The regular night for my northern Virginia numismatic social group Nummis Nova turned out to be Valentine's Day this month, so to Ensure Domestic Tranquility we pushed our dinner back a week to Tuesday, February 21.

Steve Bishop was our host and he picked Coastal Flats in Fairfax Corner. They ended up seating us in a cluster of three separate booths, which we all thought inconvenient. But in the end I thought it was no worse than our usual arrangement of one long table where one can only converse with the few people in close proximity. A few of us booth-hopped as the night wore on. I thought the food was excellent, which was a plus.

I was the first to arrive but was soon joined in the lobby area by Howard Daniel and Joe Esposito. Others came soon after, including Wayne Herndon and his guest Rich Mahan. I ended up in a booth with Robert Hoppensteadt, Mike Packard and Joe Levine. We had great conversations on multiple numismatic topics.Other attendees included Julian Leidman, Tom Kays, Gene Brandenburg, Roger Burdette and Dave Schenkman.

President's Day Show-and-Tell
I didn't get to speak for long with Dave Schenkman, but as always he brought some great material to show. He writes:

More Washington, Lincoln, and All the Presidents
Later in the evening I slid over to Steve Bishop's table. I'm still agog at the number of cards in his wallet.

Joe Esposito was at that table as well.He'd brought a number of great items.

Joe writes:

As always, it was a great night of numismatic fellowship, and we're already looking forward to March, when we'll have a bonus meeting at the Whitman Expo in Baltimore, where we can meet up with some of our out of town friends.

Breakfast with Jeff Garrett
American Numismatic Association President Jeff Garrett happened to be in town for meetings at the Smithsonian, and we arranged to meet for breakfast. His Uber dropped him off at my house and after taking him around for a neighborhood tour we slipped into the nearby IHOP and grabbed a table.

After a nice breakfast we stopped in the house to see my library, E-Sylum Central. Here are a couple snaps I took when I got up early to work a bit on this issue.

I like to stay hydrated. That's a half-finished E-Sylum on the top monitor. It was a short visit, as Jeff had to get back to his hotel and soon hopped into another Uber.

Off to St. Louis
Sunday morning February 26, 2017 I got up early, walked our dog and headed to Dulles airport, where I caught an 8:30 flight to St. Louis. My luggage held my clothes but mostly a large box of books and archival material being lent to the Newman Numismatic Portal for scanning. The NNP team was holding a planning meeting Monday at Olin Library at Washington University in St. Louis.

I had an early lunch at the St. Louis airport and took a cab to the Knight Center where a hotel room was waiting for me. I set up my laptop and worked on The E-Sylum most of the afternoon, using my phone to coordinate dinner with fellow NNP team members Len Augsburger and John Kraljevich.

At 6:45pm I met Len in the lobby to review the books I'd brought.We sorted through them and he took the box to his room. By around 7:15 JK joined us and Len drove to a great local diner. I had a basic burger, a side of jambalaya and a chocolate milkshake. Not low calorie by any stretch, but it sure was good. It had been years since I'd had a shake.

At dinner we tossed around a number of ideas for how the Newman Portal could help not just the numismatic community, but the larger community of academics and amateurs who aren't numismatists, yet could find much of value in the portal if only they could be made aware of its existence.

Back at the hotel around 9pm I got to work wrapping up this issue of The E-Sylum. As always, it was fun to put togehter - I hope you're enjoying it!