Ah, the Fair.

An annual tradition is the Minnesota State Fair. Usually we go at some off hour, a Thursday evening perhaps, to avoid the crowds. Alas, with two kids, you work on kid time. That means morning into afternoon, and for daddy working, that means the weekend.

We had fully intended to get an early start to the day. I did not set an alarm, expecting that Isaac would wake up at his usual early time and we could be at the fair before 8... so naturally we all slept in until 7:30. We didn't get to the fair until 9, but that was still early enough to avoid all traffic and get a decent parking spot.

We started with the "Miracle of Birth" building, and saw calfs, lambs, ducklings, chicks, piglets, the works. My favorite was a "ball of ducklings" - around 2 dozen tiny ducklings piled up under a heat lamp. That building is always very crowded, however, so we had to escape the crush quickly.

We did our thorough tour of the animal barns, somehow taking a wrong turn and walking into a show ring... The Roosters were all crowing in the poultry barn again. Isaac loved the crowing and laughed every time he heard one go. We also saw a goat competition being judged. Bella parked herself and watched the whole proceedings intently. Afterwards, she milked a goat and got a good squirt off... She was all business about it - as though she was doing them the favor.

We met up with Jenny and family after getting two beef tacos into our increasingly grumpy Bella... a little protein and the prospect of Jenny re-invigorated our girl! We stopped in for face painting, and were pleased/amazed to see that the painter was Lulu, who does face painting and balloon animals at Byerlys weekly: She is a true artist of the face paint, and turned Bella into a very cute dog, and Jenny into a silver cat.

The girls went on a few rides on the "Kidway". One of them was a Pirate ride, which seemed a bit scary for Bella, but hey if Jenny was going on, so was Bella. They both emerged looking very serious - they would not be going on that ride again. They stuck to the more silly rides - spinning monkeys, floating boats, you know the drill.

This evening we asked Bella about the Pirate ride, and she said "Jenny said it was pretty scary - good thing I kept my eyes shut the whole time!"

Back to the Fair: We didn't quite enter the same state of food frenzy we have in years past: Something about 9am doesn't sound right for Pronto Pups (though that didn't stop me from having a Pronto pup at 10am). Also, Isaac was a bit of a handful: With the crowds and the litter and the animals, we had to either have him in the stroller, or carry him. And he's in a very "live free" mode now, so the restrictions were chafing him. So instead of running up to every food stand, I had to think "how will I eat this without him knocking it out of my hand?" More often than not, I passed.

Anyway, here's the score:
Jim: Egg+bacon Sandwich, Waffle with Strawberries, Pronto Pup, Strawberries and Cream, Beef Burrito (Tejas).
Pamela: Egg Scramble, Caramel Roll, Cheesy Hashbrowns, Deep fried pickles (which she loved, and would eat every single day if available).
Bella: TWO beef, cheese, and sourcream tacos. One brownie.
Isaac: 2 bottles. Almost a cigarette butt, but I was fast enough.

In the end, we did make it through 5 hours of the fair, and hightailed it home around 2. Isaac, having refused to nap at the Fair, dropped off JUST as we wheeled the stroller into the parking lot. Fortunately, he got a good 3 hours (30 min on the drive, and after a successful "transfer", another 150 minutes at home).

Into the evening, I mowed the lawn (and was eaten alive by the mosquitos), and Pamela good a good nap in, too. The kids all went to bed around the proper time, so we should have a good night of rest!

And that was the fair. Next year, Bella will want to do more things, and Isaac will be unstoppable. You may be reading about our visit on CNN.com.

Oh yes...

The kid pictures website HAS been updated: go Here!

Isaac has been an exhausted boy - refusing to nap during the day, sleeping fitfully in the night. But he remains a charmer. His language is now starting to take off - he's doing a lot of sound imitation, and can say a few words... "Up" when he wants to be picked up, and "Ball", his favorite toy. He can repeat "Bella" too.

Bella has been playing good and hard all week, and has complained of pain in her shins - she is growing so much: I was just looking at pictures from 2 months ago - she was in that pre-grow chubby state, and now she's a beanpole.

We'll see how we all do at the State Fair Saturday between growing girl and no-sleep boy. At least I'm going to be asleep before 10 tonight. Time to catch up!

Oh, and in workout news: I think I posted that because I was such a good cheerleader, I got us two 6am workouts a few weeks back... well that is going so well they are adding a third 6am - this one is Step. So I'll have two Weights and one Step a week, 3 hours of great workouts, getting me good and awake/alive for work. The 6am really is the only time I can work out without thinking i'm abandoning the family, since they are all usually asleep until after 7 (except when Isaac gets a crazy idea at 6:30).

The screw turns...

First, let me say that I do love my current gig. It is relatively low stress, I get to work with some very nice doctors, the tools I'm implementing have a direct impact on the quality of life of patients, I get to be downtown and take walks, and I can bus occasionally. I am trusted, I have authority, but things aren't all panicky.

Into this picture a rain cloud has appeared. On Tuesday, I gained an officemate. Now, I have a pretty large office, all told, and there's more than enough room for two. But...

This is a Temp who works for the software vendor: We are paying them to move all of our old data off of the old systems into their system. In return, they're paying this temp to sit at our site and click-and-move these studies one-by-one. It's not particularly hard work, but it does take an organizational mind. They needed a place for this temp to sit, and my office had room....

Alas, this temp is a talker. No matter what I'm doing - writing emails, reading a manual, headphones on... she just starts talking. About her nieces. About her previous jobs. About her desire to move to Dubai to work in "logistics". About her frustrations about not understanding what the dress code is. About seemingly anything, all with a sort of "authoritative" tone of voice, like "I know about these things"... despite the fact that any time she treads into territory I know anything about, she is quite far off base.

This wouldn't be so bad if I had confidence in what she was doing, but as of today, she couldn't even tell me with any degree of certainty exactly how many patient studies she had actually successfully migrated in the 4 days she had worked.

In short, I am sharing a now very small feeling office with a psychopath temp who doesn't actually work for me, and may not actually be doing the job we are indirectly paying her to do. My library of noncommital grunts and shrugs is expanding by the day. I have begun to relay my concerns to the vendor, and we'll see what happens.

This is obviously karmic retribution for my illicit viewing of Spider Man, and will take this lesson (this possibly four long month lesson) to heart. I am a changed man. Really, this time.

Those darn kids

Today, we pulled up to visit Dad and Karen, and he was on the back steps getting his beard and neck trimmed up. Pamela said "hey, Papa's getting a new hairstyle".

Bella called from the back seat: "Oh, is he getting more hair?"

You can't make this stuff up.

So tomorrow I finally re-enter the working world after a long week away... and tomorrow will be the first day in 9 that I don't put Isaac down for his naps, nor pick him up when he wakes... and I think in a way it'll be a very long day for that.

The last two nights I've caught up on two Marvel hero movies: Spidey 3 and Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer. The F4 movie didn't disappoint too much - it was pretty decent for what it was... and it IS a cheeze movie, for sure. Spidey 3 was a harder call: It really did feel like there was too much trying to be crammed into this movie, and in the end it really was the weakest of the lot. I wasn't sure what they were going for with Sandman... but unlike many of my peers, I actually liked the Venom stuff the best in the movie - it was good and creepy, and Topher Grace was fabulous. And I loved the Peter Parker with the bangs down and eyeliner look.

But with them both, I have to say, it's a total of 4 hours I won't get back in life, 4 hours I could have spent sleeping or something more edifying, like working on my Swedish pronunciation. But whatchagonnado?

Off to bed now.

Safe and Sound

Yes we are back at home: We hightailed out of town by 10:15 in the AM, and Isaac was conked out within a few minutes of hitting the road... and stayed asleep the full two hours home. It was a wonderful contrast to the trip up. Bella rode home with Jenny and the family around 90 minutes behind us. Alas despite feeling much better in the AM, she again succumbed to the ick during the ride home and made friends with the bucket.

Prior to leaving, I had a speed breakfast of blueberry pancakes and was able to say farewell to my Russian and Belorussian friends in the dining hall. They again complimented me on my excellent pronunciation. I tell you, I'm not sure why I felt this urge to bone up on my Russian this past month, but it was such a blast to be able to use it!

Once home, we did a power-unpack, just in case we were going to get sick ourselves. Bella felt better after a few hours at home and started demanding to play with friends - which just wasn't going to work - you puke, you're quarantined in my book. She got progressively sadder until she ran upstairs and climbed into bed with Pamela (who was taking a little nap) and conked out. Pamela napped from 4-8. Bella was out at 5pm.

One of the things we do when she's "bored" is she writes a comic strip, and I draw it. Tonight it was "a lion goes outside to draw, but it's so cold he turns to ice, and his drawing and pencil blow away in the wind". This was quite the challenge to draw, and I had to resort to some thought bubbles to illustrate the point... I do love these cartoons. The ultimate panel always seems to be something blowing away: Food in wind, or flower petals from a sneeze, or art materials in a gale... Alas, as noted above, our fun didn't last.

That left Isaac and I to be buddies until his bedtime. We went to Byerly's together and shopped for good "sick food" assuming we'll all get the ick sooner or later. Bread for toast. Applesauce. Gatorade. Chicken Soup.

My take on getting sick: If the virus is going to get you, it's not going to care if you ate crackers or cantonese, so doing a mild "preventative" diet is for the birds. I had Big Bowl sesame chicken for dinner. We'll just see what happens. Once you're sick, you do need the mild stuff, though. And we have LOTS of it. Perhaps this voodoo, this being prepared will ward off the virus. That happens, you know.

Anyway, Isaac and I had a lot of wrassle time, and we played with blocks: He's very good at knocking down stacks, at chewing on the blocks, and at tossing them down (not going for distance, more interested in seismic effect). I patiently would stack them again, showing different architectural principles. He played visigoth again and again, but with such glee, I had to keep playing along.

So now it's off to bed in my own room, without my kids within 5 feet of me in the same room, without both of us waking up whenever Isaac rolls over. It will be a good night to rest, and we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Spoke too soon....

Well, poor Bella got the ick, and got pukey late afternoon, after a full day of arts and crafts, fishing off the dock, playing with Jenny, and over 2 hours of swimming. She's passed out next to me on the couch - I'm on bucket patrol, though by now there's very little coming out. Mae got it too, earlier in the afternoon, and us remaining "uninfected" are all warily clutching our stomachs, hoping we're not next. Well, Isaac's not, since he's happily oblivious.

It's just not fair - Bella's trip to Madison earlier in the summer also resulted in puke-age. She's going to build a negative association with lakes if we're not careful.

I realize in my updates I have been very Isaac focused: That's mostly because I've had to keep him in my sights so much: Bella has been off playing so much with Jenny, that I'm really only seeing her at mealtimes. Having a friend along really does make a vacation fun for a kid, and I think that even with the sickness, she and Jenny both can count this as one of the "fun" trips.

We've packed up the car and will be ready to hit the road tomorrow morning right after breakfast... assuming we're all roadworthy. We have something of a tradition of "lingering" on the last day, leaving at the last possible second. I think this time we'll try to time it with Isaac's nap and hightail it ASAP.

If you gotta puke, there's no place like your own bathroom.

Bad then good then ok.

Well, after that sun peeked through, we had a rough night where Jenny got a wicked stomach virus that had her puking all night. Bella was sleeping in the same room and never once woke up with all the ruckus. So we were steeled for whatever yesterday would bring... Would the virus take us all down one by one? None of us could recall her eating anything we all hadn't eaten as well, and a few other visitors had told us of stomach horrors in the past few days...

Which added a slightly dramatic pall over was perhaps the nicest day I've ever seen in my life on Wednesday. The sun was shining, there was a mild breeze, it was warm but not too hot, the lake was still, the birds were singing - it was a perfect day. But Bella was mopey because he best friend couldn't play. By afternoon though, Jenny was feeling well enough to play, and we all spent time at the beach. Isaac LOVES the lake, sloshing around and picking up handfuls of muck from the lakebed.

My head cold finally cleared up by afternoon, and I was a happy participant in all activities... In the evening we took a paddleboat ride, and bella showed us her fantastic skills at shuffleboard (it involves methodically pushing every single disc from one end to the next and stacking them neatly.) Into the evening, as the kids slept, Pamela and I played some "no-score" scrabble, which was too bad because I opened with the 7-letter "Blister" across the double word, which would have been around 140 points all told. But no score is no score...

Today, it's just sort of a BLAH day: Gray sky, no wind, light rain... but the girls are playing hearty - they're at the pool now and will likely be for quite a while. We are finding ourselves around 4 bottles short on Isaac's supply for the trip, and I took a trip to the local town, only to find NO soy formula of any kind. Once he goes down for a nap this afternoon, I'll be tripping to Brainerd!!!

So we got 1.5 beautiful days out of a 7 day vacation with a shrieking (but still loved) maniac, with some illness going around. Not one for the record books of wonderfulness, but oddly not the worst either. A neighbor told us: "with kids, it's not a vacation, it's a trip". So this was a pretty good family trip all told... there are still a few hours left in it (we leave Friday around 11), so we'll see what happens!

Hed Code

Today was a better day.... and a worse day.... The bad was that I have come down with a horrible head cold and feel like I have a 2 second delay forcefield around my head. Also, a nonstop runny nose, the accompanying sore nostrils, watery eyes, a hacking cough, and raging headaches. Started last night, still going strong tonight.

BUT on the plus side: The weather finally broke late this morning: We woke to no wind but a little drizzle, but we got full fledged sunshine by early afternoon. The girls went out fishing this am, swam in the outdoor pool before lunch, and played on the beach and in the lake all afternoon. Isaac was out on the beach as well - he loved the water.

Isaac woke up this morning with his volume set to 11: joyful shrieking was our soundtrack of the day, combined with the occasional complete meltdown tantrum - a new skill he's learned this week: The complete "drop to the floor" with huge tears. We're so very excited. Alas, our mealtimes are now 10 minute shifts between Pamela and myself: minding Isaac as he makes his rounds through the lodge, while the other eats... And speaking of eating:

Things he would not put into his mouth today:
Melon, banana, bread, pancake, cheerio, yogurt, chicken, pasta.

Things he did put into his mouth today:
Acorn (nut, top, both), rocks (various sizes), pine needles (short and long), leaves, sticks, lint, sand (dry), sand (wet from lake bed), lake water.

With that it's time for my sick self to be off to bed.

The windy cold lake...

Alas, we continue to be cabin-bound, as we're having unseasonably cold and windy weather here at the resort. We're still having a great time, but as we look out the window at the lake mere feet from us, there are whitecaps and gray skies and a general feeling that says "stay in - have some coffee... Read!"

I only just figured out last night that the wireless internet reaches our cabin, so here's a blog post from the lake.

The food is fantastic as always, and Bella and Jenny could care less about the lake - they have the indoor pool and eachother and that's more than enough for them. Bella has moved in over to Jenny's cabin and we see her occasionally... It's actually good she's sleeping there, since Isaac is proving to be quite the handful. On the trip up, he resolutely REFUSED to nap, screaming most of the 2 1/2 hours, and dropped off to sleep literally as we pulled into the resort. He's also holding to his twice nightly bottle and cuddle routine.

He's been a shrieker at the restaurant, so Pamela and I have taken turns eating and running through the halls with him. He's up to running now, and his game is to make a beeline from the dining hall, through the halls, to the pool, where we need to scoop him up before he goes headlong in. Along the way, he may pause to make friends or harass computer users (he just can't resist grabbing screens or mashing keyboards).

Even so, he is well loved by everyone here at the resort, who all coo over him... and we do love him too.

Today (and every weekday) Bella and Jenny will be at Kid's Club, with a whole host of planned activities, so us grownups can rotate around being the Isaac minder and get some R&R in. The weather is supposed to improve around Wednesday, so until then, I guess at least Isaac's not eating handfuls of sand!

The busyness

A quick update before going offline for a week up to a resort on Gull Lake... where the relaxing will be wonderful.

After the wonderful weekend away, we got good and busy to get ready for the resort: Well, I was busy at work and play, and Pamela was the packing demon: Our car trunk was ready to go a full 48 hours before our anticipated departure!!!

Work has been good: The glow is still lasting from our successful rollout last week: Comments from the CIO on down are filled with praise and amazement that things went as well as they did (they're not used to things going smoothly here). In the "education of Jimmy" department - I spent a few hours with one of the Cardiologists, who talked me through the entire world of Nuclear Medicine, which completely blew my mind. This is where they inject you with radioactive materials, and then take a 15 minute photograph of your insides, and see what parts of your body are getting normal blood flow, and which parts are "starved". A nuc of your heart will show the whole thing glowing, except for areas that have been "infarcted" - which means the muscle is "dead".

The whole science is amazing, and while I've worked around Nuclear medicine for years, nobody has ever truly explained HOW it works... So I'm just thrilled.

In another fun moment, an "emergency meeting" was called for all staff (it was a quiet afternoon), and we reviewed a portfolio of nature photographs one of the Cardiologists had taken to pick a few to submit to a contest (his pictures have been in the Kare11 weather watcher calendar in the past!) They popped popcorn, it was fun.

It was a week of movies and bonding for me: Tuesday one of my old co-workers at the previous client asked me out to see Transformers and get caught up. It was fantastic - literally the Citizen Kane of transforming robot movies. Wednesday our Manny Justin had another premiere - this one a Coen-brothers-esque double-triple-quadruple-cross thriller. These guys are making feature length movies, fully produced, in their spare time. It absolutely amazes me. And it was a really good movie!

Last night was yet another Scotch Avengers night - a bit later than usual. The truly bizarre moment came when Chicken revealed the following: 2 months ago, Ant had brought a truly rare bottle - a 12-year Lagavulin which had a very complex character and we all loved. But it was challenging - it needed just so much water, and so much rest... it took work, but was rewarding. We all basked in the glow of "discovery" on this bottle.

Chicken revealed to us last night that he had been rooting in his cabinet and discovered that HE had actually brought us that very same bottle one year earlier, and we had all rejected it, not able to figure out how to enjoy it. He had the 2/3 full bottle as proof. But the funny thing is even HE didn't remember this until he stumbled across the bottle, tucked deep into his cabinet (since he didn't like it either!!!)

It was a fun moment to realize just what sorts of scotch nerds we had become, and how we had come in the past year... and how far we could likely yet go.

Well, this is the last update for a week probably - we're off just after lunch to our week up north. Oh yes, and Isaac's 4th tooth finally cut and he's so relieved.

Toodles!

One week later

Again I remark on the fast-forward button being pressed in our lives... how can a week have gone past since the last update?

The week went very well at work: We installed the new system, trained the docs and techs, and had a pretty smooth go-live. This was just for one piece of the system, of course, and I'll be spending the next year putting in more, but this was important, AND it needed to go smoothly for us to have credibility and buy-in for subsequent phases. And we did well.

So on Friday, Pamela and I dropped the kids with Grandpa and Grandpa (as Bella calls them) and hightailed it out of town... to a bed and breakfast in Stillwater. We stayed at a beautiful Victorian mansion up atop a hill, looking down at the town and river beyond. We had early cocktails and dinner, and then settled in for a night in... whereupon Pamela passed out at 7:30... and didn't wake until 12 hours later! Oh did she need that rest.

I unfortunately had finished dinner with an espresso, and wound up awake until 1am or so. The problem was that I tried to go to bed by 11... so there were a few tossing and turning hours in there... Luckly I caught a nap the next day.

Saturday was a relaxing day of walking through town, antiquing, noshing, resting, reading, dining... We got caught in a summer shower on the way back from dinner and were happily soaked - it was so hot, and the rain was refreshing.

Pamela started and finished a book on Marie Antoinette. I got halfway through William Gibson's newest: A sci fi book set in last year (2006). It's surprisingly effective, and his imagery is just wonderful... If anything, removing the "well is THAT possible or unlikely?" reaction to technology imaginings allows me to focus more on his story and writing, which is very crisp.

I also continued my torrid affair with the Swedish language: As I may have explained over on Language Addict, I've been frustrated that I'm dabbling in so many languages but not feeling confident in any: So I've been focusing back on French, Spanish, and German. I'm also refreshing just a bit on Russian (mostly because I resent that I LOST the language after my college years - the goal is just to bring it back enough to... I don't know). So what's up with Swedish? Well, it's actually very close to English and German, and we have friends who speak it, so I thought it might be an easy "pick up"... and less than a serious week into it, I'm feeling ridiculously confident that this will be one in the belt within a few months.

But in terms of confidence: As I was walking in Stillwater, I passed an old German couple, and I understood everything I overheard. I even had right in mind a phrase to ask them if I could speak with them... but by then we had too much distance between us. I'm telling you, this multi-language way of working really is making ALL of them stick better.

I'll come back to the Asian ones in a month or two... but I really need to "own" my current languages better...

Ok - back to family: When we picked up Isaac this afternoon, we learned that Grandma had interpreted his 3am feeding time as "time to get up", so we had one TIRED little buster. He grabbed a tomato from me and started eating it like an apple... and seemed to like it. He also chomped many cheerios AND half of a go-gurt. So I think that he's starting to get into people food well enough... it'll grow. We played until 6:30 and then ZONK.

Bella played even harder this weekend: 3 hours at a pool on Saturday... And then zoning out to episodes of Scooby Doo... she was so catatonic that she completely ignored Auntie Carrie when she visited Saturday... But Bella has figured out the secret of Scooby Doo: The monsters are ALWAYS just guys in costumes. Therefore, it's not scary. She had an all-afternoon birthday party today... lots of playing and swimming... and yes, she's in bed now as well.

So it was great to get away for the weekend. We have a busy week ahead of us too! I have dates to see friends Tues-Wed-and-Thurs!!! I've got my 6am workouts Tues-Thurs. Full week of work, of course... and then Friday, it's off to VACATIONLAND with the family AND Jenny's family, for a whole week of all-meals-included family fun. Whoo HOOOO!!!!

Block Par-Tay

Yesterday was rainy and cold, which didn't dampen the kid's spirits for the Block Party - AKA running around for hours with all of the other kids in the neighborhood while the parents hide in a garage. We had the moonwalk, but it was soaked. Not that it stopped the kids from taking turns in there... So all things considered, it worked out ok. The firemen came too, and the kids loved looking at the fire engine. I actually took Isaac home around 7 for bed, but Bella stayed out until 10 playing tag in the dark, and other great games.

But last night around 10:30, Isaac decided it was time to PARTY. After an unsuccessful hour trying to get him back down, I took him downstairs and let him play his heart out. And he was so thrilled - he was shrieking with glee, laughing, cuddling, and being just the happiest kid. At 1, when he finally started rubbing his eyes, he went right to sleep. These things happen.

I am a little concerned: Isaac's joyful shrieking is just bone jarring, and he's been doing it for months. We try to get him to work on more "wordy words" like "dada" "mama" etc, but when he gets excited, he just let's fly with the sonic attack. And got in himmel help us when he is in a place with good acoustics - he lets fly just to hear it come back. I do hope he moves on from this however. My nerves can't take it!

The kids slept in until 8, but were still a bit groggy. After going out to get a haircut and playing at Eden Prairie Center, Bella announced that "Whoever is going to take a nap this afternoon, I'll join them". A nap? Wow.

Tonight was another Progressive dinner night, so Bella, Jenny, and Isaac were watched while we spent 4 glorious hours of grown up time. Upon our return, Isaac was still partying, and the sitter, a VERY capable young lady, was looking frazzled. It didn't help that the dishwasher decided to go crazy and make whirring sounds while blinking its lights in a seizure-inducing manner. So I got Isaac settled in my patented daddy manner, and then played with Bella until a later bedtime (the nap always resets her clock).

I was showing her words in different languages tonight, to get her used to the idea that things have different names to different people. She thought that was a pretty neat idea. I showed her colors and animals in Russian, Swedish, Japanese, and Chinese. She wound up really liking Chinese for some reason - those words were the only ones she was repeating and remembering - perhaps because they're a bit musical? I'm going to keep experimenting with that.

I got some Swedish flash card software because I thought it would be nice for the whole family to have some words to drop with our Swedish friends Annika, Sara, and Lisa. I'm just browsing now, but it sure looks close to German in some key ways... we'll see.

And that's the weekend update.

How can it be Friday already?

Good evening. Another week has passed by with me only vaguely being aware of it! Actually, so much happened....

The biggest news which has everyone on edge is the bridge collapse. We didn't know anyone directly impacted, though two people in the family had been nearly on that stretch of road within a half hour of the event - one missed a bus, the other left work late. So something was keeping people away from the area....

In non-tragic news, we had a GREAT week at work: The new system arrived, we got it configured and workstations started to roll out: Even though we're not going live until next week, we were able to use one of the workstations to help diagnose a case (reviewing a prior study that couldn't be read by any other computer)... There's been a lot of work to do, but I get to be hands-on, and I'll be working with the docs a lot from here on out... which you know I like.

We had guests this week: Pamela's cousin Rachel and her son Justice, who is almost exactly Bella's age. The two got along pretty well all week, though they were frequently on different energy frequencies. Still, movies and legos proved the universal solvent, and great fun was had by all. And it was wonderful to see Rachel. She showed us tons of pictures of archaelogical digs she's participated in: Turns out sometimes people start building a strip mall, and the road grader finds bones, and they have to call in the emergency archaeologists, to tag and excavate the site, and move it all out, so they can keep building that strip mall. The pictures were supermegacool.

Isaac Update! He has finally turned a corner: He prefers walking now to crawling. Sometime yesterday, the scales tipped, and he decided that walking WAS more efficient, so now it's closer to 70/30 walk/crawl. And he is so proud. He'd be happy too if there wasn't a massive pollen bloom causing him to stuff up, and another tooth starting to push through (leading to crying, and massive drooling).

Workout Update! Yes, I've still been exercising, just not telling you people about it. But my tireless efforts to get people at the 6am Tuesday class have been paying off: We're regularly around 10 people, which earned us a second class: Thursday at 6am. So I will finally be able to do two classes a week in the early morning, because truth be told, with Isaac and Bella, I've had a hard time justifying taking off after work for exercise - I just want to go home and see my family.

This weekend will be another slightly busy one: We have the Block Party on Saturday (which we are only attending - we don't need to DO anything!), and a progressive dinner on Sunday. So actually, it'll be busy with eating and conversation. I think I can handle THAT!!!!

More as it happens. Oh yes, I have been updating over at Language Addict, if you want to take a peek. Do Zaftra.

Sure, it's been crazy again.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was the big Garage Sale - hours and days of prep work all came together with this. Pamela worked her TUSH off, being there for 8 hours each day, plus setup and tear down, PLUS the craziness of a flash storm on Thursday Afternoon which soaked EVERYTHING. Pamela was working on this til Midnight Wed-Thurs-Fri, and by Saturday 7pm, all was done, and we were all comatose. A lot of work for $800, but it felt good, and that'll help pay for our vacations!

I think the lesson, however, is to just do one day: Thursday. We made almost twice on Thursday as we made on Friday and Saturday combined. Still, there was camaraderie, and by Saturday afternoon, the mimosas were flowing. A good time was had by all. Still, that did put us well into tired territory for today. We were/are SLOW MOVING. Pamela and Isaac are napping now, Bella's out playing, and I'm about to go do some yard work in the hot hot sun.

Isaac's chiclets are finally breaking through: one of the big front teeth finally cut through, and he seems much happier. If that second one doesn't follow suit, we'll have no choice but to call him "Fang". He's also eating a LOT now - but still mostly bottle. I'm having some better luck getting him to accept a FEW bites of other food, and I'm not pushing it: I don't want him to create any more negative associations with non-bottle-food. Pamela reminded me that bottle was a part of Bella's diet well into 16-18 months.

I'm having a great time with a book: The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. It's a multilayered blueprint for: De-prioritizing work and making yourself not available 24/7 to people, being MORE effective during the hours you ARE working, starting sideline businesses for low maintenance cash flow (using outsourcing, websites, etc), outsourcing things - using concierges, babysitters, assistants to let you focus on what you need), reducing your need for STUFF in your life, and having set things up that you don't have to work SO much, how to escape and travel for now very much money at all.

The guy is young and cocky, and frankly while he's made this work for about two years, there's nothing saying this way of life will stick for him. He is also very "young guy" focused, with only cursory words for those of us with kids. BUT it's filled with very good resources for everything I listed above, so should I want to create a product, say a multi-CD course in something I know about, there are contacts for outsourcing call centers, fulfillment, card processing, and everything else... as well as strategies for test marketing. Suffice it to say, it's got me thinking along some new lines...

PS: There's a misconception that the guy is all about India outsourcing: That's not true - while he has used Indian resources, most of his oursources are domestic businesses.

And what about Bella? She remains a total sweetheart, observant to the end: She is VERY worried about people littering, and picks up trash as we walk along. She is very concerned about people on cellphones while driving, and won't let us do it (which is probably good). She remains observant about cars: Pointing to Dave and Amy's Audi A4, she said "There are a lot of those cars around. Lots like Grandma's too. Not so many like Papa's though!" She's also been pretty cuddly - when she comes down the stairs in the morning, her first move is to climb into my lap and curl up. It's pure magic, and better than coffee as a way to start the day.

PS - More Potter

No spoilers here:

As I have mused about book 7, little details keep popping up in my head, and I marvel at how Ms Rowling tied up all of the loose ends. Pretty much anything you were wondering about, she answers.

Why was so-and-so such a jerk? Why did X win over Y in duel Z? What is Q's motivation? Is D good, or bad... REALLY? It's all there. And more.

One thing I'm working on but will not post for a week is a critical look at Voldemort's management style: There are some things he does well, setting clear expectations of his employees. Some things, not so well - delegating and outsourcing don't work out so well for him. That's as far as I want to go now... but as you read think about Voldemort as CEO, and gauge what he does well and not well.

Back to the book: I've looked at some online forums, and I think most readers are in agreement with me on most points: There are some spoilsports who don't like some things, and see loose ends where none are needed - usually complaints about unresolved threads involving third-tier minor characters (I don't think there is anything really unresolved about Gilderoy Lockhart that NEEDS to be included...), or details we never got (What sort of broom did JAMES Potter prefer?????). Those are the nitpickers of the world, who will never know true pleasure in reading. Add to those the people who claim to have finished the book but then post 5 questions that would be obvious if one had actually READ the book. I need to stay away from these forums. I am done with them.

For my money, the book SATISFIED.

The New Gig

Some observations from my short time of full time at the new gig.

1) People are either available immediately or in 3 weeks. I have had people from the CIO on down either say "well, come on up - I'm open", and if not that, then "We're looking at November for that".

2) We are empowered to DO things. We need to cram a computer in a conference space, and we started down the path of looking for tables in the common areas to hijack... I suggested getting a wall mount with extendable arms like I've used in ORs in years past... my boss went to the website, said "cool" and directed me to configure it and get it ordered. Everywhere else I've worked, this would have taken a committee to decide on this.

Similarly, it was noticed that I don't have a printer in my office. So they gave me a catalog and told me to order one up. I did go for color laser, but decided for the cheap model.

3) We are an excuse for people getting things done they've wanted to for years: One manager finally moved around 6 cubic feet of old video equipment out of a room (not even in an area we were going to use) to get "ready" for our install... Another area is knocking out cupboards they've never liked to make room for our system... again, a place they asked for, but we doubt will be well used. But they're happy.

4) Though they are a big place, they are one person deep on ANY decision... but the key is to find the right person. It's possible to send an email to the wrong person and get no action, no forwarding and no love for weeks. But an email to the person right next to them will get you what you need within minutes. This is an institution that thrives on the "it's who you know" system. Fortunately, I am pretty good at navigating the who you know networks... and usually I become a who you know nexus point. So we'll just see how I do here.

5) Nobody, and I mean nobody really knows what my job is - but they're glad I'm doing it, and think I'm doing it well.

6) I love being in downtown again. Even though it's 6 blocks to the heart of downtown and it's a little hot on the street, it's still great to take the walk to be in the thick of people, and to feel like part of a city.

And that's my report on the new gig.

The Crazy Children

1) As we drove someplace last week, Bella remarked "I guess tomorrow will be Fall." Why? "Today I saw a tree with yellow leaves."

2) Pamela has been working hard to get things ready for the big Garage Sale this week coming up. As a result, in between reading, I've been the primary child watcher all weekend. And I've said it before, it bears repeating: These kids can be exhausting. Isaac is a very busy, very intense little guy. We did a lot of wrassling this weekend, which he loved. Bella had playtime pretty much nonstop all weekend with friends, until Jenny crashed at 1pm Sunday... then we got her back.

3) We all went over to Auntie Carrie's for a burger bar: This genius idea: Make little burgers the size of hard rolls, and have tons of gourmet toppings: Everybody's got room for two LITTLE burgers, and there's no chance of topping regret, since you have two to work with.

Isaac started shrieking with delight the moment he arrived, and really didn't stop for 3 hours... walking, crawling, being held, it didn't matter: He was giving out that banshee wail with a huge smile on his face, and we all felt like we'd been the victims of some sonic attack. He was also the grabbiest guy ever: He beelined for the dvd player, pulling out the movie somehow! Every glass, every plate, every utensil within reach, he was after it. By the end of it, Pamela and I were spent, as was the rest of the family who had been chasing him.

I think that he's totally ready for his first airplane ride. Can you even imagine? The plus side: Freddie the Boston Terrier and Isaac got along great, with Isaac laughing as Freddie laid down layer after layer of dog drool on his face. It was only the jumping and knocking over that got Freddie exiled for the party.

Bella took a while to warm up - I think she was crashing like Jenny, but not being as obvious about it. And hook nor crook could get her to try a burger: "You like bread? Taco Meat? Cheese? YES. And here are all three put together. What's not to like?" We'll never know, because she flat out refused. Later in the evening, she was crawling all over Papa, being very silly... but perhaps a little to liberal with the kick moves. It was time for bed.

4) One consequence of stuffing 750 pages into one's head in 24 hours, the brain takes a while to recover, and I am flat out exhausted. I am off to a very early bedtime, and wish you all the best.

Thank You Ms Rowling

I have just finished the 7th Harry Potter Book, and it was fantastic. So many puzzle pieces put into place, so many things resolved. It was very well done, and well worth the wait.

I shall speak no more of it, save to tell anyone who is starting or holding off... it's a good one, and you'll be richly rewarded.

The end of the week

Well, my first full week at the new client went well... and my first mostly full week away from the old one went well too! I only got a couple of little emails - mostly very detail-level questions for followup, and nothing that would indicate that they don't understand what's going on... so I'm pretty happy about THAT!

At the new client, I've decided to try to learn a bit more about the business of the Cardiologists... so I'm doing some looking at online resources to learn about the ticker. I now know more about what MI is, what bypass surgery is, how CV imaging works, now echocardiology works, what stents look like, what they're looking for in EKGs, and so much more. It's very cool... It definitely makes you want to take care of the heart - it's actually pretty important to your health. ;->

Actual Work is pretty mellow: I've been doing mostly research in exactly how the budgets were put together, what was promised before my arrival, and what they really expect to see in the next year. It's very self-directed - I'm expected to figure it all out and am empowered to make it happen. So there are times when I'm feeling a little unproductive, because I'm THINKING, not DOING. But this is a critical stage and I should not skip over it.

In sad news, Mister Jaguar has a pretty big dent in his front fender, and we'll definitely have to go to the body shop (unlike the other nicks and scratches, this one will need to be resolved sooner than later). Not money we were looking forward to spending, but so it goes.

This morning, Bella was talking a mile a minute, and gave us very clear signs: SHE NEEDS TO GO PLAY WITH ANOTHER KID. So Jenny was up to the task for an hour until she needed to go to a party, and now Bella is with Lauren, an 8 year old up the block who is so very sweet. In between playdates, we lolled on the back porch and watched a Bee and a Butterfly float between flowers in our garden. Bella was transfixed. The girl loves the nature, I tell you.

I'm watching out the window for owls (or UPS trucks) who are to bring me my copy of Harry Potter 7. The plan is to stay engaged with the family today, actually participate in life. But tonight, I'll read... while Pamela watches a movie she's been planning to see: It'll be a night of Miss Potter and Harry Potter. In the meantime, the rice is cooking for leftover thai, and Isaac is 90 minutes into a good morning nap. The doors and windows are open and there's a nice breeze. Ahhh.

WHY??????

So I've heard nothing but good about the Music With Lyrics movie... well actually just the PoP goes my heart video. So I watched it and enjoyed it... but something stuck in my craw:

The video purports to be from 1984. Hugh is playing a Roland D-50 in the video. The D-50 was released in 1987. A more accurate keyboard would have been a Jupiter 8 or Prophet 5.

WHY do they not do this sort of VERY BASIC checking? It drives me nuts.

An evening with Bella

Yesterday, after a few very jam packed days, Bella took a personal vacation: She exploded in the AM at Pamela, crying for over an hour, and when Grampette picked her up for swimming, she was clearly in no mood. But she took her home, where she and Bella had a very quiet day in the garden, and midway through the afternoon, Bella conked out and took a long nap. When she returned to us after 7pm, she was transformed - much more relaxed and all smiles.

Pamela and I have been trying to think of how to help her: She's having a hard time hearing every single stranger in the world coo about Isaac, and see how much time he takes up of our waking lives... so I decided to take her out on a date for tonight - just us two.

I picked her up right after work, and naturally we headed out to the burrito store. Her new favorite one is out near Southdale, and she likes sitting on the high stools by the front window. Clearly starving, she ate her full burrito bowl without a fork - it was chip dipping time.

Afterwards, she insisted on going to Guitar Center... Now, usually our Guitar Center visits have been more a tour of the rooms with her going "round the world" on the instruments. This time, she was really diving into individual ones, spending extra time PLAYING them. This was very new for us and I was fascinated.

In the digital piano room, she asked "Why do these all make this same sound?" I explained that it's a "piano" sound. She said she prefers keyboards that can make ALL kinds of sounds... But she sat there and played the piano for 10 minutes, picking out small melodies. She stared at sheet music, and was kind of playing along with it - playing notes up when the notes went up the stave. Not really READING it, but understanding there's a relationship between the page and the keys. It was very advanced.

In the synth room, she was fascinated by a vocoder: This is a synth that you hold down keys, then speak into a microphone, and the sound follows your voice: It can sound like angels or robots or other things... like ants and turtles and ghosts. Bella had me changing notes and program settings, and kept on saying "I AM A TURTLE" (or Ant, or Ghost, or Robot) while I played. Again, it was maybe 10 minutes of very focused activity.

In the drum room, she was a bit more of a tourist, but really liked the hand percussion... but no breakthroughs in there. The previous visit, she did spend extra time in the cymbal room, giving every single one a good whack to see what the difference was.

The really wild thing was Bella in the acoustic guitar room: She wanted to see the 3/4 size guitars, and sat with a peaceful faraway look as she strummed them: Really going at the strings, making big sounds. She tried some full size, some ukeleles, and even an acoustic bass. I showed her how the tuning pegs worked and tried to sort of explain how the sound is made by the vibrating string... which is why when you shorten the string, it gets higher sounding... that may have gone over her head.

But it's telling that for the FIRST TIME she asked when I was going to buy her something - a guitar. She's never asked for anything from Guitar Center before. Now, this could be because Jenny has a guitar. In fact that's very likely. But I also think that sometime in the last few weeks something has started to click with her and she's looking at instruments as something to PLAY and not just to make noises with.

We spent well over an hour there tonight, and I only left because I caught a glimpse of a clock... it was such a nice time. As we left, she saw people going in and said "I think they're returning some cymbals. I see they have a bag and there were two cymbals in it. I bet they play drums!".

As we drove, we were listening to Kraftwerk's Computer World, and I told her about how they liked to pretend they were robots. She liked the music a lot. Later, during "Computer Love", she broke in with "One-Two.... Four" in a robot voice... mixing in stuff from the earlier "Numbers" track. The girl is clever. Of course throughout the night, she was dropping crazy memorable quotes which hours later have slipped my mind... save one: But she made me promise not to tell anyone, so this one is going into my personal files... maybe later. On a good night like this, I must keep confidences.

Semi JimVention - The Best of the Best

Way back in 1994, I was working at Ameridata, which was a computer reseller. There was a consulting business in there too, but I was steadfastly in the reseller side: They did corporate computer configuration and support. Which is sort of funny to think of in a 2007 mindset, but back in 1994, it was a thriving business - you called "your computer guys" to come in and set things up.

In the future, I will have some amazing corporate hell stories about my days at Ameridata, but today is not that day. Today I tell you about my friend Eh Xiong and the JimVention that almost was. I should also remind you that Eh was also a conspirator in the "Get me out of here.com" idea from that time (JimVention Post: HERE)

Eh was (I use past tense only because I have not kept current with Mister Xiong, not because he has passed) a first-generation Laotian immigrant, coming to America in the late 1970s when he was less than 12 years old. His name is "Eh" because that was his nickname, and his big sister told the immigration people to use that. He was doing Access programming on a system I had no idea about, but we sat near eachother, and identified ourselves as allies in this hostile environment. There were two other allies - Jason the DBA, and Karen the Project Manager. My dad also worked there, but gave us kids some room... and that was pretty much it. The rest was horror. But that again is another story. We stay with Eh.

Eh and Karen and I would frequently go out to lunch, and Karen was sort of a "gee whiz" megasquare girl who loved to hear MY stories about working nights in nightclubs and my band days. And Eh was full of stories about "His Culture".

See, in almost ANY situation, Eh could listen to an anecdote, and then would tell one even better with the preface "In my culture..." This is how I learned about the Hmong focus on owning four-plexes, the new year celebrations, dating rituals and the importance of chaperones, the "locked door rule" which can lead to marriage (you REALLY don't want to bring a traditional Hmong girl home late from a date - her parents MAY lock the door, and if she isn't let in for 3 days, she's YOURS.) He also told us about his childhood in Laos - chasing monkeys, eating monkeys.

It's ENTIRELY possible that Eh was having a lot of fun at our expense, because as he would tell these stories, Karen's eyes could turn to saucers and she'd gasp.... Lunch with those two was always memorable.

Eh and his brothers are big fans of computer games. This was 1994 I remind you, so gaming was pretty much Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and PC games. Doom had just come out for PC. PCs were still very expensive for the sort of unit that would run games well. It was a high geek realm.

Eh and I would talk about games, and honestly I wasn't much of a player at all (I never cleared the first level of DOOM, and have remained fiercely luddite in gaming lore ever since... with the exception of Nintendo Mario games). But Eh was a big fan. The internet was only just getting started, multiplayer via the net wasn't possible, but Doom did have a feature: If you networked two computers, you could play against one another. It was called "Deathmatch Mode".

We hatched a scheme: What if we had a video arcade, but instead of arcade games, it was a room full of GOOD computers, and they were loaded with EXCELLENT games? And as you played, your score would be saved, and we would keep a big bulletin board with the names of the BEST players - the "Best of the Best" as Eh liked to state, sometimes shaking his fist for emphasis. I think there may have been something cultural there. But even better, we could set up a NETWORK, and have head-to-head deathmatches in the DOOM games, which would REALLY show who was the best of the best. We would have the big board of our rankings for the deathmatch champions.

We would then hold contests with prizes. We'd run extra monitors off of their computers so people could stand around and watch the deathmatches in progress. This would be a destination for people.

Eh and I got pretty far with this scheme: We priced out the necessary hardware (with the need to upgrade frequently to make sure we had the best of the best for people), got initial rent prices for a strip mall, ran a few models on how much we'd have to charge per hour to make it work.... And at that point we realized this just couldn't work. We'd have to charge more than $15/hr to make ends meet, and would gonzo gamers really invest THAT kind of money just to say they were the best?

Stymied by the lack of a viable profit model, our plans fell by the wayside. We didn't pursue the concept.

BUT... Let's take some 20/20 hindsight. In 1994/1995, the internet was only JUST starting to take off. Assuming we had opened a place with 12 networked computers with a T1 internet connection. What OTHER business could we have actually been running?

An internet cafe. We would have been the first Internet cafe in the area, and yes, we COULD have charged $20 an hour for computer usage on a high speed internet line - that was the going rate. And we could have built a brand and ridden that sucker HUGE for at least 8 years, until 2002 when bandwidth became so ubiquitous that charging for connectivity just seemed mean spirited (I'm looking at you Starbucks). The gaming component would have been an add-on, but the core business would have been Joe and Jane "want to use the internet" people.

So sometimes, a JimVention is a good idea in itself that I'm not able to see the appropriate context for. I don't REALLY think I missed a big opportunity here, but it's an interesting story. AND I got to tell you a bit more about Eh.

Chiclets

Oh poor Isaac, he's decided to cut a few more teeth this weekend. And they're his top front ones. When he smiles, there are two bulging chiclets looking back at us, planning their escape from the inside of his gums. While he maintains a good attitude, he's requiring regular doses of Motrin or Tylenol (alternating, for the sake of his tummy), and needs a few extra cuddles.

Knock on wood, but we seem to have avoided the horrors of the stomach flu that ravaged the family reunion last weekend (that we didn't attend, but Bella was our emissary). So chalk one up to clean living!

A final note: I saw a movie the other night that literally broke my brain: The President's Analyst starring James Coburn. It was one of the silliest, most random movies ever... from 1967. It had strange moments of seriousness (one person recalling a horrible moment of becoming aware of racism as a child) followed IMMEDIATELY by completely madcap chases... and with one of Lalo Schirfin's most surreal scores. I'm still processing the strange information that was inserted into my brain from this movie.

I think my mother recommended it. Hmm.

Off to do chores - a little mowing, a little de-trashification of the yard, who knows what else?

Bittersweet

Today was my last full day at the old client. Yes, the upgrade did in fact go VERY VERY well: We reverted to standard support by Tuesday evening. We ended daily status meetings Wednesday AM. We had no help desk calls Wednesday night... there were no major bugs that didn't have workarounds. We really nailed this upgrade: The hospital didn't lose a minute of work, and we were all walking around wondering if we were about to wake up and realize it was all a dream. But it really worked, and we kept today as my last day. (The CIO noted that only I could get away with picking Friday the 13th as my exit date - it's just too JimB-style)

I scrambled all week to make sure that the five people they're replacing me with were all comfortable with their new roles. And we had some good tests - some tricky situations that I usually handled, my new people took on and muddled through... learning how it all works. And I actually feel pretty confident that things won't fall apart Monday.

I was going to make this farewell, but the client wanted to fete me, so I'm coming back for 2 hours on Tuesday for a farewell pizza party. In a semireluctant move, my old consulting firm (who I'm also breaking with) grudgingly decided to pay for HALF of the pizza party. They'll pay half? Crazy. But Monday, I get to move in to the new client full time... and hopefully sit in on a few more procedures....

I had a parade of well wishers today, which got me misty eyed. Some people took me to Crazy Buffet (see earlier blog postings, late 2006), which was "wonderful" as always. There are a lot of people who are very sad to be seeing me go, and I am sad to not be working with them. I am GLAD that I have done good work and am REALLY psyched to be going to the new gig full time, but there are people who I have really liked working with who I will miss. Some of the comments I have got have truly made me blush... one said "you're one who shines bright in the world, and we'll be a darker place without you".

One person who I will not miss was something of a manager-nemesis: He was really good at not taking on responsibility for his team, and his team left my project high and dry a few times, undermining me in meetings, etc... well, yesterday he got demoted - I mean "decided to take another position under his existing one in the same department". So that was a nice going away gift. I don't celebrate the misfortunes of others, but I do appreciate a nice comeuppance now and again.

As it was a day of passages, Paul and I came to an agreement to part ways on our Brain Stuff today. We had never been able to really gel on a way to make it profitable, and it was stuck at the "hobby" level for too long. We also had different ideas on how to take it forward. So we agreed to disagree. I'm taking my books, and he's keeping the website and the podcasts, and we're keeping it friendly. And I'll figure out if the books are something to push further out into the world. In truth, I haven't heard much real feedback about the books from anyone, so I'm curious if I should just walk away from them. If any of you have read them and found them valuable, please do let me know... I could use the feedback!

And just yesterday, I had lunch with another Paul, and started talking about a business idea we had a couple of years back... and I was thinking that it might be a workable idea. So perhaps there will be another thing born of this time of flux.

I'm out on the front porch typing this. A blueish small bird with a small crest and a big orange beak is watching me blog and is making lazer gun blips and whistles. It's a beautiful night, and things are good in my world.

Aaaahhhhh.

The big upgrade has been installed. I spent over 15 hours at work yesterday, starting at 2:30am, and around 11 today... My team is tired, but the signs are very clear: We did a good job. We're dealing with a mere handful of issues, most of which we were able to clear up within hours. Hospital operations were back on track without a blip. We're only the third client in the country to upgrade to this version of the software so far, which was a bit risky, I admit. But almost every other hospital in town who runs this software will be upgrading in the next 12 months... and we've proven it can be done well.

I've resisted posting before now to ward off any jinxes... but as we're over 36 hours with no major bumps, I think I might be justified in giving out a whoop and a holler.

People had thought I was crazily optimistic to plan my exit from the client only one week into the upgrade - that we'd be chasing issues for weeks. And we may still find issues, yes. But Friday is sure looking like a fine day to make my way off to the new client for full time.

So it's off to an early bedtime for me... much sleep needs to be caught up on.

Upgradin'

5am and all is well. Not really - things got off to a rocky start here: A last minute change in upgrade procedures threw the techies for a loop and we didn't get to the "meat" of the upgrade until an hour had passed, eating up my contingency time. So we'll have to see if I get done in my window of opportunity. Now that it's running, maybe we'll make up some time, since the production system is so much more powerful than the test system we did our 3 dress rehearsals on.

Happily, the end-users seem pretty comfortable with the downtime: There have been no help desk calls.

We're either the first or second client ever to go up on this software release (one smaller hospital MAY have beat us to the punch by a couple of weeks), so this is pretty fingernail-biting. We did have some very good runthroughs, and there's no reason to expect a problem other than... well... problems happen.

I'll be heading out soon to get donuts for my developers who'll show up in an hour... though they'll probably be bored since we're behind schedule. All the more reason to make sure donuts are here. Tired cranky is better than tired cranky hungry.

I was going to bring in my espresso machine, but decided that while it's pretty easy to use, I'd have to be parked in the lunchroom with it, and I have more important things to be doing than being a Barista at 6am. So I made a few extra shots this AM to get me going... and my developers will just have to make due with regular coffee. (and truthfully, I believe I'm the only espresso-head in the bunch anyway!)

On the beach...

I think that was the title of a book where there's been a nuclear holocaust and people in New Zealand are just waiting for the fallout clouds to come their direction... I could be wrong, but that's the image I'm looking for:

We sent Bella off to the Family Reunion on Thursday, and had been hearing amazing stories of her swimming, fishing, playing with cousins, having a great time. BUT... an unwelcome visitor came to the reunion: A particularly virulent strain of stomach flu has been pulling an "and then there were none" routine on everybody. Bella got it at midnight last night, and seems back on her feet this morning. It takes 2 at a time, makes their lives miserable for 8-12 hours, then gives them their lives back.

One branch of the family heard about this and wisely decided to cancel the trip (they were going Sat-Mon, the bug first hit Thursday Night)

And so we sit here in Minneapolis, wondering if our little daughter will be returned to us as a carrier of this virus, if we'll all wind up with it next week... we're preparing the buckets now.

Just a quick update - many things to do today AND I need to rest up for my big Golive at 3am Sunday AM. Whoo HOO!!

JimVentions Redux - GRAZER

You may recall my JimVention of the "get me out of here" pager service. Here's another JimVention for you:

Around 2 years ago, I was writing back and forth with my friend in Seattle, Paul. We were batting around ideas for "Web 2.0" concepts that might lift us up and out of our day jobs into the fun and excitement of venture capital fueled startups. He had started with an idea of a web image aggregator - something that took a feed from "Amihotornot" and played them in a little window on the side of the screen. Strangely, I didn't flat out tell him that was ridiculous - I can be quite indulgent.

But I thought - what about if you took those images, but then could at a moment, link directly to where they came from? Or what if we built in something to automagically track your preferences for pictures, and served up more pictures in the vein of what you liked?

Now - as I write this, you are probably thinking I am describing something with adult entertainment as its target market. With the Great Spirit as my witness, throughout this whole thing that was never the goal or even thought of: The idea was for something you could have in a window while at work... so raciness just wasnt in there. I just wanted to say that.

Anyway, why stop with pictures? I said ANY media could work this way: You start tagging things you like, and the browser... the Grazer brings you more of what you like. Music, cartoons, pictures. But the secret has to be in these TAGS - you'd need to have a totally extendable set of tags attached to the media.

Then, a file could have not just the name, and some tags describing it for your preferences, but it could have embedded links to take you to the artist's website, or some tags for similar artists - if you like this, you might like...

Well, you can't just cram an infinite amount of data into the spare spaces inside of a media file: At some point, the file will be too bloated. Also, you'd run into the version problem: One file of a song might have a few tags, another of the same song would have a bunch - there'd be no consistency. And what if you got a file with some INAPPROPRIATE tags attached - like a link to a virus site?

So what if you took an idea like Wikipedia - a public "contribution site" for a global set of information: Artist links, reviews, things like it you might like, biographical info, additional artwork, links to where to buy it, where to see him/her live... all in a user-moderated context... and the file only has a single tag that refers to this online repository? A single GrazerTag?

So then you're in iTunes, playing a song, and there's a Grazertag embedded: You click on a "find out more" button, which contacts the nearest GrazerServer, which points you to the proper archive for this work, which then downloads the appropriate content down into your viewer... like a website.

And similar to a Wiki, there could ALSO be a PRIVATE, COMMERCIAL aspect to this: Some files would have a grazertag that points to Sony, or Getty Images, where the additional information is moderated by the content owners, where the experience could be more controlled. That's where the idea could actually make some money for the people doing it! But you start the thing as a non-profit, something to build a community around, so that the geeks adopt it first, build the content, and only THEN can the private side appear (much as there are Corporate Wikis out there). I had a plan to entice the BoingBoingers, and THEN actually make a little money.

Now, this is just the very high level view of the idea: I wound up with a marketing plan, detailed technical designs, and a much more geeky level of explanation of how it works. So why oh why would I be putting this out on my Blog, people?

There are a few reasons: First, as we put it together, it because obvious that outside of the technical architecture, the hard work here is that of being a LIBRARIAN. And to be successful, you'd need to moderate the heck out of it, and over 90% of the content would be stuff I just don't have the passion for. Oh, yes, I could have created a KILLER Grazer library for 1980's synthpop. But I would have stopped well short of Michael Sembello, and even Real Life. I'm too much of a snob to even review those entries.

So the way to do this would have been to employ/engage a lot more people, and to do that would have involved a lot of work. Let's put it this way: I could have built the hotel, but I would not have been able to run it... and in short order, it would have been a smoldering ruin, laid low by Russian hackers intent on placing corrupt links to nastiness in corners of data about Kim Wilde and Alphaville. Not my idea of fun.

And fortunately, it DOES appear to be somebody ELSE'S idea of fun: The MetaBrainz foundation (with BoingBoinger on board) has a project called MusicBrainz, which is almost exactly the Grazer concept - restricted to music of course. They have a proprietary browser, and are inviting people to help them tag media. Their commercial angle has already emerged, with a partnership with BBC... I'm not sure how far along they are, but when I read their press release, I said "ah, someone's doing Grazer". Absolutely no hard feelings - as I said, I dropped the idea almost 2 years ago with no intention of pursuing it, so I'm just glad it's out there getting done. Plus, they have some MASSIVE investors, which I just didn't have.

It's further proof to me that sometimes there are just ideas flying around, and our minds can be antennae picking them up. And if we don't act on them, someone else may be listening in on the same transmission... and might just act.

And so, thank you again for visiting the mind of Jimmy. Please come again.

Delightful Daffyness

Three things to mention today:

1) I got to do one of my very favorite things in the world today: I got some old friends set up with a spanking new Macintosh, set up their email, set up iTunes, ripped a CD, got their printer working, showed them the web, and left them to discover the fun. I had helped them get Mac-ified over 5 years ago with a candy iMac, but they had never hooked it up to the big web. Now they're out there. My mom set them up with their first incoming email, and their first internet meme: The "Dramatic Chipmunk". I couldn't think of a better inauguration.

2) Speaking of Mom: It is no secret that we have had our differences throughout our lives - things are up, things are down, and we adapt. I am happy that recently things have been pretty up. But through it all, one thing that I have always been able to rely upon has been a movie recommendation from her:

It was she who had us over for Christmas one night and showed us Die Hard - a fine christmas movie if there ever was one. It was she who took me and my best friends to see "Car Wash" for my 10th or 11th birthday. She showed me the genius of Val Kilmer in Real Genius, a role he still has not done better than. She BOUGHT me Repo Man so I could watch it 20 times with friends and annoy the world by quoting it. And it was she who said "you will enjoy Ghost Rider".

I have just spent two delightfully daffy hours watching Nicolas Cage go "Awww GAWRSH" while turning into a flame headed demon, going after someone who looked like a goth Cory Haim (the internets say it's Wes Bentley....) and avoiding a very creepy Peter Fonda. It was far more fun than it had any right to be. And yet.. do I recommend it? I'm not too sure there are many with my exact movie DNA who would get it the same way. It may just be a family thing. And yes, Nic Cage is looking pretty good these days. It is true.

3) As I ate dinner tonight, I had a dessert of a nectarine. As I ate it, the following statement came to mind: This thing is so dang juicy, I'm considering pressing charges.

I don't know exactly what that means, but it came through loud and clear, and I felt like sharing it.

Quick before bed

It's 9pm and I'm about to fall asleep... it is time for rest. But before I nod off, I must tell you that I have seen an object FROM THE FUTURE. The iPhone.

People, the hype is entirely deserved. This is one of the most beautiful objects in form and function I have encountered. As I flipped through pictures, surfed the web, and placed a call, my mouth went dry and my heart started racing. I started to think of how, just HOW this could enter my life.

Which is not to say I need it: I have a phone. It syncs with my email and my contacts and my calendar. It works. I have an ipod or five and they all play beautiful music, and one even does videos for me. What the iphone can do is not something I cannot do now. But it's something I could do BETTER with an iphone.

And so, as I rest, I will dream of this technology... of this amazing object that has fallen through a rip in space and time, out of a fabulous future where our tools are sculpted extensions of our minds...

Goodnight!

Things to remember about the Kids

Bella:
When she is humming idly during a project, almost always does "Jingle Bells" over and over again.

When she is pretending to be a big girl, her name is always "Annalise", and she's always 7 years old, with her birthday being either today or tomorrow.

When she's at the Arboretum, she's calm, focused, and happy from the moment we arrive to the moment we leave. We went again today, and she was a sight to behold.

She is still having some sharing and territory issues with her little brother.

Isaac:
Today he climbed the stairs. All of them up to the second floor without a pause. He then made a beeline to the toilet. He also walked a little today... just a few steps here and there. But he has the skill.

His new development was that today he started wrassling with his sister: She was dragging around a white comforter, which he decided he loved. He was diving down into it, and rolling around giggling. When Bella tried to establish territory on the blanket, he rolled over her, climbing over her, and teasing her. She got very frustrated, but he was having a great time.

He loves his big sister unconditionally.

No, no I didn't

Sorry to disappoint, but I did not get an iPhone. I didn't wait in line all night, I didn't place an order online. I'm just too scared: I've had crazybad cellphone mojo in my life. Phones that others rave about, I can barely hold a signal. I feel like my calls drop all the time. I sit at my desk, and a voicemail icon pops up on the phone, and it NEVER RANG. The "fast internet" features people rave about... I just get "loading..." for eternity.

I'm just not willing to open my heart to an Apple phone, when cellphones in general have let me down so often.

There is another reason I can not get an iPhone: We are in a "not spending money" phase here at the house, and Pamela knows what the iphone is, what it looks like, and is on the lookout for my weakness.

Nope. Ain't gonna do it. Not til Rev 2 at least.

An important announcement.

Ahem. Is this thing on? Yes? Ok. Here we go.

ISAAC WALKED TODAY. SEVERAL TIMES. NET TOTAL OF 20+ STEPS IN 3-6 step INCREMENTS.

He got so excited, he couldn't walk any more, he was too busy bouncing a victory dance as everyone hollered encouragement. He did most of the walking with Pamela, MaeMae, and Bailey (the sitter) watching, but he gave daddy a few steps in the evening just to show he can.

9 months, one week. Walking. WOW.

That is all.

Some random impressions

1) Yesterday, on my way out of the house to work, Bella gave me two huge hugs, then walked me to the door, opened it for me, walked me out to the stairs, and stood waving as I drove away. I almost drove off the road with tears - she was so sweet. I was very happy to be able to help her go to bed last night reading stories and telling tales of when I was young. I might have revved her back up with a detailed story of climbing Long's Peak... she got pretty excited.

This morning, I was out of the house at 5:45 and didn't come back between the workout and going to work. Apparently Bella was a bit sad around the house.

2) Isaac remains ornery about being fed: Pamela was trying sweet potatoes, and took a 2 minute video of the refusenik in action: He was not particularly mad, he was just plain NOT HAVING ANY OF IT. Mouth locked shut, skillful parries of the spoon. More than once, he grabbed the spoon... now if you're thinking "oh, he'll feed himself then?" HAH. No, he holds the spoon with one hand, wipes all of the food off of it with the other, THEN puts it in his mouth. Spoons are for chewing, not for eating. Silly parents.

3) With Pamela better, I'm back to my 6am workouts: I had written a "top five reasons to work out a t 6am" letter which was sent to the whole health club, and since then, "my" 6am class has had 8-9 people, which is twice what we used to get... so my 6am won't be canceled, and they'll probably add back in a Thursday 6am! Hooray!

4) Some success at work: Our dress rehearsal for July 8 went very well today - no technical glitches. We have some rough edges, but we'll be able to iron them out without too much trouble. I did have a FULL SCALE REBELLION on my hands with the team on something: A different team handles reporting - they never came to my meetings, they wouldn't be managed by me, they were autonomous. Then a month before golive they asked for our help in "proofing" their work, just a final look at it.

We started looking, and realized that they were less than half done, and hadn't even mildly tested that half. And they started asking for us to help them "prioritize" their work, and let them know what wasn't working (basically to the FIRST level of testing, not the final review). I asked the team what they thought: A lot of times, they'll take a hit to make sure the product is ok for the customers... they'll do the extra work. But I wanted their input.

Well, they said no, this isn't their job, and this is too typical for that team. SO I got to tell my boss and my bosses boss that our team was too busy and this was the reason. I went to bat for them. And my team was amazed... that's not something people have done for them, and they said they're REALLY going to miss me.

Anyway, that's work geekness... but when people ask me what I do all day, I advocate for people. I represent.

5) A food post? WHAT? I was starving at lunch and ran off to Key's restaurant in Fridley... and horror of horrors, they were OUT OF CARAMEL ROLLS. Fortunately they still had some eggs, hash browns, bacon, coffee, and rye toast, so it wasn't a total loss.

Sabado Gigante

Poor Isaac had a rough time settling last night - it seems he's going through more brainstorms and it's making him a tad cranky. He was up before 6 this morning, and Pamela was the on-duty who took him downstairs. I'm the on-duty tonight, so I figure tomorrow will be an early one for me.

It was a big day because Pamela is finally going without her finger splint for much of the day. Splint still goes on for labor and sleep, but for most of the day, the finger was out in the world. It looks to be recovering nicely - not drooping , but it doesn't have the same upward tilt as the other fingers, it's perhaps a little lazier. But considering the horror stories we'd heard from so many mallet finger injuries, she seems to be coming out OK. Add in that her back is practically back to "normal", and it's a good life we're living now.

We've figured out that Isaac simply will not abide being fed unless it's a bottle (which perversely he has NO interest in holding). So we're trying to be creative about self-feeding options. He likes cheerios, goldfish, bananas, mangoes, and bread-and-butter so far. Bread and butter was my idea today, and he absolutely loved it. Carrot cubes weren't such a hit. I think he's got a sweet tooth, this kid.

We did tons of yard work today, finally weeding most of our flower and hasta beds, which really sharpened everything up. Bella spent the entire day "in the neighborhood", bouncing between neighbor's houses, in and out of pools, games of "kissing tag" (which she announced "was fun, but got boring after a while") and general mischief. By 4, she, Jenny, and Madeline landed at our house.

Madeline is 7 or 8, and left us a darling handwritten "ad" for her "mother's helper" service. We couldn't say no, so twice now she's played with Isaac while we got stuff done around the house. And she gets a couple of dollars, which she parades proudly around with. So when they came to the house, we hired Madeline for an hour to keep an eye on Isaac while we finished our chores (including a mow). Then we got some Famous Dave's for a feast!

Pamela, Bella, and Isaac were all asleep by 8:30 I think... I puttered around, not doing anything work, language, or brainready related at all: I rented a movie "The Fountain" with Hugh Jackman.

Now, I'm a huge fan of the Clooney Solaris movie, and the reviews of the Fountain were of a similar tone, so I was expecting a mishmash of musings about love, death, and life. And I got it. But it wasn't all THAT great. It was very nonlinear, and about the quest to conquer death. I was distracted, however, in that a recurring image of this star he way flying to in the future track looked a lot like the cover to Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life". and then I think of "Sir Duke", and it sort of breaks the mood. You may think I'm kidding, but I'm not here. Anyway, it was pretty OK with some interesting bits, but as a whole, a bit of a mess. Oh well.

By the way, Bella is now forbidden from whining that "She's BOOORED" when we deny her a video. She's acting so old these days! Last night, as we were lying in bed, she was wearing her favorite flannel duck pajamas. Suddenly, she sat up and said "You have got to be kidding me... these pajamas are WAY hot. They're totally too thick. I need different pajamas". So we switched to the silky monkey pajamas... while she is remarking "What were we thinking? The silky monkeys are WAY better".

And so with the family a snooze, and me getting more tired, I think it's time to say goodbye to Saturday, and welcome Sunday to the fold.

Corporate Tales of Woe Part 1

Today I went for a long walk at lunch - a good 45 minutes outside and found myself musing about my work, my life, and some of the odd places I've been... and I decided to do occasional blog postings on horrible work experiences I've had in the corporate world. Just little anecdotes. Not a horrible diatribe - don't get me wrong: I do love what I'm doing these days... but some of my early work...

Way back in 1992 when I was just getting started in IT, I took a programmer job for an outsource code shop. Looking back, I was a subcontractor working for a subcontractor, working for a contractor, working for a telephone company in southern Minnesota. I was paid $15/hr, and told to bill 40 hours a week, no matter what I was doing. With 3 subcontracting firms above me, I am guessing that the client must have been paying at least $50/hr for my work, with everyone taking betweekn $5-10/hr off the top.

We were in an office plaza in Eden Prairie, the dress was business formal (shirt, ties, slacks), there were 6 of us in this office. I shared an office with a woman just a little older than I. In the back were the "mainframe guys" who literally did nothing but play card games on the computer all day. One other guy would stare at lines of code all day. One slept. This was before the world wide web - I can only imagine what THAT would have been like.

For 4 weeks, I was given nothing to do. NOTHING. But bill 40 hours, and say I was doing "Conversion" work. Turns out, this shop was in the SLOW and LABORIOUS process of converting a system from MainFrame to Windows Server... very very very slowly. Bored, I surfed through the code library, trying to make sense of what the system did (boring billing stuff), and see what massive changes were needed.

Finally, after 4 weeks, they gave me an assignment: Take this one program, and convert it. It should take 2 weeks, they said. I took this program, and God as my witness, all I could see it needed was ONE LINE of code changed to work properly. So I did it. And my boss said "you're not done, this will take two weeks". Which I took to mean there was something else I needed to do. So i got in there and started to do some additional improvements, I reformatted the output to work on standard printers, I changed some of the input parameters to match PC keyboards better....

And after 2 weeks of puttering, my boss said "it'll take another week". So a week LATER, they sent off the code. And one week AFTER THAT, the top-level contracting firm called up and yelled at me for making all of those changes, what was I STUPID??? So I immediately backed out those changes, just did the one line of code, and shipped it off 10 minutes later.

8 weeks, and only one program modified, and only one LINE of code modified. And I had made almost $5000. And it felt TERRIBLE. I talked to others in the office, and they all said "kid, relax, this is an easy gig - enjoy it! The next one won't be like this and you'll remember this fondly". Really.

The boss called me into his office and said that "the clients wanted me fired, but he talked them into giving me another chance". I said thank you for the opportunity, but I don't think this is right for me. I walked out. Actually I'd like to say I walked out, but I gave two weeks notice, did nothing but show up for 80 more hours, made another grand. Sigh.

Two gigs later, I ran into one of the Mainframe Guys in the shop: He had taken ill and there was some code that NEEDED to get done. I filled in, and the work that was supposed to be 80% done hadn't been started, but that was ok because the two weeks he had said he needed turned out to have been only about 30 minutes of code on my part. I didn't make a big deal out of it... but I did learn some lessons about trusting people: there are a lot of people in this business who are not interested in working very hard, and are not above deception to keep themselves comfortable.

I am not one of those people.

9 Months

Today Isaac is 9 months old. What a blur the last 9 months have been!!!

That's all I have to say at the moment... gotta go work!

Father's Day!!!!

As I wrote, my hopes for father's day were a little sleep, some cuddles, and the crossword. As of 9:45 tonight, the first one was achieved, and the crossword is not far from done. But cuddles? The kids were just too hyper today to pull that off... well there were a few, I guess!

The house woke up at 7, and let me sleep til 8:30. Already things were getting crazy - Bella was VERY excited about the day and was literally running in circles over and over, jumping over Isaac, jumping on Mommy... she got so hot she stripped down to undies to keep running around. This much energy couldn't be contained, so I got showered and dressed and dragged her out of the house to see the Penguins Surfing movie, which was really a LOT of fun. (no violence other than a comic whack or two, no physical peril, no big villains, no crude jokes, just a good comedy about surfing penguins, and Zooey Deschanel was the voice of a googly eyed girl penguin... gotta love that).

Then it was straight over to Grandma and Grandpa's house - where they had put up an advanced slip and slide for Bella... and a tiny pool for Isaac. I was told to go put my feet up and chat with Dad, while Grandma wrangled the kids... which was heavenly. The puzzle got around half done, I had a great chat with dad, and I even caught a little nap in there. Bella and Isaac went through 3 outfits each, being drawn like moths to the flame of the water.... (malformed analogy: Acknowledged, but somehow relevant)

Carrie and Scott showed up and the party kept going - a crab and shrimp feast was concocted (along with salad and bread, natch) and finished with Key Lime Pie from Turtle Bread (a wonderfully tart pie, a Bella ate a full slice!) Got everyone home by 7:30, Isaac and Bella were zonked by 8, which was good because I needed to go get MaeMae and Jenny from the airport - they had been visiting Randy in DC.

So now I'm home, everyone's asleep (including Pamela, whose back finally conked out after ALL of that great activity this weekend) and I'm updating the world...

It was a busy day - busier than I had perhaps anticipated, but that's what being a dad of an 8month old hercules and a 4.5 year old busybody will do: It's just a busy life, and that's what I signed off for: I wouldn't want a father's day without doing any dad stuff!!! (I even changed the one poopy diaper of the day - hey... wait a minute... I got ripped off!!!)

Odd Encounter...

A few days ago, I was going into a sandwich shop and spotted an old acquaintance. He hadn't noticed me, and honestly, I would have been ok if he never did, but as i crept closer to the sandwich pickup spot, I passed within inches of his table, and our eyes met.

It was Matt, the saxophonist from my high school rock band PG13. Ok - it was 1984-1986. We loved INXS. We played half covers, half originals, and weren't half bad... but we did have a saxophonist, and he loved to play. He played on and over every single song we wrote - no matter if we were singing, a guitar solo, whatever, there was this honking going on at all times. And he was WAY more serious about "The Band" than any of the rest of us combined - he really wanted to go to the top.

He was also a very mean person in some ways: his screamed phone conversations with his mother during band practices were equal parts hilarious and chilling - we weren't sure if both would survive. He also had some very non-sequiteur expressions: Talking about a family that was "Old World", he said "Old world? Third world! Probably squeezing out babies right now". This was about a polish maestro and his son our good friend. Bizarre.

Things with Matt after the band got strange(r) - he got into fast motorcycles, went off to a music college, tried to get my mom to co-sign on a loan for a soprano saxophone. I saw him every few years after that - suddenly he was a bouncer at William's pub? I heard second hand that he had created a combination Bass and Sax, which made no sense, because during a sax solo, wouldn't you still need the bass going?

So now I see him again, and he's looking like a Gym Rat, with a shockingly young miss thang with a bare midriff, improbable chest, and "Diva" printed across her bum. He gives me a very mild "hey" and asks "so are you still doing that thing you were doing last time we met?" - possibly the most effective way of saying "I don't remember, nor do I care what your life is". So I said yes, gave him the 10 second update. He shared that he owns a Gym not far away... and that's it.

So we parted ways... in truth, we were never friends, just co-workers in a band, and without that context, there just isn't much to relate. I refused to ask the question "do you still do music". That feels like I'd be trying to connect, and this is a guy I don't need to connect with.

No big lesson here, and not a hilarious story - just an odd encounter with the past.

Further Pleasantness

Friday, she was a nutty day. Big meetings at OldClient, then hustling across town to a full day of vendor demos for NewClient, complete with recap documentation sent out by 5pm. Grabbed some Thai at King and I, and met Pamela at home, where Uncle Ant was waiting. Yes, that means another Scotch Tasting was on offer. But Ant has become more than an evening pal - he loves Bella and Isaac and plays with them (while also making good conversation with us) for over an hour before we get to business... So the whole family actually looks forward to our Scotch nights.

The tasting was narrower this time (and Nick/Chicken was still in Seattle) - vertical tasting of 3 years of Highland Park, and a lateral tasting of two Dalwhinnies - one double matured. It was a highland Scotland party. but then we did a "pretasting" of a dram that will be formally tasted in 2 weeks when Nick rejoins us: A Laphroaig Quarter Cask. And shock and surprise, the Lap showed amazing character and overshadowed our Highland party.

The movie was X2, which still brought a tear to my eye... though even MORE so when I consider how badly they had screwed up X3 - such DRECK that movie.

In the night, I had more of those crazy hallucinations where I think Isaac has been left in bed with us and I need to get him out or we might roll over him accidentally (I'm very afraid of the "Family Bed" concept, I guess). And of course it was Pamela who woke me up demanding to know why I was trying to lift her knee out of bed (I had a pretty good grip and was pulling hard). An hour later, the dream returned, but in a strange moment of lucidity, I put aside the possible imminent danger of Isaac rolling out of bed, and crept into his room to see if he was really THERE. He was, and Pamela's body parts were safe again.

An early morning - Isaac woke at 6:15, Bella at 6:30. Bella played in the AM with Casey, then we all ran off to the Arboretum - the "Big Room". We were there for 4 hours, going through hedge mazes, looking at art, eating, and generally loving the world. It's amazing to watch Bella there: She was all rolleyes and bored in the car, until she figured out where we were going - then she perked up "I LOVE THIS PLACE!"

And she is truly at peace in the Arboretum - she meanders, looking at plants, at sculpture, doing activities - she has such a peaceful look on her face, true contentment. I had a flash of her as a botanist or some such thing in the future. Isaac, on the other hand, was experimenting to see just HOW MANY TIMES we would discourage him from eating bark chips: After a certain point, you just need to let him have a taste... he figured it out more or less.

That's that latest - Isaac is asleep, Bella is not far from bedtime... not sure what the night brings us, but I'm hoping that Father's Day brings me a nice crossword, a sudoku, a little sleeping in, and a cuddle or two from the family.

A great weekend...

Friday afternoon, we packed the kids up and went down to Lanesboro MN - mere miles from Iowa and Wisconsin, this little town amidst rolling hills and glacier-cut rock faces has experienced a rebirth thanks to over 60 miles of old railroad bed being turned into paved trails: In the summer it's a biker's haven, in the winter, X-Country skiers rejoice.

We stayed at a converted grain mill in a two room suite... cards on the table, we were not HUGE fans of this room: It was below ground, one of the two rooms had no AC, and there was a dehumidifier running at all times. And there were no windows. And there was a mustiness that had our children coughing at night. But we lasted two nights there... surprisingly. The third nights, we DID move to a new suite, which was much brighter and more airy.

Though a cycling mecca, we were bipedal tourists: Pamela's back isn't back up to snuff yet, so we padded around, visited amish stuff, and spent a LOT of time in Sylvan Park, a big open area with a great playground.

The first two days, at the park, there was a green dinosaur that Bella just insisted on sitting on: She would spend 10-15 minutes on that dino, lost in thought. She wouldn't touch the rest of the gear. But you know our girl, she's the observer. She was planted there figuring out the whole park. So by Sunday morning, she barely said a hello to the dino, before hitting the equipment with gusto and making friends. On Sunday AM, she chatted up a 7 year old boy, and they were fast friends for over 2 hours. In the evening, she and a 3 year old got to be partners in crime. In both cases, she sort of hung out doing something on the gym, waiting to be noticed. She's cunning that way.

Food was pretty decent: There are some haute cuisine places we simply did not visit due to the kiddles. But bar/diner/cafe food was all done well: Some of the best onion rings of my life were at the Pedal Pusher cafe. Breakfast at the "Chat n Chew" didn't disappoint either visit... Bella subsisted on Cheerios, Buttered Toast, Pizza, and Ensure somehow. Isaac insisted on teething biscuits for every meal... or he'd make our lives challenging. The biscuits kept coming, so the peace was kept. And boy, he would get filthy as a result!!!!

Pamela took a few hours out to do an Amish tour, which sadly wasn't quite up to her expectations... but there were other real life ones she chatted up (and bought goods from), so it was a wash.

The only downside to the trip was that the kids just plain did NOT sleep well, and as a result we didn't sleep well either. So it was a lot of wrangling, and playing, and pushing strollers, and playing, and eating and managing them in restaurants, and comforting them as they woke... So mom and dad are pretty much cashed. It didn't help matters that I got completely overtired and went on a Quixotic crusade against whirring, buzzing, and clicking sounds in our room last night, not falling asleep until well after 3am. Old man B-Reay was in FULL EFFECT, and Pamela was a kind kind woman not to have murdered me.

One nice thing was to have been totally disconnected for the weekend: No cellphone coverage in that valley. There were Wifi hotspots everywhere, but the computer had been left at home (WHAT???). When we hit Rochester on the trip home, my phone filled up with messages and emails, and fortunately the world did NOT end during my absence... though one email ALMOST TOLD ME ABOUT THE SOPRANOS FINALE WHICH I HAVE NOT YET SEEN!!!!!!

On the ride home, Isaac mercifully napped for 2 hours, and was easy to keep under wraps the remaining 45 minutes. Bella made good use of the Ipod, watching the NEW Pooh adventures (Purists beware - it's CGI, and CR is a girl... And they go on "detective adventures"... but Bella seems to love it).

And now Bella's playing in the basement with Casey from the hood, and I'm hoping it's an early bedtime for the kids so that the Sopranos CAN be seen, because I almost ruined last week's episode for one of my coworkers, and I'm POSITIVE he's waiting to return the favor... ;->

Good to be back!

What's happening?

1) Pamela's back continues to improve: She is almost back to full fighting strength, and is capable of caring for the kiddos on her own for good stretches. She hasn't needed much pain killer, so we're optimistic that her back is definitely on the mend.

Her finger was looked at by the docs today, and they'll start doing exercises with the finger this weekend: Which means they're optimistic that it's healing. So I'm hoping to have a fully functional googy in the near future. Whew!

2) Isaac Isaac Isaac. He is now pulling up to stand, and then raising his hands, standing free. He is so proud of himself... he gives such a big smile when he stands! It's only a matter of time before he's marching around the house. I wonder how Bella will take it?

3) Bella Bella Bella. The other morning, I was sleeping in, Pamela had Isaac downstairs. Bella came downstairs and told Pamela "I was in my room and I heard a sound, so I went out into the hall to see what it was, and then I went into your room, and I realized the sound was coming out of daddy's nose".

She has a soccer ball now, and loves to carry it around and do a LITTLE kicking work. Perhaps more than kicking, she likes to have the ball rolled to her so she can STOP it with her foot, and tap it back. Again, she likes activities where CONTROL is the object, not distance of kicking....

4) ME AMO CRAIGSLIST. Oh my goodness. We're getting rid of a few things (including one of the big TVs). I put postings on Craigslist, and I had two of the things gone the same night, paid for by cash, no muss no fuss. Item 3 will be picked up tomorrow. It's amazing - people really read these ads and come get stuff. And there are no fees, and you're not bombarded by people asking for shipping costs and will I return the balance from a cashier's check that you always get with Ebay. CRAIGSLIST UBER ALLES.

And yes, we're down to one TV now, and our living room has no TV: We're changing the lifestyle - TV is a destination (basement) if we want to see something we make an effort. We're also reverting to basic cable and losing the DVR. We have books to read, languages to learn, and children to play with. Who needs it?

That's the update for now... Now that things are getting less crazy at the house with Pamela back in action, I'm hoping to update with more regularity again!