Welcome to Bri311nut's Roundeo.

Hello masses! Fam and Friends! This is a live breaking update from the Beverly Hilton in beautiful downtown Beverly Hills, CA! Here I sit looking out the seven-story window of this cheery room, listening to the Bose  rock out the eighties tunes, and ruminating on the upcoming evening. It should be interesting with Mel Gibson showing up, hopefully he does something controversial. Anyway, I will keep the pictures coming and fill you in if anything notable transpires!

-Brian

Well, we are home now, following a week that was much too short for my tastse. For those of you who didn't know, Doreen and I went back east for a much needed vacation. To start it off we visited her family in Pennsylvania, taking a flight which provided some thrills of a less than savory nature. In its final third, the weather took a turn for the worse, and we all experienced a turbulence of epic proportions. I had never felt anything like it on a flight before, and Doreen at my side praying in French did little to ease my worries, nor did the fact that the pilot came on the intercom to ask if we had a doctor on board, because a passenger had a slight medical emergency. A doctor was, and so help was administered, and then a few other people complained of sickness induced by the unnatural movement of the plane. In the end we landed safely and paramedics boarded to take the man who needed medical attention. Whew, that done we proceeded to enjoy two days staying with Joe and Megan Hollingsworth, Doreen's sister and bro in-law, and their 3 sons John, Steven, and Colin. We even got to go to one of John's little league baseball games that Joe coached. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the entirety of Doreen's childhood home this time, I received the full tour. We celebrated Nana's(Doreen's grandmother on her mother's side) 101st birthday that day as well. It is truly amazing, she is still so alive as I can attest, having a nice conversation with her while everyone else was running around. Later on our final day in Penn. we visited Nancy(Doreen's close friend) at her home in Manayunk, PA, and then going out to late lunch with her and Billy another of the close friends. I wish I had taken more photos during that time, but oh well. On Thursday morning Megan drove us to Havertown, PA where we rented a car and Doreen and I drove from there to Hyannis, Massachusetts. It was an awesome drive, taking roughly 6 hours all told, through New York and New Jersey on the Jersey Turnpike, and through Connecticut, and Rhode Island, all the way up along the east coast. We then took the ferry in Hyannis to the wonderful, blessed, and glorious island of Nantucket!

Words cannot suffice to tell my feelings upon landing on that historic isle. For me it was a pilgrimage of sorts, I have been deeply fascinated with it since first reading Moby Dick. Having obsessed over it in further studies, I was full of excitement and anticipation so that deboarding the ferry and walking up the main street I was completely enchanted. It looked like Disneyland. The cold, crisp air, the lights, the church tower, the cobblestone road, the brick sidewalks, the brick buildings...It was amazing! We walked a few blocks to our inn for the night, the Union Street Inn, a bed and breakfast converted from an old 18th century home. It was gorgeous! Our room was right at the top of the stairway and had ancient hard wood flooring, which was uneven, and the whole room was at a slight slant, as if it was trying to drain out the front door. We stayed there for 2 nights, and 2 wonderful mornings with free homemade breakfasts that I wish I had photographed. Needless to say they were spectacular! Gratefully we were on the island a couple of weeks before their tourist season actually hits, as we had it all to ourselves. Our first day was spent almost entirely in the whaling museum, in which I could live. The photos tell that story, we both loved it. I didn't think I would learn more than I already had in my own studies, but I was pleasantly suprised. I can't even describe the quality of every restaraunt we visited, the food there is superb. I could not believe it, every place, we wanted to keep eating just to try them all, but sadly we will have to return for that. Mom, you would absolutely freak over the shopping there! We did, and we aren't shoppers. I am getting Nantucket-sick talking about it so, I'll wrap up. We stayed at a different inn on Saturday night, and flew out of Nantucket on Sunday morning in a little puddle-jumper plane that was the size of a van. Quite an experience. Rented a car again and drove from Hyannis to Boston to fly home from Logan to Burbank, and that was it. Sorry for rambling, kinda tired, gotta run!