Today it’s family day with a mob of Myerses hanging about and bickering opinonatedly at a picnic. You aren’t invited unless you can show evidence of a recent family relationship; showing evidence that all primates are related is nice, but won’t get you in the door.

Tuesday at 6ish I’ll be at the Pike Brewing Company waiting upon Ophelia Benson. Come on out! Buy us beer! I’m also thinking I might head up there a little early to visit the Seattle Aquarium, since it’s right there in the neighborhood.

Friday at noon I’ll be at Room B101, University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford BC. This is a free talk, although the group there would gladly accept donations. I don’t seem to have a topic for this talk, though…but I do hear that Abbotsford is B.C.’s epicenter of fundamentalism, so I’ll probably say inflammatory things about creationism. Whee!

Friday at 7pm I’ll be at UBC Westbrook Room 100, 6174 University Boulevard, Vancouver BC to talk about the role of atheism in science. Hmmm. Both of these are inflammatory topics…will British Columbia erupt in riots? Show up and see. Oh, and this talk is not free: $10. There’s also a fancy pants reception afterwards that will cost $50.

Saturday at 5:00pm on I’ll be attending…my 35th high school reunion with a gang of strange people I haven’t seen in decades. You aren’t invited unless you were also a graduate of Kent-Meridian High School, Class of 1975.

All times not specified will be spent hunkered over a keyboard. Go away, don’t bother me.

Yes. Yes, I must.

Phil is bragging about his Bacon number of 3. Well, well, well. My Bacon number is…

2.

Everyone, please do the courteous, polite thing and overlook the fact that my connection is via the odious Ben Stein.

I’m on Godless Business with a gang of Australians.

You may have been fooled by my youthful vigor and childlike exuberance, but I’m actually an old guy — I’ve got entirely grown up kids who have moved out and have nothing to do with me anymore. They’re so old that they aren’t even threatening to move back into my basement any more! I’m just going to mention what the two boys men have been doing lately, so maybe you can help them out.

My oldest son, Alaric, is currently working as the deputy campaign manager for the DFL candidate in District 15B, Zachary Dorholt. You want to vote for him, if you’re living in that part of St Cloud. If you don’t get to vote for him, you could always donate. He’s our sensible candidate, unlike his right-wing opponent, who has sworn to be 100% pro-life and never, ever under any circumstances raise taxes, no matter how dire our fiscal situation.

They are having a fundraiserat 3:00 on Sunday, 18 July, at 3335 West St Germain in St Cloud. Show up and tell my tall skinny red-haired scion that I sent you, and he’ll give you a free hug! So worth it.

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My middle son, Connlann, is at Fort Benning, Georgia. He’s in OCS, in the army (I know! How dare one of my kids do something that I would never do!), in Crusher Company. They’re torturing him by doing things like throwing him in the water and making him swim with a rifle.

Now this is even more important than helping my oldest son’s candidate win an election: could everyone do everything they can to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq before he graduates in September? Thanks.

Jeremy Messersmith gives the post con wrap-up of Convergence, the recent sf convention in Minneapolis. These things are wonderfully fun, you should go sometime!

There is a picture of me in the article, but I think he just threw it in to reassure the readers that not all the attendees were freaky weird geeks. Yes, I AM THE NORMAL ONE.

Let that sink in for a while.

I just saw the TrophyWife™ to the door, where she’s leaving for work. And from there, she’s going to Minneapolis to spend the night. And then in the morning she’s flying off to The Amazing Meeting 8, and I’m not. She’s going to spend almost a week away, while I’m just a hyper-focused drudge with a keyboard for a while.

I’ll be fine, I’ll just be single-minded for a while. But how many of you are going to TAM? Keep an eye out for the TrophyWife™, and keep her out of trouble. I’ve seen what she’s going to wear to the Skepchick party, and I’m a little concerned — why couldn’t it have had a Middle East theme, with everyone invited to show up in burkas?

Look for me in Canada, eh, on 30 July, at which time my book will be done and I’ll look much less harried and may even be nice and polite and a little less bitey snarly mean, so that I can blend in better with the natives.

That’s my plan, anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

Marit Simonson, one of the helpful people I met in Oslo (and also one of the organizers of Kritisk Masse, the skeptics’ conference taking place in October), just sent me a pile of photos from our visit. Here are a few of the faces of modern atheism in Norway, taken at a picnic in Frognerparken AKA Vigelandsparken.

It’s another conversation recorded for posterity: I appeared on the irreligiophilosophy podcast. Fortunately, they did not ask me to pronounce “irreligiophilosophy”.