I'm sooo close to getting back to a 'normal' retirement schedule.  It's been a hectic and stressful six weeks since that compensation survey I've been working on closed.  Last night -- this morning -- I was up until 4:20 fixing a major glitch in the last bit. 

Last night we saw a movie at the Irish Film Institute -- Nostalgia for the Light -- a really good but very slow movie about Chile, astronomy and the aftermath of the brutal Pinochet dictatorship there.  You wouldn't think the latter two things would go together but the film maker did a great job in equating them.  One of the really thoughtful ideas he touched was that people, in Chile in particular but elsewhere as well, have a lot of interest and empathy for the challenges astronomers face in trying to piece together the ancient past through the skies but have little patience with the women who quest to find the remains of their loved ones that 'disappeared' during Pinochet's brutal regime.  They tell them "It's the past, forget it, we're focused on the future, we're tired of hearing about it!" That really made me think.

This was the first unscheduled outing since the work started getting the survey book together.  It was premature.  When I came home to what I thought would be just putting the finishing touches on the tables, I discovered a huge formatting error that affected every page.  It would have been a nightmare if I were asleep, but I was awake, it was real, and I had to deal with it, so stayed up until 4:20 a.m. to do it.  I hope to have this thing done and sent off this weekend so they are able to prepare it for publishing next week.  I will be so glad when that's done.

Following my last post, Alan and I left for Liverpool, where I spoke at the European & International Association Congress.  The speaking went well, although I was not so happy with my duties as chair of the membership stream for the conference.  I didn't have enough advance information about what that entailed and there was a lot of winging it along the way, a condition that makes me very uncomfortable.  Anyway, my part was good so it was a learning experience.

Alan and I were in Liverpool in 1983 on our way to Dublin by ferry from London.  It was a dirty, gritty, scary place then.  What a transformation!  The head of the Liverpool Convention and Visitor's Bureau mentioned that in the last 10 or so years the city has been transformed.  Technology and the business around technology has helped it to leapfrog from England's warehouse to a high-tech powerhouse. I was very impressed.

I didn't realize it in 1983 but there is a great deal of beautiful architecture there.  They call it the city that slavery built.  I was happy to see that they do not shirk from their terrible history in that sorry trade.  Mostly, in the 16th and 17th centuries they were warehousing people on their way from Africa to the Americas.  We took a very informative open-top bus tour during a break in the proceedings of the Congress.  Alan also got to go to the Beatles Museum.  I would have liked to see the childhood homes of both John and Paul, but the only way to get in them is on a heritage tour which only operates Saturday to Wednesday and we left on Tuesday.  But, back to the architecture.  In addition to some very old public buildings there is one of the largest Anglican cathedrals in Great Britain and about the ugliest, but apparently impressive inside, Catholic cathedral I've ever seen.  They call it Paddy's Wigwam.  At first I thought it was Brits being insulting to Catholics but it seems everyone calls it that.  It's brutalist architecture stands out in the otherwise traditional built environment.  I tried for a picture but couldn't find a good one, Google "Paddy's Wigwam, Liverpool" to see it, although all the pictures I've seen are taken in the best light, the 360 view we got on the tour bus is quite different. Anyway, Liverpool was a pleasant surprise all around.

That can't be said for the Ryanair flight we booked there and back.  Ryanair is Ireland's low-cost airline.  There's a joke here that they would charge to use the toilet on the plane if they could.  My 'really cheap flight' at 120 Euros for both of us quickly escalated to 320 (about $400) when you add the 100 Euro fee for forgetting to put the L. in Alan's name in the booking (name has to be exactly as on the passport), and the 100 fee for checking bags that are carry-on size with every other air carrier. In addition, the cattle call to get on the plane and get a seat is really stressful and tiring.  Never again.  It was horrible. 

Anyway, I am hoping for a quiet week upcoming.  We have scheduled dinner with my new friend, Mary, and her husband Tom on Thursday, and my first volunteer outing to a meeting on Friday, but otherwise, I'm planning to sleep in and putz around with nothing hanging over my head like the Sword of Damocles.  We'll see, I usually manage to try to fit too much in a single day.