Fourth of July Report

1. Welcome to new readers -- elasait and mgrasso.

2. OMFG do we have a lot of things to accomplish in the next three days.

3. I am shamed. I have lost count of the magic number. I must find it again.

4. Wedding weather forecast: Chance of thunderstorms, 82 degrees.

5. I guess you're really getting old when one of your childhood heroes dies. I was a little sports geek from Day One, and Jimmy Walker was a great, great basketball player at Providence College.

He died this week, and The Globe' Bob Ryan had this, among other things to say:

Jimmy Walker was not just the best PC player ever. He was the best player ever to come out of Boston (the long-gone Boston Trade), and I don't care if you want to count Patrick Ewing, who came out of Cambridge. Ewing had a far better NBA career. Ewing was an original Dream Teamer. Ewing was great. But Jimmy Walker was transcendent. Patrick Ewing was a fine player. Jimmy Walker was an innovator.

6. Yesterday was alethea_eastrid's first visit to Diesel, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks to shadesong, yendi, psyedtonne, theloriest, mgrasso and ayalanya for helping her enjoy it.

7. You know you are in the SCA when your wife says: Make sure you bring my real sword," and she means the rattan.

8. I needed to add "poutine" to my spell-check. (Can I get a proper pronounciation? Is there a "ch-" sound in there?

More to come.