So look and gather all you want to

The photo album was printed, successfully, and was sent express mail so that it arrived a couple of business days sooner than it might have. Interesting to me is that express mail for the ten copies we had printed --- one for each of the family units (that is, my brother, his wife, and daughter share one copy, thank you), one for each of my mother's sisters, and one for each of the college friends who are passed off as aunts --- was no more than express mail for a single book would have been.

When it arrived, my father e-mailed me to say that the package had gotten in and since my mother was around he hadn't opened it. In order to keep it from attracting attention, he had put the box ``in your hall''. I don't have a hall. I assumed he meant in my room, since there are enough boxes in there at any time that one could be added without standing out. No, it turned out, he put it in the hallway outside my room. Except there isn't much hallway outside my room, so instead it was just outside the doorway which leads to the bathroom and my room. You know, sticking out into the front hall. My father is not an expert hider.

It's not perfect. I overestimated how much space there would be in the interior of the book so some of the pictures on the interior margin are too near it. And in the rush to deadline and the last-minute amendations and changes and the quirky way iPhoto handles multiple-image layouts I accidentally cropped my brother-in-law out of a picture meant to highlight him. It's a picture of him and my father outside the restaurant where he asked my father's blessing of the marriage. As it is, my father and the restaurant are there, but my brother-in-law is only implied. Fortunately he's in enough other --- and quite good --- pictures that this will just be one of the charming quirks of the book instead of a serious flaw.

I just hope my mother likes it.

Trivia: In the last years of his life mathematical physicist Oliver Heaviside --- having turned down most honours offered him --- took to appending the initials ``W.O.R.M.'' to his name. Source: Signor Marconi's Magic Box, Gavin Weightman.

Currently Reading: The Secret History Of MI-6: 1909 - 1949, Keith Jeffery. I'm a bit nonplussed to discover that Reilly, Ace of Spies, was a real actual person. I'd assumed the name was a pulp or boys-own-adventure character given so much attention that he passed into the pop culture independent of the story origins, like Sherlock Holmes, the Lone Ranger, Winston Churchill, or The Saint.