Sorry to all those who cared about my dropping off the face of the planet.

To cut a long and overly-complicated story short, my grandma died, my mother and father were having trouble coping with the death, the funeral and fending off the various relatives who wanted to argue about the old lady's last wishes, so I went down to lend my best shouting voice to the "respect her wishes" camp, not to mention prop up my parents and be one of the pallbearers (one of her wishes )

Now that the dust has settled and the various disgruntled not-distant-enough relatives have crawled back into their holes, I'm back again.

See you all on the boards!

My condolences. If your grandmother was anything close to the gentleman you've proven yourself to be, then I'm sure she was a wonderful woman and the world is a bit darker without her light.

Best wishes to you and your family (even the not-distant-enough ones).

Glad to see you back Procyon.

I'm with Rev on this one. My grandfather passed away just over a year ago, and we're still experiencing the emotional fallout from his death; I think most of us can understand what a difficult time is had by those who've lost a loved one. I'm very, very sorry for your loss, and though I'm incredibly pleased to see you back, I don't think anyone would be crass enough to begrudge you "down time" when/if you needed it.

Jesus, Peter. Sorry to hear about your loss. Sounds like you've had a real shit couple of weeks, but I'm glad to hear the bulk of the unpleasantness seems to be over. Glad to see you back.

You know, it sounds like more than one person has been having a hard month, so I really hope you all come up with your heads above the water from the back luck you seem to be experimenting this month =/

Best wishes Procyon and anyone else who had a crappy week.