And What I Came Home From (#SFWApro)

This weekend was once again a Mensa event, this time Piedmont Area Mensa (which takes in most of S. Carolina) holding its annual gathering. It’s always a fun trip—we have lots of friends there, and it’s only four hours away. Slightly less as TYG was driving—and unlike last weekend, we didn’t get lost.

Any Mensa gathering has presentations, but I often skip them for the pleasure of hanging out. This time was no exception: the only one I made was by Rhett Bryson, a professor and amateur magician (stage variety) who gave a talk on the history of automatons. He also presented several he’d collected, mostly relating to magicians. The one you see to the left is a miniature of Prof. Bryson himself, performing a magic trick. Below, a look at the clockwork inside. It was really a fun 45 minutes (for some reason he didn’t get the full hour).

Other high points:

•TYG and I were on the team that won the “Blonde Bowl” trivia contest (so named because the last words of the question invariably contain the answer, e.g., “… book of the Bible whose first verse is Genesis Chapter One, Verse One.”). The first round we did OK. Second round we crushed the other side, 120 to 30.

•TYG came in second in a poker game, which is a vast improvement since the last time she played. She’s learning (I, on the other hand, actually play better if I make my decisions by blind chance).

•Good food, as usual for the Piedmont gathering.

•Several friends who don’t usually make it showed, so we got to see them.

•The used book sale included the complete DVD set of Dead Like Me, which I snapped up for $10.

•Boarding the dogs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy to be back home with them but it was wonderful snuggling with TYG Saturday and Sunday morning without Trixie trying to squeeze between us. I even sat around reading for a couple of hours because it was extremely relaxing to do it without a dog demanding attention.

Back home now, tired but very happy.