June is coming.

Are we done with winter yet? Doesn't matter. June is on my mind.

In June, I'm going to haul my aching carcass to Hanover, Maryland. Said carcass's natural disposition has always been against eastward travel, toward that coast where civilization has been entrenched a bit longer than is comfy for a lad from small town middle America like myself. But I'm doing it with a purpose, and purpose means laying out the groundwork ahead of time.

And there's a lot of groundwork to be laid.

A Scintillation of Scions VII, being held in Hanover on June 6 and 7, is providing me with my first opportunity to speak in front of Sherlockians in almost four years. (Not that I've been completely mute in the presence of any Sherlockian company in all that time. Individual encounters and small group gatherings have taken place, despite the sometimes "crazed hermit in a cave" vibe that may occasionally emanates from this blog.) And I've got twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes to lay out a case exposing a secret that I've been on the trail of for nearly my entire Sherlockian career. Twenty minutes to lay out a case built upon blocks I first started laying in September of the year 2000. Am I complaining? Do I want more time than that?

Hells no.

Twenty minutes is all one needs for a surgical strike upon the very foundations of Sherlockian scholarship. Twenty fast-paced, action-filled minutes.

But groundwork has to be laid.

June is coming. And I'm not making my way all the way to Maryland to talk about Sherlock's use of tea cozies. And so it begins.