Mad-Town

A whirlwind 2 days this time: Took a 45 minute puddle jumper flight from MSP to Madison, which has the CUTEST little airport. We headed to the hotel and then walked a block up to the Great Dane brewpub, where the 4 of us were congregating. The goal of this trip was to have a mid-quarter checkpoint on how we're doing as a company, and also to meet with our primary vendor to make sure that we are still in the green with our partnership. The 4 VPs (3 Sales, 1 Marketing) and the COO were invited, but one VP had to drop out due to a horrible horrible case of Shingles.

So the 4 of us began our checkpoint meeting with some great food and a couple of microbrews: I had an ABSURD sandwich - 1 beef patty, 1 bratwurst patty, bacon, cheese, grilled onions, and extra hot mustard on a pretzel roll. And a side of stewed cinnamon apples. Honestly I'm STILL full from that one.

We did meet through the afternoon into the early evening... a break for refreshing naps or TV time, and we re-congregated for "team building" which meant a couple of drinks at the hotel bar (where they had all of our favorites - Lagavulin for me, Effin vodka for Randy, Hendrick's Gin for Mike, and a masterful AppleTini for Shawna). Out the window we saw some long processions of uniformed people, and thought that perhaps it was a commencement of some sort... this being UW Madison's commencement weekend... But alas it was a memorial for a doctor, nurse, and pilot who perished in a medivac helicopter crash.

Then out to a Tapas bar a block away for 3 hours of nibbling... Bedtime at midnight.

In the morning, I was up by 7, got dressed, and went out for a walk around downtown Madison. I do love that downtown - it is just so beautiful, but also very compact and navigable. I found a bagel place and got a pastrami and egg bagel: They had just baked the bagel, and I watched the guy go back and do all of the cooking on a small grill - this was not a precooked egg-cake in a steam tray as SOME places deliver (I'm looking at YOU Brueggers!!!) With a fresh cranberry juice and a double espresso, it was heaven.

We headed out to the vendor's headquarters, which is literally in the middle of a cornfield: It's a testament to the singular vision of the founder, Judy: The place is filled with eclectic art sculptures. Conference rooms are named after her favorite movies. There are no cubes - 3000 employees and everyone gets an office. When they brought in lunch, it was seared ahi tuna and field greens. You can definitely see what is being bought when a hospital spends $50 million on their product (to be fair, the software cost isn't THAT high, but the total budget usually is)... and yet you can't dislike them - while it's huge and amazing, it's not ostentatious, it's not flaunting anything... it's just saying "this is who we are, and we're doing this". I applaud them.

The meeting was 4 hours of great back and forth - they told us where we're good, where we're bad. We got a preview of what they're working on... We recommitted that we're going to be a good partner, and I think that everything was very positive. One of the attendees is actually a Project Manager who I worked closely with on that crazy project (where I was working 20 hour days 2 weeks after Isaac showed up in the house), and so it was great to catch up with her. One of the other guys was a direct witness to my "we Built This City" debacle in Orlando, so we had a good giggle on that too.

We barely made the flight home, and the 45 minutes was quite uneventful... I got home, and immediately got to work on preparing for the arrival of Randy, JeMae, and Jenny: It's their 10 year anniversary this weekend, and so we had a little celebration on the back porch in 75 degree sunny beautifulness. Grilled chicken (I'm finally understanding the grill controls, and can cook chicken without turning it into a black cinder), couscous with mango, and crisp green beans. A carrot cake for the anniversary was happily devoured by the group.

Bella's big news: She woke up today and decided that she can ride her bike. And she rode it a lot in the day, and while I watched tonight, she rode up and down the block with Jenny, her confidence growing with each pedal. She even fell off, tumbling clear into the Hostas, and she wasn't discouraged... she dusted herself off and got right back on. In the day, Bella and Pamela did a lot of gardening together. As they sat together on the bathroom counter scrubbing the dirt off of their feet this afternoon, Bella told Pamela "Mom... just so you know.... you're the best mom in the entire universe".

That really made Pamela's day.

Isaac was chasing the girls up and down the sidewalk: He loves those girls more than anything. With the warm weather, neighbors who we haven't seen for up to 6 months are finally out for walks. I learned from one of them that Isaac's nickname on the block is "Mister Excitement". We've finally realized that he truly is master of the back yard - he can climb up the gym, slide down, navigate the stairs of the deck, and generally knows how to get around. All we really need to worry about is him LEAVING the yard... but inside the yard, we don't need to hover anymore. He's good.

So now the world is falling asleep - we've all been so busy, and it's time to recharge for another fun weekend!!!