Category Archives: Uncategorized

Minimal post to assure folks that we are still alive. These are the days that required my business attention. Luckily, my business clothes had finally arrived. First a full day of conference sessions about the data challenges for the statistics function at central banks. (VERY interesting BTW). Then an official dinner where Frank got to charm the central bank data folks – I was quite proud.

The second day was my day to shine, I mean present. I’m glad I didn’t know that it was being streamed/recorded or I would have been maybe slightly nervous (no, that’s not a thing!) I was quite proud that I hit my 20 minute mark right on the dot – so unlike me!

A few more meetings and the day was done! We managed to snag a table at a fabulous restaurant where we had WAY to much food (demasiada comida) and wine but we ordered it in fractured Spanish with a very jovial waiter who never made fun of our linguistic short comings.

Data for today:

• Amount of time I had for my presentation: 20 minutes.
• Number of times I practiced: 6
• Number of times I hit the time target during practice: 0
• Number of economist jokes I snuck in: 5

Okay team, it’s time to get ready for serious travel tenacity. We’re on a marathon run of 4 continents in 4 weeks. Mostly work and some play. Wanna follow along?

ABZ -> LHR -> GRU -> SCL (for 7 days) -> ATL -> DCA/IAD (for 6 days) -> AMS ->ABZ -> (for 42 hours) -> AMS -> JNB -> CPT (for 6 days)-> JNB (for 5 days) -> AMS -> ABZ

The game starts tomorrow – see you then!

Well Hurricane Isais made our decision simple:  we could leave a day early and drive through the outer bands of the storm on our way home, or ride out the tropical storm in a beachfront motel room and have a lovely drive home on Wednesday as we had planned.  No contest!

The 7 hour drive home was going to be boring already so having it be boring and wet was no major sacrifice.  But having to entertain ourselves in a beach town in the rain with high seas and heavy winds didn’t make sense.  So we packed up and hit the road home.  We took the direct route this time instead of the scenic one:  I-95 South to 495 then the Mass Pike to the NY Thruway.  Yawn.  We hit some traffic around Haverhill MA so we hopped off the freeway and headed to my childhood home town of Billerica.  I didn’t recognize a thing – including my old house! Granted it was a quick drive through and I shouldn’t expect anything to look the same after 37 years but I was hoping there would be one thing I could take a picture of that would be meaningful.  Nope. Other than the Market Basket at the mall where I worked in high school, nothing was familiar.  I did subject Frank to the litinay of “used to” tidbits:  that’s where Jane used to live, that’s where O’Conner Hardware used to be, that’s where Tiki Hut used to be, etc.

Then back to the road.  We were dry but cloudy until we just before we hit the NY state line. We had kept the top up to be safe and this was the longest span of covered convertible we had for the entire trip.  Luckily we had good cell coverage the whole way so we went through every Pandora and Google Play list that we could think of.  We drove through an active manhunt on the thruway outside Waterloo NY that we saw on the news when we go home. We stopped at Wegmans to pick up a rotisserie chicken and microwave fixings. And then it was home.

It’s quiet now since Buddy is still in the kennel and I’m still officially on vacation for one more day.  So I’m off to tend to my veggies and sit in the hammock and read a book. I’ll be back to work tomorrow.  Who knows when the next entry here will happen or where we’ll be.  Stay safe and stay sane.  We hope to “see” you soon!

Numbers for the trip:

• Total days away: 10
• Days without any rain: 1
• Miles driven: 2320
• Miles driven with the top down: ~1800
• Total steps recorded: 104K (avg 10K per day)
• Total steps taken: Way more than 104K
• Moose sightings: 2ish?
• Moose themed tchotchkes acquired: 6

Yes we are traveling but it’s not a typical travel blog type of trip so we aren’t posting here. If you are *really* interested in the few posts from this trip, visit The Cannon Chronicles where there will be a few tidbits and updates from the week.

Look here in late July for the grand road trip adventure!

Yes team – the travel blog is coming back!  I decided to keep the KC adventures (and philosophical navel gazing) posts separate from the travel tales.

So you are warned:  food follies, trek tallies, and descriptions of the  Cannon family adventures will appear shortly (even though all four of us won’t be in every adventure).  Watch this space!

Danger Will Robinson!  The entire Cannon clan will be heading overseas for this year’s adventure starting next week.  Get ready for posts from Italy and the family visit to  Scotland.  We have done less planning for this trip than any other so I expect the posts to be entertaining at the very least! 

Gotta make sure that the FB-blog connection works….

It’s an odd numbered year so that can only mean that the Cannon family is getting ready to traipse about the globe again.  Stay tuned for adventures in Spain and new fun visiting the relatives in Scotland. Woo hoo!

August 20 –

Well we’re home and had a whole night’s sleep in our own beds. We still have unpacking to do and clothes to wash but otherwise we are trying to adjust to a “normal” schedule. Not that we know what’s normal anymore! We learned a few lessons about ourselves this summer. For example, Gillian is exactly like her father and the two of them can go from wrestling to fighting in about 30 seconds. Duncan is an amazing young man who has no sense of personal space but does have the amusing ability to compose funny songs at any point in time. (Ask about the baby monkey song sometime!) Frank really is a little kid and he hates being reminded of it. And I don’t have nearly as much patience as I should and I find myself using management school techniques to “manage” my family! Gillian has discovered that baked potatoes and veal are good and that not all new foods are “eewy”. None of us will be able to give up fresh fruit and bread for breakfast and we will never be without Nutella again! And I can’t go a week without running or I get really cranky…. and I missed my bike.

So here’s a basic synopsis of the summer, by the numbers:

• Days traveled: 58
• Countries visited: 8
• Cities visited: 35
• Hotels: 14
• Cathedrals, abbeys, churches: 16
• Candles lit: 12
• Days San had to be in an office: 8
• Days Gillian ate schnitzel: 10 🙂
• Days San managed to run: 14 😦
• Movies seen: 2
• Beers consumed: ?
• Number of model/toy cars Frank bought: 4
• Number of times Duncan had to tie his shoe: approx. 3000

And the number you’ve all been waiting for:

• Steps taken by the Cannon family across Europe: 1,096,517 (approximately) or about 550 miles – which is more than my mother puts on her car in a year!

Thanks for hanging out with us this summer. I have to confess that I will miss writing each night. I suppose that I could continue blogging but I have no idea what on earth I could write about that would be of interest to anyone! Then again, I thought that before we left.

/san/

And the list of things that still need to get done isn’t getting any shorter! I think the only really pressing things are for Frank and I to get International Driver’s Permits – gotta hit AAA tomorrow – and the kids have to have their checkups which I *know* will include tetanus boosters – fun, fun, fun!

Actually, it will be fun once we get going. Tomorrow night we hit the Serbian Crown for a combined Duncan’s birthday/bon voyage dinner then the packing gets finalized. Actually, I really should start. How soon should one start packing? People seem amazed that we aren’t all packed yet. We’re not leaving for two days – why should I be packed now? I need my toothbrush, sandals, etc. until it’s time to go; I don’t want them in the suitcase. Or maybe I’m merely justifying my procrastination (oh, 3 weeks on sabbatical and I can still come up with multisyllabic words! Let’s see how long that lasts!)

/san/