infernal devices and cactus wine

I'll probably be transporting a scientific device to Reno in August. To be more accurate, it really is a big prop that a local scientist built for his wife's masquerade presentation at the worldcon. He had designed it to fit inside two separate suitcases they'd have flown with them, but I suggested that my minivan would be safer than any Security Theater. Speaking of the worldcon's masquerade... I don't know if yours truly will be a body in anybody's presentation this year. ("Darn.") I heard that.

Besides that... Yesterday I spent a couple of hours under New Mexico's very hot sun to chop off cactus bits that had not made it thru the very cold winter. Some parts were still alive, but the main trunk was quite rotten at the core so I chopped them off by using the shovel as a scythe. Did you know that rotten cacti smell like wine? Not very good wine, mind you.