I finalized my Rome trip plans the other day. I'll be gone from Oct 24 to Nov 3. I plan to use most of the time to research the next book, "Rome Explorations: Early Christian Rome."



I drove up to Lake Arrowhead two weekends ago (Sept 7) to see my friends perform 3 hours or so of Beatles music for a charity event. It was great time. I videoed about 30 minutes worth since that's all the battery power I had. I brought a friend and we had a great time, but now we are in a bad place emotionally. It may have been a mistake to go together, even though we had a blast at the time. We had a sad conversation last night and I am calling her again tonight to try impart some information and try to get this mess settled.



I nearly broke up the band the other day. I was unhappy with our level of skill and was not feelin' the love of playing for the Users' Conference in October. I was talked out of cancelling it, though, but am still dubious. I just like to play, I don't like to get on stage and "entertain" people. I hate that part. And also, Ed has decided he is not interested in playing with us full time, which was a blow to me since I gain quite a bit of confidence having him up there next to me.



And the NZIS has raised the "General Skills" category minimum score from 28 to 29, apparently as a means of reducing application backlog. As a result, even more applications poured in. I guess the panic factor kicked in. The NZIS seems to be wiling to make it harder and harder for skilled people to get in. Oh well, maybe it was a bad idea after all.