More than two weeks since I've been in here? At the moment, it's about 8:30 and the household's already asleep, so, I've got some time to get back into blog action. What have we been up to, well, let's see... there were those fires, which spun a lot of ash around through the valley over the last week or so and made my building in Encino rather smoky. But they've got them all under control now with minimal people-damage. Leslie and I were among about seven people total at Max on Ventura in Sherman Oaks the other night. People weren't terribly interested in dining out that night but inside, you couldn't smell the smoky air. We had trout and filet mignon and french silk pie for dessert. It's been a long time since I've eaten so fancy but we needed a little lift, both of us. The weekdays are a blur, the weekends are too, for the most part. Akhil and I once again dashed all over town this weekend, from Pasadena, to Camarillo, to Manhattan Beach, to Pasadena again. Housing still killing us, or something...