Steve Sergeant sent me an e-mail last night wondering about the status of the Ho Down, whose planning I’ve been willfully neglecting for some weeks now.

Here’s the deal: If y’all want to organize a meet-up, go for it, but I’m going to have to bow out. I’ve got two solid weeks of nothing on my calendar starting a week from next Monday, and I have every intention of just kicking back for the duration. I figure I’ll end up doing a fair number of scouting missions for my Mercury News column, so that should generate some words/pics around here. With any luck no more stupendous wildfires will break out (though I have to admit the Henry Coe updates have been good for traffic here).