Off to Boston for ASOR/SBL Annual Meeting

Early tomorrow morning, as in archaeological dig waking up early, I'm off to the American Schools of Oriental Research annual meeting in Boston, which is followed by the Society of Biblical Literature. What's especially nice about this year is that my family will be going with me. I prefer the ASOR meeting, where I get to see people I excavated with and also lived with at research centers such as the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem and the American Center of Oriental Research in Amman. This year will be the first meeting after Morag and I got elected co-VPs of program. I hope it goes well. At SBL I'm giving a paper in a session about Service Learning and Biblical Studies. Also at SBL, there will be a reception for my teacher Dick Friedman where he will be presented with a well deserved festschrift. It will be nice to get away from New Orleans and some painful struggles at Xavier regarding Freshman Studies. People will freak out, no doubt, about how big Kalypso and Gilgamesh are getting. Many of the friends we'll see have never met Gilgamesh, or knew him as an infant.