Another great weekend

This weekend it was the annual family reunion up near Madison WI. The family is actually old St Paul, and we do celebrate in the winter as a gang in St Paul, but in the summertime, we cluster around the arm of the family who had the good sense to move away and pursue lakefront property. Three wonderful days of cousins, laughter, swimming, tubing, and a pontoon boat.

Last year somebody brought a water balloon slingshot, and there was a pretty major war. This year, it escalated as the older cousins had it in for one of the uncles (surprisingly not me). And there was a lot of collateral water balloon damage. A guy couldn't catch a nap on a hammock without incoming fire. It got so the napping needed to be indoors.

Isaac is old enough now that he was in full "play" mode from the moment he woke till he shut his eyes. I feel like I barely saw him except for some extended underdog sessions on the rope swing. Bella was also in with the cousins, but was also spending a lot of time on boats - Canoes with Grandma, Paddle Boats with Dad and her cousins, and a lot of time spotting on the speedboat, watching her more daring cousins bounce along on tubes.

I stayed offline for most of the weekend - and left the ipad and kindle behind too. I needed to zone out and veg, and I did. I felt perhaps a bit like a zombie, but sitting out in nature, staring at the sky, feeling my own heartbeat was really good medicine for me. I left the 3 days a very relaxed person.

We left Zinsser with a neighbor who has two other dogs: Zinsser was happy in his pack, but was even happier to see us back. After extended jumpycuddles, he promptly went upstairs and passed out on our bed, happy to be home. It was a nice time with Pamela too, though so much of our time was shared with others... plus the inflatable bed we brought was saggy baggy so we were compressed in it like taco fillings. But it was good, and I liked our wind down time on Sunday night as I readied to go.

So yes, I'm back in Cleveland, and it's a busy week. I'm staffing up for the next phase of the project and am making my way through 40 resumes for 11 positions. Plus I'm starting work on my transition plan... I really really really hope to be done soon, and am dragging my replacement forward. He WILL take over. I don't want to have to pull out the "start dropping the ball so they won't miss me" gambit, but at this point, I'm not above it either.

Of course sometimes I do have fun: In a big meeting today there was a lot of circular talk about a new workflow: Apparently even though they just spent $130m on new software, two departments didn't get the memo and are rapidly putting in two OTHER pieces of software in the hopes that their shiny new tool will be in place as precedent and we'll have to interface our stuff with theirs. So in a room with 50 people, we were all dancing around this little detail until I stood up and laid it out - Is this want you're expecting? Yes? Then let's write that down and get it in front of the sponsors. Ok. Thank you.

So does that sound bold? It really shouldn't. Yet I got several texts immediately afterward applauding my cheek... which is sort of sad because all I was doing was asking the basic questions we need to ask to get this project working... but the politics are just so crazy nobody wants to stir anything up.

Crazy people.