My flight home from Chicago was as easy as my flight there: It left on time, was not full (I had empty seats next to me on both legs) and both also arrived early. Security was a breeze. Sheesh, even the baby two seats over was happy and never cried once.
As we took off, the pilot told us we’d be getting into Albuquerque a few moments early and that the temperature was 62 degrees, which caused quite a lot of confused murmuring on the plane.
Indeed, it feels as though summer ended while I was out of town. Although Chicago, normally 98 in the shade this time of year with 300 percent humidity, also was cool and pleasant (drastically cutting down on my ability to complain, although not, of course, entirely).
Actually, I had a great time at the workshop, met some cool folks, enjoyed Gustavo Arellano’s talk and had fun hanging out at the California Clipper, a Chicago bar where my friend Tony works. I did not enjoy, as much, the drink Tony recommended, named for his uncle, called The Purple Martin, which features grape soda and coconut rum. But that’s another story (actually that’s the whole story).
So now it’s back to business, with a few things worth noting:

Reporter Dave Maass will be heading to the DNC next week, so keep your browser tuned to Swing State of Mind, where he’ll have lots of great coverage.
And, it feels like fall so it must be fall? Well, I don’t know about that, but Zozobra, my favorite fall tradition (actually my favorite thing in general) is right around the corner and, as per usual, we are collecting glooms at our office, so write down those woes and bring ’em on down (or find me at my gloom table at Zozobra).
OK, back to the salt mines yo.