Busy days to take off

It's been a busy week. Of course, I always have busy weeks in May. It comes with the territory. May is, by its nature, a busy month for us.

And if you take two weekdays off to take your wife to visit museums, you'll be scrambling the way I am, too. I've been trying to finish stories for a special section and get as up-to-date as I can on my usual weekly work. On Thursday morning, we hit the road, heading south to Oshkosh and Milwaukee, then west to Madison and Beloit, then back home. Three days and two nights on the road. Lots of time on the road. Our first long trip this year, but certainly not the last.

By the time I get back, the Red Wings' season may be over. They are trailing San Jose 3-0 after an overtime loss last night, and I don't see much reason for hope. Shaky goaltending, bad special teams play, bad penalties, turnovers ... it all adds up to the Wings' season ending maybe as soon as Thursday night. But I suspect they will have one more good game for the home fans Thursday night. After that, the end probably comes Saturday night in San Jose.

While I'm a Wings fan, I'm not terribly sad about it. I cover sports too much to get emotionally involved. Ninety-five percent of the time, I have found, the better team wins, and that's the case here. All things considered, it may be best for the Wings' players to have a longer summer than normal so they can come back strong next season.

I wanted to get some stuff written before I go, and I'm trying to remember it all. There's just been a lot of pressure today, what with trying to get everything finished (along with getting a haircut, which I did). Maybe the pressure squeezed the memory out of me. That's par for the course, too, just before a trip out of town. It's always very busy.

One bit of news is that I'm getting a new phone. I went to the Verizon store in Iron Mountain Tuesday (before getting photos at a tennis match and then a track meet) and ordered the new HTC Incredible. No, really, that's its name. I went into the store expecting to get a Motorola Droid, which uses the new Android operating system. The salesman showed me the Incredible, let me play around with it for a while, and I decided to get that one instead. Both phones are both pretty good, the cost was the same, and in three months both will be outdated, anyway. So no need to worry.

I couldn't take it home; the Incredible just came out last week, and they have to back-order. So I won't get to play with it for about two weeks. (I did download a PDF manual, though, to start the learning process.)

I originally wanted the Droid because it has a slide-out "real" keyboard, and I was wary of touchscreen keyboards with my big fingers. I'm not exactly a teenage girl, you know. But at the store, I got a chance to work with it for a while and finally decided I could deal with it. There will be frustrating times, I'm sure, but my history is that I can learn new stuff fairly quickly. As I recall, I had a little trouble with my Blackberry Pearl, too, at first. Today, no problem.

Tonight, I have to get things lined up for our trip. Get the laptop and camera packed up, get some clothes set. I think I'm OK on money; that's not a big concern, anyway, since I'm using debit cards so often. I swipe the card, and that takes care of gas or a meal or whatever.

As I wrote before, the trips are mainly so my wife can see two museum displays she is interested in. But I have two personal highlights planned. On Thursday, in the late afternoon, I will visit S and her girlfriend--we'll take them out to supper (an early supper) before continuing on our way south. With my wife along, the conversation may be a bit restrained. Well, we'll see.

After Friday's visit to the Milwaukee Public Museum, we head west to Madison. We could have gone directly to Beloit (our Saturday destination), but a poly group holds its monthly discussion meeting on the first Friday night--why do you think I chose this weekend? It's in downtown Madison.

After being a member of their Yahoo group for several years, this is the first time I'll be able to go to one of their meetings. It's a monthly meeting on various poly topics--don't know what the topic is on Friday.) My wife will stay at the motel; the meeting is 90 minutes long, and then they go out for coffee later. I don't do coffee, but I may tag along. Maybe they'll have ginger ale or something.

On Saturday morning, we go south to the museum in Beloit, look around there for a while, and then start the long drive back north. Weather conditions should be coolish this weekend--the heavier jacket will be in order. I hear they may even have snow showers up here, while I'm gone.

I won't miss it.