Big Weekend for Visiting Friends and Family at American Power

Friday morning I wrote this on my Facebook profile:

Got a big weekend friends, grading, visiting a political scientist-friend from the East Coast at the Queen Mary tomorrow, visiting with my sister and her family tomorrow night ... Well, better get busy! :)

So, I thought I might as well share a little report of how things turned out.

The "visiting political scientist-friend" is Professor Daniel Nexon from Georgetown University. Dan was in town for the annual meeting of the Social Science History Association, held at the Queen Mary Hotel, at the Port of Long Beach. (The association website is here, the call for papers here, and the schedule of academic panels is here). Dan e-mailed me a month ago to give me the heads up. I picked him up yesterday at 9:00am to get some breakfast. Here's the shot of the liner as I was walking in:

The hotel's main desk is on the third floor. Here's the shot from the gangway as I was walking up:

Dan and I drove across the channel over to the Shoreline Marina in downtown Long Beach. As we we're walking back out after eating, I snapped a quick shot back at the Queen Mary from the parking lot:

I did not take pictures of Dan, for a couple of reasons: One is that I didn't really think about it until we were almost done having breakfast, and two is that this was the first time I'd met Dan in person, and I wasn't comfortable taking Dan's picture. We met online about three years ago. He left a snarky response to a comment I'd left at Democracy Arsenal. This was before I started blogging, although Dan was blogging at Duck of Minerva, an international relations group blog. Currently, Dan is on academic leave from his department and is now working as an policy analyst at the Department of Defense. Being how Dan's involved in fairly high-level policy work, I thought I'd hold off on personal pictures until later. Dan's Georgetown faculty page is here, in any case. And here's the Princeton University Press page for his recent book, The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe:Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change.

I might be seeing Dan at the American Political Science Association meeting next September, and if so, I'll check with him then about posting personal pics online.

In the meanwhile, this is my sister Tracy:

Tracy came to visit at my home last night with her husband and daughter. Tracy gave me permission to publish her picture. Recall that I'm being careful about posting family information, but I actually haven't had any problems since publishing my Halloween photo essay a couple of weeks ago. So, let's keep our fingers crossed for continued respectfulness among commenters here, etc.

Tracy has a show dog, a Doberman Pinscher, named Alex, who is almost two years old:

When Tracy first told me she'd gotten a Doberman I laughed with her about it. When we were kids we saw They Only Kill Their Masters, a 1972 crime-suspense flick with James Garner and Katherine Ross.

I think we were actually really scared of Dobermans for a while after seeing that, LOL! But if Alex is any indication, Dobermans are just the sweetest, most gentle animals you'd want to be around. Alex is well trained and not rambunctious at all. He's gentle and playful, and loves kisses and petting. I didn't have time to ask my sister, but Alex has done well in dog show competitions. Also, this is a breeding dog, so Tracy's spoken to me about breeding inquiries she's received.

So, that was my big Saturday. The only thing I've left out is the grading!

In fact , I need to read about a dozen semester paper assignments today, and I'll probably watch some football. I'll be online later this morning and afternoon, as usual, for some hot blogging. And check back for my hot Marisa Miller entry tonight for sure!

*****

P.S. I just noticed the second shot of Alex includes Barack Obama's mug on my TV in the living room. That TV is a 20-inch Magnavox. We had a big Sony Bravia Widescreen, but my youngest son -- during a tantrum a year or so ago -- threw a big hard-plastic Incredible Hulk toy into the screen, the impact of which pierced the television and destroyed the picture. Those things are expensive! So, hopefully we'll get another 32-incher in there pretty soon.

More tonight!