Muchly Better

1) Isaac is back on Green protocol: His cold has cleared up and his lungs are clear - we're back down to preventative corticosteroids now. That was a BRUTAL couple of weeks there.

2) Bella is battling the cold now, but refuses to give in to it... she's got a duffy doze and lips so dry they're creating a red ring around her mouth, but she's still jumping around like a maniac. And insisting on Go Fish every night - 2-3 games. Last night was terrible: Despite my best efforts (asking repeatedly for cards I knew she didn't have, mostly), I still wound up winning 3 times in a row. So tonight I took a new strategy - I actually stacked the deck against me: The game has 26 letter pairs, not 13 4-tuples, so all I needed to do was put one "A" card on the bottom of the deck, and deal myself the second one from the top of the deck. That way, no matter WHAT happened in the game, there was NO way I could actually win.

And while I felt terrible about cheating, if I hadn't done this, I would have skunked her again. Please don't tell her what I did - she was SO happy to have finally won. And Bella, if you ever read this in the future, don't think ill of me for what I did.

Since I'm going out of town Friday for a week, I've been putting her to bed and having extra cuddles for the past 5 nights and counting. It has been wonderful.

3) A Kindle Note: I finished Cryptonomicon, and appreciated the book SO much more than the first time through. I credit the "Kindle Weight Loss Plan" in which several pounds of the original tome were shaved off, allowing me to savor the words without the pain of a large weight on my chest (literally).

I have begun The Quicksilver - the first (or second, if you count cryptonomicon) in Stephenson's ambitious trilogy (or quadrilogy as before). This I had previously given 200 pages before throwing it down in disgust.

As of now, I've read it for 3 nights, and a) I honestly do not remember having read this ever before, and b) I am really enjoying it. So I'm not sure exactly what to make of that. I mean, literally NO words were even vaguely familiar from my earlier reading... or "reading" as I'm tempted to refer to it.

4) The big article I was interviewed for came out today, and I was front and center on the page... I'm famous I guess! I love my press appearances. I spent the day at an all day cross-team meeting for the new company (the larger entity, not just our company), and made some good connections... and actually brought some good ideas to the process, which surprised me, because these big 150 person strategy sessions are by their very definition supposed to be completely useless... and this one WASN'T. Again, my beliefs are rocked to the core.

5) Things are gearing up for the big trade show, and one of the promotions we do is to invite key clients (or people who we WANT to be our clients) to take a free limo ride from the airport to their hotel... with the caveat that one of us VPs will be in the backseat with them - TALKING OK? JUST TALKING.

So far since I'm the new guy, I only have 5 limo rides set up on Sat and Sun... the other two have dozens... I imagine I'll have a few stories from the trade show floor... don't you think?

6) Pamela's illness was a one-day knockout and she's back on her feet... but she's gone and lost her voice today! She's so cute when she's all whispery.