Quiet time
Jan. 6th, 2009 09:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
connaticI'm back to work after a few weeks of mostly vacation. Since Heidi didn't have much time off (I get 5 weeks, she gets 2) I stayed at home and did very little. It was good to relax.
I spent a fair amount of time watching BBC TV series (documentaries, crime), which was fun. Thanks to BitTorrent for making a lot of content available that never makes it to the US.
It wasn't all brain-rotting activity, though. The Met has a great new exhibit, Beyond Babylon, that is very much worth seeing - culture and trade links in the Near East in the second millennium BC. The exhibit was good, but the catalog is spectacular, and the difference is sad - due to changes in US law, the amazing Syrian artifacts that the Syrian government was willing to lend to the Met had to be excluded. I don't understand the full background, but this sounds like a hiccup on the US side, and the note included with the catalog sounds like the Met is mighty pissed off.
The Morgan Library had some fun things (ancient Near East cylinder seals, book bindings, Babar sketches) and the museum of natural history is always good, so overall my time off felt well spent.
Apart from that, there was a lot of good food and drink - parties galore. My New year's resolutions include the usual "lose weight, exercise more" and as always my weight is at its top around this time of year. Mind you, with the budgetary restrictions that come from a 40% salary cut (ouch!) there will be a lot less dining out in restaurants and that ought to help.
I spent a fair amount of time watching BBC TV series (documentaries, crime), which was fun. Thanks to BitTorrent for making a lot of content available that never makes it to the US.
It wasn't all brain-rotting activity, though. The Met has a great new exhibit, Beyond Babylon, that is very much worth seeing - culture and trade links in the Near East in the second millennium BC. The exhibit was good, but the catalog is spectacular, and the difference is sad - due to changes in US law, the amazing Syrian artifacts that the Syrian government was willing to lend to the Met had to be excluded. I don't understand the full background, but this sounds like a hiccup on the US side, and the note included with the catalog sounds like the Met is mighty pissed off.
The Morgan Library had some fun things (ancient Near East cylinder seals, book bindings, Babar sketches) and the museum of natural history is always good, so overall my time off felt well spent.
Apart from that, there was a lot of good food and drink - parties galore. My New year's resolutions include the usual "lose weight, exercise more" and as always my weight is at its top around this time of year. Mind you, with the budgetary restrictions that come from a 40% salary cut (ouch!) there will be a lot less dining out in restaurants and that ought to help.
