Found a wonderful, fabulous item today. Italian inlaid wood pedestal chess table. It matches my Italian inlaid wood music box tables. 40% off, too! Here are two pictures, top and side view. Man, I really need to vacuum, cat fur builds up after a week out of town!

Well, this past week has been positively exhausting. My grandfather and my uncle died within twelve hours of each other, my grandfather of pneumonia and my uncle from complications after heart surgery. I flew to Arkansas for my grandfather's funeral and drove to LA for my uncle's. I just got back a few hours ago. I was so tired I fell asleep on the couch for an hour because I literally could not make it to the bedroom. Although I did manage to check e-mail before passing out. ;) Things were as pleasant as could be expected. Got to see many people I hadn't seen in ages - cousins, family friends, etc. - and met a few new ones. I'd never met my step-uncles (my grandfather's second wife's children) and am glad I got a chance to do that. They were all nice, and one of them was an attorney with lots of interesting stories. Always nice to have someone with a somewhat similar background around, and he seemed to feel the same. I also got to spend time in Memphis, although I'm neutral about having had a chance to do it. Had I had more time, I would have seriously considered visiting Graceland just for the tacky bragging rights and to get lots of Elvis-themed postcards for friends and family. As it was, all I brought back are some photos. Here is one of our land in Arkansas:

Welp, just finished my "updates" for my Public Interest Law class. Then I got to cleaning out some old e-mail when I noticed my Inbox is 225 megs and dates back to 2000. No wonder it gets corrupted on occasion... Sort of creepy, found e-mail from two deceased relatives lurking about in there. Classes start tomorrow.

http://tlc.discovery.com/news/afp/20031229/magazine.html?ct=3498.72619452984 When books attack...Be careful, it could happen to you!