracy and incompetence. And then there are those conspiracies...

Or am I wrong?  Are there examples in urban fantasy of the military and/or other government agencies doing good?  Are there veteran characters who aren't bitter about their time in uniform?  What about career servicemen and -women or lifelong bureaucrats? Are they automatically portrayed as brainwashed, or can we see them as serving something larger than themselves?

Feel free to broaden the topic as you share your thoughts in the comments. As always, Members and Watchers alike are encouraged to participate.

Have a great week!

oracne @ 9:43am: Sassoon, "To Any Dead Officer"
To Any Dead Officer

Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you'd say,
Because I'd like to know that you're all right.
Tell me, have you found everlasting day,
Or been sucked in by everlasting night?
For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain;
I hear you make some cheery old remark--
I can rebuild you in my brain,
Though you've gone out patrolling in the dark.

You hated tours of trenches; you were proud
Of nothing more than having good years to spend;
Longed to get home and join the careless crowd
Of chaps who work in peace with Time for friend.
That's all washed out now. You're beyond the wire:
No earthly chance can send you crawling back;
You've finished with machine-gun fire--
Knocked over in a hopeless dud-attack.

Somehow I always thought you'd get done in,
Because you were so desperate keen to live:
You were all out to try and save your skin,
Well knowing how much the world had got to give.
You joked at shells and talked the usual 'shop,'
Stuck to your dirty job and did it fine:
With 'Jesus Christ! when will it stop?
Three years ... It's hell unless we break their line.'

So when they told me you'd been left for dead
I wouldn't believe them, feeling it must be true.
Next week the bloody Roll of Honour said
'Wounded and missing'--(That's the thing to do
When lads are left in shell-holes dying slow,
With nothing but blank sky and wounds that ache,
Moaning for water till they know
It's night, and then it's not worth while to wake!)

. . . .

Good-bye, old lad! Remember me to God,
And tell Him that our Politicians swear
They won't give in till Prussian Rule's been trod
Under the Heel of England ... Are you there?...
Yes ... and the War won't end for at least two years;
But we've got stacks of men ... I'm blind with tears,
Staring into the dark. Cheero!
I wish they'd killed you in a decent show.

--Siegfried Sassoon, Counter-Attack and Other Poems, 1918

barlidoc @ 1:53am: Oh the Holidays creep nearer!
Is it November?

Wow I just now noticed.

But judging by the ads we skipped it and went right to December because in the eyes of the retailer Thanksgiving is an unsightly wart upon the saintly skin of Christmas merchandising. It's ugly and has no monetary purpose unless you're a turkey farmer and/or Sarah Palin. But I tend to have a lot of love for Halloween anyhow and that's mainly because there are few social pitfalls to fall into. And even those don't have spikes at the bottom. How do you mess up a day when you can call a house that's been uncleaned since Obama took office 'zombie headquarters'? Hell, Good Housekeeping might even do a spread and feature your mold smeared dishes as a front page attraction with instructions to other housewives on how they too can achieve the same look for just pennies. Got cobwebs? Don't knock 'em down! They add atmosphere! Did you get in a fight? Great! The blood's a nice touch on the floor. More atmosphere! Put the knocked out teeth in a jar for maximum Halloween brownie points. And even if you're a Halloween Scrooge and pretend you're not home while the kiddies pile up on your front porch plotting revenge, the worse that can happen is some eggs and toilet paper. No one will disown you.

But now we rush headlong into That Time.

This means I have to clean the house. Mop up the blood and banish the spiders. My black cat is once again just a black cat and not a harbinger of fur covered doom. I have to bone up on the perils or regifting and the higher math necessary to calculate the price and type of gift to give based on what they gave me last year, my budget, their budget, the phase of the moon on Dec 25, their decor, tastes and habits and whether or not they ignored my birthday this past August. Then they must do the same for me. Somewhere someone needs to create an algorhythm for this mess. On Halloween you toss candy at kids and jump out from behind bushes in Grim Reaper masks. On Christmas I crack open Advanced Physics for Giftgivers and hope I don't wind up disowned by someone who gives expensive presents.

Thanksgiving's okay. You eat, fall asleep and go home. Sometimes you end up the host and have to do the housecleaning thing, but overall it's not bad. I have these fancy wineglasses that I got at Arby's during a holiday giveaway several years ago and I swear you can't tell. It's my little secret. No there aren't pictures of the Arby's Oven Mitt etched on them. These predate the Oven Mitt anyhow.

*note*

Do not link me to porn of the Arby's Oven Mitt and the Hamburger Helper Glove. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. Thank you.


Well that's about all. That and Nano and Drawmo. I'm behind on the Drawmo and doing good on Nano. About 35k.

nicosian @ 11:30pm: terminal fun!
Zipped out to Pearson intl airport to get my westjet ticket snafu de-snaffed, and meet Randy, who's returned from Montreal to start a new job here.

Dead exhausted today but at least I know the route to the airport and what stop to get off of. The damn thing is, pearson's MASSIVE and so there was confusion between term 1 and term 3 (and I have no clue where terminal 2 is.. ah...not used anymore.

joncwriter @ 2:25pm: There Goes the Neighborhood
Rumors abound that Tom Cruise may have bought a mansion not too far from our apartment. Or it could be Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. :p

xanthalanari @ 9:57pm: Drowning in things to do.
So NaNoWriMo is a bust. 139 words so far, not counting those hand-written but not typed up yet. Now I'm back on early starts there just doesn't seem to be time to do anything. Add on top of that trying to find a new place, getting references for said new place, learning a dance for the performance in December, and packing, there just isn't room in my head for much else. Beyond checking my emails I'm hardly even going on the internet much at the moment. I'm actually starting to miss being unemployed.

In order to keep from going batty, I've decided not to write for a little while. Instead I'm going to read on the bus and in my breaks, and maybe catch up on a little editing as that uses a different set of mental muscles. I just can't focus on doing anything new at the moment.

And I forgot to mention before, 10Flash have accepted my story "On the Penitents' Road" for their January issue, and I had a rejection that invited me to rewrite and sub again. So it's not all bleak in the writing world.

sartorias @ 2:13pm: 20 years after
Just in case anyone missed this amazing photo montage of before and after the wall coming down, at and around the Brandenburg Gate.

robertsloan2 @ 2:09pm: Nanowrimo Novel Two: Medicine Show
Short post testing the double-widget setup that I have pasted in the Pad file for Medicine Show. I'm preparing to start the first chapter of my second novel this year. I reset the goal for my current goal for the month and then reset the widget for my goal for the book I'm working on.

Nanowrimo 2009 Supergoal: Three Book Year


Medicine Show, Nanovel Two 2009


This year I want to do three 80,000 word novels, beating my best. I almost did it in 2004, but in the middle of the second Nanovel I got new roommates, which distracted me enough that I did two 80,000 word novels -- one in ten days and one in twenty. This year I'm on track to do it -- so the first meter is the supergoal, my possibly-attainable High Goal. The second meter is the current novel in progress, its separate count. I am likely to run over on the supergoal if I get it, because they don't stop on the even number and never come in short. I'm lucky if I can get within 5,000 of the planned length for a novel.

Right now I'm pretty sure if there's a book three, it'll be a nature novel set in prehistoric times with extinct prehistoric megafauna and an interesting carnivore as a main character. But I might think of something else, so that's open till the day it actually starts.

Right now I'm in a position to match my best-ever Nanowrimo and if I even get to start the third novel, if I get in even one or two days of a third, then I've beaten my best. If I finish it, then I've raised the bar farther than I've done ever in my life and it will be glorious.

Come December I will be writing short stories and editing like a fiend. Eight days of December are dedicated to short-story production and submission so that I'll still meet my "Five Submissions" goal. It'll be fun to get some rejection slips again. Maybe this time I'll start an interesting collage of them.

robertsloan2 @ 1:38pm: About Dreams
You're getting this mini-article on dreaming because the commenter on Discovery News seemed to glitch for me this morning when I read this article: "a href="http://news.discovery.com/human/dreams-just-brain-exercise.html">Dreams, Just Brain Exercise.</a>

I started commenting to that idea and the commenter failed, but my comment ran on into a fairly well-organized little article, so here it is -- my view on dreams and dreaming.

The usual sorts of dream interpretations often fall apart because people have different cultural expectations of dream symbols. But if dreams are just a sort of meaningless warmup, why is it that dream deprivation can be so devastating to health and emotional balance? Dream deprivation will eventually drive a person around the bend.

Dreams historically have often contained solutions to problems the waking mind was working on solving, the classic one being that scientist who dreamed of the shape of the carbon ring.

I would not say that all dreams are meaningful. But at the same time I won't say they're all meaningless either. You can be jogging to warm up at the top of the day and also keep going in the direction that you intended to go while making real progress.

I am a novelist. From childhood, I've had two types of dreams -- boring ones that are just a hash of whatever I read and whatever happened in life, your mixmaster approach to life-so-far in which I dream that I'm myself and deal with exaggerated versions of cool things and stuff that scared me. Then there are the others -- the Plot-Dreams. I dream that I'm someone else, could be anyone, could just be a conscious point of view floating in space.

I will live a scene from a book I'm going to write. Then shift point of view and live another scene in the next dream and the next until I get the point that yes, this is one of my novels coming to consciousness and write it down. Once I start writing the novel idea, then I stop dreaming it. THese dream-openers and concepts have turned out to be some of the best writing I've done in my life.

People who have precognitive dreams may be having psychic perceptions or they may just be putting all the pieces together in their sleep and recognizing a likely event before it happens. Either way though, the content of some dreams is meaningful and organized.

Psychologists I talked to including psych teachers had a hard time analyzing the Plot-Dreams because they weren't personal -- they're stories for the general public, the origins of creative work that are always only good beginnings that need to be completed when I'm awake. Their symbolism has much more to do with "the human condition" and what makes a good story in general than what I'm going through in life at the time. Most of all, their themes aren't always about me at all.

So it's like trying to find personal inner psychological significance relating to current events in the first pages of someone's project-focused presentation -- it may have something to do with immediate life circumstances but is much more going to relate to the actual creative task at hand.

I am aware that I spent most of my life learning how to write novels, cared passionately about it and that I trained into it from early childhood. Perhaps my random morning jog always took that turn in the road toward storyland simply because I was that concentrated on the problem -- learning to write good stories. While I rested, even in childhood, my mind was still working on "I want a really good story idea" and so I wandered into organized good story ideas rather than random hash like most of my more forgettable dreams.

My dreams are often more sensory than other people report -- and sometime around junior high I read some articles on writing that suggested bringing in all the senses, not just sight and sound, remember touch and taste and hearing and hunches too. So maybe I'm a trained dreamer and maybe so was the carbon-ring scientist and maybe my Dreamtime isn't that far from the rich cultural information an Australian native finds in a Dreamtime shaped by thousands of years of culture to have certain symbols and beings.

I always like to think about both the physical known-world as science currently sees it, the very conservative "I can only count on what science has shown to be true to be true" with a healthy wallop of uncertainty and awareness science can be dead-wrong so many times from Camarasaurus head on an Apatosaur body to some of the really loony whoppers... and the mystical view of life where all of the less tangible, less definable yet perceptible phenomena also have another large body of human knowledge supporting them.

I like to look at life from both ends of that and live with the uncertainty, which makes me a genuine skeptic enjoying the uncertainty and aware that the body of human knowledge is and hopefully always will be a very tiny fraction of the unknown.

Dreams serve a real function in life, both physical and psychological. Big-brained creatures dream, especially mammals and birds. I've watched my cat dream often and wonder what he's pawing or chasing or purring at. That exercise seems to be important to psychological health and without it, people get run down and edgy fast. Traumas can repeat themselves again and again in nightmares. Flashbacks or hallucinations may be waking dreams bursting into conscious life. Is that a healing process? Is that a way that the mind comes to terms with the trauma, just as a fever is a way the body fights infection by changing body temperature to something bacteria might die off in

I began keeping dream journals in early childhood because some author, I don't remember who, mentioned in an article that he did as a source of story ideas. So I am more likely to be able to remember dreams that matter -- the plot-dreams or any that do hold solutions to personal inner conflicts or were just beautiful or interesting -- and distinguish them from the goofy one that's obviously just Yesterday Hashed.

Where the idea that dreams can be interpreted by psychologists to map a personality tends to fall apart is that people's personal symbolism is going to vary a lot. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Or sometimes it means "that stinky guy that was at th erestaurant when I had my birthday party" instead of a sexual symbol. I think the dream interpretation lists of symbols are generally shallow because those interpretations, while common, are not the only possible meanings of those symbols and they can mean something opposite or completely unrelated depending on the dreamer's life, goals, focus and habits.

A dream with violent content might mean what a psychologist thinks it does -- or might to the dreamer be a pleasant happy dream loosely related to the content of video games or playing cops 'n robbers. The kid who likes playing the robber in the game doesn't always grow up to be a criminal. But psychologists can sometimes filter that through a political and ideological slant that may even be completely unrelated to the dream content.

From what you're saying, any kid dreaming of being a robber or a cowboy or whatever is just hashing up the movies or games and relaxing in a deep way.

The one thing that is clear is that if this is one of its physiological functions, it's an absolutely necessary one. Maybe our brains are like computers on Windows, if there is too much Windows up time the system gets more and more sluggish -- and you have to boot down completely in order to refresh yourself and look at the world with rested eyes.

Humans impose order on randomness and often find deep meaning in it. The patern of the stars resolves into constellations and the map with constellations is much easier to navigate. Big brains need to be exercised... and I see some strong connections between the capacity for dreams and right-brained creative thinking, which is as valuable in science as it is in the arts.

Dreams don't need to have an external meaning to be meaningful or useful or enjoyable to the dreamer. They are intensely personal, they are your own and may be the brain's way of processing the massive amount of information that comes in every waking day. Trained dreamers, lucid dreamers or novelists with plot-dreams ond mystics may wind up choosing a jogging path consciously but that's a valuable addition to mental skills even if it's just making use of something random that happens physiologically to big-brained creatures.

Please post your thoughts on dreams or dreaming. If you've had meaningful dreams or important dreams, write about it and if it had any connection with waking life, write about that too. I am very curious about others' experiences with dreaming because I'm starting to see how much my dreams were shaped by my singleminded goal of becoming an SFF novelist. You are the expert on your dreams and their meaning is what they mean to you.

tieshla @ 11:37am: Lego creator
Wow... I just downloaded lego creator and was playing with it - but that's not the best part. It generates its own building guide for whatever you make, step by step. How sweet is that? Not only that, but you can send it to lego to order custom kits.

Too much fun.

allichaton @ 10:58am: BLOOD AND ROSES available TODAY!
Blood and Roses is available!!! *happydance*



The last thing Arjen wants is a vampire in his bed, despite the rest of the world's obsession with the creatures. Unfortunately, his reticence is precisely what attracts Maikel van Triet to him. After hundreds of years of being adored because of what he is, Maikel is enthralled by Arjen's apathy.

What starts as a simple arrangement soon becomes something more than either of them expected. But vampires are shallow, fickle creatures, and Maikel could never truly love another. Could he?

Read the first chapter here and buy it here.

Also, it is my birthday. :) Happy birthday to me AND my book! ^_^

joncwriter @ 7:35am: [RTS] Songs That Stay With You
Audience participation time! :)

I'm curious...make a list here or on your own LJ of songs that are your favorites or have stuck with you over time that you never get sick of. Make it as long or as short as you like! Any genre. You can even explain why you like it...perhaps it brings back fond memories, or you're simply a music nerd who loves the way it was produced or arranged. New songs or old, goofy or serious, short or epic.

Why do I ask?

Just a writing side-project that popped into my head the other day...it kind of ties in with some ideas I have about doing a book about loving music, and not in the form of a dry academic tome...more of a fun 'list' book. Of course this also ties in with my other side-project idea of writing about 80s alt-rock (more on that in a future post).

That, and I'm curious as well. :)

As for me, I'm currently at work, so I'll have to make my list tomorrow on my day off and can spend too much time on it. :D

zephre @ 9:22am: Godzilla Quilt Delivery
I visited Tim and Lisa when they were vacationing in Austin, and while I was there, I gave them the wedding quilt I'd been working on (and trying to keep a surprise) for the last year.
I think they liked it. ;)
More photos at Flickr, plus soon I'll post the "making of" photos that I've been holding on to until the surprise part was over. Yay!

I also had a fantastic time in Austin, with Tim's cousins and their friends. Lovely family-style dinner, games, talk, music, friendly dogs, tea, and much fun.