This year’s NCSEPS and NCRC meetings were both held in Asheville, which gave me an excuse to get out of town for the weekend. I headed out after OR on Friday, arriving just in time for the Retina Club dinner at Curate, where the salt cod puree and fried eggplant were still as good as I remembered. The constant drizzle on Saturday thwarted my hiking plans. So after presenting my poster in the morning, I returned to explore downtown, filling on dahi sev papdi and samosa chaat at Chai Pani, lamb gyro and fish tacos at the White Duck Taco Shop, and a big mug of oaxaca from the French Broad Chocolate Lounge. I took an afternoon nap in the car for a couple of hours amidst the downpour, then awoke to notice a newly-opened pinball museum nearby. Intrigued, I paid the $10 admission and spent another 2 hours reliving childhood memories of my favorite coin arcade pastime (mainly because I lacked the button-mashing skills for Street Fighter). The collection ranged from retro machines dating back to the 1950s to fancier ones from the 1990s like the Addams Family and Simpsons games which I so fondly remember. The weather recovered beautifully on Sunday, which made for a pleasant morning drive to Looking Glass Falls before I returned to the meeting to pick up a first-place award for the poster competition. I planned the drive back home along scenic Blue Ridge Parkway, stopping first at Mt Mitchell, the tallest peak of the Appalachians and highest point east of the Mississippi River. The observation tower at the summit offered awesome panoramas, while the Balsam Nature Trail provided macro shots of moss and ferns. Sadly, I had to abandon the other stops from my itinerary due to bad internet directions leading me astray for 3 hours along tortuous downhill US-50. I consoled myself with a bowl of pho from Vanloi 2 in Greensboro on the way back home. Despite missing out on the other waterfalls, my time with mother nature helped revitalize me for a busy OR at the VA tomorrow.

Thanks again to Slickdeals, I ended a 2-year affair with my Android-enabled Nook Color and welcomed the new Microsoft Surface RT into my life. The $200 refurbished deal which included the touch cover was too good to pass up, especially since I was able to unload the old Nook on Craigslist for a good price also. My first week with the tablet has been a positive experience, with native support for Skydrive and Office 2013, which will also include Outlook with the new 8.1 upgrade due later this year. The app store is somewhat meager, but does include some good ones like Netflix, Zinio, Skype, and recently, Plex. This program provides a beautiful media front end with a 10-foot user interface along with a back end media server on my PC, which will likely replace PlayOn and PS3 Media Server. My only gripe with Windows RT is with the absence of Google integration (for obvious reasons) such as Chrome, Maps, and Drive. Fortunately, my weekend call has been quiet, and gave me a chance to play around with the new toy, and even kick back with my co-fellows for Friday night dinner. I’ll give it a few weeks to see how well it works, then decide to either keep it or flip it for a profit.

After being out of town for 3 weekends in a row, I was relieved to be home for Labor Day – a welcomed break for me to finally get some work done. After cooking up a big pot of Spam soup, I spent most of the weekend indoors. By the end of the 3-day weekend, I had completed a book chapter, a case report manuscript, 3 weeks of laundry, and the critically-acclaimed indie game Gone Home, which I played from start to finish in just two sittings. The interactive story-telling game was reminiscent of classic games from the 90’s like Myst and the 7th Guest, and featured magnificent voice-acting and period details transporting the player back to … incidentally … the 90’s. I also made better use of our swimming pool as well as my living room TV, which had been gathering dust since I bought the thing last fall. I fired up the PS3, logged onto Netflix, and added several new TV shows to watch including Arrested Development and Continuum, a Canadian science fiction series that successfully combines the best elements of sci-fi cult classics – dystopian future, time travel, and beautiful women in skin tight body suits. A weekend that is both productive and relaxing is just so satisfying.