blog silence explained

Here I am in Newark Airport waiting for my late-night flight back to Paris.

Wait, how did I get to Newark? I bet you missed the part where I left Paris. Well, I had to go back to NJ suddenly for family reasons and simply did not tell you. Mom's doing better now. It's been a rough week, though. It's amazing to see your parents slow down, sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly. I helped my Dad out with a bunch of stuff around the house and yard when not helping with Mom. This led to long, long days because I worked at night in order to not fall too far behind with work. OK, not to fall much further behind than I already am.

While home, a close friend's Dad passed away. I was able to go to the wake, which I am glad about. I also managed to see my friend D from college, which was really good as well. That was pretty much the extent of my social activities while home.

I miss home in a lot of ways. One thing that shocked me was how much home prices have gone up, in some cases by 3x or 4x in the last 5-10 years. Sheesh! I could not possibly live there now on my salary. The quality of life in the housing department is definitely better in Houston.

The general insanity of Readington Township, where they live, and NJ in general, also hit me on this trip since I was there for 8 days and managed to read the paper a lot, etc. There was this whole bond issue up for voting regarding the expansion of the local "airport" - which is not even an airport per se. It is a place where wee planes come and go, no commercial traffic to speak of, no jets, etc. Of course, nobody wants it to expand, they all want to preserve it as it is, and don't mind the township invoking eminent domain and hiking taxes to pay for it. Of course "they" are mostly people who moved there in the last 5-10 years and want to "preserve" the area. Anyway, interesting.

Well, time to get on the plane momentarily. More soon.