Well, it's 9:00am and I'm here at SeaTac International Airport, which is also becoming known as 'my second home'. I swear, I've been here probably 10 times since the beginning of the year, and yet this is only my second flight out since 2003. Oy vey. This time I'm traveling yonder to Oregon via Horizon Air (read: a beefy Cessna for 28, prop and all) to see my family for Turkey Day, and on through Toozesday.

It's been a trying week. Little sleep, go go go. Yesterday at work I got up at 6:00 and pulled a 10 hour shift... complain, complain. I did go to California for a few days for funeral services, etc... despite the cause, I had a really good time. I saw a lot of family, most of whom I haven't seen since my grandpa passed away in '97. I had a really great sense of family - the same kind that you see in those Jewish/Greek/Italian/Any Ethnically-Centered movies. I don't think I've really felt that before, so it was really nice. The downside is that I fear I won't see anybody ever again, which is a shame. There are a lot of talented people in my extended family, including but not limited to:

• My mom's cousin, Joyce Kohl, who does public art installations, sculptures galore, and is fond of traveling to Zimbabwe
• My mom's other cousin, Greg Glenn, who builds solar powered cars and works with new electric technologies, and has been published
• My great uncle, Artie Kohl, who is a chemical engineer and has written a few books on the subject
• My great uncle Jerry Kohl, who does something like that too

I had a great time talking to them, as well as the other artists, software engineers, and geniuses in the family. Combined with a review of my grandma's life it was really inspiring for me to find some way to travel to Europe and Africa, be creative and express myself through art, and even get back into the groove with my video/computer stuff, which currently seems to only grow based on projects needed at work. I'd also like to just hang out and share ideas with those people, but they're all in Cali.

Wow, some kid just walked by with a fake leg! If I had one of those I think I'd put a fake green Hulk leg around my metal peg.

Even though I was only gone for four days, I feel like it was a month. So much happened. I won't go on, but I will say that my niece can sure play a mean game of soccer. I'm going to go visit my sister's family (again) for a week + over Christmas, and promised my niece Cynthia (8) that I'll teach her all my circus tricks then. Should be tiiiiiiight.

When I get back to Seattle I'm going to work on creating my one-man Offspring tribute band, Sprung. For joke only.

Oh, something else terrible happened this week. Dude, what's up with November, for real? I got a call from my friend Caireny saying that she ran into a telephone pole at 50mph - totalled her car, her body broke the steering wheel in two places, and she was nearly decapitated by some spare tires in the back. Thanks for scaring the bloody crap out of me, Cair. But, she only had a couple of gashes on her forehead and her bangs disappeared - no broken bones, no concussion from hitting her head, no nothing. Walked away fine. Wtf? She's lucky, and this is a major sign (last chance?) for her to straighten some really important things out...

That was two days ago. Related, Caireny's mom said she saw a massive gathering of birds that morning, and she wondered if that meant something. Well, on the way over to the airport today I saw a bunch of seagulls and it scared the dickens out of me, so I extend thanks also to Caireny's mom for scaring the crap out of me, second-hand. If this plane goes down I'll be pissed.

Man, I'm starving. I need some snackage before I board... in fact, I'm so hungry I could eat a horse, like lost-in-London Miko.

...woosh...