We just got back from Florida from Mark and Zoë’s wedding. The wedding was really nice, and it was awesome to see everyone again.
(Photos from that will be up at photos at some point.)

But the awesomeness was rather eclipsed by the finding that our hotel (and our bed) had bed bugs. The first night I didn’t get too many bites, and found them the next day and assumed they were from random flying things since we’d been outside most of the day. The second night I guess they all found that I existed, and all of this happened:

(My forearm is about as bad, and my other arm is only slightly less unhappy. Also my feet are super sad.)
Mostly confirmed with bloodsplatters in the sheets and bug poop in the mattress edges.

So instead of coming home and being able to relax and get ready for work tomorrow, we’ve spent the past 4.5 hours sorting through things, running clothing through the washer and dryer, running other heatable things through the dryer, and manually inspecting everything else (like cameras, lenses, laptops). Also, amusingly, my wallet and iPad case are currently in the freezer. (Apparently sustained cold for a few months will kill everything too.)

If anyone has suggestions on what to do about the backpacks, that’d be useful. Right now our plan is to run one through the dryer and put the other (that has gel straps) into a sealed plastic bag for a year along with our dress shoes.

Work wanted me to make a trip out (as seems to be the norm every February), but since we had Phantom tickets for yesterday, and my coworker could only make a trip out the last week of February, I reversed the usual schedule and went to Phoenix to visit my parents for a week before heading out to SF.

I left on Valentine’s day. It had been snowing a bit all morning, but as soon as the 28X bus hit the freeway, it really started to come down. Visibility was terrible, and the bus was crawling along the freeway at around 10 MPH.

But I get to the airport with plenty of time anyway, and we board the plane on time. Visibility still isn’t great.

Most of the way through boarding, the captain comes on the speaker and says they’re temporarily stopping boarding because the flight is going to be delayed. A bit after that he tells us all to deplane because air traffic control had shut down the runways (due to wind, snow, and lack of no-wind/snow so they can plow the runways) and they didn’t know if they would open again before Monday.
So I sit on hold with Southwest’s customer service number for about 90 minutes, when they announce that the wind has stopped long enough that the airport can plow. So we quickly re-board, get de-iced, and take off only about 2.5 hours late. Not too bad, all things considered.

But anyway, because I was flying Pittsburgh to Phoenix, I went from snowy 0Fs to sunny high-70Fs. So that was interesting.

My parents and I made a trip out to the Amazing Arizona Comic Con (interesting, I suppose, but not really worth admission if you’re not particularly into modern superheroes) and Cirque du Soleil Varekai (amazing). We also ate at 4 all-you-can-eat buffets over the week. So hooray for food.

The following week of work was fairly uneventful. Didn’t get to see as many people as I was hoping, since everyone seems to be super busy with work and life now. But it was good seeing my coworkers face-to-face again, and it reminded me how much I miss it.

More photos from the trip can be found at my photos site.

Ben and Simiao got married this past weekend at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL, so we took the opportunity to go on a much-needed vacation and headed over the Sunday before via the Amtrak.

Or, at least, we tried to go via the Amtrak. Turns out they were having line trouble between Toledo and Chicago which meant both that we were two hours late leaving Pittsburgh despite the train being there on time (because the crew had exceeded their working hours or something), and we were woken up in Toledo and transferred to a cramped charter bus for the rest of the trip. So much for taking the more-comfortable Amtrak over the Greyhound. :(

Chicago turns out to be a wonderous land where the Walgreens sell frozen yogurt (with fresh fruit toppings), the Starbucks have a beer and wine selection, the people don’t seem very friendly, and the drivers honk all the time at nothing in particular. Interesting to visit, certainly, but not somewhere I’d really want to live.

We made quite a few trips out to the Bean.

The Chicago marathon was also that weekend, so we encountered a lot of marathon-related things, including rows upon rows of port-o-potties and chain-link fences that seemed quite out of place in the parks.

Ben had a bachelor’s party on Thursday evening. We tried to make it out, but it turns out the Blue line was having serious issues, with trains arriving overpacked and only one or two people able to squeeze into each car at the station.

After being unable to board 4 trains in a row, we gave up and met up with them for dinner instead, which ended up being amazingly tasty.

But mostly we spent the week wandering the city before transferring out to a hotel in Lisle on Friday before the wedding. We took the Metra train, which seems pretty much exactly like the Caltrain. The seats had a neat property though where the backs swiveled over the seat itself so you could face either direction or create little seating areas that faced each other. Kind of an awesome feature.

Saturday was the wedding, and we took advantage of the free admission to the Arboretum to wander it for a bit in the morning. We had no car and walk everywhere anyway, so we walked the 2.5 miles in, but it turns out the Arboretum doesn’t really expect people to wander in by foot. As a result, we ended up standing in a line of cars going to the entry booth while a bunch of confused volunteers kept asking if we were okay. So that was fun.

The wedding itself was beautiful. It was the quickest ceremony I’ve ever seen (less than 7 minutes from the time the officiant walked out the door to when he walked back in again after having married them), but it was still awesome. And you couldn’t beat the view.

The food, booze, and company were all awesome, and it was rather a shame to head home Sunday evening via the Metra to an L train to a plane to a Port Authority bus. Our great luck at Chicago public transit never failed us, with trains usually arriving shortly after we got to the platform, but gave out in Pittsburgh when we missed the 28X by a matter of seconds.

More photos can be found at photos.

That’s it for weddings this year (thank god). Next wedding is in March, followed by ours in April. Yay for more weddings?

Greg’s sister Katie got married this past weekend. It was a rather nice wedding… the weather decided to cooperate, despite having called for rain earlier, and so there was an outdoor ceremony followed by a reception where the booze flowed freely.

More photos are at photos.

But what is it with security people and their need to be terrible?

On the way back from Toronto from the last wedding, the border agent that stopped us was really rude. He grilled the driver on our reasons for being in Canada, expressing skepticism when he couldn’t immediately remember the name of the bride (his wife’s college friend, so they’d never met before the wedding). He did a search of a lot of things in the trunk. He questioned us on why we had two cameras (because there’s four of us…?). I feel like he really, really wanted to stop us for something but couldn’t.

On the way home after arriving at the Greyhound station last night, on our way toward the exit, we were stopped by some guy that identified himself as homeland security and started launching into a huge tirade about how photography was illegal in the station and was a federal crime and we would be arrested and sent to prison if we had taken any photos at all in the station. When we repeatedly told him we hadn’t, he threatened to pull the tapes. He eventually let us go, saying that he’d review the tapes later and would arrest us if we were lying. What!? I had my camera around my neck (because I always do), but I hadn’t used it for like 4 hours. People had their phones out everywhere around us. Not quite sure this makes a lot of sense.
(Not to mention I’m pretty sure photography is only strictly illegal in explicitly marked and highly sensitive areas. Private property like the greyhound station can set their own rules for photography, but the most they can do is ask you to leave. But I’m not anywhere close to a legal scholar, so I don’t know.)

…as if I needed another reason to not take greyhound. I’m contemplating now how much the added expense of just renting a car is, because I’m getting to the point where I’ve had enough of greyhound’s bullshit.

All that is leaving me in a rather sour mood now, especially combined with having to return to work today (because weddings are stressful and it feels like I haven’t had a break in weeks). Add another thing on the long (and growing) list of why I hate to travel. :\