Posted 6:21 PM by Floyd

Bridge Geekery: Let's Reverse, Round Two
  Now in Suit-o-Vision!TM

Now it's time to blog the first session of Eureka's Saturday bridge tournament.

The first two rounds contained some strange boards, but the first interesting decision was on Board 10. All red, in fourth chair I hold T98 AJ9864 J954 -. LHO passed and partner opened 1, my void. RHO overcalled 1. I had an easy 1 bid.

  LHO fidgeted and passed. Partner rebid 1. Now RHO fidgeted -- they were inexperienced players who fidgeted a lot, so its difficult to read anything into these hesitations -- and bid 1N.

  What would you do? I thought the hand was a death trap. I didn't want to go -200 (doubled or not), or to go -100 against their +90 (1N making). So I passed.

  LHO bid 2 natural, passed around to me. I passed and went -90. RHO's hand was KQJ2 K7 QT73 Q32. (Please don't ask me to explain the 1 bid. Partner had Jxxx of clubs and QT of hearts; we make +140 in hearts.

  Later I discussed the hand with a friend of mine who is an expert player, and he said that pass was the right call, but that he would bid 2 at the table.

On board 15 I was too active. At unfavorable, third, I held AJ63 JT6543 J4 Q. Partner passed and RHO opened 1. Six-four bid more, so I overcalled 1. LHO bid 2 (presumably a diamond raise) and Sherry jacked it up to 4. RHO sawed it off and I went down one. -200 would be find against their white game, but no game makes! In five of a minor they lose a spade, a diamond and a club.

  I'm not sure if what I did was wrong. Sometimes when you are active you get in trouble; nothing works all the time. On the other hand the vulnerability is the worst, and the minor-suit junk should make me worried about a phantom sacrifice.

Our next round, boards 16-18, was our highest-scoring. The opponents appeared to be the most competent we played all day.

On board 16 Sherry missed a chance to use one of the few conventions we play. She held A6 - AK8643 KJ865 at favorable, fourth chair. LHO passed and I opened a disciplined weak 2. RHO passed. Now what?

  We play that 2N is a "feature" ask over a weak two; it asks opener to bid a side ace or king. This is exactly the information needed with this hand. If opener bids 3, bid the slam; otherwise settle for game.

  Instead we wound up in 4. My LHO led the ten of clubs.

  Let's say I want to ruff two hearts in dummy and pitch the other on the high diamond. I win the club in hand, ruff a heart low, and now what? I am short entries to hand -- I need two more to ruff a second heart and then pull trump. Also I miss my chance to pick up the club suit; playing the jack gives me a sure thing unless LHO led a singleton or doubleton ten.

  So I played the jack, which held. I pulled trumps, played K and A, and ruffed a club to make the fifth club good. (They had split 4-1). That gave me two pitches for hearts and I made six.

  This was a fine score (11 on a 15 top). Attempting to ruff hearts would not work on this hand as LHO has Txx of spades and a doubleton diamond.

Board 17 was tough. I held A6532 J3 K86 K64 first chair at all white. This is just a little less than an opening bid for me -- put the jack in any other suit and it would be fine -- so I passed. LHO opened 1 and partner overcalled 1. RHO bid a preemptive 3.

  What would you do? The normal bid is probably 3, but I chose 3N. That's an overbid, but hey, I didn't come to Eureka to pass! All passed and LHO led 7. Dummy was:

  QJ4 AQK98 952 J8.

  I played the queen and it held, the ten appearing on my right. What now? I couldn't see any way to come to nine tricks. The diamond situation was strange; I assumed RHO had raised on four, leaving LHO with 4432 shape.

  I crossed to hand with the heart jack and played a second spade up, hoping for a duck. He won and played a heart. I cashed the spade jack and ran my hearts, pitching one of each suit on the hearts.

  Something weird happened in the heart suit: They broke 3-3. This placed LHO with 4333 (unless RHO had raised on 3). Anyway, LHO pitched a spade, which looked good to me as that was his out card. Then he pitched the diamond jack. So I led a diamond, low, low, queen. Then he led a club. RHO won the ace and put a diamond back. LHO had clubs only and had to give me the last two tricks.

  Note that if LHO just keeps his three diamonds he is fine.

On board 22 I was very aggressive, but it worked out well. I was at favorable in fourth chair and held Q2 742 T9842 652. LHO opened 1 and Sherry overcalled 1. RHO raised to 2 which was passed around to Sherry. Sherry rebid her spades and RHO rebid 3.

  At this point I figured that raising was safe. I had limited my hand by passing the previous round. We were non-vul and it was important to contest the partscore. So I bid 3 and all passed. Sherry's hand was KJ9876 K3 K2 AQ4. A heart was led and Sherry's RHO won the queen. Then she shifted to ace and a trump, a clear error as it lets declarer get to dummy. Sherry took full advantage by taking the club hook, which worked, clearing trump, and exiting ace and a club. They did not give her the king of diamonds (which was under the ace anyway), but down one was worth 9.5 matchpoints.

Board 26 was the best-played hand -- but to no purpose! I held QJ832 J5 J54 J74. All were vul and I was fourth to speak. LHO passed, Sherry opened 1, RHO overcalled 1, and I bid 1. Sherry raised to 2 and that was the end of the bidding.

  LHO led 9; dummy was KT95 AK32 AT3 62. I rose ace and played the ten of spades. LHO won the ace and played a second heart, which I won. I ruffed a heart high (an important play) and played a spade to dummy's king; all followed.

  Now I ruffed a heart and exited a club. My plan was to lose two clubs, ruff the third club in dummy which would leave me with a trump in each hand, and lead a diamond away from the AT. This would endplay either opponent who had both diamond honors, and would give me chances if RHO's one honor were doubleton.

But my plan was foiled; LHO played the nine of clubs on the first round and RHO overtook with the ten. Then LHO led a club out of turn! I called the director and he told me I could require or forbid a club. I forbade a club and that was that. As it turned out I was going to make 3 on my line as RHO held both diamond honors. +140 was worth 12.5 matchpoints out of 15.

Posted 10:12 AM by Floyd

Around 75 years ago H.L Mencken wrote the following:

Of the forty-eight sovereign States of this imperial Federation, which is the worst? In what of them is a civilized man most uncomfortable? Over half of the votes, if the question were put to a vote, would be divided between California and Tennessee. Each, in its way, is almost unspeakable. ...

Tennessee, of course, has never been civilized, save in a small area ...

[California's] laws are the most extravagant and idiotic ever heard of in Christendom. Its public officers, and especially its judges, are famous all over the world for their imbecilities. When one hears of it at all, one hears that some citizen has been jailed for reading the Constitution of the Unites States, or one hears that some swami in a yellow bedtick has got all the realtors' wives of Los Angeles by the ears.

Three quarters of a century later, California is hardly more normal than in Mencken's day, and it contains its fair allotment of idiots in the public sphere. Tennessee has taken steps forward (InstaPundit) and back (Graceland). But California and Tennessee are safe from abuse. The office of worst state can only be filled by Florida.

Where else but Florida could an 18-year-old man be arrested for having sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend? Where else but Florida could highway patrolmen stop travellers for driving under the speed limit, under the theory that they therefore have something to hide? Where else but Florida could the state's "child protective services" agency lose track of hundreds of its charges -- though said children could be found in a few hours by local media?

Where else but Florida could a woman rise to polical prominence, become the chief law enforcement officer of the Unites States, burn innocent children to death in a pointless raid, seize a refugee from tyranny from his caretakers at gunpoint -- after expressly promising not to do so -- and then return home, not as a fugitive, but as a gubernatorial candidate?

Where else but Florida could thousands of senile voters fail to follow simple instructions, thus throwing a presidential election into turmoil -- and then have their congressman snivel on their behalf?

Just to prove my point, Florida has entered two black marks against its name just in the previous week. The less interesting case concerns an election featuring Janet Reno, who occupies a position intermediate between the Bitch of Belsen and Mrs. O'Leary's cow. After the fiasco of the 2000 election Florida had two years to get its house in order. The result? More chaos. Also worth mentioning in passing is Governor Bush's election-day decision to keep the polls open for two more hours. How is that possible? Doesn't Bush have a slight interest in the race? Shall all elections have a variable polling time determined by the party in power?

Then there was the surprising theory of prosecutorial conduct espoused during the murder trials of Terry King. Prosecutor David Rimmer is a careful man, who wants all his bases covered -- so he held two trials with different theories of how the murder was perpetrated, one for King's teenaged sons, and one for a next-door neighbor. The boys were convicted and the neighbor acquitted. But what would happen if both were convicted? I can see Rimmer reading aloud to an appeals court from "Murder on the Orient Express."

Rimmer is a pioneering and enterprising man, but he is clearly limited in his thinking. Why two murder trials when one could have three, or four, or a dozen? (I was going to say "n", but I did not want to send the poor fellow to a calculator to add one to numbers succesively until the fourteenth letter of the alphabet is displayed.) Does the wife inherit? Impanel a jury! Does Steve Spurrier have an alibi? If not, see how close he gets to the frying chair!

What could we call this new legal practice? How about Operation Infinite Justice?

Posted 10:58 AM by Floyd

I live on the West Coast, which means that I get to consume content produced in the East Coast, Europe, and Australia while I sleep. It's a sweet deal; I suppose it would be even better if I lived in Hawaii. One year ago today I woke up and did what I always do in the morning, which is to turn on my computer and browse some news. I checked my email and found this message, sent to a mailing list I belong to:

Dear All,

Most of you receiving this know that I'm in New York City,
attending law school at NYU. I am sending this message to inform you
all that I was not injured this morning's collapse of both World Trade
Towers following the terrorist attack. I was in my dormitory in
Greenwich Village at the time, far away from the Towers. For those of
you working at businesses where I've worked, please inform your
coworkers, whose email addresses I don't have, that I'm all right.

...

Sincerely,
Brandon Zlotnick

I stared for a second and then recoiled. My first thought was that this was some kind of weird joke. How could terrorists destroy 110-story buildings? But I did believe it, because from what I knew of Brandon he didn't seem like the kind of person who would make a stupid joke like this. Also, my first reaction to the major American tragedies in my life -- the Challenger explosion and the Loma Prieta earthquake (which happened two days before I was to make my first trip to California on a job interview) -- were to assume that the people who told me about them were joking.

I said to myself, "If there really a terrorist attack, Drudge would be all over it. So I clicked over to Drudge."

...

Last Sunday night I had a dream. I was at San Francisco Airport, bound for Phoenix. The terminal contained these neat little people-transporters; they were the size of a tray, you would step on them and be moved both to and fro and left and right, as if they were on a grid. When we were about to leave, the stewardess working at the terminal made an announcement for everyone to move to another terminal for departure. I got on a tray, gave the order (by speaking aloud) to move -- and was alone.

I panicked, and then saw a friend of mine in a blue United uniform. I asked him where I should go for the Phoenix flight. He told me, and then I woke up.

When I have a dream like this my first reaction is pride at the dream's technical aspects. I could have had an ordinary anxiety dream where I go to the designated gate and there is no one there. Instead my brain creates a wonderful futuristic people-mover. Send me my patent and my Oscar for best effects at your convenience.

After an intense dream I don't want to go back to sleep right away. So I lay awake and started to think. I have never liked dreams, and it was that night that I realized why: Dreams are coercive. There is no freedom in a dream; you see, hear, and feel what your neurons have cooked up for you. (For instance, if in real life you showed up at SFO and saw those mini-people-movers, wouldn't you play around with them all day? What could possibly be that interesting in Phoenix?) Also you are at the mercy of the dream, and cannot escape. When you are awake you can tell that you are not in a dream. But all things can be simulated in a dream -- including the awareness that you are not in a dream!

...

Drudge did not have the full lurid details at 8:30 a.m.; there was a picture of one of the towers with smoke billowing from it. There was no 72-point font, nor was there a little siren. (2001 was a slow news year up to that point; Drudge had used the blaring effect to highlight news that no rational person would care about, like boardroom policits at AOL/Time-Warner.)

I surfed around and found out what had happened. I turned on the TV, but the details were still sketchy. I wanted to be around people, both for companionship and to help me figure out what had happened. So I went to work.

The half hour drive into the office was probably the worst part of the whole day. I usually listen to news radio and of course they were talking only about the attack. I listened, dazed and helpless, just as if I were in a dream. The announcer reported that elementary schools were closed. In a normal state I would have sniggered at this; did people really think that the targets were the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Public School 93? But I had lost my rights and my freedom when I awakened into this nightmare, and just sat in my car driving with my mouth hanging open.

At work I used my fast internet connection to browse for more news. It was then that I saw a video of a plane slamming into the tower, and the resulting fireball. After that I got my news on the web, and stayed away from avi's.

Posted 11:14 PM by Floyd

Eureka Pix are up!

Posted 5:48 PM by Floyd

Bridge Geekery: Let's Reverse

I will report on the sessions in reverse order, because the first session's hand records are in my wife's car. The first three boards were all interesting.

Board 4 I held - AQJT9 AQJ542 K4. I opened 1D and when partner responded 1S, I reversed into 2H. Partner bid 2S, forcing, so I bid 3H to show 6-5. Sherry bid 3N and now I think I should pass. I do have an exceptionally powerful hand, but partner should know what to do with the hands that make a slam. Spades are not a problem for notrump as partner should have five and they should not be five small.

But I bid 4D and when partner bid 4H I passed. Here was the dummy:

AJT82 K6 9 J9832

LHO led the CQ and it went small, ace, and -- I told you I was asleep in the afternoon -- small. RHO returned a club. Fortunately RHO had started with a doubleton.

On hands like this it's important to set up your side suit. I played the ace and queen of diamonds. LHO ducked and RHO ruffed.

RHO returned a club. Now I fell asleep again, and ducked. LHO ruffed but did not return a trump. When he played a diamond I woke up: Ruff high, cash the spade ace, ruff to hand, lead a diamond. LHO had the 8 and 7 of hearts so my six stood up. Making 4.

I don't think much of this line upon reflection. How about this: Diamond ace, diamond ruffed with the king, spade ace, heart to hand, pull trumps, diamond queen. This line needs hearts 4-2. If diamonds are 3-3 or 4-2 I make five, but even on the 5-1 rail I make four.

Board 5 was an illustration of how not to bid. My RHO had Kxx Kxxx xx AKxx. Her partner opened 1S and she bid 3S forcing. (Not my choice with three trumps but let that pass for now.) Her partner bid 4C and as my friend Jo would say, "she went into Blackwood." The response was 5H (two aces), which told her nothing. She bid six. Justice was served when my partner cashed the ace and king of diamonds.

Blackwood is pointless on this hand. She should sign off; her partner is clearly bidding shortness and is probably void, so her hand is not working.

Sherry and I do not even play Blackwood, and so far it has not hurt us. We did bid a slam off two aces once, but the wrong lead was made and we scored it up anyway!

(That reminds me of one a great story about Kit (Keeping it Together) Woolsey. He was about to declare 7N when RHO doubled. Woolsey pulled out the blue card (redouble), turned to the opening leader, and said "Your job is to find your partner's ace." Making seven!)

Board 6 was not at all interesting in the biding or play; it was interesting in the bar six hours later. I held QJxx x A5432 953. RHO opened, LHO showed hearts and diamonds, and he was off two diamonds. He had Kx of spades opposite dummy's ace. Later that evening we were looking at the hand records, and I saw that my hand had the king of spades. The board was fouled in our section; the other section presumably had the board made correctly. But the hands were matchpointed across the sections, so I was competing against eight pairs who had the king of spades!

I liked board 11 even though I probably got a bad score. I held A74 A53 J63 KQ52. RHO passed and I opened 1C; partner bid 1H. Then RHO doubled. I rebid 1N; LHO bid 2D, partner finished the proceedings with a leap to 3N.

LHO led the D8 and partner tracked this dummy: K96 J942 A7 AJ43.

I couldn't imagine how I could come to a ninth trick. If dummy's hearts had the eight I could play a heart to the eight, then the jack off (heh heh) the dummy. This is an "intrafinesse", requiring Tx on my left. Or I could play RHO for KQ tight.

As it was all I could do was hope RHO had the KQ of hearts and all the spade intermediates. I ducked the diamond, won the continuation, and cashed three clubs. Then I exited a diamond, hoping that the run of the diamonds would squeeze RHO. But LHO had the QTx of spades so I was down one.

On Board 13 Sherry did very well. She held 8762 98 AQJ2 QT7 in second, all vul. RHO passed, she passed, LHO passed, I opened a 15-17 1N, and RHO bid 2H. Sherry bid 3H Stayman, and when I bid 3S she reasoned that I could bid 4S with a maximum and passed.

I should have gone down, but my RHO did not double 3H with Ax of hearts. This was a clear error; she and her partner were both passed hands, so there is no way that her partner will bid again. The heart lead would beat me but on a diamond lead I made three.

Board 18 was thievery, pure and simple. I held T632 QT942 Kx xx. At favorable, it went P - P - 1D to me. I jumped to 2H, LHO made a negative double, and partner bid 4H! LHO bid 4N, which he meant as natural, but LHO made a Blackwood response and RHO passed. This was down one while 3N was easy. Partner's hand for the jump was 9x J53 T9 AQT542.

Board 19 was amusing. I held this rock: AK8 T3 A5 AKJ742. Second seat, unfavorable, it went pass to me. 19 HCP but a good six-card suit, so I was about to open 2N. But then I thought, "That's ridiculous. I can run nine tricks opposite practically nothing. I'll open 2C and rebid 2N." But then I thought, "That's ridiculous. Partner will still have no idea when raising me is right." So I opened 2C (strong, artificial, and forcing), rebid 3C over 2D, and rebid 3N over 3D.

Partner produced QT2 762 KQ9862 Q. (Yes, that's a 3D bid.) LHO led the heart 5, and there was one card I did not want him to have -- the heart four. Fortunately hearts were 4-4 and I made 3N.

Posted 4:43 PM by Floyd

Warning! Spoilers!

Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about two scientists who hated each other, but would play an occasional game of pool. One scientist creates an anti-gravity device. To rub it in his rival's face, he installs his invention in a pool table, with the anti-grav in the center. At a public demonstration he gives his rival a pool cue and tells him to knock a ball into the anti-grav zone, where it will float in the air. The other scientist realizes that the ball will travel at the speed of light when it becomes massless -- so he aims the shot at the other scientist and drills him through the heart.

Asimov titled the story "The Billiard Ball." A friend of his read the story and said, "No, Dirty Pool!". Asimov instantly realized that he'd missed out on the perfect title.

I had a similar experience when visiting Colby Cosh's blog. Colby liked my post on Iraq, calling it a "five hundred foot home run." (All I can say is that the foot must be shorter in Canada.) Then I noticed that he linked to me, and called me The Declarer.

Well duh! I am green with envy but thanks to Colby I have a name for my blog.

Posted 2:08 PM by Floyd

I have always wanted to go up to northernmost California for one of the fall bridge tournaments held there. I have been in California for twelve years and have never been further north than Santa Rosa.

This year Sherry and I made plans to attend the Eureka Sectional. I poked around on the web for a bed and breakfast, made reservations (at The Carter Inn, of which more later), and found out the tournament schedule.

I am between jobs now but Sherry is still working. On Friday I did everything possible to prepare for the trip so that we could leave the instant she got home. Even so when Sherry arrived a little after five we both thought of some last minute chores. We hit the road at 5:30.

The drive from Woodside to Eureka is 310 miles. We would take 280 to 19th Avenue in the city, cross the Golden Gate Bridge and take 101 all the way; once we got into Eureka 101 would become a main street and we could turn left to our hotel. Simple directions are what I like.

By leaving as late as we did we would hit rush hour in and around San Francisco. There was a little backup at the 380 merge but otherwise 280 was fine. Traffic moved fine through the city and we hit most of the lights on 19th. Nor was there any congestion in Marin. The first real jam occurred in Santa Rosa. It was 7:20 so we exited and looked for a place to eat dinner. Sherry wanted to find Chinese -- she knew good Chinese in Eureka was unlikely -- but all we could see were a Chili's and a Fresh Choice. So we had salad and soup for dinner.

We returned to the road at 8:10 after having driver around 90 miles. It was of course dark. For awhile as we drove through Sonoma County 101 was a 4-lane divided highway. Further north it became two lanes with occasional passing lanes. Around Ukiah there were elevation changes, and some places where construction was being performed. I had to drive a curvy road with steep inclines and declines, with a divider at my right and oncoming traffic to my left. This was really tough at night. I'm just not made for long trips anymore; the longest drive we usually do is the 85 miles to Monterey. It was very discouraging to have driven 200 miles and to realize that we were still further from Eureka than Monterey is from our house.

The last two hours were the worst. The terrain was still mountainous. I was tired, which made me want to push it even harder. But we made it to the hotel just short of midnight.

The staff said they would leave the key for us in the mailbox. There was no key in the mailbox but we did see two people in the lobby. One was the proprietor, so he was able to let us in. He poured me a glass of port, asked a few questions about me, and made suggestions about how we could tour the area. I was too tired to be of much use to the conversation.

The room was very nice: Unfinished wood furniture, an abstract painting on the walls, and a tapestry which hung on the wall and over the bed. The web page had advertised a jacuzzi; this turned out to be built into the bathtub. The window had been left open; I guess there's no point living in Eureka unless you like fresh cold air. I shut the window and Sherry and I relaxed a bit, then fell asleep around 1 a.m.

Saturday was our day to play bridge. There was a two-session pairs with sessions at 10 and 4. This is a recent innovation; sectionals used to hold their Saturday pair games at 1 and 7 or 7:30. I like the 10/4 schedule when travelling; playing at 4 leaves time for a nice evening afterward, and we usually skip the morning session when driving down the same day. When I am playing sectionals close to home I prefer starting at 1 so I can sleep in.

The 10 a.m. start time did not leave us much time for sleep. Sherry was tired in the morning; I was sharp in the morning but drowsy in the afternoon. The event was held in the Grange Hall, 5 miles south of the hotel. There were two sections of nine tables.

The field was rather weak, which I expected. A bridge report shall follow; here I will mention only that we did not do well in either session. But there were some interesting hands and we had fun. We also saw my friend Emil's mother, who was playing both sessions. She was very gracious and suggested that we visit Trinidad Head.

After the second session were were quite tired, so we returned to the hotel without waiting for our final scores. Then we showered in preparation for our dinner at 301, which the the Carter Inn's four-star restaurant. We had a delightful dinner. I didn't like the start; my potato and arugula soup was bitter, and I made the mistake of eating one of Sherry's raw oysters, which I found disgusting. But the fish entrees were outstanding. I had sturgeon with a sprinkling of caviar that gave it a pleasant saltiness; Sherry had a tasty halibut. Dessert was fantastic; I had a flourless chocolate cake garnished with blackberries, blueberries, and raspberry sauce. It was so rich I could not finish it all. Sherry had chocolate ice cream.

Sunday we hit a used bookstore and came out with eight books for $40. Then we went sightseeing. We drove further north through Arcata to Trinidad Head. This is a promontory which is surrounded on about 270 degrees by water. You can hike all around it and enjoy ocean views from all sides. It was a clear day with little wisps of fog in the distance.

I haven't mentioned the weather so I will do so now. Eureka is probably the coldest place in the continental US at sea level -- during the summer, that is. During our stay in Eureka the temperature maxed out at 65 degrees. The highest temperature ever recorded in Eureka is only 86 degrees!

We returned to Eureka for a late lunch at the Six Rivers Brewing Company. The food and beer were tasty. Then Sherry took the wheel for the ride home. I relaxed with an Agatha Christie novel and read half the time and enjoyed the scenery half the time. One source of amusement was the thermometer in the car. When we left Eureka it was 63. As we drove inland it rose steadily; when we got gas after driving 50 miles it had risen to 70. The temperature rose even more throughout the afternoon, and maxed out at around 83 while we were in Mendocino County. This was at around six, so the temperature started dropping as the sun fell lower. By the time we stopped for a leak and to change drivers in Corte Madera, it was 74. Then there was a big drop at the bridge, and temperatures were in the low 60's in San Francisco and San Bruno, where we had dinner at Inya Lake, my favorite Burmese restaurant. The temperature briefly rose to the high 60's on 280 in the San Mateo highlands, at which point I was so eager to see home again that I stopped paying attention.

I got a little ahead of myself describing the weather. On the way back we saw ads for The Drive-Thru Tree. There's a sucker born every minute; my turn was on an August day in 1967. So we payed $3 and snuck our Subaru through a 6-foot wide hole in a redwood.

I finished the mystery novel (Murder with Mirrors) on the way back, and was pleased to have figured out the murderer and most of the motive. As we descended toward the Golden Gate Bridge we had a fanstastic view; it was twilight, which meant that the bridge and the city were lit up, but there was just enough light for us to see the mass of the city, shaded a dull blue.

Posted 10:26 AM by Floyd

Back from a rather exhausting weekend visit to Eureka. Posting will resume today and will include a description of our trip and coastal California in general, some bridge geekery, and if I really am as smart as Stephen Green thinks I am, some photos.