It's a boy!

As you know, our little Isabella came to us via Adoption some four years ago. Last October, Pamela and I finally got our act together to get "back in the book" to be eligible. No nibbles for 11 months, and we started getting ready to re-up our adoption eligibility for another year.

Thursday AM, I packed Pamela off to a spa in Arizona. Thursday NIGHT, I got a call: A baby had been born, the birthmom had picked US from the Adoption book, and are we interested? Several hours of panicked attempts to reach Pamela ensued. She was enjoying the desert, the dinner, the skies... her Cellphone didn't work out there, and she hadn't been to her room... Finally at 10:15, she called, and we decided to move forward.

Friday we got a little more information: a boy, 6lbs 9oz, 20" long, healthy, mixed race (1/4 african american, 3/4 caucasian). The mom is 18, and is VERY firm that adoption is what she wants. Both Pamela and I spoke with the Birthmom, and she was very sweet. By Friday night, we knew this was going to happen.

Today, Pamela got an early flight (3 days early)... Northwest was relatively helpful in rebooking her. The Spa was wonderful - they let Pamela out of her reservation without any penalty and heartily wished her luck.



Pamela wasn't due to get home until 5pm, and discharge was NOON today. Fortunately, Isabella was with Grampette, and Dad came with me, chauffeuring the Jag. We picked him up in the same room of the same hospital we got Isabella at almost 4 years earlier. While I waited for Pamela's flight to arrive, people came and visited us, and I had a very nice hour of napping with him on my chest - it was like a dream.

When Pamela and Bella came home, I got to see BOTH of their reactions at once, and it was fantastic! Bella took to the boy immediately, insisting on holding and feeding him, she pushed his bassinet into her room, and kept watch on him until her eyelids finally gave way to gravity. I think she is really loving this. Pamela has now taken the boy on her lap as she calls friends and family.

We don't have a name for him yet, but we're working on it. And given the way adoption works, there is some risk for 1-2 months where the birthparents can change their minds, but after we weather that, it'll be totally done. For that reason, we're not saying that this boy is a "baby brother" to Bella: We're saying that we're "babysitting" until things get finalized.

So that's what I've been up to this weekend!

Oof... crazy buffet.

I can't say what has possessed me, but I have now gone to CRAZY BUFFET three times in a row. Day one, it was me checking it out. Day two, we had 45 minutes to eat, and I brought one co-worker. Mongolian BBQ loaded with Peapods and Broccoli. Day three, we had 40 min to eat, and I brought two more. Day three I did not get the Mongolian BBQ.

I do not believe I will be going to CRAZY BUFFET tomorrow.

Pamela's iMac has AGAIN died: This is just a terrible computer, and I have vowed that this machine will not grace our counter again. This is its fourth death (third related to hardware), and horribly atypical of my Apple customer experience. It's 2.5 years old now... but come ON. Fortunately, after my experience back in June, I've been a total nut about backing up, so everything's there. I mean, I'm a total Apple evangelist, and this just irks me. When Pamela comes back, a different computer will be on her counter.

"Comes back?" you ask? Ah yes, Pamela is turning some special year next week, and to celebrate, I'm sending her off by herself to a spa in Arizona for 5 days. I used miles to get her there and back in first class (thank you flight attendants for NOT striking - I owe you one!)... And she'll have healthy activities and spa-liciousness to keep her occupied. I do NOT believe she will be attempting to learn any languages, nor any sudokus, nor crosswords.... we're just a little different.

I'm tapping into the wide area network to help with Bella, from neighbors and playdates to Grampette and overnights... and of course LOTS of one-on-one time with just the two of us. It'll be wonderful.

CRAZY BUFFET!

It's been a while since I've talked about food (forgetting for a minute my obsession with Egginahole). So here goes.

In the months I've been at my current client, I've had a hankering for chinese food which has gone unsated. There's a suspicious place 100 feet away called "Panda" which never seems open, and the one time I did see it open, there was a single grim man inside. Panda seems doomed, and I'm not the one to help them. Sorry Panda.

But with some interest, I saw a sign a few weeks back in a strip mall 5 min away from work: "CRAZY BUFFET COMING SOON!!!!" My mind danced with what this crazy buffet could possibly entail. Well, they opened, and let me tell you, it's crazy. CRAZY EXCELLENT.

Here's what you get: Mongolian BBQ (you pick the ingredients for stirfry basically), sushi, salad bar, authentic chinese food (Shu Mai, potstickers, ribs) thai food (coconut curry shrimp, chicken), american chinese food (general tsos, sesame chicken, mongolian beef, Dan noodles, etc), american food (corn on the cob, fried chicken, bbq ribs, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes), desserts (cream puffs, pie, jello cubes, fruit), beverages, ice cream.... and so much more. There were 6 hot steam tables, 2 cold, the BBQ stand, the freezer...

The place is HUGE and clean, the waitstaff all wear red imperial dragon brocade jackets and keep everything clean and fresh...

AND it all cost $6.70 with tax. COME ON PEOPLE. In was in and outta there in 30 minutes. And it was DELICIOUS - at least better than any of the chinese buffets I've been at recently. This stuff's not going to win any world records, but it's very passably good. My stir fry was loaded with peapods, and the sauteed green beans were dee-lish too (yes, I did try to eat somewhat "well" there).

I know this is the new "fad" in chinese food eateries - there are a few others in town (China Moon is one), and I know they're in other cities too... but there is only one CRAZY BUFFET, and it is MY CRAZY BUFFET.

Sunday Updates

1) As we were driving to Grandpa's house this morning, Bella saw a sidewalk all ripped up, and said - "uh oh: Sidewalk Closed" I asked her how she knew, and she said "It says it on that sign there". I looked over, and sure enough, a big orange sign saying "Sidewalk Closed". "Did you READ that?" I asked....

"Yes... you know I CAN read SOME things, Daddo. I can read books to Jenny too." Remember, not yet 4 years old, this girl.

Grampette was noticing that she's already moving to the top level of a memory/matching game she bought(3 levels provided, intended for up to age 6, and she's now bored with level 2). She's sort of alarming me... in a good way.

2) This morning, I did another Egg-in-the-Hole experiment: Olive Oil, not butter or bacon fat... and it was wonderful. And it didn't taste nearly as heavy/evil. Bella asked for a bite, then had me make HER one, which she ate almost all of. She really liked it!

Tuning the recipe: I think I need thinner bread (I'm using thick english muffin toast) because it's hard to get the center solid without burning the bread... The experiment continues.

3) My work is sadly invading my dreams. My reassuring green LED from the smoke detector has turned into an automated testing planning device, which grills me on exactly what order things need to be done in for my project. Bella cried out in the middle of the night, and in my dream, it was my security coordinator asking me for user lists and passwords. I'm not sure if Pamela heard me say "can't this wait until the morning, Julie?" The other night I woke up convinced I had dozed off at my desk and was getting out of bed to get to my meeting... when Pamela woke me up and reminded me it was 2 AM.

4) This is the week Pamela goes off to her Spa weekend for her (mumblemumble)ieth birthday... And we have fully synchronized schedules between my work and Bella's classes... And out of it I get a night off/out too, so here's hoping there's another "LDG" evening (The League of Distinguished Gentlemen).

Islands of sanity

Right away this week, it's been 10-12 hour days with my golive still on-target for 10/12. The mini joys and defeats are all blurring into a manic buzz, and I'm finding myself just tapped.... but I'm trying to find time. I've almost blogged little frustrations from work, and honestly, they come and go too quickly...

One thing that IS important: When I leave too early, I don't see Bella, because her mom is teaching her the fine art of sleeping in. On those days, i must come home at dinnertime, and I want to put her to bed. When I leave LATE, and have my breakfast with Bella, I can work a little longer into the evening if needed.

Today was an early day: I got up before 5 so I could work out (because exercise is also keeping me sane), and got home at 6pm... and Bella and I got a date night out: Burrito Store, Guitar Center, and Barnes and Noble. By Barnes, she just wanted me to carry her... and when we got home, she asked to go straight to bed, no stories please, just cuddles. It was a wonderful evening.

I'm trying to figure out what to do for Bella's music love: She said today she wants a keyboard, a drum set, and a guitar, and yes, she'll learn how to play them all. She's actually getting pretty decent on the drums at Guitar Center. I'm thinking perhaps a little Band Space in the basement, with keys, drums, and a guitar all at kid height, run through a little stereo (not too loud), and the neighborhook kids will all form a band! The guitar needs to be red or pink - that's for sure.

One final detail: As Pamela had been painting Bella's room, we had her moved into her old room... for the last 4-6 weeks. The goal was to keep her there until the room was totally done, so that Pamela could paint in the evenings. But for over 3 weeks, there hasn't been movement on that front, and tonight Bella in her sleepiness asked very nicely if she could please sleep in her big girl room because she's a big girl and she likes her room so much.... I couldn't say no.

I just need to figure out what to tell Pamela... ;->

That Additional Info

To make Egg in the Hole: Take a hot greased pan - buttered, or you can use SOME of the leftover grease from making bacon (not all of it for god's sake). Take a small juice glass and cut a circle out of the center of a piece of bread.

Put the bread into the pan. Then crack a single egg into the hole. Let firm up a bit and crisp (like a good grilled cheese), then flip the whole thing over.

The egg fills the hole and fuses with the bread. The whole thing is crisped up, and you can pick it up and nibble on it - no need to use a fork and knife!

Perhaps it could be done with olive oil? Bacon grease is probably a bit heavy.... but that's how Papa likes it, so i figured I'd try it.

And that's the detail I'm SURE you've all been clamoring for.

Egg in the hole...

It was another Jenny and Bella overnight last night, and the squirrels were again a pleasure to have together from 9am Saturday to 9am this morning. This time out, they were a little more "visible" than usual - we had to intervene a few times and lead activities. This may be because both of them started up their school this week, and may have been just a little tired out. Bella was playing "Baby" a lot, and horror of horrors, she found a secret Pacifier cache in the house, and was pacifier baby. I have no idea where those came from...!

Even though I was invited to another BodyJam practice session, my daddy skills were so much in demand that I DID NOT GO to the wonderfulness. If that can even be believed. (To be fair, I did get my weights workout in... this would have been extra. And at the morning workout, they put me front and center in class and really worked on my technique - I got a brutal workout! I told them I really don't like attention at all, and that I was very shy. RIGHT.)

Daddo and the squirrels went to the car wash, and to Petsmart (to look at adoptable kittens - breaking my heart - and get fish food, as well as advice as to why our black goldfish suddenly got religion and turned gold (the answer: "Dunno")). Then to Target's cafeteria for Mac and Cheese and Cinnabon pretzed... such horrible decadance. I think Pixy Stix are actually better for you than Cinnabon. But the girls loved it.

Pamela worked on flowers for Alexander for church (we do this yearly around this time), and we went to the sanctuary as she set it up: We played hide and seek in the pews for over an hour while Pamela arranged the flowers. Here's what she was doing -

An 8 foot rod, hanging horizontal around 10 feet up across the back of the stage. Divided into thirds - the right and left third are shades of blue and violet ribbon forming a cascade. The middle third has some blue ribbons, but it mostly made up of white ribbons with small vials tied into them at 9-12 inch intervals (staggered) and in each vial is a white flower (snapdragon or rose). It's like a techno flower waterfall. Simply the most innovative arrangement I've ever seen constructed.

Dinner at the Cheesecake Factory - We tried to eat well, I had grilled salmon, Pamela a salad, the girls split a pizza... And the Apple store had no 24" iMacs for me to drool at, alas. Off to bed, and the girls had a harder time than usual winding down, but were asleep by 9 nonetheless (as was Pamela!)

This morning, the girls slept in to 7:45 and demanded pancakes immediately. We obliged. I also made bacon and Egg in the Hole (or Eggie in the Basket as it was referred to in the movie "V for Vendetta") I've never had this dish, but Evie sure seemed to love it in the movie, so I wanted to try it. AND IT WAS DELICIOUS. But now I'm feeling very logy from all of the grease and need to relax for a little while. As I was eating the egg-toast treat I was stating proudly that "I'd never eat eggs any other way". I think I can back off of that statement now. "Egg in a Hole is a Sometimes Treat."

It's been a good weekend so far!

Movie Report

In my life, there have been a few movies that for one reason or another I have not been able to finish. Usually, it's been the third movie of a night and I'm just too tired...

Unlike many people, I don't take not finishing a movie lightly. My mom in law is a total movie sleeper. I can't even wonder what percentage of rented movies she can claim to recall the ending of. No, for me, a movie is a sacred trust: If they're going to make it, I'm going to watch it whatever it takes.

The following movies are my hall of shame:

- XTRO: The not-so-friendly extraterrestrial. Rented no fewer than 5 times before I actually saw the end of it. Oh god why did I even bother. Such a terrible Alien ripoff with hints of ET.

- Videodrome: Rented 4 times before I saw the end. That was actually pretty interesting.

- Scanners: Rented 3 times, have not seen the end, as far as I can recall.

- Crocodile Dundee: Rented once. Have not seen the end.

- Dream a Little Dream: Rented once. Gave it 20 minutes before the Coreys wore out their welcome.

- The Libertine: No guilt about this one. You read my review a few weeks back.

- THX1138: Tried twice back in the late 1980s. FINALLY watched the new re-release tonight and loved it. George Lucas actually CAN make a good movie.

And that's the story.

(PS - Pamela asked what movie I was watching: I said "THX1138". Without knowing what that was, she just said "that sounds like a movie I would not be interested in". She knows her taste, that lady. And she's right in this case. It it was about two robots in Victorian England who are afraid to show their emotions because they come from different social classes, with lots of dropping on cyber-hankerchiefs and techno-bustles, perhaps. But as for dystopian futuristic psychodramas, meh, not so much for the Pamela.)

Fragile Flower

Poor little Bella has had so much this week, she's been a bit bruised as a result:
- Lots of activity last weekend with PapaBam in town, lots of Freddie the Dog, and lots of Daddy being around.
- Then Tuesday, Daddy's back to work, Papabam are gone, and Jenny got sick...
- Wednesday she was under the weather herself, and stayed in her PJs the whole day!
- Thursday, she went to swimming (with a great new teacher) AND a new Spanish preschool class (with Mommy - we'll be a spanish speaking house soon enough!)
- Today, she had her first day of preschool. And when she walked in, her favorite spot on the carpet was taken, and she just stood and cried. But by the end of class, she was right back in the action!

The past few nights, with all of these changes, Bella has had a rough time going to sleep - she's been on her way down, and then wakes back up suddenly full of sadness and concerns: They changed the playground at school, replacing the rocks with a spongey surface and she misses the rocks. Georgie said something. Daddy wouldn't read a 5th book for bedtime. Mom didn't do something exactly right... all very dramatic and tragic stories, with whole body wracked sobbing.

And sadly, when she would rev up with her concerns, she'd demand Mommy to help her out - Daddo just wasn't cutting it. So the week was a little long for me too...

Today, as she played in the neighborhood, she pretended that the Arm Eating Monster had eaten her arms (as it is wont to do) - and she pulled her arms into her dress. Then she decided to run away from said monster (despite the fact it had got what it needed - her arms). Of course, she tripped on the driveway and fell straight down, unable to catch herself with her arms (which were trapped in her dress).

Not to worry, nothing broken, nothing chipped, nothing too scraped. But her forehead and nose got a bit scraped up. I'm calling her Rudolph the Red Nosed girl.

But tonight, she was all cuddles and ready to snuggle down to sleep with Daddo, and it was just wonderful. I'm looking forward to a fun weekend with my little Rudolph.

Back at it.

After a nice weekend, Papa and Bam are back in Chicago, driven this AM by their kind chauffeur (that would be me). I got to work around 7 and slogged through to 5:30 - the days are chock full of stuff to do every day, and I can't see it slowing down.

Had an odd thing: We were scrambling for a "freeze" on the 11th - get it done. That would give me two weeks to prep before we do the pre-release to limited users. But my math says we need less than a week for prep. So I figured I could do my freeze on the 18th, give my people one more week....

I wasn't sure if they were going to kill me or kiss me. I wonder if I shouldn't have just held that reveal off for a few more days... ah, it would have been 50-50 either way. No pleasing folks. Not insanely stressed folks who are running to a deadline i suppose.

Bella loved having so much attention this weekend - Papa and Bam were here, we saw auntie Carrie and Scott and Freddy the Dog, and others.... Last night, near bedtime, Bella said "I have an idea - let's go over to Auntie Carrie's house and see Freddy the Dog!". We said it was a bit late to be going out. She said "Ok, let's call Carrie and see if she can bring Freddy OVER right now!" She loves that Boston Terrier.

As we were bedding down, Bella said: Daddy, your whiskers are scratching my pillow". Yes, I said, they're definitely scratchy whiskers. "Like a CAT's whiskers" she said. "But Daddy, can you please NOT scratch my pillow with your whiskers?" Why? "I don't want you to leave big black marks on my pillow." I'm still trying to figure that out... Maybe she thinks I draw them on with markers through the day?

Last night was fun: Uncle Chicken came by and regaled us with stories of his travels: His adventure in Scotland last month (distillery tours, yes. Haggis for breakfast, check), and story of a wedding in Seattle last month where he was relentlessly pursued by an elderly drunken Japanese man who was convinced that Nick was Superman (or "SoopahMAN!") and was insisting that Nick fly out next spring to see Sakura, marry his Granddaughter, and eat a special Japanese Radish. All this is true. He had us in stitches - we've wondered what Nick will finally do in life, and I think he needs to go have his adventures and tell the world about them. He should be blogging.

An early bedtime, as I need to get up and do my 6am workout: There aren't very many of us at 6am (usually 3, sometimes 5), and I have been so vocal in my love for the timeslot that they're expanding it to TWO 6am classes a week... but if I miss one, I feel like I'm letting the whole "early morning" cause down, and they'll just cancel them outright. I need to keep the faith! Also, it's a great way to wake up! But it's a lot of pressure, no?

Finally, some Japanese: When you enter someone's house you say "ojamashimasu" which translates to "I'm going to trouble you now". In such a polite society, you're apologizing just for walking into their house. I love the insanity.

Minor Details

1) As Bella tried to wind down to sleep tonight, she revealed a few concerns:

- There's a purse that looks like a watering can that she wants, and she cannot understand why we haven't got it for her yet (hint - BIRTHDAY planning). But she says she's worried that by the time we DO say yes, they'll be all out of them - that everyone will have one but her.

- She's VERY concerned that even IF we got it for her, the FISH might say no, and she'd have to return it. We tried to explain that the Fish have very little say in household decisions... but it took some doing.

- A few weeks back, she dropped a tiny piece of plastic into the drain of the shower, and whoosh, it went away. She was inconsolable. And even weeks later, she is still leery about taking showers, let her precious toys get sucked into the nether. Tonight as she fell asleep, she decided that IF we got an Elephant in, he could stick his trunk down the drain and suck the toy back out.

2) Last week at the lake, Bella asked me if I could cut the tag off of one of her dolls. I said "Sure... I just need a mushroom. I mean scissors" But the damage was done. Pamela heard, and I'm afraid that scissors have become mushrooms in our home. And I don't know why I said mushroom. Why did I do that?

3) I just realized that what with the extra workout today, I exercised for around 2.5 hours today, and I'm not collapsing. Wow.

The Golden Ticket

Papa and Bam are here, and we went off to the State Fair yesterday. for the first time, we went EARLY in the day - 8am out the door, 8:30 arrival. We had breakfast, and got into the miracle of birth barn right away (and yes, it was amazingly crowded even at 9am - we just loooove the baby animals, I guess.) Since you never know when a cow will start calving, they have greatest hits playing on huge 42" monitors hanging from the ceiling, so you had people clustered watching the miracle of birth, while it was actually quite easy to cozy up and visit with the miracles themselves (the newborn calves).

After the barn, we went to see the animals. In previous years, we'd hit these barns around 6pm. Seeing it at 9am is much different. For example: In the poultry barn, the roosters were all CROWING non-stop. It was a glorious cacophony. I halfway want a few roosters in the house just for the sound. One of my favorites was an ENORMOUS rooster, who crowed with a lusty, throaty warble, not unlike Fat Albert or Louie Armstrong. I got a little video of it.

The rest was standard State Fair story - lots of food consumed, Bella ate TWO corn dogs, was a bit relaxed in her stroller for the day, wasn't into the rides too much (just 4 rides, thanks), and dozed off near the end. We were home by 4:30, and many of us napped, while Papa and Bella did a project - making a cardboard house for small ceramic figurines.

A highlight for me at the fair was watching the nerdy teens cutting rugs on the Dance Dance revolution machines - there is a variant which was very scary - not just front, back, right, left, but a middle square, AND a whole second board you need to dance across to. 10 different dance pads to fast fast techno music.

I was pleased to note that the song that Bailey and Tyler were hooked on when they were up here (Roll over Beethoven) was selected quite frequently by the superdancers. So that's that cool song. (I'll also comment that Bella STILL dances like a maniac any time we put on that Butterly song from DDR... she gave us quite a show today).

In the evening, Bella went to a B-Day party and had a blast. I went out to meet a friend of a neighbor's who is in town from Finland and wants to know about the IT Job Market in town to see if he wants to move back. We hit it off well, chatting for a good half hour beyond when the neighbor had to leave. We may keep in touch!

Today, I went off to my AM weights workout (I had ramped down in the past weeks - once a week for 2 weeks, then a 10 day break - I'm right back to square one really). But it was very fun, and they asked if I had time this afternoon to come back for a practice session....

My little workout place is starting something called Body Jam, which is just dancing based, with some jazz moves, some hip hop style (yes, there is "crumping" as well as something called "chicken wings"), and lots of wiggling of hips. For 90 minutes, it was non-stop dancing (usually it's 60, but we had 30 min of learning basic steps). I LOVED IT. It's going to be in regular workout rotation in 3 weeks, and I can hardly stand it the waiting. I felt very uncoordinated and TRES BLANC, but mark my words, I will be a funky creature by the end of this!

I felt very happy to have been invited to the preview, and i really felt like I had won a golden ticket (see: Willy Wonka).

Tonight we're off to dinner out, and then a relaxing evening in (I'll probably work on my secret project a little).

Warning - Geeky

1) My new secret project will probably launch next week sometime. What's cool about it is that the content is totally being done by Paul and me, and we're not dependent on anything to make this work - we have a real product, we can make it, and we don't need to hire programmers, nor get startup funding... we're just going to put it out into the world. We're kind of excited. But wait a little longer.

2) I love the Ebay. A million years ago (ok, 1983-85) I would bus downtown and buy british music magazines. One was a technology mag called One Two Testing (which I think I've mentioned before) that I loved beyond all reason. I got one copy on the eBay a few months back, and it brought me right back to programming my DX9 to make analog blippy noises so I could do the riff from Axel F by Harold Faltermeyer or Only You by Yaz, looking at photographs of Simmons electric drums and Jupiter 8s being leaned on by Howard Jones or Thomas Dolby...

I just got a package from England - I won 4 more issues. And they're true gems: Interviews with Depeche Mode, Heaven 17, OMD, Howard Jones, TWO with Thomas Dolby (one is a "primer for synthesizer nuts" before he was famous, the other post-fame with pretention and success all over it. It's just divine. I need to find more.

One of the best parts of the magazine was they'd ask exactly HOW my synth stars did stuff. There are drawings of the settings of Vince Clarke's synths for Only You, and production details for Heaven 17 songs (my god, they used a Synclavier? I swore they were Fairlight Men to the core.)

And that's the nerd report.

Taco Nite

Love the Taco Nite at the house. Usually, we play Kool and the Gang's "Ladie's Night" and sing Taco over the top. Bella, as you know, loves her Chipotle Burrito bowls. What you may not know is she's a taco fiend. She loads up a tortilla with spiced beef, sour cream, and cheese, and wolfs it down. Taco Nite is one of our few reliable ways of getting protein into that girl.

Tonight, as we sat in slack jawed amazement, Bella downed 1 hard shell taco and 3 soft shell ones, all loaded with more meat and cheese than either Pamela or I put on ours. We both had 3 each and were stuffed. Bella kept on going, making growly sounds of food lust. Add to earlier in the week when after a full dinner, she insisted on two yoghurts prior to falling asleep, and I'm afraid I'm looking at a biiiig growth spurt coming ahead.

Papa and Bam are coming to town for the weekend, and I'm playing hooky Friday to go to the Fair. I'm very much looking forward to the delicious fair food. In preparation, I restarted my exercise program after 10 days away (things got... busy). And I'm oh so achey. My quads just feel like I took a ball peen hammer to them for sport. But on balance, I still believe Exercise is a "Good Thing"

Work... Meh. I have good days, and bad days, and lots of ups and downs across those days. We are 42 days from golive, and we still have many issues, PLUS the final planning is kicking into full gear. Today I had non-stop meetings from 8-5:30, with 2 15 minute downtimes. In one of those downtimes I ran to Rainbow to get food. On the other downtime, I ate that food.

Language is going VERY well: I finished Level 1 of Japanese and have started Level 2: So sum total, we're talking I just did Lesson 31 of 90. I still love this language, but man, it has some VERY silly conventions. All of the politeness levels, the couching terms, the word order, the modifiers... and the fact that they use different NUMBER words when referring to Tall thin objects, flat objects, animals, people, round or cup shaped objects... It's like a crazy secret club where to kill the boredom they come up with impossibly obscure distinctions - like Cockney Rhyming Slang or something.

With every little bit I learn, I realize... German's not so tough. Spanish is a breeze. And even though I'm at least 2 months out from finishing Japanese, I think my birthday present to myself MUST be the Mandarin Chinese series of lessons...

And that's my update.

Relaxomatic

First off, let me assure you all - things DID get a touch better for my work by Friday. We had a few more scripts pass through testing, and the emergency scheduling issue may not have been as critical as supposed... There are still substantial hurdles to overcome, but I think that things were better Friday than on Thursday. But I took off early on Friday, and lord knows what could have transpired... I do note that there are over 40 new messages in my inbox from between 1-4pm, my "hooky time" from Friday.

But Hooky was worth taking because it was a great weekend. Here's how it went: We had a quick sammich at Potbelly in Maple Grove, then up to Ruttger's in Garrison, just off of MilleLacs. 120 short miles (measured by one-Pooh Heffalump Movie and one-Dora episode). We got a nice small cabin right on the lakefront - clean, not musty, and cozy.

And then we relaxed. And ate very good food. And relaxed. Bella was unstoppable with the swimming action. Friday Night, Saturday morning, noon, and night we swam. Sunday morning we swam. Thank you to Grampette and the Foss swim school, Bella is VERY comfortable in the water, and boy, Pamela and I sure got our share of swimming in too. I do want to say the food at Ruttger's was very good - I had a fantastic pan fried walleye last night that I'm dreaming about now.

Bella loved the lake, and we came home with a full bucket of rocks and shells she collected. And she loved looking for bugs, peering at them from a safe distance with her hands on her hips, pitched forward, with her nose crinkled up.

I re-read an old favorite book, Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. What was interesting was that when I FIRST read it, I had read very little by either man, and since I've read LOTs by both, so I was expecting to be able tell who wrote what, but boy, that book was a real synthesis. And still VERY funny. But other than that I can't say that I did anything productive - my language books and tapes sat unread/unlistened. My computer stayed at home. This was all about play.

We got home around 4, after checking out and chilling out for a few extra hours up there. Bella went STRAIGHT over to Jenny's, where they just giggled and laughed with eachother for hours. So us adults got to thinking about having dinner together. But after all of the great food we'd eaten (and recently), I couldn't think of anyting to eat.

So I ran home, made up a plate of peanut butter and jelly sammiches, grabbed a bag of pretzels, and we had a great little picnic in the warm summer evening.

Prepping for the Weekend

This weekend, we're off for a SHORT 3-day getaway to a lake place up north. Water park, lake, meals included, the air of the north woods... it'll be a wonderful recharge.

Sadly, Pamela seems to be on the ill side (she started a Z-Pack, so I don't think she's messing around). So Bella and I had an evening together - burrito store, Guitar Center, and a drive home in a flash flood which was quite gripping. The mini handled well, however.

Once home, Bella took off to do more Packing. Pamela weakly pleaded with me to distract her, because everything she packs, Pamela must unpack. When I made it upstairs, Bella proudly showed her handiwork: Every pair of glasses and sunglasses in the house was put into individual ziplock baggies, and laid out in a row. "Now you're ready for your trip!" she exclaimed.

This vacation will be very needed for me: It's been a rough week at work - things started well, but by the end, if I'm reading this right:

- I was asked for the same information for the 5th time from a co-worker, who already had the info (I've sent it twice!), and implied his work couldn't be done without it. I snapped and yelled at him in the meeting.

- Our vendor JUST figured out that we MIGHT not actually have a legally compliant billing system built. And they might not have a fix for me.

- My interfaces team JUST figured out that oh, they didn't actually test anything back in May like they said they did, and we're back at square one, and they might not be ready for live.

- All of the test scripts we started this week might not pass because of the way they entered them ("old" versus "new as of 4 days ago" thanks to the vendor again)

- And we're going live in 49 days.

I need a break. Thank goodness for the lake!

Also, I promised Pamela I'd be "unplugged" this vacation, so mister laptop stays at home, and you'll just have to read about this when I get back!

So much better.

The cold was miserable, but by spending the entire day asleep, I wound up scaring it away - I can only imagine it's little virus thoughts "I wanted to see the world and meet new people, but this host just lies around? I'm finished!"

So I was back to work on Friday, and again today, with no ill effects, though the allergens flying around are making me feel a bit woozy whenever I'm between climate controlled zones. Come ON, future, where are my underground cities of steel? I'll take it!

Over the weekend we did many fun things - Bella was on an overnight to Jenny's so Pamela and I did things like have a long breakfast at the Original Pancake House, and dinner out with friends Rita and Jeff, and a movie....

Taladega Nights. I blew it. When a guy picks a movie, it's always a risk. And as we walked out, Pamela said "I'm picking the next one". Our reviews:

Jim: "It was a parade of buffoonery, with largely unsympathetic characters but some exhilirating moments of slapstick. Funny at times, but ultimately not as satisfying as Anchorman."

Pamela: "It was dreadful".

In truth, I found around 15 minutes of GOOD laughing in it, but was disturbed by the rampant product placement (even if it was "meta"), the homophobic bits, the strangely alien and awful performance by Sasha Baron Cohen (who seemed to be fighting a battle the entire movie with his tongue, which would NOT behave and allow him to form words in a comprehensible manner). Plus, it was NASCAR, which was horrid in it's own way.

So next time, we'll be doing some sort of period piece about people who are afraid their emotions might spill out and they might accidentally use the wrong fork for salad and be shamed out of Whillfordlainesshire Manor House, where their servants have a rich, yet bittersweet existance right under their noses that they're sadly oblivious to....

Moving on.

I'm happy because I'm cooking up a fresh scheme with my buddy Paul out in Seattle - the invention train is rolling again... and this one is pretty different. It's actually a podcast and I think within a week I can share it. Until then, mum is the word, see? But unlike the previous ideas which were largely paper, this one actually has a first revision, and it's GOOD. It's a frothy cocktail of quest for knowledge geekiness, with some science and high production values. No more. I've said too much.

And that's it for the night... keep those cards and letters coming!

Cold. I have one.

Last night, as Pamela was out with friends and I was watching Bella, I grew aware of a weariness in my bones... All of our games had to involve Daddy lying down somewhere (hence, I was a restaurant patron AND a medical patient as the evening went on). I chalked it up to just my standard "extreme" lifestyle, and went to bed by 10.

This morning, I realized this was no mere fatigue, I had a full on COLD. Sniffles, coughing, aching, classic NyQuil ad fodder. I tried to deny it - I showered, dressed, had breakfast, fed Bella jelly toast....

But in the end, it was futile: I would not have been able to point the car towards work without winding up in a ditch, my asleep forehead comically "laying on the horn". So I sent out some notes and set myself up on the 3rd floor for "sickland" - I got books, puzzles, everything for a sick day.

And promptly slept the entire day, save for a few minutes to eat and drink at two hour intervals. My "sick kit" went unused. I did get a good picture of how things go here when I'm not around: At one point, I came downstairs, and there was an art gallery throughout the house of playing cards and flash cards taped to every surface at Bella height... It sure sounds like Bella amd Mommy have fun, and I understand why Pamela can look sooo tired at the end of the day!

Pamela has another evening out, and I'm now watching both Jenny AND Bella for a few minutes until Randy comes home to relieve me... And I am hopefully feeling better. I had better be better: I have over 100 "urgent" emails in my "Client" email box, seems there are decisions and issues and all the other great stuff I do and it piles up surprisingly quickly.

Go Go Gadget GREEN TEA!

Current Statistics

Lessons in Japanese completed: 23
I can talk about family (wife - Kanai, daughter - on'na no ko), size (Oh-ki = big, chi-sai = small), ask to fill up (Man Tan) my car (watashino kuruma) with a litre (lee-tah) of gas (ga-so-reen - yes really). I can count just up to 100 (99 = ku juu ku), then jump to 1000 and up. I can ask where things are, say where they are, ask if they're far away or not, express a desire for food, drink, or shopping in two levels of politeness... and so much more.

Days till my project goes live: 58.
Successful system tests so far: 0.
Yes, this is a bit nerve wracking, but we are waiting on some KEY fixes from our vendor, and we can get pretty far in the process. My current headache was that the big issue I chased last week where we escalated to all levels of management, was revealed to have impact to.... wait for it:

Cases a month affected by this bug: 3.
This is so far beyond the 80/20 rule, or even the 98/2 rule. When that little tidbit was revealed, I almost lept across the table. 3 cases a month, I don't care if the system handles it elegantly. I'll personally engrave those cases onto granite tablets.

Tomatoes in our house: 100000000000 (or so)
Our vines are bursting with maters of all sizes. AND our veggie co-op appears to be running over too, because we have more tomatoes than I can shake a stick at (and I wouldn't shake that stick, they clearly outnumber me. I'm no fool). So last night was a big tomato salad. Tonight was roast beef sammiches with big slabs of tomato. TOMORROW will be gazpacho, which done well is maybe my favorite soup (not to be confused with Minestrone, which is the devil's own soup. It took me several years of practice before I was able to differentiate those on a menu).

Little Binxes in my house: 1.
She met me as I came home tonight - late after working out too. She was on the front step wearing a duck towel and nothing else. She was very excited to see me, and I got lots of hugs and smooches. I put her to bed, and she took a looong time to wind down, but in the end, a back scratch and some stories got her to rest.... and I loved ending the day with that.

And now, full stomach, exercised bones, and full brain, I'm off to an early bedtime!

Dancing FOOL

Yesterday, Bella was definitely under the weather, the poor thing. But today she got up a the crack of 6 with me and we had breakfast together and cuddles. She insisted on Pancakes for breakfast, and I made enough to surprise Pamela with breakfast in bed... a wonderful start to the week I hope!

At work, I had heard from some of my team leads that they're not feeling terribly appreciated, so I decided to help out. I found out who has been working lots of hours (over 50 a week) and gave them thank you cards with Superman stickers in them. A couple of them were too cool for school to mention it, but I got teary-eyed smiles of appreciation from the ones that I think mattered.

I'm going to keep the good feeling going at work somehow. It certainly made the day fly by!

When I got home, there was a package for me: One of the songs in Dance Dance Revolution is "Butterfly" by Smile.DK. It's sooo catchy, and it's classic late 90's swedish dance pop with crazy fake Japanese lyrics. And of course it's not for sale in the US for love nor money (see: Mr Timothy).

I found the CD on E-Bay, and won the auction. I popped the CD on here at 7pm, and Bella and I danced straight through the first 6 tracks - a good 20 minutes of hoofing it. This is just perfect pop stuff, and Bella loved it! I think I'll be hearing a bit more of it.

And of course my own D.A. Pennebaker (Pamela) filmed 12 minutes of it... so we have important stuff to store in the nation's Strategic Cuteness Reserve (fear not, Daddy was only dancing for part of it - there's plenty of solo material there. There's no need to call the police).

Bella's having a nice long shower now, and I'm hoping for a good night's sleep for my little girl.

Living SO large

Last night, Bella was with the grandparents and we set out for a massive night on the town with 4 friends. We went to Campiello, which is a nice northern italian sort of place, and had cocktails, appetizers, salads, mains, and dessert... and after a good 3.5 hours of feasting, we started talking about "what next?"

Perhaps bowling? Perhaps a movie? Or another bar?

Or maybe we will all just go home and go to SLEEP. Which is what we decided upon by unanimous decree. We're all so OLD... ;->

And our ambition to have a big breakfast out with out Bella still at Grandma's was foiled by our default Sunday behavior - Jim up at 7 and started on the puzzles, Pamela up at 9 and sleeeepy.

Bella went to Jenny's for her 5th birthday party, but she was sufficiently tired that she was more of a spectator. Upon returning, she had a short nap and is now lolling around in pajamas. And Pamela's back up for a nap.

All this is fine - I needed to do some prep work to get some equipment ready for sale. Always fun deleting emails, pictures, and other personal info!

Hey, it's a VERY lazy Sunday, so this is a lazy post. No deep thoughts, no crises... just... relaxing.... ZZzzzzzzzzz.

Scotch Night

Nick and Rich and I had another "Scotch Night" last night: We all bring a bottle or two of something interesting, and we set up small tasting glasses of each and have a discussion of each fine spirit, followed by a movie. As before, the quantity is small, the quality is high, and we approach it with a scientific spirit.

Last night we enjoyed some Lagavulin (from Islay), Talisker (from Sky), Oban (West highlands), Scapa (from the north Orkneys), and my new Suntory Hibiki (from, well, JAPAN). What was amazing was that as we went around, we had tasted some of these before, but in comparison and contrast, new flavors were brought out: For instance, while we love the Suntory for it's smoothness, after some Talisker and Lagavulin, it's almost criminally bland... though still respectable.

Our palates are developing as well, and things that just didn't work earlier this year (Lagavulin again) now are tasty and actually preferred.

We agreed that this is absolutely the best way to develop our knowledge, and want to do this monthly... Last night's movie was V for Vendetta, which even on the 4th viewing for me was amazing. Such a powerful movie!

And I discovered anew that Rick and I are kindred spirits in another way: He's a language junkie like me: He currenly has Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and Spanish in his repetoire. I have French, German, Spanish, and a little Japanese and Russian... But listening to him speaking Mandarin Chinese really made me realize I NEED to know this language - it's just so cool sounding.

Rich and I have been FRIENDS for just over a year, and acquaintances for over 10 years, and it's so cool to discover new things about people.

In the meantime, Pamela was busy doing completely unique flower arrangements for Jeff and Rita's home tour - They're opening their house to visitors for a designer's showcase (in this case, they're the homeowners AND the designers), and Pamela dressed the place up with some truly artistic arrangements using unique ingredients... Let's just say she bought out Byerly's entire stock of Radishes last night. Yep.

It's a gorgeous day... time to go see what's up out there.

Much better!

So my little stress post yesterday... I want to report that I did take my own advice, and I had a better day. I was smiling, I had a spring in my step, and even though I had my share of issues and crises to deal with (which IS of course my JOB), I didn't get worn down. I hope it'll last...

This evening, we had indian takeout and started watching The Libertine with Johnny Depp, but it was just too horrible for words. It was dreadful. It was fun watching Johnny Depp leer and roll his eyes and scowl of course, but that out of the way, it was just a tiresome exercise. We gave it 45 minutes of our life, then said NO MORE.

We refreshed our souls with an episode of All Creatures Great and Small, and had great belly laughs at Sigfried's antics, and the strangeness of Yorkshire.

And that's the update.

Comments and my Rules...

Just some quick notes to both of my readers: You can leave comments on any post by clicking on the "comments" at the bottom of each post. You need to type in the answer to a little optical puzzle to post (to prove you're not a mindless robot), but you don't need to register - just select "Anonymous" or "Other", not "Blogger".

And I am growing curious as to how many people actually DO read this - comments will help. I think I might actually have as many as TEN actual humans... but maybe that's just my crazy champagne dream. No way would I have that many.

Secondly - I promise to keep this blog readable by anyone over 12 years old.... and ALL that entails.

Thirdly - I try to keep things somewhat anonymous - no last names, no actual place or client names. I realize it makes me sound a bit like a 1920's Russian short story writer at times, but I think that by keeping specifics out of it, I get to talk about what is really HAPPENING without people feeling like I'm airing laundry. I could NOT tell much about my work if it wasn't anonymized.

My pledge - if you do feel I've revealed something I shouldn't have (as I did a few weeks back when I used a last name), please let me know and I'll modify it. We're friends, right?

Secrets and Me

Oh I hate being the keeper of a secret. Especially the kind I had to have since Friday when our Gang of Four conspired to change the project. It really wears on me to interact with people who will know in a few days or minutes that I have kept things from them. It makes me feel like they have reason to suspect my truthfulness in non-secret-keeping intervals.

In short, when there's stuff like this, it affects me, which I really try not to have my work do as a rule. I am usually very good at leaving work there, and coming home, but at times with this big project, it has been stowing away in my trunk and sneaking in, waking me up at 4am with ridiculous worries about project plan updates. And this restructuring was a big stresser.

The good news is that the project WAS restructured, but that we were able to reasonably salvage and re-order things to the point that really nobody is out of work, and nobody has wasted their time... and the clients are supportive. It all went public today, and I wound up almost collapsing once I got home, the air let out of the bubble.

I promised myself that the stress of the past week will not hold, that I am allowed to recover, and that from tomorrow on, my shields are back up and this is just work again.

And let's admit it - that whole reunion thing - that was a bit of an emotional trip too, and that's probably been a contributing factor for stress and exhaustion. I might also be a bit tired in that I did work out for the first time in a week, and it was at a 6am class... Nah, that's probably not it.

"The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long... and you have shone so very bright, Roy" - Eldon Tyrell

On a Monday

1) When Bella woke up, she grabbed her coin can and came downstairs, and laid out coins in the shape of a "humpback whale" on the whole kitchen floor. She must have been planning this one.

2) The "Big Plans" I helped concoct at work are now fully underway, but it has not been communicated with the team yet. But at least today I'm not only one of four people who know it - there'a a good two dozen of us in management, and it will be announced on Wednesday. My biggest concern is that one part of my project will be delayed a year, and the person doing it is probably going to take it pretty hard. So my guts have been a little knotted up.

3) Geek Fest: Got more textbooks today: Some short story collections in German and Spanish, where the language is on one page, and the english translation is on the facing page, so you can just look across to translate. Also, a remedial algebra/trig book, because I was disturbed about my inability to remember equations for compound interest, and that opened a whole world of math insecurity for me. So I want to relearn it.

4) Tonight Bella and I had a date... NOT at the burrito store, but at Punch Pizza. She ate her whole cheese pizza. What an appetite! As we sat there, a man walked by with two high tech false legs (shiny aluminum ankles). I watched Bella. She was very casual as she leaned over to take a better look as he walked by, then went right back to Pizza - no explanation asked for, no shock and amazement. Not even the Reay raised eyebrows. Though I suspect this will be a time release event... Out of the blue she'll ask something about getting new body parts or something.

Reunion Part Two

Some general impressions:
1) People are still looking great. I've hear people say that at the 20, the ladies look good, but the men are looking middle aged. I'd say that at Washburn, we beat the curve pretty well - people were in general looking fit.

2) Only two people from class were known to have passed away in the intervening years. One was a friend back then... We were doubledates at Prom, and we did an interesting piece for AP English where we read poetry in a graveyard, sitting on tombstones with our names on them. I think that would be a hard picture to see now.

3) We have people from all walks of life: My friends are photographers, drummers, firemen, Navy officers, lawyers, substitute teachers, professors, IT professionals, house painters, day laborers, flight attendants, investment bankers, moms, dads, line cooks, restaurant owners, artists, molecular biologists... It was amazing to sit with people and realize the multitude of paths we all took out of school. Strangely, nobody batted an eye when I said I was an IT Project Manager. Sort of like when the class closet case comes out, everybody says "no big surprise there, guy". I was always meant to be a geek.

4) A LOT of us took the later paths in life: Most were talking about being married in the last 10 years, and a LARGE number had kids under 5... I guess people really are getting started a little later. IT'S NOT JUST ME.

5) There are still some cliques - and some people who didn't make an effort to socialize outside of that... I kept my eye on a few. But they were the exceptions. And actually, I felt kind of bad for them. But it's their life.

6) There was rekindling of friendship from much further back than High School - there were friends I went to elementary with who had falled into different groups by HS and I never spoke with, and at the reunion, we were all geeking out about the comic books I used to draw in 5th and 6th grades... many people want scans of that old artwork - I only hope that some faithful reader might remember where those old "Cyclone Seven" comics are....

And that's the writeup on the 20-year. I may think of a few more tidbits, but that pretty well covers it.

About being President

First, a note about being class president. Really, when I got into it, it was just as a lark: Senior year started, and the morning announcements were done by one of the secretaries, and were very dry, but I remembered the year before (which I entered 1/4 of the way through) a student got to do them. So I inquired about who gets to do this, and found out it's a duty of the Senior Prez. Oh, I wanted to do those announcements.

The campaign was wild - I took marketing to a whole new level - posters everywhere, my name in the cafeteria on 3 foot high letters, bedsheet-sized signs hung out windows. Pure insanity, and somehow I got people to notice enough that the voter turnout went WAY up and I got into a runoff with Jeaner - my old best friend.

I don't really remember the runoff very well - It was an assembly and I had a few minutes to speak. I don't remember the speech, but it was probably a "vote for me because I'm NOT cool" sort of "revenge of the nerds" screed. And it worked. When I won, I lept up and yelled "This is the happiest day of my life", and it was, actually.

But getting back, I didn't really know what the job WAS, either. I was only in it for the announcements. Turns out there were a few more duties. I knew about the duty of making and showing a Senior Movie. Check. But apparently this also put my parents on the hook for running the Senior Night Party. AND it put me up to organizing reunions - which was something I didn't learn until much later.

Fortunately, my parents were able to corral their friends and put together maybe one of the greatest senior night parties ever - dinner at the Freight house in Stillwater, then all night bowling and dancing at the Diamond Lake Lanes with giveaways... I'm still amazed at what they pulled together, and because they knew I was such a blabbermouth, I was not involved in the least lest I give it all away.

Reunions... I totally whiffed on that. At five, I was a nervous wreck of a being, dancing at First Ave nightly, being in a band, and being dumped by a girl I was sort of engaged to. Thankfully Pamela came along the next year and we started straightening eachother out.

At 10, I just completely missed the concept. So when 20 came along, the reunion committee contacted ME, and by the time I got involved, they had it all planned. So I have made a vow that for the next one (be it 25 or 30) I'll be in the lead, and they can count on me to take them on out to 50.

So that's the President story: And let it be a lesson to others - read the fine print. On the other hand, I had a GREAT time doing those morning announcements. I bought a xylophone and did little 80's synthpop melodies (I just can't get enough, Nobody's diary) to start them. Then a fake announcement, then the real ones. So every day I came up with my melody and my joke.

Fortunately, i have totally outgrown my need to express myself in such a manner. HA!!!!

The Reunion part one

This will need to be a few posts... as I process the whole 20-year highschool reunion thing. It was last night at the Depot in downtown, a nice hotel-ish space. I took the bus down (so that drinking wouldn't be an issue). I also bussed back, though mostly because a bus came along at just the right time. My feet are killing me: My fashion choice was skinny pants, fitted shirt, and italian boots, which looked the business, but did not offer support for 5 blocks of walking and a full night of standing.

Right off the bat: Saw Jeaner my oldest friend right away. We had been best friends through 8th grade, and drifted from there... culminating in a little bit of a tiff when we were in the runoff for senior class president, and I won. I saw her once 2 years after HS, and not since. We started emailing based on a tip from a mutual friend, and I was very happy to hear she was coming to the reunion!

We were buddies throughout the reunion - we both had so many people to catch up with, but we checked in frequently, and she saved me a spot at her table. She'll be coming back into town occasionally in the future, and I'll be having her over when she comes next.

The President tiff was mentioned by some of Jeaner's best buddies - who flat out said I shouldn't have won... and in the spirit of conciliation, I agreed, and said that in truth, I just ran an outsider campaign to shake things up, and that I was as surprised as anyone that I actually DID. Jeaner looked pained that it was even being brought up... that's really not any blood between us anymore!

The dynamic at the reunion was interesting: There were lots of clumps of people who weren't really cliquish, but they were re-gravitating to their high school buddies. And since I was the outsider back then, I was the butterfly going between the groups, checking in with everyone!

One more little story: I was chatting with a guy who honesty I didn't remember that well, and he mentioned that he runs Zelo, a restaurant in Downtown that I love. So I told him about my love for his place, and he said "I know - you love the Lasagne, you're mostly at lunch, sometimes alone with a book, sometimes with a friend - you're a great customer!" I asked him why he hadn't dropped by to say hi - he said he's usually busy, but next time, he'll definitely say hi! But it's interesting to know when you've been "noticed", eh?

More stories as they come to me.

And into the future!

A busy week at work, that culminated in a couple of closed door meetings where the entire shape of the project for the next few years was dramatically revised. As I drew up new timelines, I paused and said - "I suppose I should clear my calendar for next year then?" "You're not going ANYWHERE for a LOOOONG time" was the answer.

You may recall this was the 3 month vacation gig that turned into the 9 month rescue-the-project gig that is possibly turning into the 20 month design-it-all gig. Sounds a bit like what happened at the previous clients? We'll see.

Last night Bella and I got a burrito for her, and here's a snippet of the conversation:

"When I'm older, can I drive your Mini? I keep having dreams about your Mini, and me driving it. I dreamt about us racing around in a big circle, like in the CARS movie - and we were beating everybody, because your Mini is the FASTEST car out there. You could beat everybody, I just KNOW it!"

This AM, she went to play with Jenny in her PJs. It's a busy day ahead - a birthday party later in the morning, the block party this afternoon (with a moonwalk OF COURSE), and my 20 year reunion tonight. Should be a blast! More on that later, I suppose.

Date Night

Pamela got everything ready to have a bunch of mom-friends over tonight, which meant that Bella and I got to have a date night. We started with Burritos at Chipotle, which she always loves. Today her appetite wasn't so great, but that just means more for tomorrow's lunch.

After dinner, it was off to Guitar Center for us. She loves that place. Today we went straight to the Drums room. The young man gave me the sticks and acknowledged that I'm one of the "good parents" who stays with and watches his kid in the store - there are a lot of parents who let the kids run wild, which makes the store guys crazy.

Bella has a natural love for the Roland V-Drums, a very good sounding electronic kit... I may need to get one.... just for her of course (though perhaps I could play it sometimes?). I have tried to interest her in the cheaper models, the yamaha, the ion, but she will have none of it. She knows quality.

Today we also played for a while with Daraboukas, which are middle eastern drums that you can change the sound of by putting your hand up in the back of it.... You make this cool low-to-high sound. Bella thought it was cool at least. She also loves how the congas make different sounds depending on how you play them. She's going to be a drummer, no question.

One of the guitar salesguys hijacked us and tried to get Bella to try a mini Martin acoustic guitar. She was having none of it. But later she thought perhaps she'd like a pink electric guitar. Of course.

Today I couldn't get her to groove on any keyboards - she was very focused on percussion. But there's a new-ish Roland that is sort of cheap, and looks VERY easy to use while sounding good, and it looks spot on like an old Juno 106 I had back in high school. I almost got it for her own good. But I think it would need to be painted pink in any case.

We got home and the party was in full swing so we went upstairs to get ready for bed. At one point I said "it's time to brush teeth and get in your pajamas..." to which she responded while running back and forth "I can't hear what you just said, I'm doing KID STUFF!!!!"

It was a pretty good comeback, actually.

I'm not the only busy one....

Pamela had a little project she had to whip together: She did some creative table layouts for a photo spread in a magazine! They're photographing it all today, and she had spent all of yesterday pulling it all together. It's very cool work, but exhausting, I can imagine.

Last night, it was Pamela's turn to put Bella to bed. I helped with the prep work and even read the stories, while Pamela took "cuddling duties". The lights went out at 8. Pamela never came back downstairs... she was out COLD!

When I skulked out of the house this morning at 6:45 for a dentist appt (yeah, I need to replace a filling, but all else if good in Jim-MouthLand), she was still out, which means she got over 10 hours sleep... that should recharge her batteries!

And to respond to those who say I'm a busybody: I did not do any language lessons, nor did I build any robots. I did watch some TV, and I did a few sudoku, but that's not work, is it? The way I see it, I've got so much to pay attention to at work that it's the equivalent of a roaring fire. So I've got to keep that fire stoked - I can't just extinguish it at the end of the day, or it'll take to long to rekindle the next day.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Major Seventh

I work in a 2-story converted department store with nice high ceilings. It has been refitted to house a data center as well as our offices, and as a result there is a massive cooling unit parked right on the roof. I heard that they decided against the cost of rubber footings, so there are some areas in the office that have an oppressive "thummmmmmmmmm" that gets right into your bones. Fortunately, my office is not near it.

The AC unit can be heard in full roar as you approach the building from the employee parking lot. It's loud, but not unpleasant as you walk up. The other day I figured out why it's not so bad.

It's playing a Major Seventh chord - C, E, G, B (though I don't have perfect pitch, so I don't know the exact key it's in). This lush open stack of triads was a big part of my favorite 80's music - think of some of the open chords in Kajagoogoo "Hang on Now", or Prefab Sprout's "When Love Breaks Down"...

Anyway, it was a fun discovery. And now I hum up and down the chord every morning as I walk in.

A cool weekend

Well, we kept the house cool at least - outside the temps hovered between 90-100 degrees as we had the visit from our dear friends from Chicagoland, Bailey and Tyler, and their mom Kari. They came on Thursday... and we had all manner of adventures:

Friday, I played hookey after 2pm and we went to the Mall of America - all of the kids rode in the Mini (I had flashes of being crammed into the back of my dad's Porsche at age 13 for a road trip to Colorado as I saw Bailey's lanky 14 year old legs near her ears in the back on the Mini...). They love to come up here and shop for school clothes, enjoying the no-tax-in-MN-on-clothes thing. They shopped at Abercrombie, Aeropostale, Hollister, and PacSun... and I'm going to show that I'm an OLD MAN here: I could not tell the difference in the merchandise offered between the stores, save the logos proferred. BUT DON'T TELL THEM. I don't want them to think I lack discernment and distinction. ;->

Into the evening it was Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution. Tyler gravitated toward the guitar, and Bailey to the Dancing, but to be fair, they both did VERY well in both games. The keyboard game proved inpenetrable, so we left that alone. I think it has a massive ramp-up time (like 10 rounds) before you can even be mildly effective in it, and with other fun games on tap why bother?

Saturday was hot and lazy... In the afternoon we ran off to watch Superman (my second time - everyone else's first). We agreed - there was much to love (including Parker Posey's every screen second) - but there was one fight scene that took it a bit too far. In the evening, we watched X2 for more Brian Singer-y goodness. I can see why Alan Cumming didn't return for X3 - that makeup looked nightmarish to apply - I think he should have just pulled a Gollum and been all CGI.

Sunday was out by the pool all stinking day. We had the neighborhood over in the late afternoon, and had sandwiches while the kids frolicked in the heat with sprinklers and kiddie pools and lots of sunscreen. Everybody slept well. And today I had to go to work!!! The Chicagoans took off around noon, and made it home safely. A good time was had by all - and I loved having them here!

Oh, and one of the surprises was that I had got the NEW Lego Robots kit (NXT), with the advanced brain and better software (from what I had used when I betatested the original kit 5+ years ago). Ty and I had fun building and programming and troubleshooting. Also, the whole gang got into my Brain Age software for Nintendo - small puzzles meant to increase your brain acuity. My most recent test showed me to be... my age.... But I can see getting down to 20-year old level soon!

And that's the big update from the weekend!

Morsels

1) I'm loving a song by "The Sounds" called "Painted by Numbers" - heard it on the radio and bought it on iTunes. Then I find out, they're the superhip new thing. Yay, I'm ever so slightly au courant!

2) I'm loving Japanese - I finished my 12th lesson, can count 1-10, as well as 1000-7000 (with a yen more like a penny, you need big numbers fast), can politely ask someone out for a drink or dinner, demur or accept if asked, comment on nice or not nice weather, greet and thank people, and say whether I can understand you, where are things, there they are... There are a few more things.... but that's pretty much the gist.

What's cool is the logic of the language - it's VERY economical. The verb is always last, and you stack stuff up to the left. Words stay the same, but adding little modifiers like Ka (question), Wo (identifying the object), Wa (identifying the subject), To (with), No (denoting ownership), and other things I haven't learned yet make it so that you can know one word like "watashi" (meaning "I"), and you can say "with me", "my", and "I" with just a watashi to, watashi no, or watashi wa. The rules don't change.

So that's me being a language nerd. I'm mentally comparing the rules to French, German, and Spanish... and god help me I'm seriously thinking about refreshing my Russian (two years in college), just to keep the comparisons going. Later this fall, I'll be hitting Mandarin Chinese... because you KNOW that I have a fantasy of going to Shanghai and having hand made suits made on me. And I'm going to make that happen in 2007. That's what turning 40 will do to me.

3) Dance Dance Revolution is so much fun, I think my head a-sploded. Bailey (one of the twins) did a marathon hour long danceathon, and it was fun to watch, but several times a day I snuck off to do 3-4 tracks on my own. It's a good workout, and hey, after a few tries, you do get the hang of it. If you're not aware, this is the game where it plays fast techno trance music, you're standing on a pad with arrows on it, and you need to step on the arrows in time with the music - so it's not really so much dancing as synchronized stepping, but it'll do in a pinch.

More in another post.

The Pitts

As I was driving the parkway to work, I saw one car parked, and another pulled up behind it. Both doors opened, and the drivers jumped out and greeted eachother warmly with a high five and grins.

The drivers were both impossibly stylish men, both sporting the Brad-Pitt-in-Oceans12 handsome-man look.

Both were driving Maserati Quatroportes - one Silver, one Black.

It was just a surreal moment. I had to slow down and yell "Love the style, gentlemen!" as I drove by. But it sure raised a few questions - like where ARE these people? Who is driving $120k Maseratis, and how does a 20-something fashionboy get one? And why were they even UP at 8am?

But such questions only cloud what was a truly nice vision in the morning.

Techy Goodness

Got a pair of 14 year olds coming to visit tomorrow through the weekend, and I'm sooooo excited! I got some treats that I won't reveal because they just might read this. Ok, one thing - we're borrowing a Playstation2, and I got a game for it: Beatmania. It's like Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero, only it has a 7-note keyboard and a scratching wheel. And MAN, it is hard.

Really it's a sight-reading exercise - just need to play the notes it shows you, and sometimes it's a melody, sometimes it's drums, and sometimes it triggers samples... but it forces you to just push the buttons and focus on the rhythms and timing. And as anyone knows, I'm a TERRIBLE keyboardist - I can program, but I can't play, and part of it is that when I get stuck I just STOP. You can't do that in this game, and I can't help but wonder if it might MIGHT help me be a better musician - forcing me to keep my head in the game?

Getting ready for the kids is a multiday affair, with shopping, cleaning, rearranging, and I always get to do the techy bits, as noted above. Tonight, Bella was VERY excited to be helping with the cleaning. She had a dusting rag and was like a dervish. It was actually pretty hard to pull her out of it. Tonight she was COMPETING with me: She wanted to race me everywhere, and when we read some nursery rhymes that were also songs, she asked me to sing them, then wanted to sing them BACK to me... "only better".

Finally, Japanese lessons are going VERY well. I'm finding that with this being the third new language in a 1 year span, I'm getting these strange cross-relations between the languages building in my head - I'm seeing matrices: Which languages rely on between-word modifiers for meaning (like at, to, from, ownership, location, etc), and which ones rely on word-addons (suffixes, previxes, cases)... just interesting how the languages are all saying the same things, but taking different routes there....

More soon!

After the brunch

So funny. Pamela was sort of leery about venturing outside of the hotel environment during out time away - she wanted to remain "outside" of our daily life for the entire "trip". I convinced her that, hey, Ike's is right outside, and we love their brunch, so let's just wander over there. She agreed... grudgingly.

As we sat there, she expressed that yes, this was was pretty good, but she really doesn't want to see anyone she knows, for the abovementioned reasons. I sympathized and said "what are the chances?"

No sooner had that happened, but somebody who I sort of knew from College plopped down next to us, ordered a Bloody Mary, and told us about his apartment being robbed, about his and other people's clinical depression issues, about his time in Russia, and about the inner workings of college Alumni foundations. In short, while Pamela did dodge the bullet, I was saddled with exactly the sort of "in town" experience we were hoping to avoid.

On the way back, I said "you told me so", and we retreated back to our independent international state. The excitement had proven too much for poor Pamela, however, and she crawled back into bed for another two-plus hours. (Late checkout is at 3!)

And soon our flight back to our life will take off, and we'll have these memories - and hopefully our batteries will be recharged enough that I can handle whatever idiocy my infrastructure department has planned for me THIS week, and she can handle whatever sassafrass Bella has been storing up for us this weekend.... ;->

Update from Far Far Away.

Well, technically we're maybe 5 miles from home, but our stay at the Graves601 might as well be in San Francisco - it feels like a completely different world up here. We are in a large room on the 17th floor - the decor is light wood and white linens, with a sleek 42" plasma TV, microsuede chair and chaise, and a ridiculously comfy bed.

We were greeted with a bottle of champagne, which we enjoyed before dinner down at Cosmos, the haute hotel restaurant. Dinner last night was wonderful - Pamela had lobster, I had duck. I got extra foie gras (for some reason, Pamela does not love the foie gras). We had a mid-meal taste of a "Foam" with coconut and anise flavors - it was amazing. For desert, Pamela got some filled globe of chocolate that disintegrated when hot caramel was poured over it. I had a simple Pomegranite sorbet, with a taste of Lagavulin 16 year (my current favorite scotch!).

The evening was wonderful, the morning has been lazy - we had continental breakfast... and plan to drag ourselves out to Ike's for a hearty brunch in a few minutes. Of course, after finishing the crossword, I had to get up and out, so I wandered out to the 24hour newsstand, and got some new magazines - some french and german design mags for Pamela (both for continental inspiration, and to reinforce the 'foreign' aspect to this little vacation)... and I got more geek mags (because being a geek is always a vacation in itself.)

So that's the dispatch. We're loving this. And I'm SURE Bella's having fun with Jenny... but we're not about to go around ASKING anyone. This afternoon will come soon enough.

I suspect we may have the Graves as our in-town retreat again in the future.

A long day

Today didn't seem like it was going to be oh so very long, but indeed it became so. It all started early, when a seemingly innocuous "upgrade" being put in my my infrastructure department started showing signs of being... not so innocuous. I'll spare you the gory details... but it was one of those days when one problem revealed another one... and the solution started getting worse: in the end, my whole team wound up with a half day of downtime, and ONE of my team members wound up losing most of her work for the past month....

If the bad news had come up all at once, that would have been one thing, but today was like a water torture - drip.... drip.... drip.... One shoe drops, then an hour, then another, then another shoe drops.... It was a loooong day.

Once I got home, the family recharged me wonderfully. We went to Lake Calhoun, and had a fish dinner at the pavillion, and then Bella and Jenny played for a good hour. It was just fun.

I'm really looking forward to this weekend: since last weekend, Jenny spent the night here, this weekend is payback. Bella's off to Jenny's house. We're going off to a night in a fancy hotel, good dinner, breakfast in the room, and late checkout. It'll be a wonderful time!

Work did it's best to wear me out today, and it got pretty close. But the weekend is here, I've had a great evening, and I'm looking forward to a GREAT weekend!

Unrelated Subjects

1) Acabo de terminar mis lecciones de espanol - Novente media-horas, y ahora, creo que puedo hablar Espanol con un poquito de excito. Pero, a decir verdad, porque los lecciones son para hablar solamente, se que no puedo escrivar muy bien. Creo que puedo leer, y entonces, podria escrivar mejor...

Yes, I finished my 90 Pimsleur lessons! I will say that I think I "got" Spanish a bit better than German - I'm way more comfortable - and am something of a terror with it now, dropping into spanish with anyone who will listen.

Now I've gone back to Japanese (finished lesson 3 today). It's all part of a grand plan to avoid work at the big client: Now I have Anna and Sue who I can speak Spanish with, Mark who I can speak German with, and soon I'll be able to speak Japanese with Jode and Catherine. My status meetings should get pretty interesting!

2) You ever get to know a person, and you have an initial perception, and over time, they just keep surprising you? At my workout place, there's a bodybuilder-type who leads a lot of the classes. At first, I thought of him as jocky rah rah guy - and on one level he is... he's a relentless cheerleader and really pushes people - never uncomfortably, but believe me, when you're in his class, he keeps an eye on you. More than once I've zoned out or tried to take an easy bit, and he's ON it. Not bad for a guy who's managing 20 people in the class.

One day we're talking about a trip he's going to take to Vegas, and I made a typical "gonna have some fun there, eh?" comment. He really wanted me to know why he was going (for a conference), and that "he gambles enough in life every day - why mess with the odds?" I got thinking there's more there. So I started paying closer attention to how he conducts himself...

Every day, he's open and friendly with everyone, and always calls out everyone's names. And at the end of every workout, he lays on the compliements, and somehow it doesn't sound corny. And while some people get frustrated with how he pushes, he's always working harder than any of us up on the stage... he really believes in what he's doing.

So on Wednesday at 6am he was leading a class. And on the sidelines were two 3 year olds and an old man. His girlfriend was also in the class, and was attending to the kids... so I had to ask. Turns out, he's a foster parent too, and these are his current kids. And the old man? A senior who he's known for 15 years, who has come down with Alzheimers, and he now takes care of him nights.

I don't think I've run into a person who is working harder to create positive energy in the world in quite a while. It's been quite an experience to find out more about this stranger... and it helps me look at the world a little differently.

A busy weekend

Two big things for the weekend: First, Bella had a fun overnight with her friend Jenny. They were together for over 24 hours, and slept in the same room - and boy, it was just a delightful time. They had non-stop playing from wake to sleep. They set up a big "store" with all of the fake food, having sorted it into categories first.

My favorite was when they decided to go to California. They took every toy from the first floor and packed it into something. Then they packed all of the suitcases and baskets under the dining room table. They then set up chairs and a table in front of the packing, and "drove" to California.

During the drive, Bella took a "cell phone" call: "Oh, I'm sorry, I can't meet you at Southdale. Yeah... we're going to California. See you!"

When they arrived, they went to check into the hotel, and moved all of their posessions into the other half of the room. Remarkably silly stuff.

On Saturday AM, I got to play too: I helped a neighbor set up his Bose surround sound system. Jeff is a carpenter, so the fun of the project was running the wires into the walls - He brought out all of his tools, and the drill assortment was simply amazing. One bit was nearly 3 feet long (intended for running phone cabling). We got it all done in a few hours, and later I calibrated the system... boy, I'd say those Bose systems sound very very good! I am feeling a sense of covetitiousness. I am wanting. But I will be strong.

Bella in the Car.

A couple of Bella-isms:

1) This weekend, with Jenny and Bella in the back of the Mini, they were marveling at how it's the fastest car EVER - and started saying "Pass THAT car! Now pass THAT car!" And then they started yelling and cheering with every car we passed. I would be lying if I denied that it made me drive just a little faster, a bit zippier. And it made the trip go pretty fast!

2) Today in the car, Pamela and Bella passed the new Waterpark Hotel by the Mall of America. Bella exclaimed: "WOW, that's a really big slide. OH MY GOD - IT'S A WATERSLIDE!!!!! I am NOT going on that. Maybe when I'm a teenager."

The Bella-ism followers will be comforted by her consistent stand on Waterslides. A year ago in Brainerd we passed a waterslide, and she exclaimed "LOOK AT THAT GIANT SLIDE I DON'T WANT TO GO DOWN!" establishing her understanding of the item, her excitement at it's size, and clearly announcing her disinterest in getting a closer look.

It's called "JimVentions", right?

I have this great relationship with Paul Sebastien - we get eachother started on "big ideas" and we bounce them back and forth and see if one of them might be a million dollar one. A couple of years ago, we actually took one to the proposal stage and met with Venture Capitalists to assess it's viability. We got some interest, but we got some pretty good industry insight from a friend of a friend of a family member, and we decided to drop it before going much further. I can say that nobody has successfully created the service we were about to... which I think speaks less to the technical issues and more to the political issues in the industry we were exploring.

That's the idea that led to my having that Roamfi email address... and since then I've used Roamfi as a catchall fake company to brand any of my big ideas.

I've got a lot of them, and I believe that every single one of them has a degree of merit. We are getting to the stage where our idea sessions are less about the viability and possibility of an idea, and more about whether the idea sounds interesting enough to actually dedicate ourselves to. I'll give you an example:

Paul came home after a week of visiting his increasingly fragile parents and was abuzz with ideas for services to help the elderly get along in life - some sort of intermediate step between having dedicated home help and using the internet to reach out to the world. We sought some intermediate idea.

I thought about the current trend in call center outsourcing: Why not give people a number they can call, and they can talk to a human who will get them what they need? At first it was the idea of saying you want a book, or some groceries. You tell the person, and they take notes, and then go to Amazon or Simon Delivers, and they place the order for you. They call you back if they have questions. These people could be in Kentucky, Bangalore, Spain, wherever. But they need to be VERY helpful.

But how much would people pay? Probably not so much actually. So where does the money come from? We got thinking: What about if this call center was really the front end for a new Same Day Delivery service - call them the "Green Caps" - they drive green microvans, have snappy suits, have green caps, and big badges with their names and pictures on them - very clean. Old people could trust a Green Cap courier is the real deal, and would open the door to them.

The call center gets calls for groceries, and the Green Caps run out to Rainbow or IGA and buy what you need and run it over. Or they run to Best Buy to get your CD for same-day delivery.

THEN, the Green Caps are actually funded by the STORES that they frequent - Best Buy or Lunds or Walgreens offers a "Green Cap 2 hour delivery" option for, say $10 an order. AND the Green Caps can be a delivery option ON the Internet version of BestBuy.com or Walgreens.com (where products are local - can't work with Amazon).

So really, we're creating an internet-based same day delivery service as the FUNDING vehicle to support a call center created to help old people get products over the internet by talking to a real human.

The idea is really cool, but here's the problem:

DO I WANT TO RUN A CALL CENTER AND COURIER SERVICE? This is low-paying, high management requirement work... and honestly I have enough trouble managing a team of highly paid consultants. Is this a skill I have beyond the technical/process flow architecture?

So we hit this final point, and decided, yes, it is a good idea. But it's not the idea we're going to pursue. But I hope somebody does it. So here you go, world. Find this on Google, and make it happen, someone.

And that's what I do with my spare time when I'm not remixing step aerobics CDs or pretending to be a 1980's synthpop supergroup or working out or playing with my daughter. Welcome to JimVentions.

As Bella went to sleep

A conversation with Bella tonight, as she was going to sleep:

B: "Why did mommy go out tonight?"
J: "To find more cool things for your room!"
B: "I don't like "cool things". I like pretty things. Like Pink and Purple things. I also like black and white things... Those are my favorite colors"
J: "What colors DON'T you like?
B: "I don't like Brown very much"
J: "Who does like brown?"
B: "Charlie. He likes Brown a lot. His brother William... I don't think he likes brown quite so much."

B: "I have white skin. It's kind of old though - I've had this skin on for more a week or more. I should put on some new skin. Maybe I'll try some brown skin! Or just more skin like my skin. I've never seen anyone with Pink or Purple skin - that would be neat!"
J: "I think my skin is sort of pink...."
B: "REALLY!!!! THAT IS SO COOL. I have purple skin then!"
J: "Are you from Mars?"
B: "What is Mars?"
J: "It's a planet way up in the sky - another world".
B: "Well, that's probably where I came from then... MARS!!!!!"

And then, channeling a 1930's movie vamp:
B: "Why do I have to go to sleep? The sun is still up!"
J: "Because it's time!"
B: "But the sun is up!"
J: "That doesn't matter...."
B: "Oh what a boring thing to say...."

(at this point, she rolled over and dropped off to snoozerland).

What I did today.

As I mentioned before, we got some new music and dance moves for our workouts. But the Step CD is just not quite up to par: While the previous step sounded good, and both the old and the new Weights programs sounded good, the new Step sounded like audio goulash. Just a big echoey mess of a mix.

So I told Jeannie that I could maybe do something for her. She graciously let me borrow the mix CD provided by the workout designers, and this evening I tweaked it.

Here's what I found. First, the mix tended toward big bassy trance remixes which really demand a lot out of your sound system. House and disco music on the other hand, is more spare, and can sound decent on most any machine. The source material was just too "boomy" with huge reverbs and those "hollow" trancey kick drums that are all low end and no punch.

So I applied some EQ to the mix, rolling off the lowest frequencies, and then compressed the rest of the mix slightly, emphasizing the low-mid (which is where the "punch" needs to be on their sound system, and smoothing out some of the sharper edges on the high end. Through judicious A/B comparison, I figured out that the original was actually "mastered" using the Apple Logic Multipressor "POP" preset. Now, re-compressing a re-recompressed track is just a pretty hopeless case, but it was worth a try.

I have a fresh CD burned for them to try tomorrow - maybe this mix will cut through a little better. Even if it's just a bit tighter, I think they'll be happy. And if it doesn't make a difference, I'll just suffer for 10 more weeks until volume 64 comes out!

And that makes me the king of all nerds - demanding to re-eq a workout CD because the fidelity over the gym speakers isn't up to snuff.

But it was fun!

Two More Things

Can you tell I'm happy to be back on the Internet?

1) Mister Timothy (actually "MrTimothy") did come through and send me three CDs filled with delicious house music. As I drove around on errands this evening, his happy music made me grin.

2) I did see Superman Returns. I did love it. Images from the movie continue to haunt me. The moonlight flight with Lois... all of Parker Posey's moments....

And really that's it for tonight. Goodnight.

GOOD Sci Fi

Alastair Reynold's Century Rain is GOOD Sci Fi. The guy can tell an epic tale, and at the end of it, I am rewarded with the following:
- A story that has non-stop forward motion
- Items that are seemingly casually dropped in and unexplained earlier, are explained and made relevant later.
- Economy of story telling: He rewards me by telling me relevant details that will actually come in handy later in the story.

The story was a tight 500 pages with dozens of characters, but none were superfluous - even those not central to the story were intentional red-herrings - no throw away anything. The man can WRITE. Also, he happily stays away from the bad scifi weakness of attempting to write love scenes. Writing badly written love scenes makes me feel embarassed for reading them, and embarassed for the writer, who I can only suspect has not had sufficient experience to be able to write a GOOD one. Alastair emerges with his integrity intact by side stepping the issue, and doing a tasteful "fade to black" where appropriate.

If you want to discover him, this is a good one - it stands alone. He has done more interconnected works (a multi volume series is what I started with) which I recommend as well.

I am only sharing this because I spent a good page on vitriol about BAD scifi, and wanted to share something GOOD.

Family Reunion

It was the kind of weekend that raises the bar for "weekends away". We scurried out of town on Friday afternoon. On my way out of the office, I literally ran back into the office 4 times with additional "key information" to impart to my troops before taking off for a 3.5 day getaway to Cambridge Wisconsin for the annual family reunion at "The Lake".

Bella was queen bee among 5 boy cousins ranging from 3 months to 7 years. She also got lots of attention from Auntie Carrie, Freddie the Dog, and of course Grandma and The Big Guy. In fact, I was in heavy "decompression mode", and truth be told I don't remember much about Saturday other than being on a boat a couple of times, someone keeping beverages coming, and a truly enjoyable Sci Fi novel.

Saturday was about me realizing that I've been a crazy superball of stress from my new position, and that I REALLY need to take steps to chill out on a more regular basis.

By Sunday, I was ready to engage with the world a bit better, and I was much more of an active player in the activities. My proudest achievement was waterskiing: I have not been able to successfully ski since College, and poorly even then. Yet this weekend, somehow, I just popped right up, and did two lengths of the lake on choppy water, before calmly releasing the rope and sinking contentedly into the water. I feel the only thing I can attribute it to is this: I am actually finally STRONG enough to pull myself out of the water. Working out is the reason. HOORAY!

Today was ridiculously idyllic: Jen and Harman were our hosts - they live in a big house out in the country (so far in the country, they don't even have High Speed Internet... GASP!). Today we had a leisurely breakfast, the kids played, I spent an hour with the kids helping/watching them ride trikes and bigwheels. We walked to the neighbor's and around a lake... with the sun shining and a cool breeze.

What amazes me about the country is how big the sky is. I don't know why it is, but the sky is just massive out there. I spent a lot of time just appreciating it.

So I'm back and it's crazy already at work (I've done over an hour of emails already), but I think that I can focus on this feeling of tranquility, and when I stress out, I think I'll just think about that enormous sky up there. It's big.

What about that second client?

In weeks past I have referred to a second client where I'm providing high-level management strategy. Things got very odd recently and I wanted to give you a quick rundown.

When we started, the client had a proposal in hand to have a 3rd party take his system and rewrite it from scratch. I was brought in to evaluate the proposal and see if it made sense. Turns out the only way it really made sense was if he wanted to shut down his current system and get rid of his staff. Which may not have been a BAD idea, but it needed to be a primary driver in his decision making, not a tangent effect. In this case, we're really talking about one guy - B - who had been with the company for 5 years.

He decided those weeks ago he wasn't prepared to make that choice, so we worked with him on a big plan to incorporate the best parts of the proposal INTO his current system. We worked with his team to identify their weak areas, and to bring in new staff to help with the new development.

This led to some stress, since my new job at the primary client is pretty dang stressful, and it wasn't going to be easy for me to actually MANAGE a redevelopment project in the middle of everything else. Honestly, for me, the outsource would have been better for my time... but the client comes first. Happily my Dad was able to step in and get all of the detail level coordination work going. We were just about to launch the new project... when....

Out of the blue last week, B decided to take a "mental health week" off. Yesterday, he resigned. Add to this, he stated his intent to form a new company on his own, and take the other staff along with him. Suddenly, the entire landscape has changed, and we're back to 6 weeks ago, evaluating the original "outsource" proposal, without the barrier of having to protect the legacy guy.

Of course the Client is panicked, but we're working him through it.

It would have been so much easier if this guy had quit weeks ago and we wouldn't have had to do all of this "Plan B" action... but whatchagonnado?

And that's the other client.

Bella's new room and Mr Timothy.

It's coming together! Pamela got a vision a couple of weeks ago and we've been slowly been bringing it together. Grand Spanish style. Pamela's the workhorse here - she painted the walls with this cool multi-layer paints that makes it look like old plaster in bright and vibrant orange and pink. We got art for the walls... new curtains... it's a week or so away from being finished!

But having Bella in temporary quarters while the room was being painted was wearing on her - she got a bit whiny. Actually a lot whiny. But we made it through. Tonight she is sleeping in her new room...

A side note: In our workouts, I told you about "Stand by Me" by Mr Timothy. Well, I decided that I love the song, and needed to have it. So I went looking for it, and discovered there is no way to buy this song in the USA. Turns out he was on a US label, but it's already out of print (the song is <2 years old?). And now this song is being used in over 10,000 health clubs as a part of the Body Pump program...

I figure that Mr Timothy should at least know about this - in case more people want to buy this track, and to make sure HE knows his track is being played probably 20-30,000 times a day, so that should give him SOME mechanical royalties.

So I found Mr Timothy out on MySpace, and sent him a note. He wrote back, and he's sending me his music along to me... he's a really nice guy! I'm getting a care package of his album and a couple of singles. And I might have someone to say hi to if I'm ever in Australia.