Greetings from Glen Ellyn, IL where I’m on day 3 of a 17-day stretch of vacation.

I broke slowly out of the gate to start this run of leisure.  The Southwest 737 that lost nose-gear function on arrival at LaGuardia Monday evening put a punctuation mark on a difficult couple weeks at work.  The incident forced cancellation of just enough Chicago flights Tuesday to push me over to Newark.

I arrived here Tuesday night.  The weather has been great.  Sunny, dry, cool, low humidity.

My brother has become friendly with two neighbors across the street who maintain and share a refrigerated keg of beer in a garage.  The primary custodian of the keg is a guy named Bob who grew up in the neighborhood and engaged me in a vigorous discussion of Mike Bloomberg’s legacy and the issue of how best to handle gun violence.  The beer was cold and strong.  Brewed in Michigan.  I don’t recall the name.

I joined my brother, his wife and my two nieces for a visit to the Morton Arboretum on Wednesday afternoon.  The 1700-acre property in nearby Lisle is a well-maintained shrine to trees.  The space stands in stark contrast to the clusters of strip-mall suburbia and heavy vehicular traffic that surround it.

Scooter brings his newborn son to town for a party at Guz’s Friday night and then I’m back to New York for about 48 hours to see Woods play the Ballroom before heading to the left coast to see the A’s and Blue Jays play three.

It sure beats working.