JimVentions

Scraps

2012-01-29T14:48:00.000-08:00

Pamela is hustling and bustling getting ready for a long scrapbooking retreat that she's going on this weekend coming up. She's got special scrapbooking cases, has ordered a ton of pictures from our iPhoto library, and has started pre-making a few things: Apparently she's gunning to be the honorary president of the scrapbooking sorority - Phi Beta Scrappa. So I'm not asking a lot of questions about the plaster of paris drying in flower pots.

That means it'll be a long weekend of solo-daddy stuff this week - which was ALMOST a problem with some travel I had planned, but fortunately I was able to move some things around, and now Pamela can go have her fun free and clear.

Work is a bit crazy right now - In addition to my own work, I have been charged with growing a special business line around my geek knowledge of business intelligence (data warehousing and analysis). Well, I've been doing a few small engagements in my "spare time" over the past year, but this year, it's feeling as though things are possibly warming up - I have two sold part time engagements and have a third in the hopper - the goal is that all three will have someone else working them longer term, but right now Feb and March are looking pretty busy - especially considering the other work I still have in Philly AND my main work in Minneapolis.

I had the Avengers over last night, and it was a wonderful lineup - a couple of old Highland Parks, a couple of Lagavulins, an Ardbeg, a Glenfarclas, and some japanese thing I can't recall the name of... all were somewhat rare bottlings, and it was a delightful lineup. We finished with a Todd Margaret marathon - watching Season 1 straight through. This is a fine "downward spiral" comedy in which at every turn, the protagonist (played by David Cross) digs himself in deeper and deeper... Great if you like Cringe Comedy.

In other media, I'm trickling my way through Homeland from Showtime - Claire Danes is fantastic as very fragile genius (?) and the manchurian candidate soldier is really well played too. That, along with Fringe ad Downton Abbey have my TV needs down (though I do fill in with an occasional episode of Community).

For books: Bella and I are 2/3 of the way through The Hobbit... and boy I just had forgotten a lot about this ripping yarn - it is VERY fun, and Bella is thrilled every night with our chapter. And in Dad reading, it took about 50 pages, but Neal Stephenson's REAMDE has finally set its hook in me, and I'm being carried along at a brisk pace. Stephenson has a way of meandering at the beginning of his books (for my taste) and I'm always looking for the "moment" the book takes off: In most of his, it takes 100 pages... I just need to be patient.

The kids are asking to go for a walk, so off I go!

Centurions and Bunnies

2012-01-22T18:52:00.000-08:00

Another Dream: For context, we have a house full of relatives, and Pamela let me sleep in this morning. This dream was a late morning, need to wake up dream:

A newly revitalized Roman Empire has conquered the United States, and the US is currently being overseen by a Centurion. As a part of being conquered, I've got a job to go around outstate Minnesota to "spread the word". I'm in a middle school building in St Cloud, and I have my "celebrate victory" stuff to put up: I'm in the main auditorium, and need to string up the "HAIL CENTURION" banner across the proscenium.

Of course, people aren't terribly happy about having been conquered, but aren't so much actively resisting as just NOT being helpful. So I'm all alone in the auditorium, and I can see annoyed staff peeking through the windows, shaking their heads.

I'm wildly unprepared for this task - I don't have a ladder (they didn't give me one), nor do I have a hammer or nails, so I'm trying to work out how to string this banner. I have scaled the ornate woodwork up about 10 feet, and have one end of the banner stuffed into my pocket. I'm checking to see if there's any way to wedge one end of the banner into a crack in the woodwork, and an realizing that the banner is actually just crappy crepe paper printed with "HAIL CENTURION" over and over - much like you might have a cheap party store "Happy Birthday" banner... Man, Centurions sure is cheap.

At this point in the dream, I realize I'm having a dream, so I need to wake up. So I wake up, grab my bathrobe, and come downstairs. Walking into the dining room, the whole family (with house guests) is sitting having breakfast and they turn to face me in unison:

They're all wearing handmade silk bunny rabbit outfits, with drawn on whiskers.

At this point, I realize I am still dreaming.... and then I REALLY woke up. I think.

Jim's Crazy Dreams - Collected

2012-01-07T17:14:00.000-08:00

For my dream connoisseurs: here are the links for my insane dream posts:

The Playpus Dream
The Batman Dream
Duran Duran Barbershop Quartet Dream
Apartment Rental Dream
Botswana Abduction Dream (Scroll to 3rd section)
Strange Biography Dream
British Prison Break Dream
Sailing the Skies Dream
And the newest: Strip Club Dream

Enjoy!

The Strip Club Dream

2012-01-06T23:07:00.000-08:00

I had this dream last night, woke up and remembered the details... and I share it with you now.

I am walking up Hennepin Ave in Minneapolis on the seedy block with the strip clubs on it - the 90's, Brass Rail, and Augies. I am walking behind a strange man who I remember from downtown in the 80's - a mentally disabled man we called Jer-Bear... who I hadn't seen for years.

He turns into Augies - it's 11 in the morning, and I'm seized with curiosity - just what the heck could be going on on a strip club at 11am? Truth be told I've never been in a strip club (true), so I was maybe a little curious about what they're like inside.

I walk in, and it's a pretty average bar, no dancers anywhere, and at the back of the bar is a maitre d' podium and a velvet rope, with two bouncer types standing there. I walk up and ask if I can see what's back there.

They ask if I've ever been there before. I say no, and they say "why don't you take a look around? You can have nine minutes for free". They hand me a large wall clock so I can keep track of the time. I walk past the rope and look to the right.

There is a large open area with a clump of sectional couch pieces. There are about 6 people stretched out on the couches, cuddled up with person sized teddy bears. They're all napping.

Immediately to the right there's a stairway down. I go down to find a big open space with about 15 circular couch setups - it's run down and a bit dirty, but well lit with high ceilings. In each of the couch areas, there's a different "thing" going on.

Right by the stairs are a group of people dressed as cats playing with large balls of string. Off to the left is a group of people laughing and playing with balls or balloons - they're batting them back and forth. I can't recall all of the other things I saw, but they're similarly innocent.

I walk a ways in, and find a group of overweight computer-guys with short sleeve oxfords and beards, and they're on their hands and knees with blissful looks on their faces. In the middle of them is a huge mess of cell phones, power adaptors, and computer cables, and they're trying to find the matches for each. I watch as one grabs a phone, finds the right adaptor, plugs it in, unplugs it, then tossed it back on the pile with a laugh.

I look at my clock and realize my 9 minutes are getting close to up, so I wander back upstairs and hand the guys the clock back.

"Did you see anything you like?"

"Yes, but I just don't have the time" is my reply.

And then I woke up.

Isaac and Pork

2011-12-31T07:49:00.000-08:00

Driving home with Isaac:
"What's for dinner Dad?"
Pork tenderloin.
"I don't like Pork."
You do like Pork. You like Bacon and Ham, it's the same thing.
"No, Pork comes from a different part of the pig, and pigs roll around in mud".
They clean the pig before...
"Before they stick the pig? Before they kill it?"
Um.. yes....
"We shouldn't do that to animals, do you understand?"
I hear you...
"But I asked do you UNDERSTAND?"
Yes, I understand.
"Dad, Pork is OFF THE MENU. FOREVER!" (with a dramatic wave of his hands)
Ok...
"Pigs.... they just need to SURVIVE".

45 minutes later, Isaac was happily munching on a big strip of bacon.

The Mode - Part 1

2011-12-28T18:54:00.000-08:00

Depeche Mode Albums and my strongest memory of each, first in a series...

First a full confession, it took me until 1983 until I started getting into synth pop at all...

Speak and Spell (their first album, 1981)
Sitting at camp in Colorado in summer 1983. A kid from LA was telling me all about "synth pop", and let me hear a tape on my walkman... side 1 was Depeche Mode Speak and Spell, side 2 was something by OMD. To my virgin ears (and the low quality tape player) it sounded too tinny and awful. It wasn't until 1985 that I truly revisited that album.

A Broken Frame (their second album, 1982):
It took until 1987 - second half of freshman year, at a party. The record was on, and I barely recognized it - I had leapfrogged over that album back in the early 1980s, since I started with Construction Time Again. I remember telling the host that it was "cool that he was into Depeche, but man this is their worst album, isn't it?" The host took it as a bit of an insult, and was right to. In the months that followed, I finally went back and listened to the album, and realized that while not perfect, it really had some great tunes.

Construction time Again (their third album, 1983):

Sitting in my living room, perhaps in 1983, listening to a documentary on public radio about the new "electronic sound" - Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk were featured. My friend Jeannine and I each vowed to buy one album from each artist - she picked Kraftwerk, I picked Depeche, and bought Construction Time Again... and truth be told I didn't actually LIKE it at first, and was very jealous at Jeaner's Kraftwerk. It wasn't until a year later that I gave it another listen.... and finally got it.

Moments in IL

2011-12-26T14:20:00.000-08:00

We're relaxing at last down in Palatine - it's been a long few days of travel and family excitement, and we're finally on a "down day". The dogs have been doing well on their visit too, adjusting well to apartment living.

Isaac and I took off for a quick runabout earlier today - all of the holiday mayhem had us both needing a break, but also stewing a bit in our juices. So we went off to Pinstripes for a little bowling action: Of course being the day after Christmas, it was PACKED. But the hostess offered up a lane for 25 minutes... which was exactly enough time for one game of speed bowling.

Isaac has been playing a fair amount of Wii: He loves Super Mario of course... but there's a little limitation: When playing one player, you can only be Mario, but if you play two player, the second player can be the other characters. Isaac has decided he only likes playing if he gets to be the Blue Mushroom guy... which is ok if I'm playing with him... but when I am busy, he has a "method" to play the blue guy that sort of disturbs me:

Basically he plays as two player, and lets Mario die over and over. It disturbs me. But then I'm probably reading too much into it. I did make a comment about it, and now he's having the blue guy carry Mario along with him.

Bella has been spending most of her time with Papa working on art: She got a book on how to draw dragons, and has been drawing drawing drawing. Her cousin Lilli gave her a crazy wolf hat that she's been wearing non-stop, and her other cousins have her a hot pink snuggie blanket. Also, Isaac gave her a pair of ladybug head hugger headphones. I just caught her hunched over a drafting table tracing dragons, listening to reggae on the headphones. It's pretty amazing.

In my traditional role as tech support, I have helped the in-laws with their technology. This trip, it involved helping them buy a new TV and Blu-Ray player, upgrading their cable internet to a faster speed model, redoing their wireless network, adding a DVR and upgrading the cable to HD... Well that was fun! Also, they got a new iPad too, and I got that hooked up too. Earning my keep!

Oh, and here are some pictures

Three Isaac Quotes

2011-12-20T20:57:00.000-08:00

Three quotes from Isaac in the past 2 weeks:

Quote 1: With Mom at Breakfast (Reprinted from Pamela's Facebook Post)
Breakfast at Perkins with Isaac before school this week.
His order came. Pancakes with whipped cream and sprinkles and a side of bacon. His "usual".
He looked down and asked "Mom, who chased down this pig?"
"What Isaac?".
"Mom, I'm serious. Who in here chased down this pig. Was it hard to catch him? Was it HER? (points to waitress) Was it hard to get it in here? Who killed it?

Quote 2: In the Car with Dad
I was driving with Isaac the other day and he announced "Dad, I know of a way to take off a penis"
WHAT?
"Actually I know of TWO WAYS to take off a penis".
Ok, what are they?
"Scissors, or a sharp knife"
ISAAC, WE WILL NEVER TALK OF THIS AGAIN.

Quote 3: in Bed
Isaac has been great about his potty training, and the one time he still wears pull-ups is at night. He has been asking about when he can stop wearing them. Our agreement is that if he goes 3 nights with a dry pull-up, he can go commando.

So when we were in bed on night 3 after 2 dry nights, he said "ok, tonight, no peeing. Keep it all in until I wake up and go to the toilet".
I replied "yes, that's right"
"Dad, I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to my penis".

And now some education

2011-12-07T16:59:00.001-08:00

From: Breay, Jim
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 2:58 PM
To: imfo@edina.ci.mn.us
Subject: Street Naming Question

Hello!

We live on Scott Terrace in Edina, and our 5 year old son was wondering if it would be possible to change the name of our street from “Scott Terrace” to “Super Mario Galaxy Street”. I told him I would ask the city whether that might be possible, and what the process would be to move forward.

For my own part, I’d suggest we change the name to “Megalodon Shark Terrace”. I think that really either one would really provide some additional “curb appeal” to the coveted 5-7 year old boy demographic.

Thank you!

Jim B-Reay

---------------------

From: Steve Kirchman
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2011 15:42:16 -0600
To: Jim Balabuszko-Reay
Subject: RE: Street Naming Question

Jim:

City ordinances contain no provisions for renaming streets. If all homeowners on Scott Terrace submit a request to have the name changed to another specific name, staff will prepare a report and recommendations to forward to City Council.

Steve Kirchman, Chief Building Official

9www.CityofEdina.com

...For Living, Learning, Raising Families & Doing Business

Another day of learning

2011-12-01T17:23:00.001-08:00

As you all probably know, I'm happiest on a project when I'm learning something new. Today I spent time learning about a new thing: Laboratory Services. This is where they send the blood and samples, and they run the tests and grow the cultures and press the slides and look through the microscopes. But here's what I didn't know:

It is a magic land of robots.

Practically every test involves spinning something, or raising or lowering the temperature, or adding a precise amount of some agent, and then spinning it again, and then adding another re-agent. Over and over. And they have built very interesting machines that do all of this for us. The human measures the sample into a tube and places it into a machine. The machine moves the tube around, spins it, then a needle attached to the end of a robot arm squirts something in there, and then the tube moves some more... And the human watches a screen and notes the numbers that are shown.

I don't know how much fun the actual people are having, but I bet would be LESS fun to be doing all of the repetitive tasks that the machines are doing. And I was hypnotized watching these machines. I was on a simple introductory tour and kept finding myself lagging behind the group because I had become transfixed by yet another robot. I was imagining manic xylophone music, too.

On the tour was a visit to the blood bank: They had a retina scanner for entry (I did try, and the prim british voice said "pull back, come forward, forward, back a little, back a little, ACCESS DENIED"). They had "plasma shakers" - things that looked like glass doored refrigerators, but that had racks and racks of milky plasma in bags, and the racks moved back and forth constantly, shaking the plasma so it wouldn't gel or something. The red blood, that just sat in fridges. But plasma is ALWAYS ON THE MOVE.

I put on a disposable lab coat and went through the virology lab: I saw a clean room where a man was inspecting samples that had been deep frozen and had a thick layer of frost over the labels. I was hopeful that no alien spores were in there... though to be fair, if they were spores, that would be the mycobiology lab, not virology. I passed several robots that were not moving and dark, with sleek glass enclosures and giant monitors next to them indicating that their DECONTAMINATION CYCLE had 3 hours remaining of the 8 required. 8 hours to clean a robot at high heat.

I had to take a call and missed the genetic testing, stem cell, and pathology lab walkthroughs, but I'll have another chance next week.

The system I'll be helping them pick is not robotic, nor does it shake anything. It's the computer system that sits behind it all, tracking the orders for who gets what test, keeps track of who belongs to what sample, and what their results are, and then forwards that info along to their medical record. The organization behind the robots.

And so it was a fun day.

The Reformed Addict...

2011-11-28T19:29:00.001-08:00

I must confess that my lack of blogging is working hand in hand with my lack of motivation on language learning and a general fallow spell on writing music as well. The past year has been one of recovery and reconnection from my extended time on the road, and I think I've been trying to do a couple of things a little better than before:

When I'm home, I try to really be home and present for the family. Isaac needs to be played with. Bella needs to be read with. But more importantly, Pamela needs to have time with me in the room (and I need to be with her too) to decompress at the end of the day. It just doesn't seem right or fair for me to disappear upstairs to be working on my Japanese pronunciation or tweaking a bass drum track.

Which isn't to say I'm not pursuing geeky pursuits - I'm reading a lot and still getting caught up on old Doctor Who episodes... but these are things I can do with some earbuds in, sitting and looking at Pamela as she does whatever she's doing (recently it's been research on the 1990s for a set of posters for a Girl Scout sleepover. These girls have no idea what Color Me Badd have in store for them).

I have been spending a fair amount of time at the Gym... but there's a good reason: Isaac LOVES the kids club at the Gym, and asks to go EVERY SINGLE DAY. I try to go every other day. Knowing that he WANTS to play for 90 minutes keeps me on my toes and encourages me to really get a good workout in - I'm running around 4 miles a session now.

Sometimes I bring Bella, but she's much more interested in reading and drawing than dodgeball. Pamela's also in the mix, coming along 3 times a week for her group fitness team... we're all working on health, here. It's good. I'm starting to recognize the crazy guy who used to teach fitness classes... and I think I may actually be in slightly better shape now than I was back then.

So that's what I've been up to: I'm just not quite in a writing state of mind. I'm spending a lot more family time, and more free time is taken up with exercise these days. I'll get there again, don't worry.

Time warp

2011-11-17T18:56:00.001-08:00

A good day in Philly, but had a very odd thing happen. I was here 2 years ago, and I had produced a set of recommendations that I have figured out they really haven't acted upon. When I got re-engaged, I was reviewing my emails, and found one status report from 11.19.09 that I had sent to my immediate boss, but that may not have reached the rest of the team. So I forwarded it along.

Today I had a full hour meeting to discuss what I had put into that email two years ago, and what we should do about it. We went point by point through the email and they explained how this one thing wasn't an issue any more, and how this point was still a problem, and what should we do?

But the strangest thing was that really for most of the document, my recommendations were still valid - they just hadn't gone and done it yet. The whole place was more or less in the SAME PLACE I left them back then.

So I'm actually now looking at the potential for getting a resource engaged with this client to actually go ahead and do the things that I specifically told them to do over 24 months ago, only this time, really make sure they DO it.

Walking out of that meeting, I ran into my old boss from the earlier time who has moved to a different area. Ken was a research librarian who had been put in charge of a cardiac center with lots of opinionated physicians. He always seemed happiest in his office with a whiteboard full of concepts about standardizing diagnosis codes or categorizing procedures - he remained a librarian at heart. Well his new job is doing JUST THAT - standardizing codes and things. And he seems happier.

And though he didn't actually do anything with my previous recommendations and that frustrated me a little, I was happy that he was doing what he wanted to be doing in life.

Fascinating stuff.

These things happen

2011-11-16T19:03:00.001-08:00

I'm back in Philly at the Children's Hospital again. I still have my full time job in Minneapolis, don't get me wrong, but there's something about Philly that keeps drawing me back. It takes me from my home, makes me miss my kids, my wife, my dogs. I should be happy in Minneapolis, but I keep getting drawn back. I have tried to figure it out... and today I got the flash:

I go there because I think they're doing good work for the world, and I think I can help them.

At one meeting today, I had my agenda, the person showed up, we talked, and within 5 minutes, we had figured out that my questions had been answered. This area will not be impacted by my project (which incidentally is to select a patient monitoring system for the pediatric cardiac cath lab - where they fix kids' hearts). I should have stopped the meeting, but the person said something about their plans for 2012, and I just sat forward in my chair: I think I can help her. I had seen that very thing attempted at my previous client and I just wanted to share some insight. We talked for another 15 minutes pinging around ideas that had nothing to do with my project, but that will hopefully help her deliver HERS more successfully.

Later in the day, we were sitting in a final meeting to determine if our company will help them select a new laboratory and pathology system: The project manager and the lab guy from my team were there - I was there for continuity only - I won't be doing the work. But halfway into the meeting, I felt myself leaning forward in my chair. I couldn't help it. I THINK I CAN HELP THEM. I raised a few questions and found myself wanting to help them solve this problem.

I think there's something about this client that really triggers some sort of endorphin reward for me. I'm not sure it's entirely healthy, but I will say the client seems to really appreciate it. Fear not, I'm not hitting the road here - I have forcibly limited my involvement to every other week, just a few days here and there. But I wanted to share this.

Related topic: In the last 2 years, I have been called upon as an expert in the following subject areas: Digital radiology image storage and review, speech recognition, inpatient electronic medical records, patient registration and billing systems, web-based personal health records, rehab documentation systems, echocardiography review systems, cath lab procedure recording and reporting, long term non-radiology medical image storage, and clinical and financial analytics. And i'm about to learn more about anatomic pathology, pathology slide scanning and retrieval, bedside barcode systems for lab specimen collection, and much more.

I think that these opportunities are amazing, and I'm grateful every day that I'm "allowed" to learn things like this, and become an "expert" as needed. I think I have some pretty unique wiring, and am lucky to have a life that indulges that. Every opportunity to learn and share gives me a boost... and that's probably why Philly is so rewarding.

I've got a meeting with a gang of Cath Lab nurses at 7:30am tomorrow, so it's off to bed.

Entertainment

2011-10-28T18:48:00.000-07:00

Bella and I have started a new book: The Princess Bride by William Goldman. This was a read-aloud book in my home growing up - the four of us would sit by the fire and read the story aloud, with great drama and flair: As we kids got older we would take turns reading a few pages too. I don't know if we did it twice or five times, but certain things just became part of our language growing up - "Inconceivable!!!" "I am not left handed either!" "As you wish!" "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to DIE!"

Right now I'm doing the reading, and it has been fun for me to act out the parts - I've got my spanish accent for Inigo, my Wally Shawn nasal voice for Vizzini, my big Andre voice for Fezzik. Now in our house, we pretty much stopped the story every time right after the Man in Black defeats Vizzini. Part of the reason I think was that even after the rescue, Westley is none too kind to Buttercup, and there's a lengthy Morgenstern interlude in there too... sort of grinds to a halt. But we powered through the other night and we're right in the middle of the Fire Swamp now.

Bella LOVES this book, and she is guffawing at the funny bits - Bella has developed a hearty laugh that I go out of my way to provoke - it just fills my heart with happiness to hear it.

In other MEDIA news: I finally got caught up on my Marvel movies: Thor and Captain America. I loved both movies - very different movies to be sure, but very enjoyable. Neither were encouraging deep deep thought, and both were refreshingly light. There wasn't a moment of either one that I would have been upset if the kids had walked in during. Not something I'd say about Dark Knight.

And that's about it for the media update! More postings as they happen.

Conversations before sleep

2011-10-28T18:36:00.001-07:00

Isaac: 98...99...100... want to know what comes after 100? One hundred and ONE! 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109... what comes after 109?
Me: One hundred TEN.
Isaac: ONE HUNDRED TEN! Then what?
Me: What comes after Ten? Eleven. So after One hundred TEN, come One Hundred ELEVEN.
Isaac: NO WAY!!!! THAT IS CRAZY! I'm going spend ALL DAY tomorrow counting. I'm going to count to ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN tomorrow. Should I start NOW?
Me: No, let's get our rest. Time to go to sleep now, Isaac.

2 minutes of silence.

Isaac: Daddy? How many babies can be in a mommy's tummy?
Me: Usually 1, sometimes 2, and very rarely 3 or more, up to 6 or 8. But that's very rare.
Isaac: It would be pretty bad for a mom to have too many babies right? You know how many would be REALLY bad for a mommy? A MILLION. They would bury her. They would reach all the way up into space, and the ones at the top would say "mommy mommy!" and then they'd die because you can't breathe in space. You can breathe on earth, though.
Me: Yes. A million would be too many for one mommy. Go to sleep now Isaac.

5 minutes of silence.

Isaac: DADDY: Want me to tell you about all the scariest types of bats there are in the world?

TIME TO GO TO SLEEP ISAAC!!!!!

Generally - Utter Madness

2011-10-14T21:24:00.000-07:00

Hola amigos, been a long time since I rapped at ya. Here's the short version - work is rewarding but not particularly hectic. Home life is good.

The evenings have been stretching longer for the past month - from longer reading sessions at night with Bella, to Isaac demanding later bedtimes, to a lot more homework coming home with Bella. By the time all is settled, I'm looking at the clock and realizing it's already TEN. What? WHAT?

Fortunately, work is very achievable right now - for the past 4 weeks I've only had one client, and that client won't pay for more than 40 hours a week, and I'm not working more than that. So it's been good. Starting next week, I add a Philly client back into the mix - I'm helping them pick a system for Cardiac Cath Lab, and there will be 5-6 trips in the next few months, but only 1-2 nights at a shot. Plus, I do love Philly.

With a little extra time on my hands, I've been trying to use up my bank of sessions with personal trainers I bought last year, but never used (thank you Cleveland). I am feeling strong these days, able to lift furniture without stress. Which will come in handy as we attempt to nuke our basement this weekend. The combination of poor potty training for both a puppy and a little boy across the past 6 months has rendered our basement approximately 50% dried pee. A few weeks back we had a scotch tasting down there, and "mildly like pee" was a prominent tasting note.

So I pulled the TV out, set up the living room for living, and we're going to yank out EVERYTHING down there, and do a s**t-canning to beat all. This is what I've been training for, people. It's going to HAPPEN.

Bella is loving her guitar lessons, and her teacher took me aside and said "this is an instrument that really speaks to her". I pulled up a fake piano on my iPad during her practice two nights back and we played a two part round of twinkle twinkle little star - it was her idea to do the round... and she just BEAMED. It made me want to move the keyboard downstairs and play duets with her every night. I might just have to do that.

We finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this week, and she was just over the moon. She loved the denouement at the end, and wanted to memorize the kids names. She thought "Scorpius" was the best name EVER.

Saturday is circus day, and Isaac is so excited about going to class... and I'm so excited about the possibility of finally going to Cecil's deli for an Attazoy afterwards - this year his class is from 10-11, and so it's perfect for post-lesson lunch. Attazoy. ATTAZOY!!! (it's a roast beef sammich on a kaiser. No biggie, people).

Isaac is finding things HILARIOUS: Pamela used the term "Ridonkulous" as an intensifier for "Ridiculous"and it had him in tears. Also, somehow I was idly threatening the kids with "sending them to Juvie (aka Juvenile Detention)" and he was unable to speak for minutes as he pondered "Juvie". Bella on the other hand wanted to know how on earth kids could do crimes requiring being sent to Juvie? Being a kid is great, and you don't need anything because parents take care of you, so why would you steal or hurt people? It was such an innocent moment. I really didn't know how to answer. I may have pointed at a dog on the sidewalk and shouted "LOOK!!!!".

I read a great book called "The Postmortal" - the concept is that the cure for aging is discovered in 2019. It follows a guy who gets the cure at age 30, checks in every 20 years, and shows how the world is and how he's getting along. I have to say that up to now, I'd always had this idea that sometime around 2050 I would upload my brain into some sort of matrix and continue to walk around either virtually or in an android body. Reading that book made me want to just make the most of the time I have and not reach out for too much more. And yes, I know it was fiction, but it made some great points. I do recommend the book highly.

And finally, I sat down and watched Thor this week, and was so happy to have a great mindless superhero movie. It just delivered and delivered and delivered. I thought that the stylistic touches were very Jack Kirby, and the man playing Thor was simply incredible. Happy media.

Ok, I'll do better about updating. This every three weeks thing is just ridonkulous.

Isaac is Five

2011-09-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

Isaac had a birthday party this afternoon at Foss Swim School, where he had 8 of his buddies and his big sister along too. They played games in the pool for 45 minutes (led by some very patient and energetic swim instructors), and then it was time for cupcakes and presents. What we saw were some of the most amazingly well behaved kids - they all are in school together and are very used to paying attention to teachers.

Isaac was also a very gracious host - after opening presents, he would say things like "what a wonderful gift" and give hugs to his friends. I was pretty darn proud, and was just astonished at how nice they all were to each other - somehow this preschool stuff is working...?

Tonight, as we got ready for bed, Isaac told me "my butt hurts, it's tired of being in clothing". After stripping down for PJs, he fled and dove into bed with an impish grin, and asked "can I just sleep like this?" I replied "Sure, if you want to."

"But you're the boss of me, you could tell me to wear pajamas if you wanted to"

Dad: "Yes, but you're really good at using the potty, and so I'm ok if you want to make this choice. But you WILL be wearing clothes to school tomorrow".

Isaac: "Well yeah, because who would want to look at my BUTT all day?" (prolonged laughter)

So he's sleeping in the buff tonight, ad he thinks it's pretty much the most grown up thing in the world. I'm just banking on this not ending with a lot of laundry to do in the AM.

In other news: Bella and I have passed the halfway mark in Harry Potter 7 (the book), and decided to reward our progress by watching Deathly Hallows Part 1... and it was just amazing. I had seen it earlier in the summer, and it was even better... and to confess, I hadn't read Book 7 for a year or more before the movie, so some of this wasn't as fresh as it could have been. But with the book fresh in mind, it was even stronger.

Of course I'm a big sissy and was crying within 5 minutes, with the scene of Hermione wiping herself out of her parents minds. Bella and Pamela both rolled their eyes. That's how I roll.

I'm pleased to report

2011-09-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

The kids made their way through Jedi today - they have now seen the full original trilogy. And they loved it. Isaac was very happy that "Dark Fader" died, but respected that he sacrificed himself. They LOVED the Ewoks - Isaac was marching around making Ewok noises all evening...

I am willing to give George a pass on the Ewoks - they were cheesy, but the kids do love them. And since the "Special Edition" did away with the YubYub song...

One thing I was a bit embarrassed about - I caught myself muttering every line the Emperor said, just as he was saying it. Isaac noticed and asked politely "Dad, can you never ever do that again?".

Isaac has a terrible cold, so I've been loading up the videos and keeping him comfortable. One thing I thought he'd like are the Clone Wars shows - they're 20 minute episodes of pure action set in the time between "Clones" and "Sith" in the Prequels. They have a lot of Light Saber Yoda action in there. What's interesting is that the exposition is about 2 sentences at the beginning of each episode, and then you're right into it.

After two shows, which he did enjoy, Isaac insisted on Episode IV A New Hope again. And he sat and just enjoyed the full "real" Star Wars experience. While blowing his nose non-stop.

Bella is doing well with her guitar lessons - she's taking it seriously, and played her practice songs for us several times today. She gets this faraway smile when she does so.

And that's the update for today.

A strange biography

2011-09-18T19:59:00.001-07:00

Ok I like to share my dreams when I can remember them. Here's one from last night - just a fragment:
I'm sorting through a stack of books, trying to decide which to keep and which to chuck. I linger on one book.

An 800 page hardcover tome with a weathered slipcover. The picture on the cover is of a man wearing a Mario style overall set - red overalls, white shirt, red baseball hat. He's reclining on a white leather sofa looking at a copy of the same book I'm reading.

Two women flank him wearing futuristic jumpsuits looking out at the viewer, one brunette, one blonde. The couch is in a stark white room, and a huge window is behind them through which you can see the curve of the earth and a wheel shaped space station. They're clearly on some sort of space cruiser.

The man in the Mario outfit is David Cross (Tobias Funke from Arrested Development). This is his autobiography and it is titled "That was some shit, it was".

Zooming back out to me holding the book, I remember thinking it was a pretty good read, but not worth keeping. I chuck it on the toss pile.

Then I woke up.

Media Update

2011-09-10T19:40:00.001-07:00

Three (or so) Media things for today:

1) Isaac has been insisting for a few days that "he is ready to watch STAR WARS", so I agreed to watch it with him today. I turned out that yes, there's a lot of guns and shooting and yes an entire planet gets blown up, but there's not much SCARY stuff in there. If anything, the "action" on Tattooine was a bit draggy for him, but once we hit the Millennium Falcon things moved at a decent clip. And he loved Darth Vader.

I do have to say that my DVDs are the "Special Edition" ones from about 10 years ago, and its really quite jarring to see all of the digital effects that Lucas had crammed into there - all of the fakey storm troopers riding lizards, the lamentable "conversation with Jabba" that makes no sense since Jabba is literally HALF the size he is in Jedi - even Bella commented "there's a bigger one of those in another movie". I am OK with the new improved "explosion rings" for Alderaan and the Death Star, but a lot of the rest of it was just painful. I am not looking forward to the further tweaks he put into the Blu-Ray releases.

Anyway, the kids loved Star Wars, and have demanded we do "The one with the SNOW" on Sunday. So we're doing that.

2) Torchwood Miracle Day ended last night, and it was just hard to gauge my feelings - I felt a bit like at the end of Falling Skies - "well that was interesting - not sure we needed 10 episodes to get there". It had a cool premise - one day humans turn immortal - just life, not healing, so people who are dead are still alive, but still suffering. And one guy who is immortal (Captain Jack) turns Mortal. But they just sort of dinked around with it and quite honestly it would have fit in a well written two episode story, or been stretched to a 5 episode series like Children of Earth was (which is still amazing - do yourself a favor and netflix that). But at 10 episodes, they just flailed around.

Let me just say that it's been very stark - I get to the end of a Torchwood, and I go "hmmm, interesting". Then I load up a Doctor Who and I'm on the edge of my seat completely enthralled (in no small part due to Matt Smith's amazing work).

I'm not sure what will happen with Torchwood - I hope if they go high-concept again that they'll do more with it than they did this time. But that's done.

3) On the recommendation of friends who know I love my Dr Who with Matt Smith, I've started watching from the 2005 beginning, with Christopher Eccelston. And I love it, and can't believe I wasn't watching this years ago! Eccelston has an impish gawkiness with great self assurance that leads very often to a very puzzled look when things aren't working out. Anyway, I'm very happy to have another 50 episodes to enjoy (just 5 more with Eccelston, then I get into the David Tennant years, and I've seen a few of his episodes and can't wait to get to know him.)

4) Alphas was renewed for next year! More David Strathairn! More "sorta-mutants"! It's all great fun.

And that's my media news, what I'm enjoying. Posts about my life will return soon enough.

Isaac quotes today

2011-09-03T13:08:00.001-07:00

When I grow up I want to jump from a giant cliff. Because I want to be a PROFESSIONAL.

(wondering why urinals are out in the open but toilets have doors)
Why do people want to see other people pee?

Blogged from my iPhone

The August Update

2011-08-31T19:56:00.000-07:00

It sure feels like the month has flown by, but in some ways it crawled. I billed fewer hours in August than at any time in the past 18 months - I took time off. I worked short days. I spent evenings lazily watching 30 Rock episodes rather than pushing powerpoint slides around. I was somewhat LAZY... but I also got back on my fitness regimen, exercising thrice weekly and making use of a simple yet demonic tool called the "TRX Suspension Trainer".

We bought cars. We re-did Bella's bedroom. We had weeks in which no room in the house could be navigated in more than two paces straight ahead, forcing weaving around piles of this, that, and oh yes the other thing. We had a dog in a cone, and fed him by hand. We had a jealous dog who we fed by hand just so he wouldn't feel left out. We had kids who were getting MORE AND MORE BORED by the entire world of summer and who can recite the Phineas and Ferb theme song in their sleep. I know who Perry the Platypus and Dr Doofenschmirtz are now.

I took a couple of short business trips and got stuck in Atlanta. I took 3 days at the lake without a laptop or iPad. Bella and I picked up Book 7 of Harry Potter again, and I got to do my Kreacher voice again. Isaac has thoroughly exhausted what can be achieved by climbing the lilac tree in the back, and has been eyeing other trees for possibilities. I have realized that I moved the play camper in such a way that if not this summer, then certainly by spring Isaac will work out that he could easily climb onto the garage roof from it.

Isaac has been having babysitting/playdates with Colin, who is a relentlessly athletic boy across the street, and the two of them play sports, and time disappears. They also play Wii, and cars. They're 6 years apart, but genuinely like each other's company.

We hit the State Fair and it was wonderful: Not too hot, first day so everything was fresh and clean and everyone was still friendly. As we walked through the barns, one girl raced up to us with a chicken and encouraged the kids to pet it. A full table of rabbits was there for the petting. As we walked past a lamb shearing, the farm family offered the kids a big handful of wool to take home. I ate a LOT of sausage, as is my divine right.

My friends Nick and Paul lost their mom to a very scary disease, and we all mourned.

August is over now, and September brings with it a bunch more business trips (Akron next week, Philly the week after, Madison the week after that)... while still working my main Minneapolis gig. Fall will be busy. The kids will be back in school - Bella will be in 3rd Grade, Isaac still in Pre-K. Synchro will be starting again, as will Circus school.

Bella will start Guitar Lessons next week too - and I will gladly sit with her to learn Kumbaya. I'm imagining her smile as she makes a successful chord.Isaac's energy will need to be channeled. Perhaps a drum set.

August was a great month.

Into Battle

2011-08-19T20:51:00.001-07:00

After a wonderful couple of days at the Lake and a productive interlude back at the main client in Minneapolis, I have spent two days deep in the clutches of the darkest monsters in the consulting world.

It started Thursday afternoon: I was headed back to Maryland for a "final" visit with the client out there: We had done work in the Feb to May timeframe, and I've been trying since then to present my findings to the board, who meet for a mere 90 minutes every month. I was bumped from the agenda in June (hours before boarding my flight out there). I was bumped from the agenda in July (the notification came while my flight was in air, so I did NOT cancel that trip - but it was great fun anyway because I got to hang out with Erik in DC).

This week, I got confirmation, then double-checked. Then triple checked. No I was not going to be bumped this time. But as I booked the travel, my spider sense was tingling… all of the direct flights were booked. I had no choice but to connect. What could possibly go wrong?

We landed in Atlanta and headed to the connecting flight, waited a little while on the tarmac, then wheeled back to the gate: BAD WEATHER somewhere in the DC area was preventing our departure. We all deplaned and hung out waiting for news. The weather lifted, but then we lost our crew due to work restrictions, so we were clear to go, but needed to wait for a replacement crew. Finally by 10pm, we had a crew and were in the air… and on the way we circled for an extra 30 min while more storms passed. I had got on in Minneapolis at noon, and landed in Baltimore at midnight.

Further frustrations ensued - a very slow possibly incompetent checkout guy at the car rental place delayed me a further 20 minutes. When I got to the hotel, the door was locked and it took me 5 minutes of banging and calling to get the clerk to wake up and come let me in. My head finally hit the pillow at 2:30 am. And the wakeup call came at 6am.

After the shower, I grabbed my electric shaver and felt it die in my hand as I finished the right side of my face. A quick trip down to the front desk secured me some shave cream and a "razor" to finish the job, and it's a miracle I didn't slit my throat accidentally.

I made it to the presentation and NO I did not get bumped. YES it went off without a hitch. I was running on pure adrenaline, making grand hand gestures and didn't even notice until after I sat down that my cuffs were unbuttoned and had been flapping wildly as I waved at the data flow diagram showing exactly where those hand washing and pressure ulcer statistics were going to be stored for future reporting in my grand vision.

I did not walk out of there with a signed statement of work, but it went very well indeed.

In the midst of all this, I spent over 90 minutes across three conversations with our client in Rochester who has decided that while he loves us and our work, and cannot deny we are delivering for him in a big way, he'd like us EVEN MORE if we were 20% less expensive. Now I have been in meetings with this guy and he is what I will call a "Drone Winner" - he will continue to circle back onto the same point over and over and over and over until the opposition throws up its hands and says "this is not worth fighting for anymore". Through this strategy he has somehow risen to the title of CIO in a major health system, and woe be unto any vendor he begins to negotiate with.

And he has decided to negotiate with me.

I have been standing as firm as I can: I am fully prepared to end this engagement and walk away from this work. But GODS this is exhausting. And not fun. I make a point, he agrees with the point, and he says "but if you were 20% less expensive…." as if that would make my point even MORE valid. And so I have been battling with this robot terminator from the future who cannot be stopped but insists on ENGAGING in the conversation…

So that's in the middle of the crazy travel. And now I'm on my way home, and I'm pleased to announce that the trip home is going WITHOUT A HITCH. Flights are on time, traffic was light, and I even caught up on some sleep. I did have a long layover in Atlanta on the way home, but I got caught up on some email and even did a little creative writing. Plus I got caught up on Alphas and Torchwood too!

Oh, and speaking of BATTLE: TNT, I hope you're not expecting me to be watching Falling Skies next summer. That was some WEAK SAUCE the way you ended that…

A long long week

2011-08-05T20:07:00.000-07:00

Monday - a big day at the Minneapolis client: We announced our choice of vendor for the major Digital Radiology system we are buying and implementing. I wrote letters to the vendors (the yes and the no), plus a bunch of vendor partners, all of whom were wondering which tool they were going to need to hook into... plus a letter to all of our radiologists to explain that if they have specific issues they want our new vendor to address, let us know now so we can put it into the contract. It was a day of writing.

Monday Night - caught a flight to Philly.

Tuesday - Drove to Jersey to my old client there who wanted a presentation on something called "Information Lifecycle Management". The trouble is that this subject has about 4 major facets - a technical weenie piece, a patient record archiving piece, a legal piece, and an IT governance piece. My presentation hit on 2.5 of these areas, but it turns out the client was more interested in the 1.5 parts I didn't hit on as much. I figured this out about 10 minutes into my 2 hour presentation, so I needed to do a LOT of improvising.

BUT it turned out well in the end: They asked me to put together a project plan to make it happen. So now I just need to whip that up and find 2 people to do the work. Easy.

Tuesday Night - met up with some of my company comrades and had a fine steak dinner, followed by watching my colleagues inhale cigars while I wondered if the smell would ever leave my skin and clothes. I seriously considered throwing away my outfit from the evening.

Wednesday - was very bedraggled in general due to the previous evening, but pulled it together for a meeting in Philly with the Children's hospital I worked at back in 2009. Turns out all of my prep-work and planning is in the same state more or less as it was when I handed it off in 2009. But they're totally finally ready to execute on it. So they want me to come back and oversee a team to put my plan into action.

Next steps are to build out a 6 month plan, find staff to do it, and propose it. Easy.

Wednesday Night - out with my full company leadership at a tapas bar. My entree had a strong taste of shrimp sauce. Shrimp shell actually. It wasn't entirely pleasant, though others had the same thing and wolfed it down. I guess I'm just not a sprimp guy. I'm ok saying that now.

Thursday - ALL DAY MEETING: What is our strategic plan for the next 5 years? How can we get there? I was actually pretty jazzed - we have a LOT going on in our company and I'm definitely in a good place right now. DEFINITELY.

Thursday Night - Went to a dinner place called Fri Sat Sun. Dinner was ok, but the dessert was amazing - puff pastry with vanilla custard, topped with berries and caramel. Mmmmmm.

We headed out as a group to see our friend Gregg's house: They're blogging their updates HERE and they are actually going to be on a DIY Network show in the fall - they had their 4th floor redone for a home improvement show. It is an amazing space, and I swear they are investing an insane amount into this. But they love it, love the house, love the west Philly neighborhood. The house is from 1881 and is just amazing.

Friday - ALL DAY MEETING: Went over our tactical plans - my Minneapolis Market plans and my Business Intelligence plans. Bascially, if we could hire 5 people in the next 2 weeks for my projects, I'd have them working for a long time. And that would be good. Our best minds are thinking on this now.

Friday Night - flew home from Philly, got home. Pamela was asleep when I walked in at 9:30. Gesso has spent the evening at my feet. Isaac woke up to pee 20 min ago, and asked for some cuddles to get back to sleep. All is good in the world.

Sure would be nice to take a break.... BUT SATURDAY IS COMING. It's my 25th High School Reunion, and I planned it. I have no idea how many people are coming... we'll be selling tickets at the door and I sure hope people show up. I do have about 40 pre-payments which doesn't really cover costs, but it'll do for a start.

My old buddy Jeannine won't be making the trip. Another person paid, but needs to back out because she was just diagnosed today with breast cancer and starts treatment on Monday, and strangely is prioritizing spending time with her family over 25 year people from the past.

It's a full day affair - a picnic in the late AM, and a party in the evening. And I'm officially NOT planning the next one - this has aged me.

So I'm REALLY looking forward to Sunday and the week ahead where yes I'll be busy, but I'll be home. And Home is GOOD.

The Comedy Stylings...

2011-07-30T06:49:00.001-07:00

Jokes from Isaac:

Why did the house go up in the rocket ship? BECAUSE IT HAD LEGS.
Why did the Pig open the door? BECAUSE IT COULD

The next joke will be the FUNNIEST EVER:
Why did the Pancake get up and move? BECAUSE IT WANTED TO JUMP UP TO THE ROOF!!!! THAT'S WHY!

I must share

2011-07-26T20:09:00.000-07:00

I need to share with you this very odd Japanese thing: THIS PERSON plays with tiny fake food and makes fake food from japanese kits. And it is absolutely captivating. I recommend the ones referring to "Re-Ment" with the sound up - the tiny click clack sounds he makes with the tiny food is strangely relaxing.

That is all.

Came down this am...

2011-07-26T05:22:00.000-07:00

Good morning! I came downstairs this AM to find Isaac quietly playing at the kitchen table: He had a 3 hole punch, a 2 foot dowel, and two pencils.

"They're SUPERHEROES, Dad! This one is Long-ey (the dowel), this one is Clamp-ey (the punch), this one is Girl Draw-ey (a pink pencil), and this one's the BAD GUY (a green pencil)."

Now he's in the basement setting up cars. It's nice to see him being creative!

Ch-ch-changes

2011-07-25T19:17:00.000-07:00

Farewell Lord Landshark - the Jaguar XJ is no longer in the driveway. After almost 8 years, it was time to say farewell to the royal beast. Things were starting to happen. A bit of trim came loose,the shocks started feeling a bit stiff, a puff of blue smoke when firing it up... it could have gone for another year or five no doubt, but not without cost.

And as time has passed I have come to realize that perhaps as a 43 year old father of two kids under 10, I may be in a "valley" of Jaguar's target market - between the young money and the kids-in-college treat. Right now I need practical. And I'd still like FUN, but not necessarily "high performance".

So say hello to the Shuttlecraft, my new white Honda Fit Sport. It's fast enough, very roomy, very cool looking inside and out, and has room to haul. Plus it has an iPod jack for my music and language lessons. It's smaller than the Mini on the outside, and bigger than the Mini on the inside. And I could have bought FOUR of them for what that XJ cost years ago.

So I'm back to practical. There were three key moments that led to this change:
1) Going up north with my bosses to assess a hospital in Hibbing - the CMIO saw my car and said "I do not see that as a jim car: There are at least 8 other cars I see as Jim cars. That one is not even on the list. I don't understand".

2) Winter: Losing a tire EVERY SINGLE WINTER to the cold and having the tire separate off the rim, usually while driving. Getting it beached in a snowbank last winter was the last straw.

3) While parked for a long weekend in my dad's driveway, he noticed an ominous stain left behind: "If you're not already having some oil troubles, you will be soon".

Now, these are negatives. But there's a huge positive in that Fit. It just makes me smile. It simultaneously reminds me of my old VW GTI, and of the longing I had in my heart for the 1984 honda civic hatchback - same one my friend Dean had. It was such a cool car, and it never seemed to be in the shop. The Fit is a lot like that car.

So out with the old, in with the new. I'm excited. I'm happy, and I'll be getting over 30mpg, suckers.

Heavenly

2011-07-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

Just got back from four delightful days near Madison seeing many cousins for a family reunion. Four days of the dogs running loose on a big farm, not able to believe how much space they get to run in. Four days of a bunch of playmates for Isaac and Bella from dawn to dusk. Four days of chillaxing with New Glarus brews by the lake, with a cool breeze blowing in. Four days with no TV, very little internet, and a surprising number of Words with Friends games. No books were read or attempted. Several naps were taken.

Poor Pamela sprained her ankle BUT GOOD the day before we left: She's been doing a "get fit" nutrition and cardio bootcamp program at Lifetime Fitness, and as it always happens, she stepped on something just a little wrong, and her ankle collapsed... and a short wait at the Orthopedic ER later, and she's got an aircast. The pain laid her up for a lot of the trip and kept her out of the water too... So I pulled double duty, helping her, and keeping an eye on the kids as they spent every possible moment in the lake. Also, I was the chauffeur, so the driving was up to me... though it's Pamela's left ankle that's hurt, so she will be able to drive the kids this week, have no fear people.

The dogs were pretty good on the trip: They're not welcome at the lake house, but the farmhouse where we sleep had plenty of room for them... they just needed to spend the hours we were at the lake in the kennel, which they found frustrating. Also, Zinsser is a bit of a neurotic animal, and was very barky. We need to work on him, Gesso was a saint because he is the perfect animal, even if he does poop where he shouldn't.

I was a LITTLE bummed about Pamela's ankle, because it would have been fun to go visit Epic, which is about a half hour from the lake, and would have been a fun afternoon diversion, but we are going to do it next time... and by that time, the campus will have doubled in size YET AGAIN, I'm sure.

And it's worth mentioning that I didn't do a single lick of work while on vacation. Oh, I took some calls and responded to an email or two, so call that a lick of work if you will... but the laptop stayed in its container, only coming out to print a recipe from Epicurious.

And that was the weekend that was. And I was right back at it today, with a drive to Rochester for a 4 hour meeting in the AM (90 min drive each way), and a full afternoon back at the Minneapolis client.

While in the halls of the Mpls client, my old boss stopped me and gave me a wide eyed look and said "Jim.... Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim. You got out at the right time, my friend. You are a lucky devil". Then he shook his head and kept walking. I guess the big Epic project is hitting some bumps in the road... I'm happy to be on my PACS project, where all I need to worry about is how, if we pick a different vendor from the one we're on right now, we will will migrate 100 terabytes of images through a pipe that can only handle 80 gig in a day (hint - it will take four years).

And that's about it for right now: The kids are asleep - Bella has just learned about Horcruxes, and I have given her a STERN warning that she is not to go about making one. Isaac is incredibly Daddy-focused right now, so as I was reading to Bella, he was screaming at the top of his lungs at Pamela about how "GIRLS ARE BORING I WANT DADDY".

I'm sure I can go back and find some Blog posts about frustrations when Bella wouldn't let me comfort her in the past... but for right now, my poor gimpy wife is just a little sad that her little boy doesn't want her hugs. This will change, as things always do. But for a lady whose ankle is killing her, she needs a little extra TLC.

Infinite Jest

2011-06-21T20:27:00.000-07:00

So I finished Infinite Jest yesterday. Finally, 980 pages plus over 350 footnotes, some of which spanned multiple pages and offered key plot points not found within the main text. It was both very satisfying and extremely frustrating. It's as though the whole book is setting the stage, bringing you into the characters, building connections, and setting up a singularly explosive situation, only to END just as a hand is striking a match to ignite the powder keg. It is all setup, and it pulls a Lucy football by just ENDING.

Now I must say that I did love a lot of it. The characters, the writing, the dialogue were all just amazing. There were some scenes in the book that will never leave my mind, which is a good thing. But I was left ultimately unsatisfied... And I know that was exactly what he wanted to do, to leave us on the edge, not knowing what would happen next.

As I wrote before, a lot of the book is about addiction, and what it brings people to. There's not a single fully functioning person in the book, and everyone is wounded in some way, and acting badly. It's a big love letter to AA, which counsels you to take it one day at a time and just be in the moment and not look ahead because. So ending abruptly is perhaps just right.

so I respect it. I respect what he did there.

but I still want to know - did Hal take the dmz that left him wrecked at the beginning of the book willingly, or did Pemulis dose him as he did others? Will the quebec separatists ever get ahold of the entertainment and unleash it on the unsuspecting north Americans? Will Maranthe actually seek out Joelle Van Dyne and try to work out the nature of the entertainment? Will Gatley recover? the presence of the crown at the end indicates he was more hurt than we realized, and maybe he won't be able to stay off of pain killers after all? Will Orin escape the glass cage with the roaches and tell the quebecois wheelchair terrorists where his father was buried?

Now that I write this, I guess these are pretty silly questions if you haven't read the book... But that's what I'm left with.

Croup and other things

2011-06-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

Poor Isaac wound up with a case of the Croup this week - the barking seal-like cough started up on Friday afternoon and were lucky enough to catch his doctor by phone before the end of the day - she prescribed a strong course of steroids for him. As we all know, steroids are just a mess for all involved. When I was on them back so many years ago for fertility, I had a run of fevered creativity (leading to my sitcom script) then many days of flat out irasciblity. I was no fun. And true to form, Isaac is no fun on these things. He is weepy, frantic, loud, and shy, all within the course of a few minutes. I've been giving him extra cuddles to compensate. And on the plus side, it did knock that croup right out of the park.

Bella and I are still enjoying our Doctor Who episodes. We got to season 5 episode 4 tonight, the one about the Weeping Angels (vicious statues that attack only when you re not looking at them - creepy and excellent for low production budgets), and it was the first time Bella confessed that it was maybe a little scary.

It was a good fathers day, even with the weepy boy (and the girl who was getting a little jealous about the attention being paid to the weepy boy). We had dinner out at Pei Wei, and we discovered that Bella likes Edamame! That will be very handy when we do ago to Japan... Just in the past months she's decided she loves smoothies and turkey too, so her diet is definitely broadening.

Yes it is a few weeks later and Infinite Jest remains unfinished - I'm a tantalizing 70 pages from the end. This will be completed. This journey will end. And I'll be done wi it and can pick up something nice and relaxing. Like James Joyces Ulysses.

Other random thoughts... The not-as-busy continues to be a good thing for work, and I find myself spending evenings relaxing and not trying to cram in work in every waking minute, I did have a business trip get canceled at the end of last week, whichi didn't mind one bit except for the fact I was going to add on a dayton visit my best man Erik in DC. But we have rescheduled for July.

OH YES one last thing. I did some music this week! Two pieces of music for my neighbor Dave for a short movie he was making for his workplace. Two groovy tracks that made me happy to product, and I felt parts of my brain awaken. What was very fun was bringing up the sequencer files and showing Bella how all of the parts were played and layered and mixed. She was pretty amazed. Weepy Isaac justwantedto know when dad was goingq to be done showing things on the computer so he could watch Scooby Doo again. I cuthim some slack.

There is one thing:

2011-06-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

For the past 18 months I've been on projects between Cleveland and Mpls that required ALWAYS ON brain: Looking at my email inbox, I have had very important things arrive at 11pm, and get resolved by 11:45pm. The intensity level has been very high, to the point where I didn't really know how high it was.

Until I started my new project: My email volume is down to 1/5 of what it was just a month ago. Emails to my sponsors, even URGENT ones, tend to be answered in hours or days, not minutes as before. I am adjusting to the fact that that last email check at 11pm will probably NOT contain a gem I need to address for 20 minutes.

I'm having a bit of a time adjusting... but I'm also really enjoying the silence.

Yes I know.

2011-06-08T19:36:00.001-07:00

I'm still here. Just haven't blogged.

Things are still going well: My move to the new project has been great - it affords me more time in the day to do all of the other things I apparently need to do... since Bidness is still BiZOOMing.

It's Bella's last week in 2nd Grade. I'm sort of in shock that time is moving this quickly.

I did see the X-Men movie during a business trip to St Louis... and I loved it.

I still have not finished Infinite Jest, and am starting to wonder if I ever will: It just keeps GOING and GOING. I'm still enjoying it, but let me just say I THINK I GET IT: ADDICTION IS REALLY REALLY BAD, even when it's written about in a wry, effacing manner.

I'll update more in the days and weeks to come, but I just wanted to end the drought! Life is GOOD! REALLY GOOD!

We do love the DS

2011-05-11T09:57:00.001-07:00

As noted before, Isaac loves the Nintendo DS - and Mario. Last night at Toys R Us, he picked out a set of Mario action figures and spent the evening making jumping sounds with them.

Today, he was looking for the DS, found it, and said "THERE IT IS! How can I ever thank myself?"

I think maybe he needs a little less DS time.

Counterbalance

2011-05-08T13:58:00.001-07:00

Ok - something amusing for you:

Isaac is obsessed with Ages and is amazed and freaked out that until Gesso reaches one year old next January, he will be ZERO YEARS OLD.

So he doesn't refer to Gesso by name. He calls him "The Zero Year Old". As in: "DAD, where's the zero year old? Can I hold the Zero year old?"

Bad Dreams

2011-05-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

I don't often let the books I read or the movies I watch filter too deeply into my subconscious: Seeing Alien twice in 1979 at the tender age of 12 (with the ticket agents at the Skyway completely not caring with Rated R means) definitely did me SOME damage back in the day - my dreams had shiny black toothy things in them for many years to come after that. But in general my books are read, mused over, and perhaps serve as some light backdrop for dreams.

Not so with Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace: It's a huge book, in which frankly not a LOT happens, but what DOES happen is drawn in such detail and over and over and over again that you can't help but allow his FULL intent be engraved somewhere in your psyche - he draws his messages lightly but repeatedly, so the remaining outline stays.

And as a result, I've had more than a few bad dreams directly attributable to this work of fiction: There's a lot of stuff in there about addiction and recovery, a lot about tennis, a lot about slowly revealed details of mildly plausible near future, but a thread running through it is a lethal videotape called "The Entertainment" which is supposedly so enthralling that it shuts off every other desire and turns people into drooling goons... and it's something that is instantly captivating, so the imagery in the book involves one person putting it on, succumbing to it, someone finding that person, and succumbing, and eventually a whole room full of people before someone kills the power.

Needless to say this very concept of something so attractive that even glimpsing it is dooming yourself is a metaphor for addictive substances of all kinds (when my friend Mark started down his path years ago, he related that that first taste of the substance was like "well, this is it, this is perfect, and this is all I ever need".) It's compelling in a way that a traditional substance abuse take wouldn't really be, since we have guards up about the dangers of alcohol and drugs already.

In fact, the book is CHOCK FULL of shocking drug anecdotes (a lot of it takes place in AA surroundings), and it's almost numbing, but the idea of "The Entertainment" has seeped pretty deep for me: I have had recurring dreams of finding my family enthralled, and then I turn my head to see what took them...

They're very unsettling dreams... and it speaks well (???) to the Author's ability to really communicate that feeling that I'm processing it with personal worry.

I'm about 2/3 through this massive tome, and I think I may need to take a little break!

Happy Mom's Day!

2011-05-08T06:15:00.000-07:00

It's an early morning - Isaac had me come to bed in the middle of the night, and we woke up before 7. Bella was out until 10 last night at her Synchro Meet (and post meet dinner), and she was up before 7 too. The puppies have been up and playing too. Everyone's up but Pamela, and she gets to rest because it's her day.

We have a fun day on tap - headed out to Pinstripes for brunch then bowling with a family who we just love but who are moving out of state in a month, so it's bittersweet, especially considering Isaac and Bella both love love love the kids in their matched ages.

Isaac's addiction to Mario goes unabated - but it's a good thing - we probably wouldn't have made it halfway through the swim meet yesterday if Isaac wasn't buried in his DS playing Super Mario 3. And boy, he's actually getting pretty good. Every single day starts with "Hey Dad, can we go to the chatterBOX?" The Chatterbox is a restaurant nearby with ok food but with Nintendo systems, so you can play Mario with your food. And Isaac thinks it is heaven. And he always stresses the third syllable - chatterBOX.

Isaac's very into discussing "big ideas" these days - If Dad is this tall at 43, imagine how tall he'll be at 100! Why can't we make a car that's Isaac-sized and let him drive it on the road? It could be Isaac sized in the front, and have a big back seat for Dad to sit in. Where would we go? chatterBOX!

Bella has been reading a lot... not 6 months ago, we read the 5 book Spiderwick Chronicles together. She's been checking out the sequel series from the library and is reading them herself. She's also reading the Boxcar Children series too... I'm seeing her curled up with a book quite often now, and it makes me happy.

As for me - work's going aok - my Mpls work is stabilizing and is lightening up appropriately, so that I can take on the work for St Louis and Maryland... Mayo has been slow to act on a proposal we sent last week, but hopefully that'll cook... and there's more in the hopper.

Plus, it's a gorgeous day - time to hit the shower!

A better night at the circus

2011-04-30T02:54:00.001-07:00

Pamela called up the circus to find out what the deal was... and they were both informative and apologetic... but it turns out that some of the information about where we could stand and more importantly, info on our free tickets, had been sent along and had wound up in Pamela's junk mail folder, unread! So part of it was us. But they acknowledged that part of it was them - their ushers and crew should have known the processes for toddler parents (because we weren't the only people confused and angry).

We had a much different night last night - and we did get seats. We stayed for 4 more acts (including the most amazing kids standing, walking, and jumping rope on top of 3 foot diameter balls.)

And I was on "go get Isaac duty" after his bit, and to bring him back up to the stands, and I will say that the ushers had a very different demeanor, and were far more positive in how they were herding the expectant parents off in the wings - it looked like a much better night for all involved.

So I just wanted to have that update out there - I beefed about Circus Juventas, but then we worked it out, and it was a much better night. So they're back on my happy list.

Busy Boy

2011-04-28T20:04:00.001-07:00

By the way, work just keeps going. Here are the projects I'm currently doing:

1) Minneapolis: Two projects - my "old" project of being the lead for the clinical teams for a big Epic install - 5 weeks into a successful golive, working on transitioning out, but still in the role. Will be done in 3 weeks.

2) Minneapolis - same client, Second project, and major PACS upgrade (digital radiology). Still in the planning stages, will be full-time (sort of) for 12 months. Just 5-10 a week for now.

3) St Louis: Reviewing their reporting architecture to assess their readiness for reporting on Accountable Care metrics. 100 hours in 8 weeks.

4) Maryland: Finalizing my findings for their reporting and data access audit and planning a one year project to implement tools to improve the consistency of their reporting. About 40 hours in 2 weeks remaining, more to come.

5) New Jersey: Reviewing proposals from 2 vendors for a full suite of Cardiology tools - assessing whether there are major gaps in the proposals and mapping against my own "what works" knowledge. 30 hours across 3 weeks.

Plus we have a proposal on the table in New Orleans for a project similar to 3)....

AND I just had a huge meeting with a major health system in Rochester MN, and may have a portfolio of projects for 2-3 people for the next year - will know more about this as it develops.

So Jim is a busy boy!

It should have been fun but...

2011-04-28T19:33:00.000-07:00

Isaac had his first show tonight at Circus Juventas, and we were all very excited. We ran out for dinner together, and got there early... Isaac was led away to backstage for the show and we eagerly awaited. The show is a 3 hour "recital" for all of the kids from toddlers at the start to highs schoolers. The show started at 7, which is actually when we like to get Isaac started for bed, so we knew we couldn't stay for anything beyond his little bit.

Now, during the dry run, we were told we, the parents, would be at one end of the stage and the kids would come over to us at the end. So when we headed that way for the show, we were stopped by the ushers and told that no, we had to wait in the lobby, we couldn't watch the kids, and they'd be brought to us afterwards. THEN, another person said we could "sneak" over to one of the side stage areas by the bleachers, but we'd have to keep back with bad sightlines and no seats. And several times during the (5 minute) set people came through hissing at us to "leave a path - people need to get through" - of course the only people who actually needed to come through were the people hissing at us.

Through this Bella started crying - she just wanted to see her brother. Unbeknownst to us, Isaac in his 45 minutes backstage was getting anxious - he thought we had LEFT him, and was getting freaked out, and when he did come out to perform, he didn't know where we were.

Ok - I'm sympathetic that 90% of the audience is parents of kids in the show - you can't have them not paying for the show. But for the kids who are 6 and up, the parents are free to drop them off and pick them up later. For the toddlers, the kids need to see their parents, and the parents need to see the kids. And it's unreasonable to ask us to buy $20 tickets for the 5 minute toddler parade.

I think it would have made a lot more sense to have a little roped off area for the parents of the toddlers and kinders, let us just beam with pride and lead the kids to us at the end - it would have been an "awwww cute" moment.

As it is the whole thing left us feeling sort of shabby - like we had to sneak in to see Isaac perform. We should have been sneaking cigarettes too. Knowing this is the scoop for next year too doesn't really fill me with excitement.

Gesso!

2011-04-24T19:22:00.000-07:00

Yep we got another dog... little Gesso is a Schnoodle from the same breeder as Zinsser, but different parentage. He's strawberry blonde, and just over 12 weeks old - a good month older than when we got Zinsser and boy it shows. Gesso is lot easier than an 8 week puppy for sure - he's already holding his pee and poo for hours and is pretty good about going outside - just a day into it.

Gesso is totally daddy's dog. Wherever I am, he wants to be, and he's in my lap at least as much as Zinsser is in Pamela's lap. I took a nap today and he was curled up on my chest for most of it, and I woke up with him laying across my neck. As with Zinsser, I have NO allergies to this creature.

So how did this come about? Well, it all happened this past week. A combination of elements combined to help me feel somewhat at ease about life: I got put onto a new project at the big client (lower stress), I got kudos from another client, I got a healthy tax refund... and I "accidentally" surfed to the website of Shelbo Schnoodles, where this little face stared out at me.

We'd always intended for two dogs, really, but number two was planned maybe to be a standard poodle. But truth be told, I like Zinsser's size, and I like the temperment of the Schnoodle, So when I saw this little blondie looking out at me, I said "I WANT HIM". I did clear this with Pamela, and contacted the breeder, and we made it all happen on Saturday afternoon.

The kids had no idea. We brought up a picture from the website during lunch on Saturday, they said "awwwww" and Pamela said "well let's go get him then!!!" Bella was sort of in a smiling, shocked silence, while Isaac was dancing and yelling around the house. We drove the 45 min to Isanti, got the dog, and life has been great.

Zinsser was definitely aloof for the first day. But by tonight they're fully playing with eachother - Zinsser does the respectful "play bow" and brings toys to Gesso. They play Tug of War, but Zinsser attenuates his tugs so it's not hard on Gesso. Gesso is now playing tag with Zinnie. They are having a lot of fun.

So why "Gesso?" Zinsser is a brand of wall primer. Gesso is what painters use to prime their canvases. So they're both primers. Getting arty with it, they're "foundations" on which we can paint our lives. Also, it's fun to say "Jess-Oh" in a "GOOD BOY" voice.

A final note: Tonight at dinner, Bella sat back with a smile and said "You know I remember going to go get Gesso like it was Yesterday!". Pause for laughter. That girl is a HAM.

In case you were wondering:

2011-04-14T17:56:00.000-07:00

1) I was able to recover from Disney ok - I really did have a rough two days back, but have re-adjusted to the non-magical world.

2) Happily, the golive that I had abandoned to go to Disney actually went really well. There were problem areas, but they were the same ones I knew about when I left, and 3 weeks in, they're stabilizing. I actually was able to take last weekend off, so things aren't too bad.

I did have one of my team leads quit on me just this week, but I seriously think she was slightly insane. It is for the better, this.

3) Strange coincidence: I was reading a book on lessons healthcare can take from the airline industry ("Why Hospitals should Fly" - great subject, but very clunky prose). A key turning point in the aviation industry was in 1977, on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, when two 747s collided due to bad communication and top-down leadership style (the engineer was afraid to correct the pilot). I'd never heard about this disaster, nor the island of Tenerife.

Later that evening, I was listening to a spanish learning podcast - Coffee Break Spanish. I was a big fan a couple of years ago, and downloaded their latest for this trip. I pop the headphones on and it's a dialogue about the language and culture of... Tenerife.

I got double Tenerifed in one day.

4) Business is BOOMING: Right now I technically have two jobs at my main client (and need to pick between them). I'm in Maryland on a third one (close to finishing up), just sold work in St Louis, and am close to a deal in New Orleans. Now I need to clone myself or find some very smart people like me. NOT ALWAYS EASY. I'll make it through this group of gigs with a protege brought in, but I'll need more more more help.

It's a good position to be in, however. As long as I can keep all of the plates spinning!

5) I just want to have out there that I have lust in my heart for Chik-fil-A. I had some for dinner 4 hours ago and I am still nowhere near hungry. That stuff fills you to the edges.

Safe at Home

2011-04-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

After the rainout of Thursday, we were looking for some sun on Friday, and we got it - it was a temperate, sunny day, perfect for a revisit to the Magic Kingdom. We got there bright and early, and hit all of our favorite rides again: Papa and I knocked our backs out of joint on Space Mountain, then got all spinny on the rockets ride... so we eased up on the thrills and kept it to the lovable rides - Small World didn't disappoint on the revisit.

By late morning, the word had got out to all of the world that it was a GREAT DAY to be at the park, and a sea of humanity descended onto the Magic Kingdom. Soon, even "gimme" rides like the Teacups were posting 20 minute waits, and Peter Pan hit 60 minute wait by 11am. We got Fast Passes for the Jungle Cruise, which is typically not that hard to get on, but when we finally arrived, we found that the "civilians" without Fast Passes were waiting 70 minutes. We sped through in 10.

The Jungle Cruise was interesting because there was a "never event" which clearly rattled the boat driver - the elephants who playfully spray water just in front of the boat had their timing off (or the driver did), and we were blasted with firehose-strength water. I looked it up, this just doesn't HAPPEN on the ride. The driver was really apologetic, and dropped his Bob Hope cornball routine for a bit, wanting to make sure we were actually ok.

(Later in the evening, as I put Isaac to bed, he spent some time crying about the elephants - WHY DID THEY SPRAY US? I DID NOT WANT THAT!!!)

Our brainstorm for our last day at Disney was to acknowledge the fact that Bella had blisters on her feet, and Isaac by the end of each day was insisting on a grownup to carry him, so we got a big double stroller for the kids, and they were very happy. The strollers have a window for a big nametag, so we named ours "Duran Duran (Rockstar)". After every ride, we'd call out to eachother "Where did we leave Duran Duran? We'd better go get them".

We bailed by 3pm, having ridden the train around the perimeter of the park again, and also the TomorrowLand People Mover. Everyone was pretty beat so we zoned out for 2 hours with some shows and naps (and the Giraffes and Zebras came over to give us a show on the porch too). Then it was down to dinner at the "fancy" restaurant at Jambo House - Jiko. The food was AMAZING - everything was incredible - as good as I remember some dinners at Table of Contents back in the day, if that's any indication. Simply amazing, and the waiter was great with the kids too...

A huge surprise - Dave and Kristine (who bought our old house and live on our block) and their kids decided to cut short a road trip to Colonial Williamsburg and hit Disney, and they surprised us at our table (I helped plan it, from text messages earlier in the afternoon). The kids ran off for some serious playtime, and we got to hang out with D&K and swap tales of Disney. It was very spontaneous and fun.

Isaac had a VERY hard time going to sleep, and as noted above, had worries about the elephants, but also tearful protestations that he wants to stay at Disney FOREVER, and have somebody send down his toys and Zinsser and we can just LIVE THERE. WHY CAN'T WE LIVE HERE? It took an unheard of 45 minutes to get him wound down.

Today we got a late start, had a big breakfast, and made our way to the airport. We had plenty of time... assuming of course that I had noticed that our flight time had changed. As I checked in, the kiosk said I was too late to check luggage, and I discovered our flight had moved UP 2 hours, so far from being early for our flight, it was leaving RIGHT NOW.

I almost had a full on panic attack. I'm sure they must have sent me a message on this at some point, but I've been so swamped with work I must not have processed it properly. Long story short, being Platinum does have privileges, and we got on the next flight, though we lost our First Class seats, and Pamela "had" to sit by herself in an exit row while I sat with the kids. Hey wait, I think that actually worked out ok for Pamela.

By the time we finally got home, we had maybe one nerve left between us, and we were about to fray that one too, but Grampette was to the rescue, with Zinsser at the door ready to greet us. We forgot our stress and got ready for bed. Well, most of us did. I read Bella a long awaited chapter of Harry Potter (which she was asleep by the end of - I'll be doing some refreshing tomorrow night). Not a peep from Isaac, and Pamela has been out for 90 minutes already. So what am I doing up? Well, I hadn't seen last week's big Fringe cliffhanger, so I had to get caught up. But I think I'm ready for bed now.

RAIN.

2011-03-31T17:30:00.000-07:00

One thing from yesterday I forgot to mention: We went to the Pirates area, and there was a Captain Jack Sparrow "How to be a Pirate' show... and Bella got called onto the stage to learn how to swordfight... WITH CAPTAIN JACK! Isaac was furiously jealous, but he got to join up on stage later when all the kids were invited to join his crew and take the pirate oath.

I didn't read the fine print on this, but I think they are actually legally Jack Sparrow's children now.

Now: Today.

RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN. From the time we woke up to the time we're drifting off tonight, it switched between hard rain, really hard rain, torrential rain, monsoon-type rain, and oh man am I tired of this rain. We had severe cabin fever, and were sort of crossing our fingers hoping for a clear-up by the late afternoon so we could go scamper around Epcot again, but no, it's still raining.

There were movies (Swiss Family Robinson), some Wii in the lounge, lots of snacks, some games (new Angry Birds:Rio, and some Mario on the DS), reading, and chatting.

Out of nowhere, we came back to our room to find roses and a beautiful beaded giraffe, and a note from the staff hoping we are having a magical stay. MAN does Disney know how to treat a family right.

Tomorrow we're revisiting the Magic Kingdom, to see a few of the things we missed... and the weather report is for blue skies.

Two good days

2011-03-30T17:44:00.000-07:00

After the rain-fest at Epcot on Monday, we were in the mood for a little break, so Tuesday was a "no park day" - we had a big breakfast at the buffet in the hotel, and wandered over to the sister resort - Kidani. Both Jambo and Kidani share a view of the wild animal plain, but they seem to have different "regulars" - Kidani had some great Vultures sunning themselves, along with a couple of ostriches.

Jambo is a grand hotel, but Kidani is more suites-driven, with a smaller lobby, fewer rooms, and a cozy atmosphere. But they have a different pool area, and that's where we spent over 4 hours - a pool with a pretty fun waterslide and a "splash park" - zero depth with lots of fountains and misters. Jenny came to join us for a couple of hours too. The kids swam and swam, and got a little crispy in the sun.

The weather held nicely for us - it would have been a good park day, but we needed the rest.

We hopped into the car for dinner at the Wilderness Lodge, the Whispering Canyon restaurant. There was very little whispering going on, but lots of fun. Loud boisterous waiters, hobby horse races, and if you needed some ketchup, well, you needed to holler our for it, and chances were you'd wind up with a dozen bottles for your effort. The food was FANTASTIC as well - some of the best we have had on the trip.

A wander around the grounds of the Wilderness Lodge was good - it's a beautiful property, but all told, it does the north woods feel a bit TOO well - we thought we probably wouldn't want to go there for vacation since, well, we get that sort of think up at Ruttgers, so why do it here?

Today was an EARLY day - Up by 6, at the Magic Kingdom by 8, and on the Dumbo Ride by 8:10. In rapid succession we hit all of the Fantasyland greats - Peter Pan, Dumbo, Merry Go Round, Small World... No wait on any of it It was my first trip to Small World since, well, since it cost an A-Ticket to ride. And I loved it - it's WAY more charming than I remember it - and I'm sure they've updated it with certain PC tweaks, but it still feels like a wonderful call back to when you could point at a mountain and a doll in Lederhosen and say "That's SWITZERLAND!!!" The world doesn't feel quite as identifiable any more does it? Maybe it never really was, but I loved remembering those touchpoints.

On a whim we hit the Haunted Mansion - Isaac loved it, Bella hated it, even though we tried to prep her that it was "All Scooby Doo style ghosts - nothing real". Isaac was a real thrill seeker in general - he insisted on the Race Cars (he also insisted on steering, which led to many many jarring "bumps" as the car corrected itself on to the guide rail). AND he insisted on the Ripsaw Roller Coaster, which he laughed manaicallly during - he wanted to go on it again and again.

We pretty much hit everything we wanted to hit with no waits (again, thank you Tour Guide Mike), and laughed as we saw the Dumbo Ride with 50 minute waits by the end of our day. We're planning on revisiting the Magic Kingdom on Friday and hitting TomorrowLand with everything we got.

We left by 2, had some chill time at the hotel, and then started back to the Magic Kingdom for dinner, just in time for a short squll to pass through, throwing lightning around and forcing us down to 20 mph on the highway while sheets of water poured across our windshield ("A nice way to get the car clean" said Isaac). The rain cleared up just as we pulled up the The Contemporary Resort.

The Contemporary is the hotel that has the Monorail going right through it, which I thought was AWESOME. But inside, it really doesn't do modern much more than your average Courtyard by Marriott... it was just sort of blah. I wish it had a retro-sixties futurism happening, but it was more just, retro 80's Hyatt Regency sort of feel, which was not terribly awesome.

We did have a buffet dinner, and we had all of the characters drop by - Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Pluto, and Goofy. Isaac was out of his mind jumping around and hugging them all... but he did ask "why don't they talk?". Then Isaac and Bella did a 5 minute spontaneous dance which I will call the "cupcake sugar rush dance" - but it got quite the audience.

As we left, Pamela was beckoned to the table next to ours - they wanted to know if Joe and I were by any chance TV stars, because they could SWEAR they'd seen us somewhere before. I think that we just live a little big, maybe we give off that "comfortable in the spotlight" vibe. Because I'm pretty sure nobody saw that TV Pilot we made back in the late 1990s ("Papa and the Jimmy").

Tomorrow will be a lighter day - if the weather holds, we may revisit Epcot to see what we missed and spend a little more time in the international areas. But no big plans. At the very least, we're sleeping in for a while.

Almost unbelievable

2011-03-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, our new system went live. On Friday, we hopped on an airplane to head down tot sunny Florida for a week at Disney World. First, about the work: I'm in shock, but things seem to be going well - there were some issues in areas that we had already known might cause us some trouble... and the fact that there were no OTHER major issues meant we were able to focus our resources on those trouble spots. I've been checking my work email no more than once a day, just to see if something huge has emerged, but no, it seems to be going ok. SO I'm just fine with being here.

The flight down was good - on time and relatively smooth... but the last 10 minutes had us hitting some pretty major bumps... and poor Isaac wound up puking all over the place as we taxi'ed to the gate. Of course I wasn't quick enough with a bag, and it wound up EVERYWHERE. Fortunately the door opened shortly and people were able to flee. The flight attendants were very pleasant - apparently Isaac wasn't the only kid to have lost his cookies on the flight, either.

The downside is that Isaac has been announcing that "i think I'm going to frow up" at every opportunity. It figures - he didn't really see why he puked before, so it's a potential for every minute now.

So Friday we checked in to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, an African-themed hotel with a gorgeous atrium and wild animals wandering around right outside our windows. There are 4 giraffes, a pair of zebras, and many ox-goat-bull style animals. Some with absurdly large horns. The room isn't big, but the view is great. Nothing like having morning coffee watching a giraffe nibble on some leaves 100 feet away.

On Saturday we did the Animal Kingdom park. Here's where Pamela's obsessive planning came into play - We did all the rides we wanted to do, with no waiting at all. She got us hooked up with Tour Guide Mike, which is a "Disney Insider" website. She set up an itinerary that was based on going "contrary" to the typical flow of guests at the park, and strategic collection of "fast passes" which let you jump to the front of the line (but need to be planned out). For most of the day, we were like Salmon spawning, flying against the crowds. We started with a character breakfast at Tusker House, where our not-very-African bacon and waffles were complimented with visits from Donald, Daisy, Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy, all in safari gear. The kids were thrilled.

We passed out early after that day, but not before running into Rick and Kari, parents of Bailey and Ty, who were at the tail end of their weeklong trip. We retired to the pool for drinks while the kids swam (mostly with Rick) - Bella discovered the water slide at the end of the pool and went down it thirty times. She counted.

Sunday was a chillaxing by the pool day - the kids were tired, we were tired, and we spent many hours at the pool, Randy, JeMae, and Jenny came by after THEIR day at Animal Kingdom, and there was another swim-fest into the evening. We had dinner at the big buffet in the hotel, which has African-themed foods (which to my tastes means "sort of BBQ, but with a great red harissa sauce you can put on everything"). The food was great.

Monday was our day for Epcot, and it was a RAINY RAINY DAY. It started drizzling, but by the time we finished our first ride on "Soarin'" (the imax flying ride), the lightning was flashing and there was a half inch of standing water everywhere. We stuck to plan and got to do the indoor rides we wanted to do, but by 11:30, we were getting hungry - we ducked into the british pub in the "international" part of Epcot and had a leisurely pub lunch... while the rain thundered down. "A Beautiful British Summer's Day" as Papa said a few times. More than a few times.

Since we were in the international area (which has exhibits from Canada, Great Britain, Morocco, Germany, Italy, USA, China, Japan, France, and I'm sure I'm forgetting one), we decided to fill out a "passport" for Bella - where you go to each country, find the "kidcot" station and get a stamp and talk to a native speaker.

It was actually very fun, though by the end of it we were thoroughly soaked. Highlights included Japan, which had an amazing gift shop, and Great Britain, where we ran into Tigger AND Mary Poppins! Mary was very nice to Bella, and Isaac did some jumping with Tigger.

Soaked to the bone we made our way back to the hotel, and we're taking another day off Tuesday - we all need the break. I wound up carrying Isaac for most of yesterday and my shoulders and arms are all a-twitch from exhaustion. I'm sitting in the grand lobby using my phone's connection, since Disney has taken the admirably retro approach of not only NOT having any Wifi, but also charging $10/day for a cabled connection.

It is forcing me to think twice about checking emails... so I'm really only checking in once a day with work, and am offline a lot.

And I needed some serious offline time. I'm very happy to be relaxing.

NEXT UP: We're doing the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday, and we hope the weather agrees with us!

In case you're wondering

2011-03-24T20:49:00.000-07:00

The golive went very well. The 36 hours of conversion pre-live were successful, and as of this writing, we've been up and fully live for over 18 hours, with no major incidents to speak of (knock wood). I leave on my vacation knowing I brought them right up to a good golive. Now it's just watching and fixing, which the team can definitely do.

And I'm going to Disneyworld!

Countdown!

2011-03-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

1) Yesterday Isaac was dancing around the kitchen, with Spiderman in one hand and Electro in the other (small plastic dolls), singing "Chicka Wow Wow!.. That's what my baby say,.... Chicka Wow wow... That's what my baby say". I have no comment.

2) I'm terribly thrilled about a product for the iPad: The Fairlight CMI. Back in the 1980s, the Fairlight was between $30-60,000. It was big and white and had a video screen with green text and you used a LIGHT PEN to program it. Duran Duran had one, as did Thomas Dolby, and so many others. I have written about my Fairlight Lust many times in the past.

Well, the co-inventor of the Fairlight, Peter Vogel, went and made a version of it for the iphone and ipad. It has the same sounds, it works in a lot of the same ways, and you program it in the same way. It is in every way that matters, a full on Fairlight. And it runs in an iPad. What's even more fun is that when you load sounds or select programs, it plays the sounds of the clicky keyboard and clunky disk drive. It's a bit gimmicky, but perfect for me. So I've been playing with it a bit, loading up the breathy ahhh sound and playing "Ghost in You" by Psych Furs, and "Shout" by Tears for Fears.

3) We're going live this week... and I really do think we're ready. My team is at the hospital now preparing for chart conversions that start at midnight. To kill time before gotime, I've declared a Haiku competition.

4) I had a good work weekend for my Maryland stuff too - I heard back that they were very happy with the info I delivered. That made me happy. I do like doing good work.

5) Friday is when we take off for vacation and I am INCREDiBLY READY for this.

Sail the Skies

2011-03-20T07:19:00.000-07:00

Another Dream, transcribed for your consideration and enjoyment:

Started in a communal loft space where me and my friends are all staying - we're wrapping up a visit to Tokyo, and preparing to head to the airport. I'm setting my facebook status, and linger for a moment on my Facebook picture: It's a small animation that I recognize as a student movie I had done in college - short movies of my friends eyeballs, shot in grainy black and white. As I'm reviewing the movie, I try to remember which eyeballs were for which friends. The last one before it loops is of a guy with pretty bugged out eyes, shifty, and I remember "I don't recall his name, but boy was he a jerk".

Facebook status updated, it's time to head to the airport. I'm running late so I commandeer one of those airport carts. For some reason, the airport has been done up using a fake beach theme, with big plastic palm trees, and huge dunes of sand, making "islands" on the blue concourse carpeting.

Naturally, I swerve the golf cart into one of the beaches and get stuck on the sand, so I jump out and hightail it for the gate.

The airline I'm using has a "nautical theme" - "Sail the Skies". The upshot of this is that instead of having a regular jetway to the airplane, the airplane is sitting out on a blue painted circle on the tarmac (the "sea"), and they ferry me out to the plane on a "boat launch" (which is basically a rowboat on the end of a forklift). I'm sitting on the prow of the boat, as I'm ferried out to the airplane, and clamber out into the open airplane door (without a stairway). The stewardess has a sailor outfit on.

I settle into my seat and look at my flight itinerary: Looks like this isn't a direct flight, but a one-stop. Hmmm... This flight goes direct to DALLAS Texas, at which point they're transferring me to a BUS to drive to Minneapolis. I have two options - either one of those tall shuttles they use for rental car transfers, or a long Ford Econoline van.

As I'm reviewing the options, I'm disappointed: It's 20 hours in a van, and EITHER option is not that big of a vehicle. "Oh man, that's a long time, and I don't want to have to talk to the driver that whole time"

And that's when I woke up.

That's odd

2011-03-11T14:48:00.002-08:00

I'm back in Maryland - a 24 hour trip to meet with the project sponsors and give a status update. Given all of the things happening in JimmyVille these days, I was perhaps a bit ill-prepared for this meeting, so I pulled some late nights across the week, worked on the plane, drove the hour from Baltimore to Frederick, got in after midnight, and worked in the room until the wee hours, got up early to finish, and met with them at 10am.

Fortunately, I actually pulled it together, and we had a very good 4 hours of meetings.

I hopped back in the car for the hour drive back to the airport, got through security with PLENTY of time to spare, found a seat, and actually fell asleep in the chair for 45min. Flat out, snoring, drooling (i assume from the dry corners of my mouth). I woke up, found I still had all my stuff and celebrated with a Potbelly sandwich. I'll be actually BOARDING in another hour - it was better to get here early and beat the traffic.

Now I'm squatting behind an unused gate agent desk, since the Thurgood Marshall Airport has about 7 power outlets spread across 14 gates, and all of us power vampires are hovering around waiting for someone to finish charging... I'm here for another 5 min to top it all up, and then I'm giving up the spot to one of the three guys who are watching me type this.

Looking forward to the weekend, I am. LOOKING FORWARD.

Another Evening

2011-03-08T20:36:00.000-08:00

1) Bella and I finished Harry Potter 4 - The Goblet of Fire. This is the "pivot" book where things start getting pretty dark in the series, and I was a little worried about whether Bella would track it all... but heck, she was right there with me, and I loved revisiting it. I must confess that the full three chapters before the last one were very full of "monologuing" - first Voldemort, then Moody/Crouch, then Dumbledore - everybody was giving these very story-heavy speeches that explained all the strange happenings in the book in detail. On one hand, I sort of resent the spoonfeed method, but on the other hand, Rowling was really trying to make sure everyone (kids kids kids) understood all of the things that were happening. And Bella got it.

2) Isaac and I had our Tuesday MAN DATE, since Pamela and Bella were at Synchro. We went to Edinborough Park again, and he was WORKING me hard - we had a game of tag around the gym that had us running top speed for 6 laps, before we both collapsed. After a while of this, I told Isaac to "go find some kids and just PLAY will you?" I turned to my iPhone for a minute and when I looked up I saw Isaac standing with ANOTHER DAD, playimng bounce-catch with a basketball.

Basically since his dad crapped out, he found another dad and just started playing. The other dad had his eye on his own kid (WHO WAS PLAYING WITH OTHER KIDS), and indulging Isaac pretty well, but I had to get up and get engaged again - don't want to look TOO much like a deadbeat.

3) Tonight Isaac said he was sad that there were no real superheroes "In This World". In This World is his way of saying the real world vs pretend, but what I love about the turn of phrase is that it really doesn't deprecate the other world: It's equivalent, just not this one. Scooby Doo lives, but not in this world.

Anyway, I asked if he wanted to be a superhero, and he said no, not really. He just wished there WERE real superheroes, and he'd want to have their costumes to dress up in. He doesn't like that he can dress as spiderman and batman, but that they're not in THIS world. He thinks it would be much better to dress as a "REAL" superhero.

4) Ok, I'm over my snit about the Washburn Reunion. The popular people and I are now reconciled, and I'm helping plan this with them. Actually the committee is three people, a popular girl, a burnout who got expelled, and me, the arty nerd. It's like some sort of unholy trinity, and it's actually an excellent metaphor for how the walls and the labels disappear as the years go on. I'm very happy about it now.

And that's it!

Not the Midas Touch

2011-03-05T18:49:00.000-08:00

For some reason, as has been documented many times in this journal, I have something of a black thumb when it comes to technology. You’ve seen me writing about laptops with dead batteries and cracked hinges, about hard drive crashes and fried motherboards, about smashed screens on Kindles, about home phones that lose their battery charge in a matter of minutes.

There’s just something about me and my own personal electromagnetic field that is somehow perilous to tech. It’s not ALL bad: I have become VERY good at making sure everything is backed up. And it does keep me on an aggressive upgrade path as well. And it’s not EVERYTHING: I have pretty good cellphone mojo, and my home TV/DVD/Cable/Internet setup seems pretty solid (knock on wood).

But in this past week, I’ve had two more outages: My Macbook Air has been one of the more troubled units – first it was a dead battery. Then it was a broken screen hinge, then I had to have it tuned up because the screen hinge fix came loose, and now it’s in the shop for another dead battery AND the screen hinge has come loose yet again, AND it has a roaring fan. And they took it from me just before some business travel.

I sat and thought: How will I make it through a week or more without my laptop? I have no spare. The work laptop from my current client is locked down very tightly and I can’t use it for anything not on their network (I don’t even take it home anymore – there’s no point). I needed something.

So I’m typing this on a new Macbook Air – the smaller 11” one. I admit to having lust in my heart for this thing since I first saw it months ago. Looking back on my history, I’ve had several very small laptops, and I’ve always loved them – my little Sonys of the early 2000s come to mind. I love having a tiny computer. Pamela, on the other hand, does not love my little computers. She is not as in denial as I am about our age and the eyesight, and she wants big keys and big letters on that screen. We agree to disagree in this realm.

But I sort of resent that my hand was forced on it. The resentment isn’t too bad, because dang it this is an AMAZING laptop. And when the old one comes back from the shop, I’ll work out what to do with it – maybe Pamela will want it, maybe we’ll sell it.

FAR more galling is the fact that my THIRD Kindle has died: Kindle 1 was the small one, and it got a cracked screen. Kindle 2 was the larger DX, which died due to a design flaw – the hooks that hold the cover on can get bent if you open it wrong, prying the case of the kindle apart… which happened. So they sent me another Kindle and another case, and within a month, the case started cracking the side AGAIN, so I took it out and have been using it bareback.

And the other night I took it out of my briefcase (in a pocket without anything else in it), to find the screen completely fritzed out – it looks like a pressure crack, but might “just” be a bad motherboard. Whatever it is, it is dead.

I must now give Amazon some amazing credit here: I called to ask about it, and they said “well, you’re just out of warranty, and it doesn’t sound like you were abusing the unit, so I’m just going to send you another one.” That was at 6pm Friday. At 8:30am Saturday, there was a new Kindle on my porch. WOW.

So now I can get back to work on Infinite Jest. What a crazy book.

Working Stiff

2011-03-05T18:48:00.000-08:00

We are at a few weeks from golive at the Minneapolis client, and that means one thing. We are at a few weeks from our trip to Disney! My team keeps forgetting that I’m there to take them right up to the edge, but not across the finish line, and it’s a little odd to keep reminding them… but on the other hand, it’s forcing me to be smart about allocating responsibilities across the team: If I was going to be here, there are any number of tasks that I would have been tempted to say “I’ll just take that”, when in fact it would make better sense to farm it out.

So I’m trying to look at this as a positive. I mean, for me it IS a positive – I’ll be spending days in the sun with my family having fun instead of sitting 12-14 hours a day in a hospital basement manning a command center. So yeah, positive. And I WILL be in that command center the day I get back… but by then, the sheer naked panic should have subsided and we should be in crisis management mode.

I was afraid that my holding to this schedule would somehow impact my standing with the client, but oh look in my inbox, they just asked me to stay on to the end of the year. So they must not be TOO disappointed with me.

With the big golive behind us, and with me having a safe home base for the next 7 months, it’ll allow me to spend more time on building out other parts of the business. Specifically, we are starting to grow the data analytics line, which is MINE. I have one analyst already, and am looking for a second. We have one gig underway, a second one being negotiated, and clients 3 and 4 are identified and ready to go this summer.

This is the sort of thing I was hoping to be able to do with this company – to have the time to organically build out a practice area, while not being on the hook for DOING all the work myself. My boss/mentor Dan says it’s building a “long tail” – anyone can do work, but to grow you need to be able to find it, start it, and hand it off to someone you trust. It’s tough for a control freak like myself to trust that someone else can do work as good as I can… so I’m definitely keeping a close eye on the deliverables, but so far so good.

Business is on my mind because I’m flying home now from a leadership meeting in Philly. We spent 2 days talking about our staff, our growth, our strategic plans… and I was just happy to HAVE one. At the last leadership meeting, I was stymied because I had been trapped in Cleveland with a full time job and not really able to focus on growing my own work. Now I do have a big project, but I’m not on the road, and I have flexibility to take time out in the day to make things happen. Plus, it’s WAY easier to take a day trip out to Maryland or Philly from a home base, instead of tryng to work out flights from Cleveland.

I still love my company – whenever we get together for a few days, I leave liking us just as much as I did when I walked in. We have strong personalities, but we’re all competent in our own ways. There’s a good base of respect across the organization, and while we do go down the rabbit hole on minutae sometimes, it’s always a fun journey. And we’re doing GREAT – we have had 35% growth over the past 3 years, and are on track for that this year – we’ll be over $12m this year if we just work the business we’ve already sold. We could hit $16m easily this year, and over $20m next year. It’s not a bad place to be.

We do need to be smart, however: There’s a lot of business out there, and we’re not getting it at the expense of anyone ELSE: So while the growth is great, it’s not only because we’re good – we need to recognize it’s a great market. It’s that sort of humility and drive to keep ourselves tied to our core values and integrity that further cements my love for the company.

That and the fantastic dinners we have when we get together…

And now something a little different:

One of my co-workers is Gregg, who brought me into the company. He is an abrasive east-coaster who has a penchant for strange turns of phrase. From this trip we had two gems:

“Let me throw something else into the wrinkle”. This is like one he had last year “we’re all going to have to put our hands in the fire here”. The classic mixed metaphor.

“I’m superstitious – I’m the kind of guy who carries around a lucky rabbit head in his pocket”. This one had us completely unable to work for about 20 minutes as we tried to stop laughing.

To the Rescue

2011-02-27T20:57:00.001-08:00

As I was (am?) the senior class president of Washburn High 1986, I have a responsibility to organize the reunions. Well, I didn't do it for the 10, nor the 15, nor the 20, but I decided to really try to organize the 25. I got a facebook page together, I invited people, I organized meet-ups... and only one guy showed up to any of it. So imagine my surprise to get a facebook notification that "we're throwing the 25th" from a few people in the class, asking if I wanted to help out.

At this point, with everything else going on in my life, I'm EXTREMELY comfortable shuttering my own effort and backing the competing party. Same weekend, and let's face it, it's the popular gang organizing it... so it will succeed.

I did run my Senior President campaign on only one platform: Everyone could be in the Senior Movie, and I would do really fun Morning Announcements. And I did both - with a camcorder at a school assembly... and at least I think I did good announcements. I was probably a legend in my own mind on that. So it's no surprise that the "real" leaders of my class would be organizing this sort of thing... I was just a goofball who stole the crown. From my former best friend, actually. But that's another story.

Sigh - I really pity people who say High School was the best years of their life. Moving on:

Bella competed this weekend in Regionals for Synchro, and her team actually won the GOLD MEDAL!!! This is in spite of the fact that during their performance routine, one member decided to get creative and do her own routine separate. It's called SYNCHRONIZED swimming, people. Apparently our girls got enough on the technicals to pull ahead, so good for them! It's been a hard season so far with so much snow and missed practices. But they did it!

That had Bella up VERY late Friday and Saturday nights, and she took her time going down tonight too. She'll be a tired girl for school I imagine. All this Synchro had me and Isaac hanging out a lot. It was very fun.

Ok, it's a short update - my eyes are blearing, so it's off to bed.

Man Date

2011-02-22T17:03:00.001-08:00

Isaac and I just got back from a boy's night on the town: We went up to the Chatterbox Pub up the street and had dinner and played "Tee Vee Games" (as Isaac calls it). Isaac has been talking about going there again for weeks, and loves playing Super Mario Brothers on the Nintendo, and a game of Candyland too. Mostly Mario. He likes to play Mario, and asks me to play "Moe-WEE-gi" (Luigi). Of course my Mario chops were honed to a fine edge from my year at La Maison Francaise, where my Super Nintendo not only dropped several students' GPAs, but also gave the Native Speaker Jean Michel the idea to go back to France and start Guillemot, which became UbiSoft, which basically was a hugely successful video game company.

Anyway, Isaac and I had a great evening out. He had a hamburger, I had a jerk chicken pizza, and we spent almost 2 hours just having fun.

Other things:
Bella woke up in a TERRIBLE mood yesterday: Pamela and I had tidied up the house and had inadvertently destroyed a space station she had built (a blanket on the floor surrounded by dining room chairs). She saw this first thing and was in tears. She stormed off to the basement. After a few minutes I went down to check on her, and she wasn't talking, but I could see she was drawing something, and wanted me to leave her alone. This was good - we've been working on having her have creative outlets for her feelings.

5 minutes later, she came upstairs with a thundercloud, with raindrops, cut out of construction paper, held over her head with pipecleaners. I almost died, it was so adorable. She got a big hug, and everything was ok. We talked about other things she could have over her head (lightning for anger, sun for happy). But I was very proud of her for recognizing her mood, and doing something to lighten it. And did I mention it was completely adorable?

As Friday was kind of nice, we let Zinsser out the back door (full yard access, not just his poopoo palace). Pamela saw him chomping on something, and shortly thereafter he seemed to be choking - coughing up phlegm. Got us all worried, and by 10pm Friday night we were sufficiently worried to take him to the emergency vet. We got x-rays, and found that there was no pinecone his trachea... but still the coughing and gagging continued. Monday we took him to the daytime vet, and he has Kennel Cough. Turns out a cough sounds a lot like a puke for a dog. Poor Zinsser is now on Antibiotics, and he really needs to rest. He tries to play, and runs around for a minute, then falls down coughing. It breaks our hearts.

So we're giving Zinsser lots of cuddles.

Isaac is in the bath now, and I'm hoping it chills him out a little - he was excited to the point of speaking in tongues when he found out I was taking him to the Chatterbox. I even asked if he'd prefer to go to Edinborough Park, and he said "another day, tonight Chatterbox!!!". So with the 'Box out of the way and a lot of Mario played, I'm hoping he'll fall off to sleep nice and easy.

So what else?

2011-02-10T20:13:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted so much recently - here's the short version: Work is hard and the project is some degree of doomed, but we're trying, and people are really doing a good job. There are no villains in this story, nobody being obstinate or stupid that I can rail against, just a lot to do and not QUITE enough time to do it without people working a lot harder than I would like them to have to.

There have been a lot of Jimmy Johns lunches (hey, they deliver), and I'm growing a little weary of it... but all told, it's a project, and I get to sleep in my bed every night, so that is worth a LOT to me right now.

I am kicking off another project next week - one that I'll be managing remotely with a "boots on the ground" resource I hired... It is going to require both a lot of trust and a lot of oversight to make sure this goes well, because if it DOES go well, it's my new business line, and I can sell it to a dozen more clients. I had mixed results outsourcing my work for a different project late last year in Allentown - the person did a good job, but didn't really LAND it in the end, so I wound up parachuting in and making it all better. Of course, at the same time I was leaving Cleveland and starting Mpls, so my attention wasn't as focused as it could have been. I learned, and will manage this next one better.

My car is in the shop again - this time for a simple "check engine" light and a burned out headlamp... and they've had it for 2 days and counting, without a call about when I might get it back. But I'm not complaining. Why? Because the loaner they gave me is a $90,000 2011 Jaguar XJ Supercharged. IT IS AWESOME. I'm driving the HECK out of it, and having a lot of fun. I got the phone all bluetoothed in, and the music is flowing... it's a lot of fun. It's a little odd to be driving something that is worth over 7 times the bluebook value of the car that's in the shop. And if they think they're going to tempt me into upgrading this way... well they're right. I am tempted. It would be a lie to say otherwise. BUT temptation can be resisted. Especially when you look at $90,000 as the potential cost of 2 years of a good college.

I make good money these days, but not THAT good, people.

Let's see... Pamela is a busy busy bee: Since Christmas, we've had two big "events" she's been planning - the ECFE Gala we went to 3 weeks ago, and the ECFE winter party she's planning for this weekend. As a result of both, there has been paperwork and party supplies strewn around the house pretty much nonstop for weeks. I am patiently waiting for this to be over.

The house is a mess, partly because of the party fuss, but also because we had a cascade failure of appliances: The Microwave which would take 5 min to boil water started billowing black smoke one day. The dishwasher (both drawers) decided to stop washing and coat the dishes with black oily substance, and the oven burned some scones while leaving the middles raw. Yes, this rogues gallery of appliances joins the Fridge in being officially "dead to me", And you know what happened to the fridge. IT GOT REPLACED.

(And yes, we have tried to fix the dishwasher - they've been fixed 4 times in the 7 years we've had them. It is time to try something else. The rest are all over 10 years old, and frankly we want a change).

The big truck is coming Friday to put in our new Bosch appliances - fine German appliances that will not disappoint us.

And what else? I'm taking my Japanese studies seriously now - I'm sort of turning a corner where I actually am reading those hiragana characters with some degree of fluency, and even a few Kanji. Still a work in progress. But if I can identify "mens room" and "Coffee Shop" with any degree of fluency, my next trip to Japan will be a good one.

That's enough for the night. Good night!

A valuable service

2011-02-08T20:09:00.000-08:00

I have been ruminating on the perils of time travel. One of my favorite little stories is here. It's basically a wikipedia chat history outlining newbie time travelers continually trying to kill Hitler, and the weary veterans who go back and preserve the timeline. If it was a book, I would have bought copies for everyone I knew.

I've been toying with a time travel story myself, and one of the little nuggets I've come back to is a strange piece of advice I had got from an economics teacher back in junior high school. I don't remember much from his lessons, but once he did explain how compound interest works - how at a decent interest rate your money will double every 7 years at 10% interest. So his advice to us was (REALLY) if you ever got a time machine, you should go back about 70 years, drop a thousand in a bank, and come back to find you'd doubled ten times ($1000->$2000->$4000->$8000->$16000->$32000->$64000->$128000->$256000->$512000->ONE MILLION DOLLARS) To turn a grand into a cool million just sitting in a vault somewhere... wow.

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't daydreamed that scenario quite a few times. Take a grand, step into the time machine, come back, and withdraw a Million. Of course to a 12 year old, the concept of $1000 is pretty high too. But now I'm a man, and as time has gone by, I've come up with several... issues... with this get rich quick scheme. (And hey, let's not rain on the dream: Time travel is the EASY part.)

Ten percent interest was pretty normal in the early 1980s. Nowadays, you try to find a bank that gives more than 3% on interest. At that rate, your 70 year investment of $1000 is only worth about $8000. Hardly enough to buy your unstable isotopes for the time journey. You need to go to the stock market for an over time performance of higher than 5%. And that takes some active management. Definitely not set-and-forget. There's talk about going back and buying 1000 shares of GE or Xerox at IPO and letting is grow and split... but you just know that some time in there, someone would be wondering "who the heck owns 12% of this company? Let's do a proxy, and do a shares exchange for new stock, and if those old missing shares don't turn up, they're worthless..." It's just too risky. I'll at least assume that you would do your homework and pick a bank that you know won't go out of business before you'd withdraw your money.

Plus, really, how do you get that first thousand? Go back to 1930 with a handful of 2010 minted $20 bills? Ha. So you need to buy 1929 issue bills, which in good condition go for about $100 per. So you're paying $5000 for that first $1000. Ok, but we're talking a Million, so maybe that's not so bad. Still, if the interest rate is down to 3%, You're paying $5000 for $8000. Not the best deal.

Gold is always an option, of course. The problem there is that an ounce of gold in 1930 is worth $20. Today an ounce of gold is worth over $1000. So your $1000 in gold to deposit in 1930 will cost you $50,000 in gold to bring back. Again, if you can get your 10%, no worries... but at 5% you're losing money, bro.

Now I know what you're thinking now: You'll just withdraw that $50,000 from the bank - the same bank that you went back and deposited that gold into those years ago. SORRY - that one is going to be a causality paradox... This is the equivalent of you going back in time to give yourself the plans to build a time machine in the first place: The money has to have come from someplace outside of the causal loop, just like you actually need to invent the time machine in the first place. And don't even THINK of funding your time machine development with the funds you've grown by using the time machine. Do not mess with causality. I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure that once you cross a causal line, the whole timeline you just set up winks out of existence, and you're right back at the moment before the time machine entered your life.

I guess my point in all of this is that even WITH a time machine, it's going to be pretty hard to follow my economics teacher's advice.

I think a potentially good business idea would be to open a time traveler's bank: We'd accept payment in commodities, things that have a somewhat constant value over time, but are perhaps less inflated than gold... or heck we'd take gold too, because who is to say they haven't figured out a way to make cheaply it in the future... though at that point you need to wonder what a time traveler would want with a compound interest bank account when gold can be made at will. In the interest of timeline preservation, we'd need to make sure that none of our deposits are alloys or isotopes that are impossible to create in our current timeframe, and no technology trades of course (unless they want to bring next year's iPad... I'd violate causality for one of those).

Anyway, we would provide a certain level of stewardship for the assets - we'd manage a conservative stock portfolio for a 7% return. We'd also be prepared to cash out based on a certain code word and document combination, with no troublesome need to pretend to be your own great great grandson.

Naturally, we would make targeted investments based on our client's requests, and we may just make some minor piggyback investments of our own (not big enough to create attention) so we could take advantage of the information we have...

The only problem is that if the time traveler does violate causality by dipping into those funds before the time they had left to come back and deposit them (and I could see that happening a lot with the human resistance, trying to stock up BEFORE the robots take over), then the whole time loop would collapse. For all I know I've already had dozens of clients, and each one tripped up causality and I've reset to 2011 each time.

It's possible.

And so....

2011-01-31T19:20:00.001-08:00

My project got delayed, which was simultaneously a bit of a bummer and a bit of a relief. I can say without doubt that from the point I had entered the project 2 months ago, we had really turned that ship around and rebuilt confidence in my team. I did what I was brought in to do: Keep everyone from quitting, and get us somehow across the finish line. I got us there.

But there are other teams than mine, and not all of them were QUITE as ready to go. Notably the hospital billing team, who were having a hard time proving that they were 100% sure whether all of the charges were ready to go to the right buckets. They weren't helped at all by a database tool they had built to track their testing progress that seemed to actually EAT their results on a regular basis. Every single status report included some variant on "well, this isn't QUITE right because the database..." This tool was supposed to help them, but became their downfall.

I'm not sure exactly WHEN we will go live: Option 1 is a mere 3 week delay, which again is fine for MY team, but may not be enough to solve the other issues. Option 2 is to go live the day I take the family to Disneyworld. I already told them: If that's the date you pick, I will be happy to get you right up to golive, then swoop in during week two with a fresh set of eyes. There is no version of that story in which I cancel our trip to Disney, FYI.

So it's all very exciting. I was at a gala this weekend and ran into a physician who was grateful for the delay: He is transferring to another hospital and this delay means he doesn't need to touch this new system before he's safely at a new site.

It's just work...

Disguise

2011-01-25T18:12:00.001-08:00

Driving tonight:

Isaac: Dad, I wish I had a disguise of you.

Me: A what?
Isaac: A disguise... OF YOU.

Me: So you could look like me?

Isaac: Yes. A full suit. For a four year old, like me.

Me: And what would you do, while you were disguised as me?

Isaac: (Long pause....) DANCE.

An odd day of work

2011-01-18T19:38:00.000-08:00

Today I ran into one of my direct reports in the hall and was asking him some questions about his status... and he said "you know what's strange? I actually had a dream about you last night". Really? Not a bad one I hope!

"Well, you were trying to kill me". WHAT?

"I was in a hospital bed with my arm being prepped for surgery. You walked in with your green checked coat and a container of nitrous oxide. You were trying to force the gas down my throat, and it was because I hadn't finished my build for the project. I woke up and my arm was asleep which I suppose explains the arm surgery thing..."

I was speechless... then assured him that I had no plans to kill him, and that I was actually really happy with his team's progress.

Another Dream

2011-01-16T19:29:00.000-08:00

I was called in to help investigate a prison break: It's England, and there was a special prison built for WW2 War Criminals. Being civilized, they decided to let them live out normal lives in isolation, so it's a walled village surrounded by another town. Inside the village there are houses and streets and shops. Very drab and gray, but a typical village.

The criminals are all old German men, and one has escaped. As I'm walking through the facility, I see that the way of keeping them contained was by having elaborite rules for everything. For instance, the roads are covered with white arrows, numbers, and line markers, and there are various signs around pertaining to each of the road markings. On one corner is a nine-sided stop sign with the number 7 in the middle.

Next to it is an engraved stone tablet outlining the meaning of the different stop sign codes. The 9 sided sign is a 'multi stop', and the number indicates what you're expected to do there. In this case, a 7 Stop means you are expected to slow and veer left.

It occurs to me that there aren't really any GATES in this prison, and someone could likely walk or drive right out, if it were allowed, but the rules and signs make it impossible for you to actually GET out by following the signs.

Clearly what has happened is that one of the prisoners has decided to break the rules.

And I woke up.

Tough Guy

2011-01-16T19:17:00.000-08:00

Isaac is in a pretty defiant place right now, and he's been harumphing a lot, shoving, and talking back. I also think I saw him shake down a kid for lunch money, and I've noticed a few unaccounted for miles on my car and cigarette butts in the ashtray. Today at swim lessons, he was ignoring the teacher a few times and got time outs sitting on the edge of the pool. I told him this was NOT a good thing, and he said "I LIKE it on the side of the pool. I WANT to be there".

Later, when Pamela told him he needed better "listening ears" because he had got into trouble at the pool, he crossed his arms and demanded to know "WHO TOLD YOU ABOUT THAT?"

That said, he's still pretty cute, and there is still nice stuff happening.

I have a new daughter, by the way: We have been working on relaxation exercises for bed and also a little Melatonin. It makes bedtime a lot less stressful, and it comes around to the next day with her being in a much better mood in general. She told us "Every morning I sit down next to Jenny on the bus and say 'today's going to be a good day', and you know what? Every day IS a good day!". The wonders of a good night of rest and a dad home in the house.

After last weekend's cousin invasion, we're still sort of recovering and we are feeling things SLOWLY come back under our control. There is still a big bin of unmatched socks which I am so scared of that I purchased two new packages of socks at Target today just so I could defer the pile.

Work is work. On Friday I ran out for some takeout asian food, and ran into my Dad at the shop, so I had them dump the food out of the carton and onto a plate and joined him for lunch. It was an impromptu moment and I was so happy to have been able to grab it. This would not have happened in Cleveland.

Being home has many perks, not least evening cuddles with Pamela watching shows (which I understand people DO these days - watch shows). We're almost caught up to realtime on Glee, which is a wildly inconsistent mess, but a lot of fun nonetheless. I'm not the biggest fan of Rachel, but would watch a show with Brittney any day. She's just such a delightfully loopy character... and man she can dance.

And that's the update.

The strangest thing of the year

2011-01-06T21:22:00.001-08:00

In the past year, I have picked up a skill: Letting people go who work for me. I have had to fire people from projects in Cleveland and now my Minneapolis gig too. I've had people quit. And I've had to learn that it's not a failure on my part when someone is not right for the job and needs to go.

In Cleveland, I had to fire 3 people from the team who were simply not performing. It was very hard for me, given my desire to see the best in everyone. But when a person takes an emergency leave because his wife has taken ill, and then shows pictures in the office of the fishing vacation he took from that weekend, then there is a problem.

I knew coming into this gig in Minneapolis that there were problems. Within 3 weeks I had taken two leads and "helped them" demote themselves: This was good - they were FTEs who were promoted past their comfort levels and were going home crying every day from stress. I helped them find roles on the team that were more to their speed and brought in leaders.

On another team, I had a very bad contractor lead, and I had to can him straight out: I worked with him for 4 weeks, coaching him, but he never rose the the challenge, and when he left me holding the bag during a crisis, I decided "I'm doing his dang job already, I might as well stop paying for two of us to do it". So he's gone.

I had one consultant who couldn't take the pace of the project and requested to be removed, so she's out next week. Another saw her pull that off, and has asked the same of her company. One is good, one not so much, so it's hard, but it's not personal. These people were run hard and beaten down before I got in there. The fact I've only had 2 go so far is actually pretty good.

Then i had some new contractors start: Nice enough people, but after 2 weeks, we can tell they don't know what they need to know, so they're out too.

I'm like Eric the Red. And we're 45 days from golive. But I am still happy. And I have learned this skill. It's not one I knew I needed, but I'm happy to have it.

YOU'RE FIRED!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-02T12:00:00.000-08:00

In this new year, I am looking forward to watching Bella and Isaac grow, with me home with them every night. I will read Harry Potter 4 to Bella, and probably number 5 too. I'm looking forward to being a good partner to Pamela, and having lots of evenings out together to re-kindle our friendship. I'm looking forward to a fun family vacation at Disney this spring, paid for in full in advance by the spoils of my days in Cleveland.

I'm looking forward to being a better friend to those who I haven't had a lot of time to see in my year(s) on the road. This includes seeing more movies with the neighborhood guys, having more whiskey tastings with the Avengers, more lunches with my former work buddies, and more dinners all around.

I'm looking forward to a successful rollout on my current project, and more work beyond that. I'm looking forward to new sales and revenue with my company, who I still love even though they sent me to Cleveland... because they also got me OUT of Cleveland.

I'm looking forward to getting back into language learning, and possibly visiting Japan later this year. I'm looking forward to using my new iMac in the production of music, and finally getting that album of retro-80's songs put together with Caesar and Paul.

I'm looking forward to buying an iPad2 when it comes out. It's just going to happen, ok?

Looking back, 2010 was not an easy year. It was the straw that broke the camel's back, and we need to do some back surgery this year. But I think we're going to come through this just fine. I'm looking forward to 2011. I really am.

(And of course, I'm looking forward to more blog updates too!)

Merry Merry!

2010-12-25T19:52:00.001-08:00

Christmas Eve was wonderful - my sister Carrie hosted us at her house with the in-town relatives. The food and company were great, and the kids were well spoiled with gifts. Papa decided it was time for some noise in the house, and gave Isaac a REAL Timbale and Cowbell set. My little Tito Puente is all set to go. Bella got a whole lot of art materials - somebody let the cat out of the bag that the girl's an artist.

Before heading to Carrie's, we had a quiet day in the house. We ate, watched movies, including Christmas Story: I had thought that the language in it was tame except for the one "bad word" Ralphie uttered... but boy it was full of "SOB, Smart Ass, Stupid, Idiot" and the like. I'm just getting too old... I'm grumpy about cuss words these days because I just don't want to hear my little ones saying them. ANYWAY the movie was funny and then we exchanged family presents: We gave the kids "night goggles" - sunglasses with brilliant blue LED lights on them. When we left Carrie's the kids both had their lights on, and they looked like a cross between Star Wars Jawas, and the Hartnoll brothers of Orbital (a techno band of the 90s where the guys had pen lights attached to their glasses to see the knobs they were twiddling). They kept them on for the ride home and the interior of the car was flush with blue light, and I kept thinking I was getting pulled over.

We left just in time... I wound up with a somewhat severe asthma attack (first one of consequence for years, really) - not sure if it was the tree, the dog, or the rich food (or all of them), but I was gasping for air by the end of the evening, but playing it cool so as not to ruin the time for the rest of the gang. Of course the puffer I had put in my coat pocket was dead as a doornail. So when we got home I hightailed it up to Isaac's room and grabbed his penguin shaped nebulizer and used some of his old meds. 15 minutes later, my lungs were clear, but my heart was pounding - boy that albuterol is intense when delivered in that manner.

The kids were asleep by 8:30, and I was out by 10... Pamela headed out to an evening service with her friend Carla - this time at a Lutheran church, which she was visiting more out of anthropological interest than anything.

It was another magical Christmas Morning - Santa had come in the night and had carefully arranged the kid's presents in the living room. The gifts were amazing: Bella got a retro Snoopy's Sno Cone machine, and Isaac got a REAL 1970's era Evel Knievel motorcycle set. The revving jet engine sound of that bike filled the house over and over again. Daddy was lucky enough to get a couple of Lego sets, and I got a lot of help building the Empire Strikes Back AT-AT walker. Well, once I built the mini-figures, the kids were off playing with them, while I did the hard work of building the large grey machine thing.

A couple of cute things:
1) Isaac: Instead of "I've changed my mind" has been saying "I cross-ted my mind".

2) Isaac has been singing "Release Goldilock" to the tune of "Feliz Navidad". Not sure why. UPDATE: Last night i misremembered it as "Rapunzel" - it's Goldilock. Still don't know why.

3) Bella has been grilling us on where we hide the presents in the house: Which presents I ask? The ones we give them, like the night goggles (I was concerned about a possible lapse in Santa Faith, but no worries). She has it down to one closet, or "someone else's house". Neither are correct, but I'll never tell. Then we were laughing about TERRIBLE places to hide presents. Like on her pillow. Or lined up on the toilet seat ("You'd see them, and if you DIDN't see them, they'd fall into the toilet water!!!"

The madness continues tomorrow with Bella's birth family coming over for stew and presents... it'll be a blast!

Choo Choo!

2010-12-18T19:19:00.000-08:00

We woke up good and early today for our regular Saturday routine: We carpooled out to Synchro, dropped Pamela and Bella off, while Isaac and I went to the new semester of Circus School: Today, the kids got measured for their outfits for the big performance in the spring. Of course all these 3-4 year olds could ask was CAN WE WEAR THEM NOW? WHEN? WHEN??? The teachers got them back on track, and they were working as one big group going through a circuit of exercises: Climb up and roll down a hill of mats, then a trapeze swing and dismount, then springing over a barrier, then a balance beam, then a quick bit of juggling (throwing scarves), and at the end, they lined up for a bow. They did this quite a few times, and us parents gave them applause with each bow. They're teaching not just the skills of the circus, but the SHOW too.

We picked up Bella and Pamela afterwards and headed to Keys Cafe downtown St Paul. I went there quite a bit in 2005-2006 when I was doing work for Gillette Children's hospital, which was within walking distance (their new IT location is a bit farther away, alas). I reveled in the caramel roll... oh it's good there. And even better, the kids didn't think it was something they'd want to try, so I got it all.

After lunch, we headed out to the MN Transportation Museum to climb on the big trains. Bella liked the "business car", with sleeping quarters, a big office, several bathrooms, a kitchen, and a salon. The detail was amazing - they knew how to live back then. I didn't see a heater in there, though... brrrrr..... They were having trouble with snow on the tracks, so we missed a ride on the train, but will do a return visit. Also, we rode on a 1954 vintage bus to and from the parking lot. Pretty dang cool.

Then it was back home, and I went off to the Malt Shop - a hangout from when I was a kid. As I was my high school senior class president, I'm organizing the 25th reunion, and had put out an APB on facebook that I would be there from 2-4pm if anyone wanted to give me ideas for the reunion. One guy did show up, and we had a good chat... but the rest were no-shows.

A final errand: As noted before, my Macbook Air had developed a problem: The hinge holding the screen was getting looser and looser, and at a certain point, it cracked and the lid would fall open and closed. Since that update, the ribbon that connects the screen to the brains got loose, so my screen was showing only red and pink hues. It was very hard to use the computer.

Well, they ordered the part, and it came in in 5 days, not 2 weeks. They called me and I dropped it off Friday afternoon, and it was ready to pick up at noon Saturday. They promised 3 weeks, and the whole thing was done in one.

This is simply amazing: Think of any other consumer product: It breaks, you ship it off to the manufacturer for repairs. An Apple breaks, you bring it in and they fix it right there. It sort of blows my mind, and it's just one more reason I love that company. And it makes me doubly happy that I didn't panic and buy another computer. this one is now JUST FINE.

With all that running around, it's nice to be sitting on my couch in front of the fire, with Pamela right across the room. We keep smiling at each other. Yep, it's pretty nice.

Terrible Terrible Jokes about Jenga

2010-12-15T05:44:00.000-08:00

What do you call a game with stacked wooden blocks that also analyzes your dreams?
- Karl Junga

What do you call a game with stacked wooden blocks that was a 70s pop psychologist who wrote "Fear of Flying"
- Erica Jonga

What do you call a game with stacked wooden blocks that is also the leader of a brutal dictatorship
- Kim Jenga-il

At this point, Pamela said "I'm done with these now". So that's all I have.

Buried!

2010-12-14T19:49:00.001-08:00

You may have heard, we got some snow recently. It collapsed the Metrodome, which was pretty amazing. Actually I'm surprised it never fell before, really. What I love is the parade of "I KNEW it would happen eventually" people - forgetting it had stayed up without much incident for 20 years. That's not a bad roof.

We live in Edina, which means that even in the middle of the storm, we were getting plowed out. On Saturday night, we went out to a big birthday party for a friend, and it was Edina-to-Edina travel, which meant we didn't hit an unplowed stretch. The next day, going to visit my dad to help decorate their Christmas tree, we got hung up by impassable roads thrice and had to back out and find other routes.

It is days like these that I'm happy we invested in Mister Marshmallow, the 4wd Hybrid. We left Clive the Jaguar in the driveway for the first 2 days, but by Monday the roads were clear enough for him to be fishtailing down the road without hitting any snowbanks.

It's amazing to realize that we've hit a month since I started working at the new client (3 weeks technically, but I got wrapped into some meetings while transitioning out of Cleveland). The marker was that my first day in, they were doing a 90-day pre-live assessment, and today I delivered the 60-day pre-live assessment. And the things I know now versus then... whew. To be sitting at the table explaining exactly what the issue is with the Blood and Marrow Transplant Workflows, and what our next steps are... it's pretty cool. In this time, I feel like I've been able to really help the project along - not with any sort of magic, but just in listening, understanding, carrying concerns forward, and helping think of solutions.

Though sometimes I do get a little frustrated. One of my pet peeves is technical people who hide behind jargon. I had a person today who was quite obviously not telling the whole story, and kept dropping little technical terms as to why we would need to make some serious changes to our project or PATIENT SAFETY WAS AT RISK. I was watching the clinical people at the table getting hopeless - they were thinking that OBVIOUSLY what this guy was saying was true, it was technically explainable. I finally unloaded on the guy, letting him know I DO know the tech, and I knew exactly what the problem REALLY was, and that he had 2 ways he could fix it, and that it's not acceptable to put my project at risk like this. He made a look like a fish gasping for water.

It's good to have geek mojo. So we're still on target for our golive in 60 days, and it's going to be tight, no question. But I'm still happy. Almost unreasonably so. People keep waiting for me to crack. They don't know that I've been to Cleveland. Speaking of there, the cut cord remains cut, and they haven't brought me in for anything, which is wonderful. I do still get notes from people I brought in there wondering if I'm in a better place and if I can help them. We shall see.

Speaking of geek (and fish, actually), my poor Macbook Air has a cracked hinge, so the screen flops limply around. Apple said it's a free fix, but it'll be 2-3 weeks. They wanted to hold onto it, but I can't live without a laptop, and while it would have been a wonderfully acceptable excuse for getting that cute tiny 11" Air, I just couldn't do it. What is this... responsibility? It feels weird.

Not LESS busy...

2010-12-05T06:41:00.001-08:00

Hooo eeeee. The past 2 weeks have been a semi-blur. There WAS an airplane trip... I did a one-day in-n-out to Maryland for a possible assessment, which there's no way I'll be able to do in the next 3 months given the insane workload I have right now on the MAIN gig, plus we're trying to wrap up our assessment for Allentown too. BUT I haven't been to a hotel for 2 weeks, and that feels good.

Bella and I took a quick break from Harry Potter to finish up the Spiderwick Chronicles: That was a fun series, but there were some strange daddy things going on - having the big ogre pretend to be the kids' father was a bit alarming to Bella.... but we made it through. We're back on Potter. I note, as a bedtime reader, that JK Rowling has extended each chapter by 4-5 pages from books 1, 2, and 3. You can see she's writing to keep up with her evolving readership, but as a dad who is contending with "just one chapter???" I am worried... and will be prepping my voice with tea with lemon.

Isaac pretty much hasn't stopped jumping up and down since I came home 2 weeks ago. Literally, he's like a superball, bouncing on every surface. He's also in a very "chatterbox" phase, where he is gabbing nonstop, and if you try to let it just wash over you, he will stop and repeat what he is saying and repeat it again and DADDY ARE YOU LISTENING repeat it again until I grunt an acknowledgement. He's on fire right now, and he's getting up at 5:30-6 in the AM, so Mom and Dad are getting the show first thing.

Zinsser has finally accepted me back into the house: I think I was a "beloved visitor" for the past year, but now I'm a regular pack member. He's spending more time on my lap now.

And Pamela seems pretty happy to have me around. We've been cooking dinners together, watching Glee, and just hanging out. The house is a bit of a wreck because I think we're both still feeling like we're in mid-exhale. We'll get it together. Plus, we're in the seasonal changeover: We're moving from Turkeys to Christmas for the decorating theme. This decompression is also probably why I've been slow to blog... I'll get back on the stick.

It's been fun working locally - driving in to work has been wonderful, grabbing lunch up in Northeast... there's a lot to love. Great little restaurants like oBento-ya and Uncle Franky's... plus Surdyk's and the Bulldog...

One key thing I'm working out is that the project is definitely behind, and the people are definitely burned out, but I don't think there'll be a problem hitting our date - we can make it. The real problem is what will happen the day after we go live - there's not really a good model in place for support, and they saw that in spades after their first mini-golive 2 months ago. The teams aren't burned out from the work to deliver this new hospital, they're hung over from a support nightmare. That helps me know where to focus my energies - unfortunately, the support model isn't one I have full control over, so I'll just need to be a strong advocate for our team.

Well, no rest for the wicked. Time to get the kiddos ready: Isaac to Swimming, Bella to Church. We have our one and only "friends" Xmas party tonight - a traditional party with people Pamela worked with back when we were first together, so these are people who bring up back to the heady days of the apartment on Harriet and the duplex on Aldrich! History is a good thing.

Yep - it was a year almost exactly.

2010-11-25T16:54:00.000-08:00

From a blog posting on 11/23/09:

"I got the big gig: I'll be headed to Cleveland to help plan out a 5 year, $100m project, and if they like what we bring to the planning, we're in for the doing. The work is very strategic and high profile, and they're not expecting to see much of me - I'm budgeted for 5 visits from now through February... I have a coworker who will be my eyes and ears on the ground. And that means I'll be around a fair amount more in the next few months...."

Interesting how that turned out, eh?

A Happy Birthday

2010-11-25T16:34:00.001-08:00

Monday was my birthday - turned 43, and where does the time go? I feel like 42 was sucked out of me and left on the shores on Lake Erie... but there were good things in the year. It'll just take me a little time to think of them.

So how did I celebrate my birthday?

I got up early, had some peanut butter toast and 3 shots of expresso... hit the road and pulled up to the new client. I worked a full day, had a lot of meetings, got connected to my new teams... Had a quick lunch at Uncle Franky's northeast burger and dog shop. I was out the door at 5:30, and stopped on the way home at the King and I thai restaurant.

The family was waiting, and we all enjoyed some Pad Thai, Cream Cheese rolls, Mock Duck eggrolls, and whatever #34 is (chicken in spicy roasted pepper and cashew sauce). It was great. I read the kids stories lay with them to get to sleep, and turned in early.

It was a perfect day for me. I was in town, I had family time, I was with the new client... I know there's a TON of work needed for this project, but it't not impossible, and just being here was great.

Here's looking for a fun 43!

And the NEW.

2010-11-19T19:45:00.000-08:00

While I have spent a couple of days at the new client, today was really my "landing day" - I'll be fully committed to them from here on out. And it was a GOOD day - I achieved everything I set out to do, and honestly, while it feels like a huge project, I feel really good about being able to help them get across the finish line.

This is an Epic project, and a lot of them were onsite this week to help with building the system... So I got to meet some of them.

One asked, somewhat shyly, if I was "the guy who blogged about Epic?". I confessed I was, and she lit up - "I KNEW it! We heard a new guy was coming in from Cleveland, and we all thought it was probably you!". It was quite the brush with celebrity... ;->

I can already tell that the team is just dynamite. I'm going to enjoy this gig... REALLY!

And not just because it's 5 minutes from Uncle Franky's.

The Change

2010-11-19T19:21:00.001-08:00

This was it - the week it all changed. It was my last week in Cleveland.

Looking back, it was a bit of a ride: I started in December, and it was supposed to be 3 months, 50% onsite. By January, it had accelerated to every week onsite, and by February, I was in an interim Director role. I was supposed to be done by March, then May, then September... And each time, there looked like some glimmer of hope that I could go, and each time there was some circumstance that kept me in place.

I've complained in the past - but I'm done with that. It was work, and yes, there was severe and deep dysfunction in the client, but looking back, I don't know if it was WORSE than any other. The issue was that the core WORK I was doing was stressful at a time when me and the family were ready for me to come home. And the work itself after the start became a lot of people management. A LOT.

Last Friday I spent an hour on the phone with two of my team members, listening to their sides of a dispute, and recommending "communication strategies" to keep them both on the team and not killing eachother. It was a big team - almost 40 reported directly to me, over 70 on the whole team. 30 were contractors I was responsible for managing, so I also did a lot of travel approvals, room and car rate negotiations, explanation of the per diem policy... and the obligatory "being nice to their salespeople" thing. Actually that was pretty easy, having been on the other side. More than one told me I was the best client to work with they'd had in years, because I knew their life. If this was a local gig, I probably could have stuck with it, but add to this it was travel... it was too much.

Anyway, we set this week as my last week: The client was in fact no closer than they ever had been to replacing me... we were getting ready for another Lucy Football Pull, and another round of "gosh, what will we do - just 3 more months". Well, Bella and Isaac and Pamela let me know they had enough. It was really time to recognize that there IS no good time... and they needed me more. I agreed.

Happily I didn't have to leave my consulting company to make this work: We swapped me out for another person in the firm... someone who will do a great job taking them to the next stage. She's also a lot tougher than I am, and will probably leave a different impression with the team.

On Monday I had a going away party. My bosses gave me tearful hugs. Actual tearful hugs, and hugs without the back patting. It was a little odd, but hey. And I had co-workers toasting me, getting drunker and drunker and standing and making declarations like "JIM YOU ARE A GOOD MAN. A GOOD SOUL, AND WE ARE HONORED TO HAVE WORKED FOR YOU". It was like an irish wake... with me still out of the pine box. Fortunately the pub was just a couple of blocks from my hotel, so I was able to celebrate AND walk home.

The week was a whirlwind of activity. In the middle of the week, I actually had a big presentation for my client in Allentown too, a preliminary findings review that had me up to 1am drawing data flow pictures. And I tried to hit all of my favorite restaurants: Breakfasts at LA Pete's, Dunkin, the Hotel Lobby, and Starbucks. Lunches at Aladdin's, the Winking Lizard, and Heidi's deli. Dinners at Romano's (a good fill in for Geraci's), Lola, and Hoggy's. I missed a final visit to Taza (lebanese), and Mike's Cozmic Subs... but it was a good round-up.

The flight home was on time and uneventful. I had a good conversation with a woman who is also consulting in Cleveland, and knows some of the people I'll be working with in Minneapolis. She gave me some good info.

As the flight came in, for the first time, we approached from the north EAST, and circled around to South West, and back in to the airport. So it was a long orbit around downtown, which stayed just in view out my window on the left side of the plane. A lingering sight to say "welcome home".

I got home in time to read another chapter of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban to Bella (the chapter with the Knight Bus - we were laughing a lot at my attempt to do the cockney voice of the bus conductor). And it was good to be home.

Falling Apart

2010-11-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

Since Thursday morning when the gig was finally and truly "got", Pamela and I have been threatening to have a "celebration" - let's open some champagne! Let's kick up our heels!

Hasn't really worked out that way yet: Thursday the kids were good and wound up and I didn't emerge from Bella's room until almost 10, and Pamela was already in bed. Friday, Pamela fell asleep on the couch while I was teaching Bella double-deck solitaire before 8pm. About 4 sips were taken from the bottle of bubbly we did open.

Today, the exhaustion perhaps was explained, as she was laid low mid-afternoon by a stomach flu.

Still, if we're going to be doing nothing, it's a great day to do it: Huge heavy snow fell across the area, and the trees and power lines were ill prepared. We lost a gorgeous tree across the street, and there were fallen branches everywhere, plus the odd live wire.

The Jaguar proved it's complete ineptness in snow yet again, and I went through my annual "I'm SELLING THIS THING and buying a 4x4" rant (I love the car 350 days of the year, but those other 15 I hate it a whole lot). But I did need to use the car, as Pamela took Bella to Synchro swimming in the AM, and I finally took Isaac to the doctor to see about his rampant mucus (like 10 days of runny nose and phlegmy cough). The doctor assured me it wasn't pneumonia - likely just some bacteria who are having a long party in his sinuses and need to get spanked with some antibiotics. So Isaac is on the meds, and conked out.

Bella and Jenny are having a sleepover tonight: Bella is right now sewing together a bear from felt that she designed and cut out, and is now stuffing and stitching. And sewing buttons on for eyes, which are huge, mismatched, and mental. She's wonderful.

I think it's about time for me to ship those girls up off to bed now...

Things to report...

2010-11-13T18:13:00.000-08:00

Sorry for going quiet on the blog these past weeks - there have been things afoot that I have been afraid to announce prematurely or jinx, but I'm ready now.

Part One: I made the decision that I needed to get off the road no matter what, and started the process with Cleveland. I didn't have anything else lined up, but we set an end-date, which is next Friday, Nov 19. Of course Cleveland was shocked and unhappy, but I feel that my reason is really unassailable: Traveling has been too hard on my family (and on me), and it's not what I want to do. If I was leaving to go to another traveling gig, I think they would be right to be peeved. But I'm getting OFF the airplane thing.

So in that light, Cleveland has shown some good colors, and everyone has been wonderfully supportive. I'm still feeling a bit conflicted - like somehow I'm supposed to have been able to "tough this out", but it was just too hard. On everyone.

Part Two: Having made that decision, I finally decided to find a local gig: I did this back in May when I thought I was leaving the first time, and had several good gigs lined up, and had to back away from them. So until I really knew I was leaving, I didn't want to get anyone started.

Fortunately, it was only a few days into looking that I found something: A big health system in the Twin Cities is going Epic, and they FIRED a key project manager, and the team is somewhat dispirited, and there's an immoveable deadline. I would point you to the blog postings surrounding summer 2006 for a similar engagement in North Minneapolis, and how I was able to deliver on that.

So I did a phone screen 2 weeks ago, went in for an in-person interview on Monday, got the job and was asked to start Wednesday (I'm working from Mpls this week). On Tuesday they called and said there was one more person I needed to interview, so could I come in on Thursday instead? SURE. I interviewed Thursday, and got an email asking me to come in at 1pm for the rest of the day.

And so I am officially "on the job". And happily, it's a clinically-focused project, instead of Revenue Cycle, so I actually will have more fun with it. At the same time, I'm wrapping up Cleveland this next week (my final trip out!), so I have two jobs - always a good time... And I start my birthday week fresh with just the one job, and no airplanes needed.

Two other advantages to this gig: When I've needed to do little one-day trips to New Orleans or Allentown, it has always been tough arranging travel to Cleveland, then to these places (and always via Detroit), then back. My one-shots will be a lot easier from this Delta Hub. Plus the place I'm starting uses the ROWE (Results Oriented Work Environment) philosophy, which means "we don't care where you are as long as the work is getting done". So conference calls won't be a problem.

And I don't think that planning around a 1 night trip every 2-3 weeks to one of my little strategic gigs is inconsistent with "getting off the road" - the ROAD I'm trying to get off is the one where I'm away 3 nights and 4 days from my family every dang week.

With the decision made and the safe landing spot found, I must say that my stress level is just plummeting. And I'm having a lot more fun with the kids - I can step outside myself and see that for months, my Fri-Sat-Sun time with them was tinged with a sadness of trying to "fit this in" before heading away again. This week, the fun has been less "pressured" - like "we're just hanging out like we always do, and always will". It's a subtle difference, but it feels wonderful.

I'll make it through this week in Cleveland. Things are getting better. They ARE better.

Bella's Art Show

2010-11-10T17:09:00.000-08:00

A spontaneous thing this week at School:

Bella and her classmates were all doing art, and Bella issued a challenge that they should all do pictures of monsters/aliens. So everyone did, except for some kids who wanted to do other things, so Bella said "ok, it's just anything you want to do, but it's a grand contest". Everyone nominated Bella to be the judge, so the kids all gave Bella their art work, and she brought it home for judging.

She was worried about ranking them first to last, but said not to worry, her piece would take last place because it wouldn't be fair otherwise. But then she got the idea that instead of ranking them, she'd find something that each picture was "best" of - most colorful, craziest eyes, most hearts, longest tongue, and she'd do the awards that way.

She spent a lot of time coming up with the awards, and brought her first batch of judged works back to school.

But instead of making a big deal out the contest, she just put the results into the kid's take home shelves, for them to find at the end of the day.

And of course, everyone is giving her more and more artwork for the contest, and Bella loves being asked her opinion.

There are a few things I love:
1) Bella organized this.
2) Bella decided to accentuate the positive and look for the good in everything
3) Bella didn't want to use this for any glory - she just popped them into the boxes. She doesn't even know what people's reactions are.

This whole thing just has made me so happy and proud of my girl.

My Dream Job

2010-10-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

I had the following dream last night. Analysis is welcome, but not required.

I have been called by one of my partners (Dan C) in my company to meet him at a large house in New Hampshire for a consulting gig. Dan and I sit down with a man, who is very concerned: His daughter is at college and he's afraid she may get herself into trouble - she needs role model and cautionary tale wrapped into one.

So my assignment is to dress up as a teenage girl, enroll in this college, and befriend his daughter. But I will also be pregnant, so that I can be a warning to her about the dangers of fast living in college. It's a 3 month gig, and when can I start?

I look to Dan and say "really, me? I don't look very good as a girl" (which is something in real life Pamela has told me more than a few times). Dan raises his eyebrows and says "look at our company - who else do we have?"

And so I start to work out the logistics - if I'm living in a girl's dorm, how will I secretly shave? When will I put on my pregnancy pillow? How will I get up to speed on the music these kids like these days? Will this work?

Fortunately I woke up before this scheme got out of the planning stages.

Back to last week...

2010-10-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting at the pool while Bella gets going with Synchronized Swimming, and am thinking about where I was just one week ago...

Where we left off was a great week, leading into the weekend:
We got up early and started the 13 block walk from Canal street to the funky arts area on Frenchman Street. We met the whole gang and set out on a guided tour of New Orleans neighborhoods on cruiser bikes (single speed, fat tires, comfy seats). We visited the artsy neighborhoods, the upper ninth ward, Treme,, and skirted through part of the French Quarter too: We talked about the history and culture of the area, learned some things about Katrina, architecture, and more... In 3 hours we only rode about 8 miles total, but we snaked through areas that were beautiful and rich in culture, but off of the beaten path. We all agreed this was maybe one of the best tours we'd ever been on.

If you're ever down there, these guys are worth every penny: The Confederacy of Cruisers

Pamela and I sort of forgot that the bike tour was taking place OUTSIDE, so we didn't properly apply sunscreen. We were good and red by the end. We all set out to find lunch, and were stymied time after time to find a table for our group of nine... So after 45 min of trying, we agreed to split up and catch as catch can.

Of course within 15 minutes, we were all at the same restaurant, sitting at two tops and the counter, mere feet from one another. It was pretty amusing.

In the evening, we piled into a cab (literally - it was 10 of us in one minivan cab, sitting on laps), and headed to the Garden District. After a little walkaround, we had dinner. An aperitif on the menu I couldn't pass up: BACON INFUSED BOURBON. It was actually pretty delicious, but you don't want to think too hard about how it was done.

To close the evening, we went back up to Frenchman St to the Spotted Cat (or the "Potted Cactus" as I malaproped) jazz club, where the brass band was veering between T-Bone Burnett style "brother where art thou" country jazz numbers and wild Klezmer songs, with the crowd breaking into impromptu hora dancing.

It was a raucous end of a fun week, and it was the "perfect" New Orleans music experience to end the night on (much better than the burlesque from the night before). We stayed FAR FAR away from Bourbon Street on our walk home, to keep the good feeling going.

Sunday we slept in and had a nice late breakfast at the Stanley restaurant off of Jackson Square, then met up with Papa who had driven for two straight days to attend a conference down there plus do some pro-bono gold leaf work for a church. We wandered through some royal street antique stores, and parted ways for us to head to the airport.

We got home, with Isaac asleep and Bella waiting up for us. I got to cuddle her to sleep, and it recharged my batteries.

At least until I got up at 4am to head back to the airport for my week in hell. But that's another update.

One of those amazing weeks

2010-10-24T07:47:00.000-07:00

We had our company retreat in New Orleans this week, and it was incredible. Mon and Tues, I worked remote for Cleveland, and flew to NO in the afternoon... and we had our first great dinner together - the 9 principals of the company. The hotel was a funky french quarter place - not very luxurious, but functional. My room faced Decateur so I had a fair amount of traffic noise coming in the window, plus some late afternoon jazz wafting in ruining my naps.

Wednesday was an all day retreat for the Principals, where we went over all sorts of operational and strategic STUFF. In the evening, the rest of the company showed up (26 more consultants!), and we had a fine dinner at Mr B's - we had a private room that we filled with laughter and increasingly loud conversations. At the end, half of the crowd went out the door to the left (back to the hotel) and half went to the right... toward Bourbon Street.

Oh, Bourbon Street, you scalawag. It is drunk disneyland, and just depressing, but if you get a few into you, it becomes sort of fun. We finished the night at Pat O'Brien's dueling piano room, and a hurricane was purchased and no surprises a headache followed on Thursday AM. Not TOO bad, but boy, those sweet drinks are just a bad idea. BAD BAD BAD idea.

Thursday we started the formal "retreat" for all of the associates - going over the company goals and getting into some educational sessions. We had a great keynote speaker - the CIO of the Cayman Islands Health System. The guy is a visionary who has been in a lot of leading practice places (including building one of the first successful healthcare data warehouses), and he shared his time generously.

Thursday night was another dinner out at Maximo's Italian Grill on Decateur (1 block from our hotel). We were hanging out on the gallery overlooking the street, and had a nice long dinner... but I needed to duck out early, because I had a very important visitor... GOOGY!!!

Pamela flew in Thursday evening, and so I raced to the hotel to see her. It was nice to have her here.

Friday AM, we woke up early and schlepped our stuff down the street (ok, 10 blocks) to the JW Marriott, stopping briefly for some chicory coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde. The JW was accommodating, letting us check in at 8am (!!!) and upgrading our room... which I was paying for with points anyway - FREE ROOM! Then I was back to the meeting, while Pamela had a nap, then some spa appointments, then some antiquing.

The session on Friday was again wonderful: We had a panel of 3 CIOs for whom we do work come and talk about their challenges and how people like us are ideally helpful. It was one hour of structured Q&A, and then they hung out for another hour for chatting - and that was just amazing access for us to have. BTW - Not by plan, but they were Cerner and Siemens site CIOs, not Epic...

Friday night the consultants were on their own, and leadership went to dinner at Bayona... but and afterwards went to a formal hotel ballroom on Bourbon Street where some very average Jazz was being served up... we were sort of checking our watches, but the owner of our company seemed happy there, so we were willing to give a little time... and then things took an unexpected turn: The show turned into a burlesque - dancers on boxes throughout the room, with the band playing blues stomps while the ladies slowly did striptease... the end result was a g-string and pasties, so it was strictly PG13, but it was just funny, because the ladies were totally hamming it up and bringing a lot of character. It was a situation where we were all at first confused, then annoyed (we don't as a rule like going to strip clubs) and then amused.

Saturday was another day, but I need to post later - it's time for breakfast.

Walking in Philly

2010-10-15T20:38:00.001-07:00

Last night, out with some buddies in Philly, I passed an "Edible Arrangements" store and was stopped dead in my tracks by the poster in the window:

NASCAR FRUIT ARRANGEMENTS

Now don't be scared to click that link: Edible Arrangements just does fruit - they're not some sort of erotic edible clothing company or anything. But do be scared of the link because somehow they are selling fruit arrangements with a NASCAR theme.

I don't have language to tell you about how strange that is. Also, I'm not really the biggest Nascar guy, but I'm pretty sure that when you're trying to feature cars with different drivers, they're not all the same black and white checkered car with a number sticker on the door: The whole thing with Nascar is the bright unique colors of the cars. I know this because I have watched the movie CARS 86 times.

Oh god, I just pulled the number 86 out of my head, and yes, it's the car number for "bad guy" car Chick Hicks from the movie. The movie CARS.

I am ready for bed now.

801!!!

2010-10-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

Somehow my last post passed by without my realizing it was number 800. That's quite a bit of Blog, people.

I'm in Philly right now waiting to get on the plane home: I was out here revisiting with the team I did work for last year in the Cardiac Center: It turns out that they are looking for some help getting my recommendations from last year moving: There were some management changes, a few other projects were delayed, and the bottom line is that things are ALMOST exactly where they were when I left. But I think we can get them back on track.

I had 4 hours of meetings, and will be preparing some statements of work (with the plan being I manage and direct the work remotely with some controllable hands on site). But I just felt ENERGIZED and excited - talking about clinical projects again... and imaging technology, it fired off all my geek neurons and I've been giddy all day.

I'm also a little giddy because I can't wait to get home and cuddle the family AND watch On the Road with Austin and Santino, which is my "happy place" show. I really want to be Austin when I grow up. Also on the media, Fringe continues to not-disappoint - it just keeps being amazing. If you're not watching it, I got nothing to say to you. Just watch it.

So in sort of an anti-Jimmy thing: You'll recall that I got "caught" saying NICE things about a company, and mild embarrassment ensued, but it was all nice (though I haven't heard back on any possible "next steps"... Epic....). Anyway, I got an email from a friend who wanted to know what he should do: A contractor on HIS project has left a series of frankly immature comments on his Facebook page about the project and the client. It's not even "abstracted" the way I do with my posts.

I don't have any good advice, but I need to share the awesome quote from my friend: "(D)on't live your life out loud and then wonder what went wrong when somebody pays attention to it." Good words in this public age. From now on, I'm going to even substitute the CITY NAME in my updates.

Well, can't wait to head back to AKRON.

The I in Interim

2010-10-12T18:46:00.000-07:00

Ok. A Cleveland Post. FINE.

My position is interim - a full time employee is the budgeted resource, but they've had trouble finding someone qualified. You need to want to live in Cleveland, and right now the skillset they want is VERY in demand across the country - a person who is not already living here with the right skills can really have their pick of cities to move to if they want to be an FTE. Or if they want to consult, it's even better.

So when you have a resource who actually lives in town, and has the right skills, AND wants to work for you, you move on them. And so it was that I was sitting in an interview this morning with this candidate, who is a bright, dynamic, and very very qualified person. My thought is, ask some questions, but definitely also SELL the position a bit.

I didn't get much of a chance to because the two other people in the interview (my boss, and a peer) dominated the discussion, even preventing the candidate from answering questions at times. And at two separate points, the two actually sidetracked into several minutes of arguments about technical details, while I watched in dismay. My attempts to redirect were brushed off, and I gave the candidate the old "raised eyebrows" meaning "I tried".

At least the candidate got a full show of what to expect from the environment. I left the interview both happy that a good candidate was found, and worried that she'd never come back again.

I am hopeful, however. Because there's so much I want to do in the world, and I really want them to find their permanent person - they need it so much!

Whirlwind

2010-10-12T18:14:00.000-07:00

Somehow it's Tuesday and I'm back in Cleveland, comme d'habitude. It was such a busy weekend I can scarcely recall it all, but there was Circus School, the Children's Museum, a celebration of a friend's Doctorate (with a bit of good whisky), a neighborhood BBQ (with the kids running around late again), a few hours at a laundromat washing I believe everything we own, mowing, raking, and two celebrations for Bella's B-Day. Plus Bella got to go see the 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

It was a crazy 48 hours. I fear more detail is beyond my scope right now... but I will offer some images:

1) Bella got a whoopee cushion for her Birthday and she basically thought it was the funniest thing she had ever encountered ever. She was making EVERYTHING fart, and I was game too - until she slipped it under me with the flap tucked under, and I POPPED it. It made her laugh even harder, but I was about to cry. We got her another one.

1a) The cushion I broke was the old school flat one, but we replaced it with a "self inflating" one. Now, I'm not sure these new fangled whoopee cushions are capable of the same level of juicy flatus and the old school, but we'll see. I think the quality of the toot can be offset by the rapid reset and ability to generate MORE toots per minute.

2) Bella got Yahtzee for her B-Day. We rocked a game, and it was awesome. I love that game.

3) She also got the BOOK for Bartholomew Cubbins, and I read it a couple of times. I'm still trying to work out if there's a good message in this book... yes, there's the basic "stuff happens" premise about how bad things can happen for no reason. There's also an endorsement of the unreasonable behavior of the king - he's never called out for being wrong about the hats, and in the end he is rewarded for his persistent unreasonableness with a beautiful treasure. And I guess the lesson for Bartholomew is if you just quietly submit to power, eventually there's a reward for you.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

4) In spite of it all, we did take some breaks. Some naps were taken, hugs were given and received. Love was all around.

Ready for home!

2010-10-06T19:16:00.000-07:00

Bella turns EIGHT tomorrow, and I'm catching an early flight home to meet her at the bus and have Taco Night... and maybe just maybe start Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It has been a busy busy week: I was at the office for 12 hours - 7:30 to 7:30, and I was neither the first person there, nor the last to leave. People are just killing themselves on this project, and there's 9 months to go before our first golive. That said, I'm still hoping to be in a "reduced role" by Thanksgiving.

I also had a kickoff meeting for the work in Allentown today: A bit of a rough start to the call: I thought it was an executive steering committee and I'd field a few questions. It wound up being a clinical work team and they were right out the gate with tough questions, and my "high level presentation" was useless. This was SUPPOSED to be for coordination for the actual project start in 3 weeks. Sigh. Add to this, my project sponsor was on PTO today, so I had no backup in the room. By the end, it was all smiles, however. At least I think they were smiling - I was on the phone.

For lunch, I made Mother Earth cry: I got a peanut butter sandwich from the deli downstairs. The bread was wrapped in cellophane. The peanut butter and jelly were in small plastic containers. There was a plastic knife for spreading, and the whole thing was in a plastic clamshell container. Seriously, a ghost pelican swooped down on me.

Actually - if you remember my story about my pet Turkey Vulture outside my window... there a new visitor: A blue jay likes to drop by and peck on the window until I notice, then cock his head and fly away. He's done it for a few days now. I think he's trying to tell me something.

By 3pm, the PBJ was not holding the hunger back, and strangely, a coworker started sending a series of emails talking about wanting/needing a Whopper. After 30 minutes of these strange messages (including google maps of the closest BK), he burst in and declared he needed a Whopper RIGHT NOW and did I want him to bring me one? Swept up in the madness, I shouted YES YES YES I want a Whopper!!!

20 minutes later I halfheartedly choked down a Whopper. Damn, those are terrible sandwiches.

Final note for the night: Rick and Kari, parents of Bailey and Ty are empty nesting in the most wonderful way: They now have a new iMac and TWO iPads. They're emailing me from coffee shops and talking about App Store apps. The kids going to college has, in their words "turned their brains and wallets to mush". I think they should just keep on having fun. I just think "wow, that's me and Pamela in 14 years!"

And it's off to bed - early morning tomorrow - want to get a lot done at "the office" before heading home to see the family I love.

So much...

2010-10-03T19:39:00.000-07:00

There are some weekends where I feel like I'm cramming a whole week of parenting into two days, and boy is that getting old. I love this time, and I love every second I'm spending with the family, but I leave on Monday AM just SPENT. So what did we do this weekend?

Friday night, Pamela and I got to go out and have a date for her Birthday. We had fish and chips at The Cooper, then passed a romantic hour meandering through Costco. It was actually sort of dreamy... lingering in the office supplies comparing bulk packages of sharpies, without wondering where Isaac had run off to. Grandma had the kids, and by the time we came home, there was a good leaf pile raked on the lawn, and the kids were red cheeked and happy. And pelting us with handfuls of leaves, giggling...

On Saturday AM, I went with Isaac to Circus Juventas classes: this is a full hour class for 16 kids between 3-4 years old. It's structured 15 minutes of warmup, then 3 "stations" rotating for 10-12 minutes each, then 5 minute cooldown. The stations vary by week: This week, it was a balance beam obstacle course, a tumbling trampoline, and the trapeze. Last week it was silk loops (swinging), the german wheel, and a somersault run. First week it was a balance ball, iron hoops (hanging, sitting inside), and basic juggling. Isaac is a very happy boy at these classes, and they do a great job with the kids, keeping a 1:4 student ratio at the stations.

Isaac's favorite thing so far? The silks, actually - he hung in a cocoon for a while and he loved it.

After school, we spent some time walking around the neighborhood, and then Bella and I sat down to to enjoy the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We finished the book last week, and I promised we'd watch the movie... and we loved it. But where last time, Bella suggested we just watch the movies, this time, she acknowledged that without having read the book, that movie would have been WAY too scary for her. As it was, I got some good cuddles during the Basilisk scenes. Isaac was having NONE of it: He is a movie sissy and doesn't like many surprises in his media. He kept hollering from the top of the stairs "IS THE MOVIE STILL ON? WHEN WILL IT BE OVER???" Bella and I agreed to start Book 3 next week... and no we won't be watching "The Prisoner of Azkaban" until we're done with the book, which will probably be sometime in January.

After the movie, we had dinner at our new favorite - Pizza Luce in Hopkins. Then the whole neighborhood came together for a bonfire and desserts. The kids were running around with flashlights in the dark and whooping it up in the cool evening, and we all came home smelling of wood smoke. Of course our neighbor Ryan tried some new food experiments on us - we gladly overstuffed ourselves with his BBQ Empenadas. The whole evening was wonderful.

Today Pamela and Bella were off to church, and Isaac and I went to his swim lesson. After a short afternoon home, we were BACK to the Foss Swim School for his "friends and neighbors" birthday party. Two hours - one in the pool, one with the presents and the cake. Isaac was pretty tired actually, and I had to jump in the water to make him comfortable... but it was all fun. We finished the night at "The Nexus" - which is my name for a building that has both a Chipotle (for Bella) and a Smashburger (for the rest of us). Isaac was possessed by some maniac urge, and took my onion rings and plowed them into his mouth by the handful, with a wild look in his eye. It was a little disturbing.

After a bath, those kids were out FAST. It was a long weekend. And I'm just holding on... doing my best to blog.

Onto other things:
1) I love numbering my posts.
2) Angry Birds for the iPhone and iPad is a terrible terrible wonderful addictive thing. I have been playing with every free moment I get.
3) Fringe WAS that good. Dang it, that's a wonderful show.
4) I have an idea of how I might be able to work with those nice people at Epic, and will be sending a note along tomorrow. Watch this space.

And with that, I'm off to bed (maybe one more taste of that Caol Ila 12). Cleveland, I'll be seeing YOU in the AM as well.

Gunshy

2010-09-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

Whew... that was interesting. I guess my last post was circulated around the very company I was saying I really really really liked, so I've actually been a little nervous about posting... pressure to make it "good", or something. Fortunately, I think I've made it past that, and am ready to go back to my usual.

1) I'm psyched beyond belief for Fringe tonight. I say to all out there, if you haven't watched Fringe before, and are leery about getting started, go find last week's episode - it actually gives you loads of context and backstory, and you can just run from there. Then strap in for the rest of this season. I did a post about "arcs" a few months back, about how heavily plot-arc'ed shows are rewarding for the long term viewer but alienating to the casual viewer... Well, Fringe has basically said "yep - we're an arc, but we're taking you ALL someplace new, so here's what you missed, and now you know". And the possibilities this season are pretty big.

2) I know I've done this before, but I'm sort of gravitating back toward language study again: On my way out to Verona, I did a 4 hour brush up on my Dutch. It was very fun, but then I didn't run into any of the Dutch people at Epic. ANNOYING. I have two things to say about Dutch:
- I love making all of those gutteral Gs. Hrrrrragh!
- It completely ruins your ability on German. Dutch is hard where German is soft, and vice versa. "I" is "Ick" (hard K) vs "ich" (gutteral). And "happily" is graag (gutteral H, rolled R, ah, gutteral H), vs Gern (Hard G). Other geekier examples will not be provided in the interest of not going there.

3) Kvetch as I may about Cleveland, I have grown to love "Cleveland Style Pizza". Between Geraci's and Romito's, I can't get enough of the sweet sauce and the chewy crust. When I was in Florida, I had Anthony's COAL FIRED Pizza. Coal. You don't get a good aroma or flavor from burning a fossil fuel, but somehow the whole thing worked out. Did you know my first word spelled on the fridge was Pizza?

That tale may be apocryphal, and I'm sure Anonymous Poster #1 will set me straight. I just don't know if the magnetic alphabet set had multiple Z's. Like Scrabble. Maybe I repurposed an "N". I feel bad that the fridge in our house has a wooden, non-magnetic front. My kids were deprived the alphabet letter thing. So I compensated with an iPad.

4) I stayed late at the office today after the rest of the consultants took off, and it was wild to be in such an empty office. TWO people came into my office to turn off the light and were shocked to see me still at my desk. Got some good conversations in too. 5-7pm is apparently when the "real decisions" get made. I'm on the 6am flight Friday - can't wait to get home.

Pamela had her birthday on Tuesday, and it was hard to miss that... It was several days of my not being able to use my unappreciated "cradle robber" taunt, until my birthday in November. Fortunately we do "birthday weeks", so we're going out Friday night, plus there s a very nice flower arrangement in the house I sent. We're also having Isaac's birthday party at the swim school - swimming and cupcakes, oh my!

And that's the update. I have some writing to do (a white paper on the potential of the iPad in clinical settings, and another on Personal Health Records). Plus my Fringe. Plus digesting that Cleveland Style Pizza. Plus....Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

An Epic Week

2010-09-26T18:52:00.000-07:00

While I usually keep things "no names, no companies" (except for movies, books, and music that I enjoy), I want to share something about the week I just had. One of the pieces of software I've been implementing at various sites including in Cleveland is "Epic". Epic is a full suite of hospital and physician management software tools, based around a centralized patient record. They have inpatient EMR, pharmacy, radiology, billing, ambulatory practice management, operating room, anesthesia, opthamology, and many more modules.

And people LOVE it. They are the fastest growing software company out there in this market space, and when we hear about someone NOT going Epic, there are usually a bunch of extenuating circumstances they're tied into. Is it the BEST software? Not necessarily... really what CAN be? But they have some clear advantages:

The company was founded by a software developer in 1979 and has grown organically. The founder is still in charge, and is fiercely independent. They build everything, they never acquire other companies. They are privately held and always will be. They build what they want to build, and their customers help them improve it. . Every person in the organization has an office. With a door. So they keep building offices in a cornfield in Verona. Anyone can approach the founder and she's on a first name basis with everyone.

They don't have a professional services arm: While a lot of companies sell you the software for a song then sell you the services to maintain it, Epic won't go there: Their software costs $X and that's non-negotiable. There is one way to have it cost less, and that is for you to HIRE as employees people on your staff who can maintain it. If you meet certain "self sufficiency" criteria, you can get a discount on your annual fees.

Every year, their customers attend one conference, held by Epic in their Verona Wisconsin location. It is well attended partially because you need to send people as a part of the annual discount, but also because it is a great way to re-connect with the community. CIOs, CFOs, and Directors from every single customer make the trek, as do their core support teams.

Now, let's put a different hat on here: Epic doesn't sell services, and they encourage clients to be self sufficient. This has spelled an excellent opportunity for consultants to staff these projects. I'm one of those, as are a few people in my firm. The company I left last year dealt exclusively in Epic staffing. So if you're in this business, you must know that UGM is an amazing opportunity to connect with potential customers.

So that's where I was last week - hanging out in Verona. My name badge looked like any other customer's, and I struck up conversations with people at many clients. Of course I was also wearing the hat of my current client, so I'd say that easily 80% of my conversations were actually tactical with peers... but there were 20% that were pure mining, and there are some definite opportunities I'll be following up on.

But more than the potential opportunities, something else struck me this year: This company impresses the heck out of me. They're so focused on a true mission, not beholden to shareholders, just trying to make a good product, and it's WORKING. They are the tool of choice across the country and even internationally. They try things out, they listen to their customers, and they aren't afraid to learn. They have an open culture that respects individual contribution.

It feels like a place I'd want to belong. Of course there are downsides. You need to live in Madison. No exceptions. There's a lot of travel, but it's here and there, not all one place. There's an expectation of dedication and hard work... but that's something I bring anyway.

The bottom line is that I'm thinking about what I could bring to them... maybe it is just that I continue to be a good partner on the outside, someone they can trust to install their software well (as I already am). But maybe there is something for me inside. Maybe. Just thinking about it.

Cats and Lizards!

2010-09-15T14:28:00.000-07:00

Ah, beautiful Broward County. So many little lizards everywhere. And so many feral cats.

I pulled up to the hotel and saw three little kittens hop up off of the sidewalk and scoot into the bushes... while Momma Cat drew herself up into not really an aggressive, nor defensive posture, but sort of a "well what are YOU looking at?" sort of pose. Momma cat is a one eyed cat, and a bug-eyed one at that - her one eye was HUGE and staring. I felt like she was a cyclops... or a basilisk trying to freeze me.

I stayed a little longer than polite, since I heard my mom singing the "One Eyed Cat" song... which I don't even know if it's a real song, but it was always fun..

"Ah'm a one eyed cat! Sneaking 'round the corner... tryin' to get to you! I'm gonna GETCHA, when you least expect me to!" This song was usually "rapped", which just establishes our family as trend setters. I think that "Uncle Gil" who hung around in the early 1970s might have been spoken word pioneer Gil Scot Heron. Or maybe not.

And boy do I love all the little newts and efts and who knows what else - those little lizards are adorable. And EVERYWHERE. At least they're not in my room.

More like FART Lauderdale

2010-09-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

Traveling to Fort Lauderdale tonight – I’m spending the week at the first hospital we’ll be implementing. And no, there's nothing stinky here, I just wanted to say Fart. MOVING ON. It’s a political mission to build relationships, which is a funny thing, since we’re actively trying to get me OUT of this client, so any relationship building I’ll be doing will have very little benefit to anyone. But it gets me out of Cleveland. And if you’re wondering, the reason I’m doing this is that we needed SOMEONE down there, and I already travel. Sending one of the rest of the team would have required travel authorizations and budget scrutiny. I’m the easy option.

(And yes, there is movement on the “getting Jim out of Cleveland” front – the client has crossed over from total denial of my ever leaving to provisionally thinking about a replacement… It is movement forward. Stay tuned.)

I’m flying on a “real” airplane for this trip. I’m in the big dog, a 757, up in First Class, enjoying a ginger ale in a glass made out of glass. It’s the little things. It’s a million times better than the little regional jet that I’ve logged almost 50,000 miles on this year so far.

I had an hour to kill in Atlanta, so I loaded up the iPod with the new Devo album: I remembered they had a new one because they were on Yo Gabba Gabba and the kids were shouting “Hey, look! It’s MARK!” – Mark Mothersbaugh has a recurring guest role on the show doing artwork, and they were thrilled to see him with a flowerpot hat singing “This is how we work it” (edit: original post had "This is what we do" - different song!). Anyway, the album is very throw-back and fun to listen to. And the 135 bpm tempo is good work “purposeful walking”.

(And if you're tracking the meta here: My children informed/reminded me of the existence of a new album by an 80's band I loved. The torch is passed)

I took a moment to sit in a bar to do some emails, and turned the music off to concentrate… there was a TV blaring, and I heard superdramatic music, with a voiceover “We’re taking detective drama to the next level”.. and assorted other dramatic hard-ass talk – I looked up and saw a soft focus girl riding an escalator, all smiles, looking at her phone… it took a while for me to figure out there was ANOTHER TV behind me that was the source of the cop show talk, and what I was watching was a cellphone ad. But for a minute, the juxtaposition was pleasantly jarring.

It reminded me of once when I came home in college to find my roommate Erik with a glass of bourbon, blaring Throbbing Gristle “Hamburger Lady” (industrial noise if you aren’t familiar) while watching The Dating Game with the sound off. I just looked, shrugged, and went to bed. In retrospect, Erik may have needed a hug at that moment. I let him down.

Oh, family updates: Bella and Isaac are back in school: Bella is my big Second Grader now, and she’s very happy to be back in her “zone”. But she’s tired and crabby at the end of the day too. Ship her off to bed with a full stomach and move on. Isaac is back to several days a week of preschool, and he’s full of stories about his classes too. He’s overtired too, and every single night at 2am sharp he wakes up, walks into the bedroom, and kicks me out so he can cuddle with mommy. I’m getting pretty used to comfort on an Ikea twin mattress.

ooooooooffffffffff

2010-09-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

Don't know exactly why but I decided tonight to go to a Japanese Steak House. Something about a little sushi and a lot of table cooked meat sounded good. And it was pretty good, but I'm way too full now.

I sat at a table with two guys from Oklahoma, who were nice enough but sad I wasn't able to dish about sports, oh they WANTED to talk about Brett Favre. They had Mountain Dew with their shrimp hibachi. Our chef did a couple of small tricks but was pretty much all business. He was Taishanese, which is a southern region of China, not far from Hong Kong, which was the source of a LOT of Chinese in the 1840s in the Gold Rush. He complimented me on my Mandarin (they speak Cantonese, Mandarin, and Taishanese there), but let me know that the only people who call the Chinese Language "Puh-ton-qua" (the people's tongue) are government, so I should stick with "han-yu". Good to know: Pimsleur taught Puhtonqua, so I'll refrain from it.

Going to chill out a little before writing up a statement of work for my friends in Allentown PA for a little work... But perhaps I could just close my eyes for a few minutes to freshen up.

Jimmy's Tech Corner

2010-09-06T06:50:00.000-07:00

1) I've gone a couple of days without shaving, and decided to take care of it this AM: We were OUT of my preferred Gillette Fusion 5+1 blade cartridges, so I went OLD SKOOL and rocked the Mach3. What, only 3 blades? What is this, Stalinist RUSSIA?

I gotta say that it was way BETTER: That little head stayed closer to my angular face curves and the shave was closer. It was like going from an SUV to a BMW 3 series. I wouldn't go all the way to say sports car, but it got the job done. So people, I'm here to say that you may not NEED the new Gillette 15 blade contraption. Mach3 did just fine by me. People you can get off of the upgrade train. Now, to completely reverse myself:

2) Pamela's phone was dying. Battery was down to a day, and mysterious white lines were criss-crossing the screen... I had to take action. So we got iPhone4s. We qualified for the upgrade, so it was a cheap move... and I love love love this phone. In fact, I have to say that the camera on it is actually a bit better than the Canon Supershots I've been using. I used it exclusively at the Fair yesterday and got amazing pictures and videos. Plus, in lower light situations, the white LED is much kinder to the photo subjects than a flash. I took a couple of A/B pics, Canon to iPhone, and the iPhone was nicer in all cases. Bella loves doing video chats from other rooms in the house with Facetime. Plus, HD Video, which came in handy yesterday....

3) I swapped out the insides of one of our toilets with one of those new two-stage flush systems - one button for mini-flush, one button for maxi-flush. The idea is that you use 1/3 of the water of a normal flush for your "pee only" flushes. They say it will pay for itself in water savings, but I just like the idea of saving thousands of gallons of water.

To celebrate, I donned a purple wig and sunglasses and a falsetto voice and used my iPhone4 to shoot a short video for the kids as "Mother Nature" showing them how the new toilet flusher works. I shot 5 scenes, loaded iMovie on the phone, edited it together with crossfades, added a techno soundtrack, and published the finished work. The kids watched it over and over, laughing. But it also got the message across. And it took all of 10 min to shoot and edit, and I was like a PRODUCER. Supercool.

And no, this video will not be on the internet.

Fashion Plate

2010-09-05T19:42:00.000-07:00

Bella's hair. She hasn't let us cut it for about a year, and it's been getting long... and snarly. A low point of every day was approaching her with detangler and brush in hand and hearing the whining start. She has gorgeous thick blonde hair, but most days, it was matted and insane. We did ponytails and braids, but it was a mess.

Part of her goal was to grow it long enough to donate to "Locks of Love", so we were going for a 12" ponytail that could get snipped. The issue then became that yes, we want 12" on the ponytail, but she wanted shoulder length hair at the end of the process, so how long is that hair going to be again?

Long story short, we were able to get a 9" ponytail, with hair just at the shoulders. Snip snip. And then a transformation happened.

She's been brushing her hair with a beatific look on her face. Happy to be brushing without snarls. When we got home from the fair, she grabbed her shampoo and conditioner and said "I've got to get the fair out of this hair!". Plus, she started taking a closer look at her wardrobe and discussing color coordination options for hair bands. It's as though cutting that hair released a GIRL who was sort of stewing inside... she's gone all girly girl.

We're only 2 days into this, but it was such a stark difference in attitude, poise, and habit that I had to make a comment.

Just back from the Fair

2010-09-05T19:19:00.001-07:00

Ah, the MN State Fair, the annual tradition. We had planned to go on any number of other days, but with my head cold earlier in the weekend, today was pretty much "do or die" day. So we did. And wow.

Usually we go early in the season, and early in the day. Today was smack in the middle of a holiday weekend, and we went in the afternoon. The swarm of humanity was incredible, and I caught myself a couple of times mildly hyperventilating. Fortunately, Isaac was a bit intimidated by the crowds, so he stayed close and came when called. There was only one moment where he decided to play "hide and seek" and raced off around a corner. Thankfully, his concept of hide and seek isn't too advanced, so he was just standing around the corner, grinning, but it was a panicky moment for me.

Food at the fair as always was delightfully disgusting. I started with an Andouille sausage with hot mustard and grilled onions, followed by a corn dog (Pronto Pup!). On top of that, a Harry Sings Jerk Chicken patsy with extra hot sauce (what was I thinking?). That held me until we found the cream puff stand and I indulged. I waddled for a while until the Strawberries and Cream stand was found. Finished the trip with one more trip to sausageland - a Kramarczuk's Brat with Kraut. Pamela, Isaac, and Bella all enjoyed their share of treats, but a gentleman doesn't tell what a lady has eaten (other than FRIED PICKLES).

This year was a turning point for both kids at the Kidway: Prior years, we've had to give away extra tickets at the end of the day because Bella just didn't like rides and Isaac was too small. This year was different: Isaac is over 36" and can ride everything there... and Bella was suddenly game for a lot of the rides. So I went through 2 $20 sheets of ride tickets in an eyeblink. They had a total blast - and I got some good pictures of them laughing.

The butterfly room was a bit of a bust for us: Not sure if there were just fewer butterflies or more walking perches, but we had no landings on us, and it was a bit embarrassing - a butterfly would float across the crowd and people were almost knocking eachother over to get "in the way" for it to land. And those who did get them to land on them walked through the crowd with a look of "see, I am a child of nature". Isaac had little patience, so I took him across the street for a burger, and we sat on the curb commenting on the passersby. Not bad comments: "Wheelchair". "Rascal". "Bus". "Car". "Balloon". He was into it.

My new highlight of the fair is "Pinball on a stick" - a full room of vintage pinball machines. They gladly ate about $2 of my quarters in short order, while Bella and Isaac looked on confused - why whack the ball around - what HAPPENS? Isaac chose the moment I hit multiball to take over one of my flippers, allowing all 3 balls to gutter in rapid succession. I wept silently.

Bella RELUCTANTLY took the sky ride with us - it's a gondola that crosses the fairgrounds. By the end of the day, however, the Gondola had become something she loved, and she wanted to be sure that next year, we take it for a ROUND TRIP.

Ending with the beginning, we got a late start as Pamela had Church duty (she did flowers in honor of Alexander, and they were amazing), so we took off after that. I took a wrong turn and we saw some scenic parts of north St Paul, but made our way to the grounds nonetheless... only to find that the "official" lot was FULL. We had to go on toward Snelling to one of the more expensive offsite lots... and it was a bit of a walk.

But on the way BACK at the end of the day, this lot was far enough away from the hue and cry that there was no line to exit, and we were on the freeway within 10 minutes of strapping ourselves in. Compared to up to 45 minutes we've been trapped getting out of the official lot. We also forewent the usual coating of dust and dirt that the usual lot gives. I think we may have a new "usual lot", people.

I will say that 4-5 hours is all we need of the fair in ANY circumstances, however. It is absolutely brutal. We got home at 6:30, and Zinsser was very very happy to see us (I had proactively blocked off all of his usual "indoor poo spots", so his legs were crossed. We were all in pajamas by 7:30, and I'm the only one up at this late hour or 9:30.

Another year, another Fair. Hopefully next year we can go back to my preferred "Opening Thursday with hooky from Work": Travel gods willing. Wait, that's not right. Let me amend that: Next year, we're going back to my preferred "Opening Thursday with hooky from work". PERIOD.

Moments with Isaac

2010-08-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

1) Isaac is working on his potty training and is getting pretty darn good at it, but it does lead to a lot of "I never thought I'd be hearing myself say this" moments... Just last night we were at dinner at Perkins (pancakes for dinner? YUM) and Isaac and I ran off the the bathroom.

We marched back up to the table, and Isaac in full voice yelled "MOM!!!! GUESS WHAT??? I WENT POOP IN THE POTTY!!!" The whole restaurant was thus informed of his achievement. We were very happy for him.

2) Isaac has taken to performing "dramatic re-enactments" of his boo-boos. We'll be sitting in another room and hear a big "whooomphhh" of him falling off of something, a pause, then a cry starts, and he runs in. "What happened?" we ask? He takes us by the hand to the scene of the crime, and proceeds to set everything up as it was, and go through the motions slowly, falling to the ground, then laying down, eyes closed. He springs back up and asks if we want to see it again.

What's funny is that our friends Anne and Tony told us about their son Evan doing a very similar thing a few years ago (when he was nearly 4), so this is a total boy development thing, I think. Bella never did this.

3) We were all out last night on the neighbor's lawn (at the house we lived in 7 years ago) - they were projecting "UP" onto a screen, and the kids were on blankets while the grownups were on lawn chairs. And the mosquitoes were insane. Bella, Isaac and I fled the scene 15 min into the movie (meeting Russell for the first time) - Bella was shrieking about the mosquitoes, sobbing uncontrollably. Isaac claimed not to have noticed anything. I threw them both into the shower and off to bed, and this morning Bella looks like she has chicken pox, but so does Isaac - he was totally being bitten up too, but couldn't be bothered to notice or complain. Amazing.

And we're back...

2010-08-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

Another summer trip up north is done, we're back, and I'm headed back out east Monday AM. A few notes:

1) Zinsser spent the week at the Pampered Pooch Playground, where he was cared for well: And we know it because they offer webcams, so a few times a day we'd log in and see him running around with other dogs, having a great time. He seems to have made friends with a sheltie. Not sure if that breed is a good influence, however... ;-> Anyway, the dog is back and has been a limp noodle ever since - we've heard this - they play so much that getting back with the family they tend to sleep for a few days. Bella is happy because Zinnie is zonked out next to her in bed.

2) Do you know about SillyBands? These are shaped rubber bands that the kids are going nuts for. We first learned of them by getting some off brand generic versions from our aunt earlier this summer, but the "official" sillybands are what the kids crave. There was a lot of SillyBand collecting and trading going on at the resort this year... and much of it was responsible, but some people who shall be unnamed pulled the "this is a rare one - it'll cost you 3 bands to get it in trade" gambit, which us parents shut down good and fast. Even Isaac got into it, with a pack of Marvel Superhero bands. Of course, they're OUTLINES of the superheroes, so Isaac keeps forgetting which is which. I've printed a handy guide with pictures of the real heroes the outlines represent, to help Pamela in my geeky absence.

2a) Isaac took Superheroes as a new "conversational gambit" - "say dad, do you like Superheroes? Who is your favorite? Mine is SPIDERMAN. Do you like IRON MAN? Me too! He's my favorite, along with Spiderman of course! ". Take 2: "Dad, you know who I like? IRON MAN. Do you like IRON MAN? He's my second favorite. You know who my favorite is? SPIDER MAN." Take 3... Take 4.... by take 5, I was laughing so hard I couldn't even participate.

But later that day, I heard him using the "Superhero Conversation Starters" with two other boys... and he sounded like a real pro.

3) In a way, the trip was sort of bittersweet, because it cast into relief just how divergent Bella's interests have become from Jenny's - they played a good amount, but Jenny also spent time with older kids leaving Bella behind a bit. We had some extra cuddles to give her, but she was definitely feeling a bit sad.... In better news, we learned that Bella loves to fish - the patience and attention to detail was right up her alley. One thing everyone could agree on was that Swimming Is Awesome. Bella and Isaac swam for at least 3 hours every day, and more if they could swing it. It was wonderful.

4) I actually stayed away from work for the week, more or less. I was largely successful, but I got waylaid by an email mid-week, in which a co-worker at my company (not Cleveland) decided to take me to task on one of my decisions, in a rather condescending way... I lost a night's sleep, then fired back a double barrel email, which I have yet to hear back on. It was really not anything that needed to intrude on my vacation, and it really ticked me off... So somehow I'll need to follow this up this week... Good times...

5) Time for bed - the Cab is coming at 5:30. My Jag is still in the shop - the extended warranty is definitely paying for itself - they have found a few things that need to be addressed, and the parts need to be flown in....so they're at 9 days with my car and counting. They did give me a NEW Jaguar XF to drive for the first couple of days, but then we went up north, and now I'm headed back to Cleveland... so I'm not really inconvenienced. And hey, if they fix the electrical fault that was causing the car alarm to go off randomly, more's the better.

New Orleans Stories

2010-08-17T18:02:00.000-07:00

I was in New Orleans to help with an assessment: A little side project to help diagram how information is moving through a small hospital system. They got a new CIO a month ago and he's bringing in his old friends (us) to find out how they can improve things. I have a small part to play, but I'm happy to be helping.

Getting there was a trial: It was my intent to sneak away from Cleveland and participate by phone in the key meetings, but travel delays occurred (as noted in my previous updates). Wednesday the flight out left a little late, and I wound up barely making it to the site on time at 1pm. And instead of having my 6 meetings spread through two days as planned, they were compressed, so I was busy right through, and basically missed every Cleveland meeting. Not so great.

But then it hits me - HEY - maybe I want them to be a little annoyed with me? Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

ANYWAY. The meetings went well, and then I was invited to a dinner out with the CIO and a key Vendor. This vendor has been handling most of their operations (the whole shop is "outsourced", though they all live and work there). So I'm invited just to sit in and listen...

We're in New Orleans, by the way. Home of wonderful food. So we had to go to the CIO's favorite restaurant: Chevy's Fresh Mex. Fajitas and Margaritas. Something was off with the tortilla maker too, because the tortillas were about 1 lb each and shaped like wedges.

We all sit down and the CIO lays into the Vendor with a shopping list of screw-ups. This is not a friendly dinner. The assault goes for 30 minutes, while I mutely nosh on chips and salsa and sip my "top shelf" margarita. The vendor is backed up the wall, but then starts laying out how much the hospital actually needs THEM - heck, 60 people in their IT department actually work for THEM - they could pull out any time, right? Thus countered, the CIO backs off and it becomes a slightly friendlier dance, but a dance nonetheless.

The vendor is a small, birdlike man, with horn rimmed glasses and a needless goatee, with a texas accent and you can see the hair on his neck raise up with defensiveness. So it was all the more exciting when the CIO sent a signal to the server, and shortly thereafter a crew from the kitchen comes in clapping, places a sombrero on the Vendor's head, and sings Happy Birthday. I thought this guy was going to literally explode.

With absolutely nothing to contribute to this freak show, I amused myself by coming up with stories for the people at the tables around us... there's the guy stood up for his date! There's the girl bringing her hipster boyfriend to meet the parents... but wait, there was a natural high five with the dad there? This isn't a first meeting... maybe a planning of the wedding? My reverie interrupted by the CIO abruptly asking me "So what's you take on all this, Jim?" I fumbled a muttered "I'm really not in a position to say", which satisfied both the vendor and the CIO... Though we did briefly touch on my findings from meetings for the day, so it wasn't a total waste.

The lead consultant on this gig is a guy named "Guy", who has a lot of history in healthcare - he's been a CIO several times, but likes the life of the outsider, swooping in and fixing a broken organization. Guy has a colorful history and two vast wine cellars, and a thick, nasally New Yawk accent... he's got a story for everything, and a lot of fun to talk to.

Imagine my surprise when at lunch he revealed to me that he had "Invented the double cheeseburger". Turns out, it was 1971, and he was working in a cafeteria while also taking classes. He was burning the candle at both ends, and time was at a premium. So one day, he's starving but doesn't have time to eat two cheeseburgers. So has a flash of inspiration and puts TWO patties on that bun with cheese. It becomes his standard re-fuel, and soon enough, the kids are asking for them too - they have to put it on the menu, and he came up with it!

Honestly, when a guy tells you this sort of story, it kind of puts all of his OTHER stories into a bit of doubt. Was he really CIO? Did he really re-organize that department? Does he really have a secondary wine cellar in a climate controlled warehouse in Queens (actually someone else has confirmed this) It is mysterious, but it's part of why I love working with people. The stories.

Update from the Lake

2010-08-17T17:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the paucity of updates recently... There actually have been some amusing things recently. This week, we're up at the Lake - Ruttger's near Brainerd. We're living the cabin and lodge and lake life, and it's been wonderful. We're here with Bella's friend Jenny, and Max and Gus from down the block. The five kids have been a unit, running like mad around the grounds.

And we were lucky enough to get a doublewide cabin (two bedrooms, and a huge common room with two sofas), so we've been the "landing spot" for activities... Last night, the adults were enjoying coffee inside (yes, we brought the machine), and the kids were running around like maniacs for a couple of hours. It was classic summer stuff.

It's nice that all the kids are now old enough to be a self sufficient unit, really. Isaac gets frustrated sometimes, but the older kids are good about slowing down and helping him along.

Today was just beautiful - warm, not humid, not too windy. We sat on the beach at the lake for almost 4 hours, while the kids got ready for a sand castle contest... plus a lot of swimming. It was heavenly. I got a water bike and ferried kids out to the water trampoline and back, which was much more fun that swimming out there pulling dinghies, as I did the day before.

On the way up to the lodge on Sunday, we made our once-annual trip to WalMart (we will only go there up in Brainerd), and the kids got their "trip toys" - a different meaning nowadays from the clubbing days... not that we know anything first hand about that. Anyway, the toys this time: Zhu Zhu pets. Absolutely hilarious, these things. Unfortunately we let one loose in the room and forgot about it as it zipped around for a day, and his battery is already toast. Also, I did put back my near impulse buy of a fedora. Glad I did.

The buffets up here are legendary, and Bella and Isaac have been eating well: Bella has managed to save room for Cheesecake, of course. On her first bite, her eyes rolled heavenward and she muttered "that's what I'm talking about".

It is tricky with this much activity to keep the kids in top form: Simply put, they need naps. Today, Bella and Pamela got a 2 hour snooze to prep them for Bingo tonight. Isaac passed on his nap, so he's already asleep. Last night, both kids napped, so we were up for S'mores and silly songs at the campfire until 10:30.

It was a clear night for the fire, and the moon was strategically positioned over the lake with a beautiful reflection. Isaac stared for a moment and asked "Can I jump to the moon, Daddy?". I said "You can try!".

He jumped a few times, then turned back to me, held out his hand, and asked "Can you help me?"

Shortly after that, he cuddled in as we looked at the stars, and he said "I want to stay here forever". See, now THAT's what I call a vacation.

Difficulties in the flying.

2010-08-10T20:38:00.000-07:00

I escaped Cleveland this afternoon on my way down to New Orleans to do some fun Business Intelligence assessment work for a client down there. Nowhere near the French Quarter, by the way. But Memphis was my connection, and Memphis is where I am staying tonight. Something about a mechanical problem with the airplane.

Hopefully nothing like THIS (via the Onion)

Anyway, being mister Platinum Traveler, I got put in the same hotel as the flight crew, and booked into the first flight out tomorrow (yes, first class too). The only compromise was that they really really didn't want to pull my luggage, so instead I ran over to Target to get some necessities. Like a Tony Soprano shirt and fresh socks and undies. Things will be just fine.

That is, if I can find a CAR: Apparently there are no rental cars in New Orleans for love nor money. Not one. So I'll be cabbing it, I guess, which is also fine. Nothing's going to bug me.

In the meantime, I did miss out on a dinner with "The Bosses" back in Cleveland. This would have been a very surreal night, so I'm glad to be missing it. And I got a start on two of three industry white papers I've been meaning to write. Paper number 3 will be a little harder because I know nothing about it... yet.... But that's why I volunteered to do it - to learn.

Slayer'ed

2010-08-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
7 Seasons, 144 Episodes. All done now. All have been put into my eyeballs and brain and stored for future reference.

I suppose I should say SPOILER ALERT - I'll be talking about the show in general. Sorry.

Thoughts:
1) I wish I had actually watched this show back when it was on. It's great to be able to barrel through the DVDs, but I think I would have had a great time watching it realtime. And of course, it's impossible NOW to talk about this great show that started 13 years ago and stopped airing in 2003. Might as well start raving about "The Drew Carey Show".

2) The series ends with the "Hellmouth" under Sunnydale collapsing, ending the flow of evil, and leaving a huge crater where the town was. Everybody's happy until someone says "There's a Hellmouth in Cleveland, you know". Oh I know. I KNOW. And Cleveland hotel rooms is where I watched almost all 144 episodes, come to think of it. Plus airplanes.

3) 7 years was enough - everybody was looking a little tired by the end. Except James Marsters. Dude kept getting better and better. I'm happy with the story having been told. Actually, there were 4 places things could have stopped:

End of Season 1: The Master is dead, much rejoicing.
You could stop there, but the character development in seasons 2 and 3 were just great. Lots of good writing ahead, and classic episodes aplenty. Plus, Spike!

End of Season 3: The Mayor is foiled, the high school is burned down. Yay.
A lot of people end there: High school is over, the adventure needs to move somewhere else. But Season 4 has some great bits, including "Hush" and "Restless". Plus Season 5 is great.

End of Season 5: Buffy sacrifices to save the world.
You could totally end there: Season 6 is a surprisingly bleak examination of "moving on" from one phase of life to another - lots of depression, working things out, addiction... this is not the same fun show it had been in Season 3. But it's actually really good. But I can't blame anyone for not wanting to "go there" and consider Season 5 the end.

End of Season 7: The Hellmouth is closed!
Well, you do end there.

Anyway, I'm very glad to have watched this show from front to back. There are a dozen episodes that I'd watch again, and even more scenes that stick in memory. I'm a huge Alyson Hannigan fan now - she's just wonderful... and I also further love Seth Green. And I'll now watch James Marsters in anything (Caprica!!!) - count me among the fans of Spike.

Allright, here endeth my updates regarding Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I will still recommend them as a fun bit of video. Sure there were bad episodes, but the characters were great, and I sleep better knowing there are teenage girls with wooden spikes out stopping any vampires from biting me.

Some Cleveland Moments

2010-08-03T18:27:00.000-07:00

1) While waiting for my flight on Thursday, I hit the airport pub, and was joined by one of my consultants. Richard and I have always traded a few French phrases in passing, since I saw on his resume that he had studied in France. So he walks up, sits down, and starts speaking French. I replied likewise, and we spent the next hour having a few p'tit coups and speaking French. We didn't slip into English but once, and we took a brief detour to German. It was pure geeky joy for me, and easily a highlight of the week.

2) Our new offices are in a suburban office park, but our building is fortunate to be surrounded by some large-ish trees: I think the building dates from the 1980s, which would have given these trees at least 20-25 years to grow up. Anyway, my window overlooks a grassy area with a lot of trees, and in the past couple of weeks I've seen a large brown bird swooping past - sort of eagle-ish. Last week I felt a presence behind me at the desk, and looked out my window to find a grand brown bird with an ugly pink head using my windowsill as a perch. My brown bomber is a turkey vulture, and for the afternoon, he was my pet.

3) You may remember a post from 3 weeks ago in which I talked about sorting through 40 resumes... well it became over 50 resumes, and I've interviewed almost half of them, and so far I have only found 5 people of the 11 I need. Some people were gone to other jobs before I ever got to them, some were incredibly unqualified for the positions offered, and of the ones I am bringing in, I have to wait for 3-4 weeks for them to exit their current clients. It is painful.

But not as painful as the aftermath of the other thing I noted in the July 13 post about me trying to stand up and boldly ask about actually getting people to commit in a meeting to a requirement. Yes, I got the commitment. And in the intervening weeks, I have had that commitment changed, retracted, enhanced, replaced, mangled, and ignored. There was no requirement, actually.

Just another week of treading water I suppose.

4) But at least I'm back at Marriott Marriott (or "Capital M Marriott"). Comfy comfy. Makes it all better.

Can I just mention - less than two weeks to vacation?