my brother comes for a visit

My brother was in town this past week for a mining conference. We got to hang out a lot, which is why I didn't write much (that and work has been insane).

I don't think I embarrassed him except for when I showed some of his colleagues pictures of him as a 5 year old playing with a computer (back then that was a novel thing). Also, maybe I shouldn't have told the story about [redacted at my brother's request].

It was pretty cool attending the mining events in the evening. People kept coming up to me, introducing themselves "hey, I just wanted to meet Steve's sister". I wonder if they have suspected all this time that he was an extraterrestrial or a robot and wanted some verification that he did have a family. One of Steve's good friends kept introducing me as "Steve's sister, the bean pole".

I met the wife of the guy who's the head of the center where my brother works (I didn't know who she was at the time) and managed to pull off the introduction perfectly. I complimented her scarf and the way she had it tied (turns out she loves to talk about scarves) and then mentioned that Steve partially decided to go to Virginia Tech because I did. She said "thank you SO MUCH for bringing us Steve, we LOVE HIM TO DEATH!!!!"

It turns out lots of Steve's colleagues love him, especially the women (in a sisterly way, that is to say). And here I would say a shout out to all the female professors in the mining engineering department. They were all beautiful, stylish, and fun to hang out with. Two of them invited me to come visit them in Blacksburg and to stay at their houses. I also invited them to Colorado, we'll see if they come. I would mention as a side note they insert "fuck" into sentences as much as I do. If you hear a bunch of people in Blacksburg saying "are you fucking fist fucking me?", a new phrase I taught them, I'm going to take credit.

Not to brag about my brother, but I met many (over 100) of his colleagues at the conference events and...

The most common questions asked about my brother:

• "Was he always like this?" - not being sure what that meant I would just say "yes"
• "Did he at least sleep when he was a baby?" (he is infamous for sending emails 24 x 7 which he explains by saying "I have people in other times zones that I'm working with")
• "Did he always take things apart?" - answer: yes, but now when he takes things apart he can get them put back together, and they work better

Most common statement I heard: "Steve knows everything."

Please stop saying that, even if it's true.

And, my brother has groupies. People were following him all over the place in the hopes that he might be their advisor / mentor / join their committee / review their paper. It was funny.

My brother won an award at the conference but was too modest to even mention it.

I'm trying to get him and his wife to come visit me in the summer so we can do some outdoor adventures...also, maybe his wife will make me some cookies. I found out from one of the grad students that they get the "rejected" cookies that she doesn't think look nice enough to sell. I was like how do I get on that list????