A dinner story

Driving home from a long day in Cleveland, I was musing about where to eat, when I found myself in front of "Cleveland's Best Pizza" again - Geraci's. I don't recall making the conscious decision to go here, and it is not exactly on the way home... but it seemed it was what the body required.

The place was packed and I was parked at a table that had around 3 inches from the tables on either side - this was a slightly expanded 6-top, accommodating 3 separate parties. I opened the iPad, and was launched into "demo mode" for everyone around me, including the owner of the restaurant, the waiter, and my four dinner companions.

On my right was a couple who were on their way back from visiting family in Wisconsin, on the way to Albany, and they're from Cleveland originally, so they always stop for food. This was their first visit to Geraci's and they were thrilled. The guy had been using Apples since the 1980s, so we compared pedigrees (you had that? I had this). The wife was the iMac user.

On my left was a pair of guys about my age were were clearly "on the spectrum" of autism: One was a hummer/mumbler who didn't engage with me directly, but chimed in "yeps" to agree with his friend, who was the talker. There the talk was about vintage TV shows, which started with how you get onto the web with the iPad, then his favorite website (TVshowsonDVD.com) then about the injustices of old shows in syndication on TVLand cutting out footage to allow for more ads, to the continuing and scandalous unavailability of the 1960s Batman shows in their entirety on DVD.

These guys were autograph hounds too, and had a story about meeting Frank Gorshin (the Riddler) as well as Mrs Kravitz from Bewitched (Must have been Sandra Gould from seasons 3-7, since Alice Pearce from seasons 1-2 died in the 1960s). In a 4 year period they went to LA and NYC 50 times for autograph conventions. They only like the old shows - the latest they liked was "One Day At a Time" - which they can't believe they've released only ONE season of on DVD???

Punctuated throughout, the restaurant owner kept siding up asking about how movies would work on the iPad... or can it do a spreadsheet.... how do you type on it.... etc. Every time, i did Steve Jobs proud with a full demo.

It didn't translate into a free meal, however. Just in case you were wondering. No, this was total public service geeking going on here.

And I loved it.

By the way...

Im on my 3rd episode into Buffy's second season, and boy, it's a night and day difference: They really hit their stride in the second season. And I just met Spike and Drusilla... but had to step away right then, so I'm just on tenterhooks!!!

And all is well

The "boy's weekend" is over, and I have Bella and Pamela home. Pamela is an hour into a nap (Happy Mother's Day!), and Isaac and Bella are zoning out with shows - Isaac has CARS, and Bella has PLANET 51. They're all tired from the weekend activities. Isaac went to Edinborough Park twice, and had a ton of climbing and play time. Bella stayed up until 10 last night, and still has a full head of gelatin.

And Zinsser is just happy to have his pack back.

Me? No rest for the wicked i suppose. I'm feeding the kids, catching up on some work, etc.

I did have the Avengers over last night for some Scotch: We tasted the new Ardbeg RollerCoaster, which is a selected vatting of 10 years of Ardbegs - and it was delightful. After, we watched Avatar on BluRay, and I must say that having everything there within eye-reach was very rewarding: Some of the more "dense" scenes (the initial landing) were actually fully scannable. The movie was still incredibly engaging. Cameron did a good good thing.

One thing that didn't make it as well to the 2D: Some of the computer displays, once collapsed to 2d, were a bit garish and flat feeling. The amazing 3D effect really made those computer displays something to wonder at in the theater. The other thing I noticed (on a positive note) was how masterful Cameron is with exposition: In the scene with the Marine commander luring our hero into being his spy, you also got a full lesson on how those exoskeletons worked, which came in handy later. But you were never hit over the head with the info. Just pay attention - you'll see this later. It was very well done.

Allright, it's time to go check on my zombie family and start thinking about what I might want for dinner. Alas, I'm off to Cleveland again tomorrow AM, so I've got to drink in this time with the family, even if they are all exhausted.

Buffy and The Doctor

Being out here in Cleveland, I haven't really felt a creative spark for a while. Blog posts are down, the short story hasn't been worked on for a while, and music? Ha! Even my language studies have fallen off severely. I've been doing a lot of reading and a lot of watching.

Reading has been the usual Sci Fi fare: My favorites (Alastair Reynolds, Iain M Banks, Charles Stross) are between works, so I've been exploring other authors. One I'm having a little trouble with is Vernor Vinge: I've tried two books - The Peace War and Fire on the Deep. These are tough books for me. They have all of the elements I love - good ideas, believable tech, snappy pacing. I would even say its well written, tightly plotted... but something about his "voice" is hard for me to read. It's the literary equivalent of a nasally voice - the cadence is just off to my eye/ear, and it makes getting through his books a chore... To compare, Joe Haldeman has all of the same basic attributes above, but his writing cadence is very pleasant for me, and I chew through his books in days.

I remember being a little confused about this back in Russian Literature: There were two editions of the same book, but with different translators. One was more technically accurate but drier to read. The other had a way of writing that drew you in. The stories, plots, characters, pacing, everything was the same, but a choice of word, a turn of phrase made all the difference in readable versus unreadable.

As to watching: I've decided to finally see what that whole "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" thing was all about. It made the mighty Joss Whedon our king, but I'd never seen an episode. So I've started. I'm just over half way through Season 1, and while there is some mightily dated 1990s slang and couture, it is quite enjoyable. Not sure I'm at the "recommending it" stage yet, but I hear things really take off in Season 2.

There's a new show I'm watching - the new Doctor Who on BBC: We're in Season 5 of the new series, and there's a new actor playing the doctor (the doctor periodically dies and "regenerates" - this is his 11th). It is classic Doctor Who - I was a fan back in the Tom Baker and Peter Davidson days... For a guy obsessed with continuity good science like I am, this is pure horror - it's comic fantasy: Horrible CGI aliens stand off in the distance, baring teeth and not moving while our heroes flee. The Doctor faces down a robot nemesis (Dalek!) by pretending a jam cookie is a self destruct button that will kill them all.

But what makes it watchable is that it is self aware - the doctor is crazy, and he does things that make no sense. Lots of open mouthed reaction shots. The monsters are menacing, but nobody gets really hurt. Last minute ideas save the day. It's a fun fantasy I could let Bella watch in a couple of years. So I love it.

Finally, around to Bella: We went on a date this weekend to see "How to Train Your Dragon" in 3D: We had reserved seats, perfect position at the Showplace Icon near out house. We split a bag of popcorn and a bottle of water and had a great time. The movie was very fun, and we LOVED the dragons. See the movie for the dragons. SEE THE MOVIE FOR THE DRAGONS. The vikings were also fun... but the hero had a bit of a sardonic internal monologue that got a little annoying, maybe because it's the sort of voice that Bella has been experimenting with. World weariness just doesn't work coming out of a 7 year old's mouth. Fortunately there are also a lot of giggles coming out these days too.

I'll be missing my ladies this weekend: They're road tripping down to Iowa for a Synchro meet. And yes, they are getting back in the evening of Mother's Day. It'll just be the boys in the house: Isaac, Daddo, and Zinsser. PARTY.

Extension, and Food.

1) So I'm in Cleveland for a little while longer: They haven't yet found my replacement so I got a pre-emptive 3 month extension. I'm hoping we can roll me out sooner, so let me just put the vibes out there: THIS IS A GREAT PLACE TO BE, AND A FUN JOB. PLEASE COME TAKE IT FROM ME. There, I invite a smart, effective person to come and be a permanent part of the project.

Actually the past 2 weeks have been better than ever - with some project velocity starting up, things are feeling achievable. I would actually feel good about handing this to someone to carry on, as opposed to tapping "run" in Morse Code on their palm during the handshake (Dash-Dot-Dash, Dot-Dot-Dash, Dash-Dot)

Anyway, I'm looking at probably June or July for my great escape. But I will escape.

2) Had a bookend evening here tonight: Jeff who started with me back in November has decided to move on to another gig, and tomorrow is his last day. We had found him a permanent place on the team, and all was looking pretty good for a long gig, but he got wooed into a higher profile position - he gets a "director" next to his name. I can't blame him: Having "director" on my title from the late 90s was pure Resume Gold.

Anyway, we went out to Geraci's for "Cleveland's Best Pizza" - which was one of the first places we went back in the day, and helped establish the "it's good... for Cleveland" meme. The pizza was delicious: The thick cut pepperoni was again amazing.

3) Last night was a farewell party for Jeff at "The Boneyard", a combo sports bar and video arcade with a graveyard theme. I had a disturbing hot dog - 1/4 lb. I must say that as eating a dog like that, the sheer volume of it makes you think a little too much about its hot dogness. It sort of put me into an existential crisis, and I left a fair amount of it behind. One of my neighbors at the table had the right idea - he cut it up like kielbasa and enjoyed it with a fork. That would have worked.

As to the "party" - I was the only one to charge up a boneyard card, and I was the only guy who did a few rounds of Dance Dance Revolution. I felt like a lonely geek. But I did pretty well, all considered. I wound up giving Jeff a ride home (someone bought him some tequila shots, and he indulged). This morning I drove him to his car, and we discovered his keys were not in his pockets, nor in his backpack. Later in the day he ransacked his hotel room, inquired at the boneyard... and finally asked me to check my car. There they were on the floor. DOH!

Polar bear relationshios

Sitting with Bella this am watching the rain, she said:

Bella: "Sometimes I think that when it's raining it's Mother Earth crying, because of all of the pollution we put out there. I worry about the trees and the water, and a lot about the polar bears. You know dad, they're actually in trouble. They might all die,"

Me: "well, Bella, hopefully we can change things before it gets too bad and save the bears"

Bella: "yeah, before there's only one left. Or two. You need to bears to make more bears you know.'

Me: "Yep we need a mommy bear and a daddy bear"

Bella: "Actually, dad, if there aren't any kids, it's not 'mommy and daddy'. It's 'husband and wife' "

Yep, it was good

It was a wonderful week at home, and I got a lot of stuff done. Of course, we had a few political flare-ups that I had to tamp down remotely, but nothing I couldn't handle, and having the family around was wonderful to help decompress. I'm starting to arrange things so that I am extremely "replaceable" out in Cleveland, and have started the work of finding my next gig locally...

Only looking for a week, and I've already had a couple of compelling opportunities, which is just wonderful. One interview, one request for a resume, and one impromptu meeting with a CIO that resulted in a few "possibilities". So if all goes as planned (ha!) I'll be off of airplanes for a few months, in time for summer.

YES.

In other news: Had a visit last night from Rick and Kari who were passing through town back from a funeral. We had dinner, late night laughter, and a great morning together. Rick and Isaac bonded well, and Isaac spent most of the AM chasing or climbing on top of him. After they left, Isaac was a bit of a zombie with exhaustion, and he was asleep tonight at 5 min before 7. Bella was her usual "sort of shy" self, but warmed up by today...

A Kari visit always means a trip to Wild Rumpus: The kids' bookstore that won't let me (or isaac) linger, what with all of the animals they have laying around there. If encourages decisiveness and fast action, before the lungs seize up. We left with a handful of Magic Tree House books and a Captain Underpants (which Bella was reading to herself and giggling).

A highlight of their visit: Ty (a senior now, going to college next year??? I met him when he was 3 months old when Pamela and I were dating) decided to join the Show Choir - Palatine's "Forte". We watched a 20 min video of their performance at the Show Choir invitational, and watching Ty sing and dance was just amazing. I don't recall there being things like this when I was in school - Choirs were sort of straightforward, and Theater and Dance kept to their own areas. But with Glee and whatnot, I guess Show Choir is a hip thing, and these kids were amazing. Plus, they did a DuranDuran song!

Not content to let Ty take up something completely unexpected in his final days of high school, Bailey (the PomPom dancer girl) decided to take up Lacrosse and has picked up the nickname "The BEAST" by her teammates by being such an incredible goalie. It just makes me smile to think that so many kids would look at spring in High School as their time to coast to the end, and these amazing kids have decided to try something new and make the most out of their time. I'm so proud!

Well, it's back to Cleveland next week (Japanese Steakhouse, here I come!), and for the next 6 weeks... I've got work to do to feather the nest locally, to transition things out there, and oh yeah, probably also do another "part time" project for a client in Detroit. Good times!

Making me Itch

1) An Isaac quote: "I can smell stop signs. They smell like roses. RED roses".

2) Work from home is a good thing this week. I'm already feeling more positive about things, and hey, things are happening too. One of the reasons I'm working from home (aside from the fact that I was unable to physically push the "buy" button on the plane ticket - I just COULDN'T) is that "The Man" at the work site shut us down.

See, we're all consultants, and the space we're in in temporary until June (and I may not be there then). They didn't get us desk phones, we don't have name plates, and we don't have computers. We were told to use our own, and we'd have desktops when we moved, eventually, though we ordered a dozen to cover, and they were going to arrive "any moment". So in the meantime, we were to use the wireless with our own laptops. Which didn't actually REACH to our space... so we improvised and plugged into the live jacks under our desks. For 6 weeks.

And last week, a network guy found out, and flipped his lid: "we're compromising network security" and he was going to send some sort of "remote self destruct" message to our computers if we didn't disconnect immediately. Now, of course, if such a self destruct signal was even possible, it would be transmitted every second of every day to every computer on the internet from hacker internet cafes in the former Soviet Union. The threat was lame, but the intent was real. Gotta disconnect. So where were our desktops after 6 weeks? The PO was still sitting on the CIO's desk unsigned.

This came down mid-week, and I suggested that since we don't have computers and can't get on the network locally, we could either fly in and dial in from our hotel rooms, or have an expense-free work from home week. He went for the work-at-home option.

And no sooner did we agree on that, then late Friday, the network/desktop swat team descended on our workspace... and installed computers. I just can't make this stuff up.

3) Anyway, the search for local work is well underway. Being home is wonderful, even if my hotel has a benihana-style teppanyaki grill right next door. It's great just to spend time in the house, with the family... holding conference calls with my dog on my lap... Isaac has been glued to my side, just wanting to be around me. Lots of shoulder rides and more than a few cuddles. Bella's also pretty thrilled. To say nothing of how nice it is to be around my dear Pamela too.

4) Was out last night with the Avengers at the residence of a guy with the St Paul Chamber Orchestra. Loved hearing orchestra stories... They combine good "road warrior" tales with "I'm an expert and they're idiots" anecdotes, as well as a lot of gear talk. I heard about cuban cigars being packed into the bell of a french horn, diva conductors who play the same program during every visit, and the nightmare of playing in one-off "period instrument ensembles" with authentically flat tuning.

My favorite was a long anecdote that I can't do justice to: The orchestra was playing at the Mayo clinic, and was doing a program of "difficult" 20th century stuff. They were launching into a 20 minute Alban Berg piece that our guy described as sounding "like the orchestra is warming up and tuning, and getting louder and louder for 20 minutes, until is just stops cold". In the front row was a man who had been wheeled in, who had been bandaged from head to toe, so we're guessing burn ward. He's sitting there in this sonic assault, as the crescendo builds and builds and builds, and it gets to FFFF and there's a sudden grand pause. And in the silence, the guy in bandages exclaims to his friend:

"THIS MUSIC IS MAKING ME ITCH".

The orchestra was barely able to finish the piece - everybody was just in hysterics. And it made me recall those many years of going to see that orchestra in the late 1970s, listening to "difficult" pieces by Cage, Xenakis, Berg, Schoenberg, and others, and it's a wonder I still like music, I think.

Another Odd Week

Back in Cleveland, naturally. Lots of meetings scheduled, it has been busy busy busy. I've come back to the room thoroughly exhausted, but sleep has been hard too. Last night I was down by 11, but up at 3, then back down at 5 and up at 7. In that window, I did a lot of work that had been on my mind. Which is DEPRESSING.

Speaking of depressing: Went out to dinner with my boss at the client site tonight, and I think the guy is actually clinically depressed. Lots of time just staring forward, lost in thought. Three of us trying to keep him engaged in conversation. It was a lot of work, and I think he needs a serious break.

Things are looking up for me actually being done here in the next couple of months: They have a few good candidates for permanent replacements, which frees me from my fear of being stuck here for the next year or two.

Looking forward to more time at home: I'm doing a work from home week next week, which feels like a luxury.

I might just turn in now.... zzzzzz.....

The inner light

Ok this is odd. As i posted before, I had been talking about great tv episodes. On the subject of Star Trek, i had picked a couple that I had loved but they didn't hold up that well. But I realized that there was one episode everyone talks about that I had never seen - the inner light. The one where Picard is zapped with an alien probe and lives a full life on a dying world. How can this be?

Well, it's hard to remember the 1990s when there wasn't tivo, or movies streamed on demand. I simply missed it every time it was on. For a few years, and never rented it either. I just missed it.

Flash forward to today - you tell me there's something I need to see, give me an Internet connection and dang right I'll be watching it within an hour. So I watched it. And wiped tears away, several times. Wow, that was a great episode! Great acting, good story, and a minimization of the technobabble that undoes so many trek episodes. Trek is redeemed for me now.

Yes i watched it on the iPad and yes I'm blogging again from the pad. I'm growing to love this thing more each day. And I typed this whole thing on the iPad keyboard - and am not too slow at it either.

The future is here, yo.

Updates

1) the macbook air was fixed this weekend so the infernal noise is resolved. I'm much happier now.

2) I do still love star trek people! I was just amazed at how the pacing of the show was so much slower than I expected. Look at the battle scenes - it takes them a good two minutes to decide to load torpedoes... They really treated those ships like slow yachts. But i still love Brent spinet and whatnot.

3) trying a new breakfast place near work - hope to have reports of wonderful pancakes soon.

4) blogging from the iPad people! I'm touch typing on the video screen and it is pretty intuitive. Looks like I need to work on my capitalization.

Hibachi Madness

In the lot next to my hotel in Beachwood OH, there has been a restaurant called "Wasabi". Upon our arrival, it seemed that Wasabi was a restaurant that had just closed... but I guess it was a restaurant that was in the process of OPENING. After 4 months (has it been that long REALLY?) it is finally open. It is a Benihana-style teppenyaki grill with the big cooking tables and the cheesy cooks... and the decor is truly amazing: gleaming steel, blue lighting, and a full wall of fish tanks with blue lit bubbles. All I could imagine upon sitting down was that this place was BUILT to be shot to pieces in an action film. I could only hope that it wouldn't be during my visit.

The menu is the same as any of these places - grilled chicken and steak and shrimp, with a flamboyant preparation of the fried rice, and the two sauces... the chef was a funny cornball (as always), and he had a ketchup bottle filled with sake that he shot into my mouth. A few times. Ok, a lot. He shot to fill, then overfill, and my clothes are covered with sake. I'm lucky I only had to walk across a parking lot, actually.

It'll be fun to have this place close by.

Work - well it goes ok. Things are getting to a bit of equilibrium of mild suckyness, but it's at least tolerable. I've had indications that the storms of unreasonableness are now taking place at a level above me, which is nice in that I don't really need to be affected now. They're having some trouble hiring for my permanent replacement, which worries me. I had a co-worker say in a meeting "well, Jim, if you would just stop saying how terrible Cleveland is in your BLOG, maybe people would want to work there". Which totally freaked me out.... Dawn, are you READING this? ;-> I know, my policy of not naming names only goes so far when you're dealing with a major client... in Cleveland... I mean, how many groups are we talking about? That's right, I might as well have it out there. I'm working for http://www.clevelandohiopodiatrist.com/

Ha!

Easter was wonderful, by the way: Papabam were in town, and while Papa is suffering from an EPIC sinus infection (and suffering even more from the biohazard antibiotics he's on), he was still game for art projects and fun. And we enjoyed Inglourious Bastards, which was made for Papa in a way. I'll be watching it yet again this coming weekend with the Scotch Avengers, and that's just fine by me.

I'm sure you're all wondering: Did Jimmy get an iPad. The answer is yes. I HAVE ONE. And Pamela is ok with it too - we cleared it in the budget with some key "old technology" sales - it's budget neutral.

I love love love it, but truth be told, I'm still exploring it, and it's not yet an essential part of my existence. It easily replaces my Kindle - my books moved over. Movies and shows are great, and the calendar is gorgeous. The extra apps are very sweet too... But I'm a couple of days away from deciding if it is the best thing EVAR. Basically everything i've had to do in the past 2 days has been laptop or phone based, and so I'm trying to work out how the Pad fits. But give me time... I've already established I can connect to my work intranet using it, and it displays most of my work documents well, so I'm thinking it will wend its way into my world soon enough. But form factor, holding it, playing with it, it really feels like a piece of the future. It is amazing.

Fringe on last Thursday was maybe one of the best episodes of TV I've ever seen... and it got me emailing with buddies about other "best shows ever". I identified a couple of Star Trek TNG episodes (Yesterday's Enterprise, Best of Both Worlds), and was met with "well.....". So I downloaded them and watched them - and... um... yeah. TNG was not the best show ever. The sets looked like a Marriott, the effects were only ok... In retrospect, not the greatest shows when held up on the grand continuum. But still enjoyable.

Getting Old

Quick update - the fan on the Macbook is driving me insane and I must shut it down soon.

Since I couldn't work in the room, I decided to head out. Had a terrible dinner at a Nascar-themed restaurant. Ok, I deserved that. It was fairly well reviewed on Yelp, and when I pulled up, there were a million motorcycles there, so I thought it might not be that bad. But it was that bad.

Trying to salvage the night, I headed to the movies, and the only movie that was within 45 min of when I walked up that I wanted to see was Green Zone with Matt Damon. Alas, I walked OUT of the movie after a mere 45 minutes - it was 100% super-shakey-cam work, with a whole lot of shouting for no good reason. Having recently seen Hurt Locker, I'd say this was definitely poor in comparison... just in terms of the whole "enjoying a movie about Iraq" thing.

And now the buzzing has completely driven me mad. I'm out. PEACE. (and yes, it will be fixed this weekend)

Unplugging

My gorgeous Macbook Air has a problem with his fan, and it rattles and buzzes to the point of distraction.

This makes using my computer in the hotel room a non-starter. Which means I get to completely relax and unplug.

It will be fixed on Friday - the part is ordered, the fix is in. But for now, I will take the annoyance as a message to unplug.

Inglourious....

I wrote to my brother-in-law Rich about Inglourious Basterds: He's a huge WWII buff, so I thought I'd pull his chain a little by asking:

"So... it wasn't entirely accurate, right? There were a couple of minor changes to history in there? "

His response was incredible:
"Yes you are right.

The Tiger tanks portrayed in the movie are actually Soviet T-34s. You could tell by looking at their wheels. Real Tigers had interleaved wheels. These Tigers clearly had the T-34 suspension.

Also the Model 1939 "Shoes, Service, Compositon Sole" was an ankle high shoe/boot made of tanned leather in a dark red color, originally with leather soles, changed to rubber soles after 1940. The same shoe design was modified in early 1943 (called Type III) to reverse the leather (rough side out) and add reinforcing rivets.... LOL if Tarintino thinks this is what Jews in the Nazi killing business would be sporting.

All these guys should have had on Combat M-1943 (Double Buckle) boots on.

NICE CATCH JIM!!!

I thought the rest of the movie was spot on however."

A media update

1) Yes, I do love me some Caprica. I'm on Episode 5 now - just three to go to get caught up. Future Soap Opera with robots, virtual worlds, monotheistic terrorists... and I think I mentioned the robots?

2) After a long week, I decided to play hooky for an evening and watch Inglourious Basterds. LOVED IT. I think it may have strayed from the historical record a little bit... ;-> But it was a rip roaring yarn, and as a language junkie, it was a pure delight to have more than half of the dialogue in the movie be in German, French, or Italian. Loved Brad Pitt 100%, especially his fluency in Italian at the end... and I must say that guy fully deserved the Oscar for his role as the Hunter. He was completely compelling in every scene - he had a way of thoroughly transfixing your attention - he made me in the audience feel exactly how he made his "conversation partners" in the movie feel - it was an incredible performance. Plus, the grotto cafe scene, in which accents and hand gestures gave up the game was an amazing turn on the whole "secret agent" conceit of war movies....

Yes, it was gorey, and a bit long, but boy, what a movie.

3) In other media - I just have to give up on Tim and Eric Awesome Show. It is Andy Kaufman-esque in its anti-comedy. There were shows in years past that had me almost peeing from laughter, but the first four episodes this year have not just been unfunny, but got me sort of mad. It's only 12 minutes, but I feel like it was 12 WASTED minutes. Sigh.

Ok. That's the media update.

Ghost World

Driving through Independence OH (south of Cleveland)... Blue Sky and shining sun, but a cloud had decided to see what it's like on the ground. Driving through white fluffy fog - can't see more than a half block, but look up and it's blue. It has the feeling of a dream, or the wispy memory of real life that ghosts experience. At least I think so.

And no, I'm not blogging and driving. Had to get some espresso and write this down.

And then there are good days.

I've been working on a little side project for my company: A hospital in Indiana wanted someone to teach them about personal health records, the current state of the industry, and recommend a course of action based on their systems. As you may know, I lived Personal Health Records back in 2001-2002, in a project for Children's MN: We talked to parents, patients, doctors, and administrators and built a product that is still in use today. So when this hospital in Indiana called, I volunteered to do the work.

Just 20 hours of work, on top of the rest of what I do. No biggie. But I was told that the client is also very demanding and hard to please, so I was steeled for a tough run. I delivered my final report last night (21 slides, 7 custom diagrams showing options, leading products and recommendations), after two review drafts, and got back the following: "Thanks very much for the effort Jim. Appreciate the quick turn on everything and the QUALITY deliverable! Nice job on all fronts!"

Getting a little kudos like that made all the difference.

Things are going well on the main project too: I have a team, we have goals, and I don't feel like I'm spinning my wheels quite as much. I switched hotels, and got a handwritten note from the manager of the new hotel thanking me for switching, with coupons for free Naked Juice. Not bad at all.

Beth left a comment on my previous note about white noise machines: I of course downloaded the application and am thrilled. It reminded me of a rather serious "sound machine" phase Pamela and I went through back in the late 1990s: We got this machine that had 4 different "sounds" that were I think 30-45 second loops. You could totally hear the looping, but it was relaxing nonetheless. Over time, it broke and we tried to replace it, but the model we bought had shorter loops (15 seconds) and I wasn't able to enjoy it in the least. We didn't go for a third model. But now, you get an iPhone app with 20 multi-minute loops of ambient noise, and it's delightful.

Between working and sleeping, I've decided to jump in and watch "Caprica": Two episodes in and it's amazingly cool. I'll give it 2 more episodes before I decide if it's actually awesome, but boy, those first two really grabbed me. And you know I love a giant robot, even if it has the brain of a 16 year old girl in it. I mean ESPECIALLY since it has the brain of a 16 year old girl in it.

In other, more serious news, the retrial for Mark's killer started this week: I can't be at the trial, but Pamela has been representing us. It was hard to hear about the mistrial last year, and It's hard to be going through all of this again... if there's a positive, it's that all of the new information we got last time is now old information - we won't be shocked by the details (and they were hard to absorb last year). It doesn't make it better, but it somehow allows me to focus more on the procedure - making sure that if this guy is guilty, that he's convicted cleanly.

It feels like barely a day goes by without some reminder of Mark popping up. Some joke, or turn of phrase, or visual memory. It happens so often it's not painful anymore - I feel like somehow Mark's out there saying "hey - this stuff really was funny - we really did have a good time together. Go ahead and laugh, ok? You'd be doing ME the favor!"

Back again...

Today was actually a beautiful day in Cleveland - blue skies, warm sun. On a day like this I could grow to tolerate a place like that. So far I've written a fair amount about the blighted areas I've driven through and work in daily. What I didn't really know until today is that the blight goes eastward from downtown, getting progressively worse until you hit our office building... There are entire blocks boarded up, with dark factories looming behind. Dead patches of city.

But a mere 8 blocks later on, the blight abruptly ceases and it turns into a blue collar industrial area, with some large, still functioning factory campuses (sporting some awesome 1960s architecture, I might add) and many blocks of well kept houses and shops. It was actually kind of nice. But it was a true timewarp - between the architecture, the wide boulevard roadway, and the blue sky, I felt like I was driving through a corporate brochure of the past. It really did not feel like the present day. Wonder if I actually fell through a time portal? My Nissan rental magically transforms to a Packard, and a stylish fedora appears on my head. As I type this on my trusty underwood....

Work was particularly busy this week - I had triple intensity: Three new team members to bring up to speed and manage, plus organizing a parallel project (coordinating 20 people who aren't on my project), PLUS doing a quick "extra" project for the company - a brain dump/writeup of what I know about web-based personal health records, which is a lot... So it was up at 6, work til 5, quick dinner, catnap, work til midnight. Repeat. I'm ready for a rest. It doesn't help that one of the team is, I'm going to go ahead and say it, a total spaz. Very attention hungry, very eager to show his knowledge, very loud in every way (ringtones, jokes). On Monday I wanted to kill him. On Wednesday I just wanted to ignore him. By today, I was coping with his energy. But he will be an exhausting one. And no, I didn't hire him.

With all of the things to keep straight, my brain had a hard time shutting down, so even that 6 hours of sleep was somewhat less in the end. Plus there was a mysterious noise - a metallic skrriitt skritt from somewhere - it reminded me of a hard drive accessing memory. It was constant, so not a critter. I had my head mashed between pillows.

The flight home was fast, uneventful, and pulled up early - and even better, there was a gate ready for us. Nothing worse than sitting on the tarmac, waiting... waiting... So I got home early!

Speaking of waiting: Bella was waiting up for me full of stories. Tonight she wanted to tell me about something she learned about but couldn't remember the name of. "Ok. There are rules. The first rule, all parts are straight lines. A circle is NOT one. Nor is a moon shape. Second rule is the lines are all connected - there are no gaps". "Are you talking about a Polygon, Bella?" "YES! POLYGON! Say, that would be a great name for a bird. I'm going to draw a polygon bird tomorrow."

Isaac was asleep when I got home, but has been up 4 times unsettled and needing extra cuddles. Pamela reports that he's been very cuddly this week, and I can't wait to see that this weekend. And right now I'm sitting in bed next to Pamela - she's reading, I'm writing, and we're just enjoying being together. I'm looking forward to a good recharge this weekend with my googy. Maybe we'll even watch Star Trek!

It is getting better

My week in the imperial suite was pretty good for the nerves: Baths have a way of completely draining my energy to the point that I require a full 8 hours to recharge. So naturally I used the Jacuzzi two of the three nights to make sure I was well rested. Work actually went pretty well this week - a couple of minor things which had been nagging at me got resolved and by the end of the week, we (the team) were feeling pretty good about things. Well, pretty good only in that we now know that we're on target and even a little ahead of the game, but are now concerned that the other teams are behind and will begin impacting us.

It's beautiful.

In a relaxed state, I decided to check out the Oscar Winner: The Hurt Locker. Two hours later, I realized my life really isn't that bad. The scene where a character realizes that he loves the action more than his wife and son was just heartbreaking... and after a nanosecond's reflection, I confirmed that I do indeed love my family a lot more than I love my work in Cleveland. Not even CLOSE on that one. ;->

Friday work-from-home was chockablock with activity - conference calls, trainer appointments, haircut. My man Warren went and ordered his iPad at 7:30am. Me? I'm actually waiting a little - not for "rev 2" necessarily, but just "wave 2" of the current crop: I can live without this thing until June, and by then Warren will be telling me all of the things I can do with it that Apple says you can't do... he's sort of a rainman with hacking devices... he had a ring of neighbors sharing satellite TV, he's the first to find the pirated movies and TV shows, he uses his iPhone to get his laptop connected to the internet (which isn't officially supported), and goes on GPS treasure hunts... and yet he cuts hair for a living.

Friday night was the Highlands School Carnival: This year we got a sitter for Isaac and stayed late. Pamela helped organize a bit, and it was a fun affair - mostly games rooms, some crafts/makeup rooms. I had some kids wrap me with gauze and paint on blood in the "Shark Attack" room: I believe I was the only adult to submit to this treatment. And yes, for the third year in a row, Bella did win something in the raffle: Not a big basket this time, but the opportunity to make a ceramic bowl with the art teacher in a one-on-one session.

So now a "going way back" thing: In the past on this blog (and my old Language one) I made some somewhat disparaging statements about Rosetta Stone. Well, I've revisited the program, and I must say that in the past 2 years, their new V3 release changed the game: Its a much better product now. Same method, same slow pace, but the tools and class pacing are much better. In a couple of weeks I'll be starting at level zero with Arabic, a language I haven't done ANY work in in any way, to see how the Rosetta method works when you've got nothing - not even an alphabet - to start with.

I had a dream last night that was disturbingly work-relevant: I was meeting with a contact at the Washington Mall, and was passed the intel that "two major hospitals are ditching Cerner (EMR software) and going to Epic at the same time - it'll be a death blow to Cerner... the project is called 'BLUE HAMMER'." It was just a dream, but... "Blue Hammer?"

Last word: As I was driving Bella to the Carnival last night, she noticed a big crowd of cars at a Holiday station.
B: "Dad, why are all those people at Holiday?"
Me: "Probably they need gas in their cars."
B: "Well, THAT'S not the most important thing in life."

Me: "Bella, what IS the most important thing in life?"
B: "Well, being ALIVE, for one."
Me: "What else?"
B: "You know, air, food, water, space".
Me: "What about love?"
B: "Pfffft."

Living like a Player

Checking in to my hotel in Cleveland, they recognized me and welcomed me back. "Three nights?" "Yes, in the Imperial Suite, if you please - the one with the waterfall" in my best "Grey Poupon" voice.

The manager nudged the clerk and they did something to the computer... And now I have a room with a Jacuzzi. I can't say I even knew such a room existed in this hotel... I was sure to plead with them I was only joking, but they insisted on being nice to me.

This is just ridiculous. But I do love it.

It has been a busy day already, and I have a dinner meeting ahead. The week is stacked with meetings, but also I have a little "side" project I'll be doing in the next 2 weeks to add around 20 hours to my income, which will be nice. Lots of research and decision matrix-ing.

More as it happens, people.

Cleveland's Finest

Good food day: Tried another small, Cleveland-only sub shop called GRUM'S, where almost all sandwiches include the word Grum. Like the Grum. The Grumster. The GrumSTEER, the SeaGrum, and Grumizza. We all liked it, but are more fans of Dave's Cosmic Subs a few doors down. Plus, the people weren't that friendly. Sort of just stared us down as we walked in. That's Cleveland Style, though, as our visit to the small italian deli a few weeks back showed.

Speaking of Cleveland Style, I couldn't resist a visit to Cleveland's finest pizza tonight. It was good as I remembered. I took a nap upon returning to the hotel room... though it was short and followed with 3 more hours of work. YES.

At work today, I felt great leaps forward in a few meetings, only to have a frustrating bit at the end: I was engaged in something of a dance with two parties - one who was asking for a date to be moved, one who was directly affected by the date moving. I was trying to get the date asker to qualify the request, so that I didn't have to bug the affected party unduly, and this was NOT critical - I had a few days to get this resolved.

Halfway through the exchange, one of the parties (who was actually only copied on the email, not an active participant) decided this is an "issue" and escalated it to my boss and my boss' boss. Who then called around that made everyone just do that damn thing.

Which means I now have one less card to play with the affected party (I was trying to keep his team's workload low and build some credit), and the asking party now knows they can holler for what they want without justification. I spent the afternoon cleaning that mess up.

People. I had this under control. TRUST THE JIMMY.

Up in the Air

Travel travel travel. After 10 wonderful days at home, I'm back in the Land of Cleve. The flight out was typical, the rental was ready, the hotel had a room on my favorite floor.

My office was dark and quiet... But as I've described in the past - there's a front door that is locked, and a back way in through a kitchen and an unused office into our workspace. So I barged on through, to find a woman practicing yoga in the unused office. With a TV and DVD player. I murmured an apology and hustled past, actually stepping around her. It was a little awkward. These quiet corners of the gigantic facility we're in - I think everyone has a place they like to hide out in. Another day a woman had her head down on the desk and was blasting music on headphones. Obviously a chill out space. I feel like I should put a sign on the door - "Go ahead and use this space to chill - just don't mind us".

My first room at the hotel tonight was one of those "adjoining" ones with a door between rooms. This is never a problem, unless one person in the arrangement happens to like television. Then that thin door is no match for the audio waves, and we're both enjoying Cleveland's Number One News Team. Fortunately they have a few open rooms here, so they moved me without a fuss (no point in bugging mister TV guy - it's not his fault - in a normal room, nobody would have heard anything).

Bella had another set of Synchro meets this weekend, and did quite well: Her team placed second, and she got 8th place out of 22 girls in her compulsory figures, so good going Bella!!! Isaac, Zinsser, and I held down the fort while that was going on... thought we did go see her performance on Sunday at the hottest (temperature wise) pool in the twin cities. It was muggy, steamy, and unreasonable. But the girls in suits were probably comfortable. Us spectators, trapped in PANTS were left to simmer.

Oh, a followup point on an earlier post: I was able to find the Radio Edit of Boom Boom Pow, in which they don't say "S**t" a dozen times. Which was a good find, though you can't buy it like that from iTunes, Amazon, or anywhere else. So I just say "thank you internet" for my sources for finding a hit song without the cusswords. The kids are happy (and none the wiser).

Allright, off to creative ventures: I'm trying to take at least a half hour of every day and be creative in some way (Blogging sort of counts) - I'm back to Languages for a little, and some music too... no big expectations. Just something to stir the grey matter around a bit. It's good.

Two Jokes and a Dream from Bella

Two gems from the "going to sleep" mind of Bella the last few nights.

Two Jokes (Related)

Why couldn't the egg jump on the trampoline? Because it would CRACK.

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Egg.
Egg who?
Egg who couldn't jump on the trampoline. I have a question. WHY can't I jump on the trampoline again?

A Dream:

I dreamed that if people touched their butts together, that there would be a tube connecting them and it would stretch, and a hole would open in their pants to let the tube through. And when you're connected, you have powers: If you snap your fingers, you can make everything STOP.

So if there was a bank robber, you could just SNAP, and they'd freeze, and you could carefully take the money out of his hands and put it back in the bank. And then you could grow big and pick him up with your fingers and drop him right in jail.

And then when you snap the tube, it goes away, and the hole in your clothes just closes up like nothing was there.

Back to Normal

I'm sitting here, and my whole family is asleep. Pamela is zonked out in Isaac's bed with Isaac and Zinsser, and Bella is murmuring in her sleep from her room. And it's just after 9pm. YES - Googy is home, and she's just plain exhausted. We went out to the airport to pick her up - the plane was early, but late getting to the gate thanks to a "no room at the inn" situation... which gave Isaac and Bella time to slurp down some hot cocoa from Starbucks. And still they sleep.

On the ride home, we blasted "I got a feeling" by Black Eyed Peas, which Bella sang along with, and Isaac did the hollering parts. He loves to shout "tonight's going to be a GOOD GOOD NIGHT!!!" Yes, it's a simple song and over played, but we have fun with it. Unlike Boom Boom Pow, which the kids also love, but is filled with the "S" word, which just bugs me. And there's not a "clean" version available. Dang it. Both songs are prominently featured in the Secret Agent Guinea Pig movie G-Force, which both kids love.

When we walked through the door, the kids ran up and let Zinsser out, and he beelined right down the stairs, around the corner, and up into Pamela's lap, where he just parked himself, unbelievably happy that his mistress had at long last returned.

Thursday will be back in the swing of things: I've done my best to stay on top of things at work this week, but there have been big windows of "doing things with Isaac" time in there where I have been quite off the clock. And I wasn't willing to just park Isaac in front of some shows to get work done - it doesn't seem fair, and frankly it seemed a waste of the opportunity to cuddle and wrestle with him.

In some ways, Isaac and Zinsser are very close in age: Today I spent 45 min in the basement playing catch with Isaac and fetch with Zinsser at the same time. and Isaac was doing "two ball catch" which meant we both had to throw/roll our balls at the same time, and try not to have the balls hit midway. It was pretty advanced, and Isaac was focusing on aiming his ball just to the right, so it would pass the other ball coming at him. Later, upstairs, Zinsser insisted on a round of Fetch/Chase, where fetch is just the start, then a raucous run around the coffee table a dozen times before he lets you have the ball back. Isaac wanted to be the fetcher too, so we did "every other" round - Isaac would fetch/chase, then it was Zinsser's turn.

Zinsser understood that they were taking turns, and when it was Isaac's turn, he'd run a little slower to let Isaac "win". Really. That is a smart dog.

Anyway, back to the house - Pamela apparently had a wonderful trip, and I've heard bits and pieces over the phone these past days... and was looking forward to a little debrief. But Pamela flat out passed out when putting Isaac to bed, and resisted several wakeups. So I'll just let that ride.

In the end, it was 7 days, 6 nights without my googy. That was a long time, and it helps me keep in perspective how things are when I'm on the road. it sure felt like the kids and I fell into an ok routine and we worked together to keep things going. As I hear her snoring in the next room, I'm just happy to have her home.

Notes from the Bachelor Pad

Pamela has been gone 2 nights now, with 4 to go.

1) Zinsser needs a lot of playing, and he sees me as "the guy who plays fetch with him", not "a guy I can cuddle with". Last night Uncle Ant was over for a little bit (he brought dinner for the four of us, and we had a small bit of dessert single malt before he left and I put the kids to bed), and Zinsser passed out on Ant's lap. I have had maybe 10 minutes total of Zinsser cuddles. I'm maybe feeling a little jealous.

2) The kids have been a blast. Bella lost another tooth yesterday (eating popcorn), so we got ready for the Tooth Fairy, but this morning was so busy that she didn't check to see if the fairy came through with the goods (which I believe he did). Today was a bit wild with getting Bella off to Synchro, doing a handoff mid-practice to Grandma and Grandpa, then spiriting Isaac clear across town to HIS swimming lesson.

3) After Isaac's lesson, he was VERY hungry and insisted on going to Perkins, where he devoured a plate of Mickey Mouse pancakes, 3 strips of bacon, a handful of my american fries, and a cup of apple juice. I had a classic breakfast (eggs, bacon, pancakes), and it was good.... BUT when I walked in the house to find G&G with Bella back, I discovered they had gone to Cosetta's for lunch AND brought me back a sausage and peppers entree with a side of mostaccioli (however that is spelled). I resisted for 2 hours, thinking it might make a good dinner... and then just devoured it. And now I'm a bit woogy from the overstuffedness.

4) What, can it already be time for Pamela's computer to die? The current model lasted for 3.5 years, and I don't recall there being big problems with it... maybe one hard disk crash? Certainly nothing like her previous one which we took out back and buried behind the garage in 2006. But the motherboard is on the fritz and it's been spontaneously rebooting and giant strange lines going across the screen, and really really long waits for things while the spinning wheel of death goes. It hasn't truly DIED in the strictest sense, but if it were a human, we'd be looking at palliative care around now.

Since I'm on the road so much, Pamela's iMac is something of her lifeline to the world - she's more active on Facebook, her forums, keeps in touch with church and synchro, email... it's important. And almost every evening's call with Pamela had some sort of "I'm worried about my computer" talk, which is just extra stress we don't need. So I decided (and cleared with her too - no surprises!) to replace the mac during her vacation. We got the low-end iMac (21"), and I moved everything across. And it is wonderful.

The new keyboard is super tiny and cool, and the new mouse is just amazing - it senses finger gestures across its smooth top - so you sort of "pet" it with two fingers, and it scrolls up or down. Very surreal. Anyway, the kids love it, the screen is better (we didn't go for the BIG screen - it's not needed), the iChat camera is better, and it's not going to die anytime soon (knock wood).

As to the other one - with it in such shaky condition, I have qualms about selling it (hard to say "dying computer, not sure how much time you'll have with it" in an eBay ad) - I'm thinking about setting it up on the 3rd floor as an 'extra' work computer (for kids videos too) until it dies (and make sure everything I do on it is backed up). Maybe not.

5) Isaac is definitely showing interest in toilet training now - he's at around 50% participation now, as long as it's convenient. He does like to get M&Ms as a reward.

6) With all of the busy-ness of the past weeks, it's a bit of a quiet one here, even with Pamela away. The kids are doing a LOT of playing (I think that Carly from up the block actually lives here now), and all are getting along pretty well. I'm staying on top of the chores, and playing a lot with the dog... so I'm pretty happy. All that play gets the kids are pretty tired, so 7-8pm bedtimes are not a problem, which lets me get caught up on shows...

The new Ricky Gervais Show on HBO (download for free through iTunes) was absolutely hilarious - It's just an animation of his podcasts from years back so I'm late to that game, but it's truly funny stuff. I'm not going to get started on Lost, though. Nuts to that. But with Dollhouse done and Fringe on hiatus until April, I actually don't have THAT much to watch.

Allright, that's enough updating for now. I'll go see what that scream was all about now.

Chillin'

Here I am in a quiet house. The kids are asleep as is the dog, and Pamela... well her day is still going strong far from here. I came home "early" from Cleveland yesterday and got everything ready for Pamela's big trip: Off for 7 days to an art retreat and then a couple of extra days of fun. I pick her up on Wednesday night, and I fully expect her to be ridiculously happy and rested. I was happy to use the fruits of my labor (miles and points) to get her first class for her flights, a free hotel and a mustang convertible for transport. She's out with a good friend (who she had a Vegas Adventure with 2 years back too), so I know it's going to be a good time.

In the meantime, while I'm not IN Cleveland, I have a few meetings I need to attend remotely. So people have been very good about helping me wrangle the Isaac (Bella is a) in school, and b) a bit easier to distract when around). He's making the rounds of playtime - having spent some quality time at the "all moonwalk" playground today with grandma, and will be playing with a neighbor buddy tomorrow while...

My mom (aka the serial commenter "anonymous" on this blog - hi mom!) is taking a fun adventure, getting rid of 75% of her things, storing 20%, and taking 5% while she relocates to the family homestate of Colorado for a few months. Part of it is pure pattern disruption (changing a routine), and part is financial, as she waits for some more flexible housing options (she's been swimming in a big old northeast 2 bedroom duplex, and could probably get along great in an efficiency closer to public transit...). Anyway, it's something I'm supporting her in, and she's up and leaving next week. So Friday the dutiful children will be helping her with her 20% in storage by loading it up and putting it into Carrie's basement (which is very kind of her - because our basement is already fit to burst). So I have a couple of hours of Isaac being watched AND my not having work calls to be on, so I'll be helping out.

Cleveland... It was a good week. I got to do my geek thing. So that's good.

Oh - a Bella joke from last night:
Why did the bugs get jobs in a bakery? Because they wanted to get at the dough. And in case you didn't know, another word for "dough" is... "money".

In truth, I'm not sure what bugs have to do with anything, but I also remember tormenting my friends and family with a "101 hamburger jokes book" that I got from the scholastic book fair in 3rd grade, so I know that the subject of the joke can be quite variable depending on what noun they're shaping the joke book around. So it's likely this came from a "101 bug joke" book.

Bella's at an age where I now have somewhat clear, and sometimes painful memories of my life. I recall my Emergency lunchbox, and for some reason, the pictures of Gage and DeSoto on the side looked particularly well drawn, so I boasted to my classmates that these were "ACTUAL" pictures of Gage and DeSoto. The key word "ACTUAL" being repeated over and over for emphasis.

I also remember getting in a fight with Tony Mingo because I had just learned a joke (What did the Pink Panther say when he stepped on an ant?), and was proudly telling it to Mrs Rasmussen's class , and Tony not only knew the punch line, but ran up to the front of the class and shouted it out for everyone to hear - literally stealing my thunder. We had a moment on the playground that ended up with me in the Principal's office. I understand they're much better at conflict resolution in school these days.

But anyway, I remember now how my brain worked back then, and it's a thrill to map that to what I'm hearing from Bella. And it makes me happy.

And so, with that I think I'll call it an evening.

Blood Money

Bella lost another tooth - this time it left a little blood:

Bella: "I know what blood tastes like: It tastes like money". She and Casey had put pennies in their mouth last summer to see what money tasted like... and she remembered the feeling on her tongue when she had blood in her mouth. INTERESTING girl.

Vindicated!

Some days, I get to say HA! I was RIGHT!

Today it happened three times.

1) In Cleveland, I had made a strategic structural recommendation over 4 weeks ago that was roundly rejected by the powers that be, who claimed I simply didn't understand how things worked at this site, and that I'd need to revisit all of my assumptions before bringing that sort of recommendation forward.

Today, I got backup from the vendor AND two other teams that my recommendation was the best way to move forward. HA!

2) Again in Cleveland, 3 weeks ago I made a comment in a meeting that two projects (owned by different sponsors) seemed to have some similar end goals, and that perhaps we should consolidate the teams to get both projects done faster and build on the experience. I was cautioned after the meeting that I had raised a highly political issue, that's not how we do things here, and that I was thin ice with making statements like that. I was encouraged to cool it.

Today, the owner of one of the two projects (who was in the meeting 3 weeks back) delivered the SAME OBSERVATION as her own, and it was taken as a reasonable move-forward strategy.

Do I seek credit? No. I don't seek credit. I just know I was right. HA!

3) In 2008 I made a series of presentations in which I proposed that for 98% of uses, there's no need to build a data warehouse, that data could be queried and joined in a just-in-time basis, creating a virtual warehouse on demand. I drew up designs on how it would work, and how it would essentially save on disk space and create a more nimble environment for end-users. I got pushback from people saying "it'll never be fast enough", and in a sad moment for me, I saw a project I designed in Tacoma get transferred to the Database Team, who never entertained my Virtual concept and went ahead with a traditional data warehouse project.

Today I spoke with a company that actually makes this concept work, and they have it installed at 100 clients. I can't say I knew of them back then, but they must have existed. So while I don't take credit for making it happen, I take credit for proposing the possibility (which was actually possible):

HA!

Some days, it just feels good to know your ideas were right, even if it took the world a little while to catch up.

Ugh.

Stomach Flu or Food Poisoning - whatever it was, it appears to have come and gone in 24 hours, and I am grateful.

I did NOT go to Cleveland this morning, but will be trying again Tuesday.

That is my short update.

Remarkably....

From the frustrat-o-gram on Tuesday, by Thursday there was a lightness in my gait - Somehow out of the troubles came some peace of a sort? At least part of it was a decision by our sponsors that we really really need to be done with the high-level stuff and get to work on the real project, so we wrapped things up. By Thursday we had transferred ownership of the documents we'd been creating and endlessly revising to new people who will care for them going forward, and we have a new set of challenges laid out.

Not that the new challenges aren't hard, but at least they're new.

Also as of Monday, I have ONE CLIENT. I haven't had that since July of last year... up to a peak of 4 in October. So I actually worked something resembling a 40 hour week last week, and fought all temptations to "fill in" with other work. I spent a lot of time with Isaac these past two days, in part because of...

The St Paul Stars Synchro Invitational! Bella's synchronized swimming team hosted an invitational and it was 2 days of competition. Pamela as a host parent was running around like mad getting things ready, so I saw her only as I either loaded or unloaded her car... Bella got the "synchro hairdo" - a helmet-like bun held in place with gelatin and glitter, hardened the night before.

It was wonderful to watch my little Esther Williams in the pool, where her group (ranging in age from 5-8) did their semi-synchromized routine - the mob of girls moved from one end of the pool to the other, and then back, pausing to form rows or rings (or both-ish), with arms and legs and flips in there. They were dressed in hot pink suits with little mouse ears, swimming to a hard techno version of the Mickey Mouse Club theme. It was 4 minutes of amazing.

Before and after, the pink mouses were here there and everywhere together, giggling and just BEING in the day. Pamela likened their movement to a school of fish, where they all would go one direction then another, then another, with no seeming destination or leader, just following the flow of pure whim.

As I said, I spent a lot of time with Isaac, since the girls were off doing this. We did spend a couple of hours at the meet, so we watched Bella's routine. But the rest of the time was a whole lot of playing, with some errand running in there too. Friday night, we went to Edinborough Park for climbing and jumping. Isaac went for over 25 minutes of straight moon-walk jump time, and showed no signs of tiredness. Where the energy comes from... I do not know.

Isaac's brain is growing and he's been talking non-stop and asking questions. Where do cars come from? Who makes them? What kind of store sells them? Where does the sun go at night time? What is the name of this street? What time is it? One of my favorites is when someone tries to tell him something in for form of "You know, some people might say that..." His response is always "Who said that? What were their NAMES?" He's very into finding out the real story.

Or the story he can understand at least. Driving through a neighborhood we've never been in, he shouts out - "this is near my school" - I try to tell him it's not, but what it IS near, and he insists "NO. IT IS NEAR MY SCHOOL." And on a cosmic scale, I can't argue with that. Also in his discoveries: We drove past a guy snowblowing, shooting snow high into the air. "OH - THAT'S where all that snow came from" was his conclusion.

It's 8:45 and all is quiet in the house - everyone's asleep but me. Pamela finally collapsed after being a supermom for the synchro girls. Zinsser is asleep after pestering ME to play fetch all afternoon. Isaac is asleep with his dreams of how everything in the world works. Bella is asleep after a long two days, and one silver medal for her team's hard work.

And what makes me happy is that I'm 2 days into my 3 day re-charge: I have all day tomorrow with the family before headed back to Cleveland on Monday, and I'm NOT dreading being there now. Things are a-ok.

Old Dog New Tricks

A quick one: As I've become a serial renter of vehicles on the road, one of my least favorite things has been trying to remember which side of the car the gas cap is on. Heck, I forget it with cars I OWN. I pull up, get out, see that I've decided incorrectly, and have to restart the car and move it. It is a regular dance of frustration.

So imagine my amazement when my co-worker in Cleveland pointed to the dashboard and gave me this ancient wisdom:

"There, on the gas gauge: There's a picture of the gas pump, and there's a triangle next to it. The triangle points to where the gas cap is on the car".

Sure enough, it's right. And it's on every car.

NOW, there's an internet legend that says that the side of the pump icon that the hose is coming off of matches the side the gas is on. That is NOT true. But if there's a little triangle icon next to that fuel pump, it's telling you where the gas cap is. REALLY.

I'm 42 years old and learned something new AND useful.

Some Days...

This is my 3rd week in Cleveland with only 2 weekend days to recover, so I spent a good bit of Sunday NOT looking forward to Monday. These travel weeks, I need 3 days with the family to reconnect, and if I don't get it, I feel very sad.

It would be different if I thought I was away providing some great value to the world, but in the past 2 weeks, things have just been strange and political at the client. At one point, a coworker said he'd not seen a place where people put turf protection over the well being of the company. There are some anecdotes I'll share only much much later. Much. But the bottom line is that there is a greater emphasis on how you say something and who you say it to than what you're saying... to a greater degree than I've seen at any other client ever. And that includes some of the places I worked for in the 90's.

Last week, I finally ended the project in Jersey, and I felt sad about that too: By the end, it was hard to manage because as a whole group they were terrible at followthrough on remote items, so if I wasn't there, I couldn't make things happen by email or phone - just didn't work. So there were frustrations... but I also thought the work was good, and they TRUSTED what I brought to the table. Plus, great food out there. I'll miss Masso's cheesesteak and La Posata's Gnocchi.

So what's next? Many more weeks here at this client, and I can only hope that my role morphs into more of a "problem solving" one rather than a "eggshell walking-upon" one. I have hope. Plus, I come home Thursday and my remaining scheduled trips are shorter, so I'll have my 3 days at home.

Allright - no more gloomy Gus. I just needed to get that off my chest! There are good things in life: Dollhouse ended very nicely - I watched the finale twice and knuckled away tears each time. It's still not a show I could recommend to a stranger - but over the two seasons (26 episodes), it started as a vapid dull show with an interesting premise, and morphed into a VERY compelling "express train to doomsday" show. And they let the characters develop beautifully and believably. I was very happy I decided to watch it (thanks to Terminator Sarah Connor for getting me to Tivo Friday Fox last year I guess!)

iPad: Boy that Reality Distortion Field that Steve Jobs emits does wonders. I would have bought five of them if they had a buy it now button last week. This week, I've been watching my activities, asking "If I had an iPad, what would be different about this moment?" I'll be tallying those thoughts and hope to make a measured and reasonable decision in 8 weeks when it actually comes available.

Kindle: I've been reading a good amount, and this weekend's spat with MacMillan was pretty unpleasant for me to watch - especially since one of the authors who was delisted was one of my favorites - John Scalzi. I love my device, but am no fan of monopolistic behaviors. Of course I'm not miffed enough to switch - I still love the convenience of Amazon, darn it.

And that's about it. I could work tonight, but I think I've done my time for the day. Time to relax.

The big question...

I'll just answer it: I love the iPad, and I haven't even seen one yet (because they're 60 days from release).

Again, Apple has created their own category: It's not a phone, it's not a laptop. It does more AND less than both, but those things it does, it does beautifully. It is gorgeous to look at, and all reports are that it is a pleasure to use. I note that just like the iPod and iPhone, those viewing from a distance are writing about what it can't do and how this is a disappointment. But those who get to spend a few minutes with it (at the show) are amazed: You can't really SHOW a perfectly responsive user experience. I think that once people actually get them in their hands, we'll have a better idea.

But as of right now, there's no question I want one.

It's EARLY: I was up at 4am ET to catch this flight, and we're boarding in a few minutes... I am hoping to catch a little shut-eye. I'm off to Philly for a company meeting, and will be sprinting out to Jersey for an hour meeting along the way. So it'll be a busy busy day.

I've mentioned that the client site in Cleveland is in a depressed neighborhood: Yesterday my co-worker and I decided to venture out and see if there's food in the neighborhood. We found an italian deli - a huge old building with three older people working it... and we stood there for a few minutes while they eyed us from back in the kitchen, assessing whether they should deign to come forward and see what we want. By the end of the visit the lady was chatting us up a bit, asking us if we were employees, or "on assignment". We decided that "on assignment" is a great way to refer to consulting.

She asked Jeff where he was from, and had to clarify Madison WI, not Madison OH. For me, she said "Minneapolis.... it's cold there, right? Or is that Minnesota that's cold....? Don't you have that big mall too? Is that in Minnesota? Or is it in Minneapolis - I can't keep them straight".

Allright, time to board the plane.

Life

Well, my last update from Cleveland was at the end of a long week and my brain was frankly wiped... and I was a bit frustrated at having been uninvited to a meeting that was actually the only reason I had stayed in Cleveland through Friday, so my apologies if it read as "annoyed". But annoyed I was. A day has cooled my temper.

First things first: "Dinosaur Train". This is Isaac's new favorite thing. It's a show about talking dinosaurs who take a magic train through time to visit other dinosaurs. It's a clever way to acknowledge that not all dinosaurs existed at the same time. Its a semi-science show too. But at the heart of it: It's DINOSAURS and TRAINS. Pretty much subject-matter CRACK for the 3 year old boy brain. Bella likes the actual science of it too. Finally, it's fun to say. DINOSAUR TRAIN. Ok. On to the rest of it.

Today Bella got a second place ribbon in her Synchronized Swimming technicals - this was just presentation of the forms, which she did ably and happily. Pamela was with her all afternoon as this was going on, and Isaac and I were men about the house. Isaac swam this morning and we had lunch, a couple of shows, some wrassling, and some epic Hide'n'Seek. Isaac likes to tell me EXACTLY where to hide, then goes off to count, and makes a beeline for where he told me to hide, yelling "FOUND YOU!". After indulging him once, it became great fun for me to quietly move to a different location and make him FIND me. And happily, he actually thought that made it a more fun game (!!!). When it's his turn to hide, 99% of the time, he will simply hide exactly where he found ME, but with modifications - he is very good at squeezing behind and under things, so it actually is a bit of an adventure to find him. By the end of the day, he was tired and cranky, which made the arrival of Bella and her friends from synchro a bit of an upset - he was NOT happy to have visitors, and hid.

In addition to the Synchro friends, we had a special visitor this evening: Justin, who was Bella's "Manny" for a couple of years (and also sat Isaac in the first 6 months of his life) is taking off to LA to try to make it in the film business, and is making the rounds of farewells. It was wonderful to see him - and Bella was very happy to see him too. Isaac was of course too young to really remember him, but was nice to him nonetheless... he warmed up a bit.

It's a quiet house now: Pamela fell asleep with Bella, Isaac zonked out, and Zinsser is asleep with Isaac. I'm the lone mouse making noise in the house, and I think it's time I packed it in too.

Arcs

Going geek here: Last night I caught my favorite show "Fringe" (time delayed from Thursday), and while it was a good typical Fringe show, I felt vaguely unsatisfied, just as I had the previous week. And the reason was the Arc.

Back in the olden days, weekly shows were somewhat self contained: Things that happened one week might echo later, and sometimes you'd get a big two-parter, but mostly, you could watch any episode in any order and be pretty ok. Think about old Star Trek - any episode wasn't particularly dependent on any other. If you had a long story you wanted to tell, you created a mini-series.

in the early 1990s, Babylon 5 had ambition: Not only was it going to be a weekly show, but it had a BIG story to tell, which the creator had plotted out over the course of 5 years. Things would happen, people would change, and information would be delivered that would help make sense of the larger story. It also helped that the creator actually WROTE most of the episodes, so the narrative was completely consistent.

After 2 middling years, Star Trek Deep Space 9 devoted a season to a larger narrative arc (the "Dominion" storyline). And I started to really LIKE the idea of a show that is both a weekly story, and a BIGGER story. Of course, heavily Arc'ed shows are relatively viewer hostile - if you can't enjoy a standalone show, you'll never be comfortable as a late joiner to the story. Look to LOST for the ultimate Arc show - I'm pretty sure that if you aren't fully up on the plot, a show would have zero relevance.

So a show like Fringe is in a tricky situation: It's popular, but not SUPER popular. They have a really compelling "Big Story" Arc, but don't want to alienate a growing audience. The way around this is "arc lite" which is a 50/50 mix of shows that stand alone, and shows that contribute to the Arc. People learn and change, but you are never asking people to review their notes to recall what happened before.

The X-Files started this direction, creating the larger Arc of the Aliens, but committed the unforgivable sin of not adhering to the Arc rules with any consistency: Scully would see something one week in an "arc" episode, and then the next week would be the same old skeptic who acts as if she'd never seen anything odd in her life. By the time you got to the movies, you realized that the creators/writers weren't actually working from an actual Arc - they were making up cool stuff in their world, and then trying to wrap an arc AROUND it, which made no sense.

Heroes, on the other hand, had a great Arc season 1, then lame Arcs for seasons 2,3 and 4... and not only that, they were 100% arc, with no standalone option: But the amount of plot they embedded in the arc was probably enough for a full season "background arc" (where you alternate standalone and arc shows), but not enough plot to sustain a 100% arc show, so it felt STRETCHED. Plot points were telegraphed literally 3 shows in advance. Someone could probably edit a full season of Heroes into a 6 episode miniseries that felt tight and strong. But 24 episodes... it's padding. And not good padding.

Dollhouse is a true gem of a show, which started as a show-of-the-week series, and started getting Arc-y in the second half of the first season, culminating in some really amazing shows.... They were believed to be canceled, and somehow got a second season, which they started with standalone shows again - perhaps wanting to remain accessible to those outside of the arc... but it got them canceled, though with a 7 show "permission slip" to wrap it all up. And so for the past 2 months I have been deliriously enjoying Dollhouse's conclusion with 7 pure arc shows that cater directly to the story with very little standalone.

Back in September, when Dollhouse was only slightly arc-y, and so was Fringe, I was loving both shows. But today, with Dollhouse being in full Arc, the fact that Fringe returned from Xmas hiatus with not one, not two, but THREE non-arc shows (each of which offered but one SENTENCE of reference to the larger arc), I just feel disappointed.

I'm sure that next week, things will be back on track, since they only have 8 more episodes in the season, and some major plot arc to move forward... Plus Dollhouse will be dead and buried, so I'll have to love it. I've got nothing else left!

In conclusion, my name is Jim and I'm a geek.

Same Old

Remember the one about the parrot who ate the wristwatch? Polly Ticks? Yeah, that's what we have in Cleveland. This week the fun was in discovering that the "best in the country" clinical implementation we're building our system around actually has quite a few gaps that we'll be exposing, so there were a lot of wagons being circled. I won't go into it further... it's just amusing.

I will say that there are some stretches of road in Cleveland that are flat out depressing. I was going up Euclid east of the city passing block after block of boarded up shops, buildings, houses... Major seeming intersections have their stoplights set to flashing yellow - such is the light traffic.

In general, the driving in this city is a bit frustrating to me - people are generally not in a rush to get anywhere, and when they're thinking about turning, they like to slow down and REALLY consider that course of action. And if someone's slowing down to your right, you should probably slow down too, just to make them feel ok. I've seen 3 lanes of traffic going slower and slower in sympathy for someone who is making a right turn in a half block. It's remarkable.

There have been some interesting businesses, and I'm taking pictures as we pass them. Near our office is "Everything, and then some" fast soul food. Wednesday's special? Neckbones. A bit further up the road, T&L Pest Control and Christian Book Store - In four windows: "Church Supplies" "Bibles from $1.95", "Roach and Ant Spray", and "Mice and Rat Bait". Captain Jack's Shrimp Boat and Liquors had an empty lot, but a guy going in and out of the front door looking furtively. I decided not to take that picture.

I'm on my way home now... looking forward to the weekend! Bella has her first Synchro Swim meet!

Back in Fashion

Isaac has decided just recently that cuddles are a-ok, and has been giving them out again. He's still very emotional, and prone to fits of tears over seemingly minor things, but he's been connecting with us a lot more again.

I had a wonderful day with him - we visited Edinborough Park TWICE today, and he got a total of over 3 hours of climbing and jumping in. We dined together, we took a nap together, and he was saying things from the back seat like "DAD, when we get there, I want to give you a hug, ok?" It has been wonderful, even though the day started with a 20 minute screaming fit because he wanted MOMMY to take a car off the shelf for him NOT DADDY. But hey, he's 3.

Bella has been amusing me with more food choices - On Friday night we all went out to The King and I for dinner - the kids have always liked Pad Thai, so why not? Anyway, Bella decided she didn't like the noodles this time, but ate almost EVERY SINGLE PIECE of tofu. With relish. Today she scarfed down a Turtle Bread spinach quiche this am, ate some heavily spiced fries at Kings for lunch, and for dinner, ate fried chicken (skin and all). Now, to get more green stuff in her. HOW?

Dollhouse's last episode aired: There is one more - it's an epitaph ten years later. And it was pretty cool how they worked their way up to "Yay, we saved the world!" Fade to... no they didn't. And the villain had a point: Once an idea is out there, either you own it and run with it, or somebody else will, and you'll get run over. So stopping the one group that had the tech first didn't really stop the coming problems with mind wiping technology.... ;->

Speaking of Technology: Another year of the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) trade show has passed, and I can honestly say there wasn't a SINGLE thing I saw presented that had my finger twitching on the buy button. Yes, it's a recession, and yes, musicians are of all people quite subject to the whims of the economy (the "day job" is not always the highest paying to begin with...). But I have always loved the cool new "unobtainium" models they came out with every year.

I suspect part of it is that computers have become such a huge part of music these days that there is less of a drool market for a keyboard or drum machine outside of the boutique 'it does this one thing REALLY WELL' models, which nobody can make a profit on anymore. And it's hard to drool over software.

Speaking of jaded: We had a hilarious moment at our Scotch Avenging where we were enjoying a new bottle, a "secret stills" bottling from Skye (AKA Talksker), and it was so smooth and delicious and scarily drinkable, and our only criticism was "well, you can't really tell it's a Talkisker". We have become ridiculous. And it's wonderful.

Synthpop

2 Media things today, then some family.

1) Wow, synthpop is really coming back. I just found out about LaRoux today, a mouthy 21 year old androgyne who works with a reclusive older synth geek (who doesn't appear in public) to create amazing 1983-vintage songs with melodies, verses, choruses... chord progressions! Crunchy bleepy synths that sound right from the era. Sounds like early Yazz and Erasure - Vince Clarke must be proud. I'm so happy. This is much better than the spate of "electro" bands 5 years back where they used bleeps a bit, but forgot about the music. I also discovered Parralox, who do the retrovintage thing, only imagining what if the girl from Berlin sang for the Pet Shop Boys - Everything is very accurate for the 1984/1985 sound, and it's wonderful.

2) Ok, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has haunted me a little: I can't recommend it to anyone, but it's so full of clever bits that I WANT to share it, if only I could x out some of the more dark parts- the gratuitous nudity and the disturbing incest subplot... but Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr were just so great.

Not media: Isaac has had a tough couple of days - lots of tantrums. A house is getting knocked down 2 doors down, and he started screaming with fear that they were going to keep coming up the block and start on our house next. It was very very disturbing to him. But with all of his toughness, he's also accepting a lot more cuddles, if you're willing to work with him on it. He's cuddling for naps. He's collapsing into hugs during wrestling sessions... but he's not walking up to you with his arms out.

Bella left 3 pages of math homework to do all tonight (she had a week), so I put my foot down, and she got it done, but not without some serious eye rolling. We enjoyed some cocoa while doing it. I also visited her at school today, bringing a burrito for lunch. I sat at her table and made small talk with the gang of 1st grade boys she sits with. She was wearing a black adidas track suit and had pigtails, and was elbowing her buddy Cooper a lot. It was very cute.

In all, it was a good day. I got a lot done for both clients, AND some good family time too. Pamela collapsed with a migraine in the early afternoon and Isaac took a nap, so it was a quiet place for me to work this afternoon. Looking forward to another good work day tomorrow.

The wrapup on this one.

In general, it was a good day. No bodily injury. Work-related things went well, if a little strangely. In Jersey, I confirmed that I really am reaching the end of the project. There were no tears, but there was one final run out to Primo's for lunch, where they bestowed upon me a PrimoDonna-of-the-Month calendar: 18 months of cheesecake Jersey hotties holding sandwiches. Sadly, it stayed in the rental car this evening, so you'll just have to imagine this. If it was a little more self-aware, and a little less "actual sexy pinup", I might have considered keeping it.

As to Cleveland: the pieces of the puzzle are becoming clearer: We truly are in the middle of a massive rescue mission... for a project that is only 3 months old. The clients are very happy for our help and are very supportive. I'm feeling good.

But on to the craziness. Just two things to add to the story today:

As a favor for a co-worker I committed to running a stack of invoices over to the business office in Jersey today. My original plan was to take off around 3:30, drop them by 3:50, then get to the airport (a half hour max) in plenty of time. As you can figure, things got backed up, and I didn't leave for the business office until 4, hit traffic, and didn't head to the airport until 4:30. Still - no problem right? Yeah. That would be two massive accidents on the highways that turned my typical 20 minute drive to over an hour. I was white knuckles on the steering wheel loudly cursing the gods. I even took a whoops-backdoor alternate route - along with several thousand other smart people like me, so I don't think it helped.

I walked into the airport with less than 30 minutes to go to departure, without a boarding pass and not through security. I was OJ'ing through the airport and was the second to last one on the airplane - only the clear acrophobe was behind me, dragging his feet. Yes, my late arrival meant my first class seat was given up. Yes, TSA had set up a substation and went through my luggage and patted down my nether regions.

The flight was on time and uneventful: I sprung for the can of pringles, since my Primo Hoagie was so much earlier in the day AND I had counted on a first class meal... and I watched the Shane Black meta-movie "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" on the computer, with the window shrunk practically to iphone size and my hand shielding the proceedings - there were boobs in that movie I guess. I wanted to be respectful to my fellow passengers. This is where we need eye-phones. I think I liked the movie - some great Robert Downey Jr bits, but also a lot of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (WTF) stuff. Also, Shane Black is clever and knows it, so perhaps instead of calling it "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" they could have called it "Wink Wink Nod Nod". PS - I made that up - you can use it though.

Upon landing, I found a few messages from Jaguar: They were trying to pick up my car from the airport, but I wasn't there. Of course when I set up the pickup, I was clear: I will be on an airplane until 8:15. Have them come around 9pm. All of the messages were from 8pm, so I'm guessing we had a time zone problem with the pickup scheduling system. Fortunately they sent another truck out to get the car, and it was actually EARLY.

As I rode in a taxicab home, secure in the knowledge that people will be looking after my car, I got a call from the tow truck driver: They didn't want to let my car out of the garage without paying for parking. Also, they didn't let HIM out without paying for HIS parking either. You know, it sure seems like when a guy is getting his car towed, they could cut him a break at the parking lot, but no. They're on the lookout for those scammers - "DUDE, you should park at the airport, and then when you leave, just call a tow truck - you'll get off SCOT FREE". It was resolved with a bit of phone tag, but in the end: Ridiculous.

I got home and Zinsser was totally excited, as was Bella, who was up well past her bedtime waiting for me. We cuddled and she's off to sleep, and I'm just happy to be home.

I think that one night away is actually harder than 3 nights away (FOR ME) in that I'm on the move the whole time: With a multi-night stay, you kind of have a home base and can put your feet up. When you're in-and-out, it's much busier.

The Ongoing Crisis

First let me say: It was a wonderful weekend. We had the Wisconsin branch of the family in town for Grandma's 10th annual posthumous birthday party. We got the Fort Atkinson brood on Saturday, with the three boy cousins Seeger, Liam, and Julian. Bella and Isaac were in play heaven... (more on that, of course), with a chili party over at cousin Heather's, and then the birthday BRUNCH on Sunday at the Lexington. This is usually a dinner, but schedules just seemed to dictate a brunch option, and it was wonderful, if for no other reason than there were no complex "who goes to bed where and with what stuffed animal" instructions for the babysitter - just 4 hours of playtime.

But there were some... stresses...

It all started Friday: My project out in Cleveland is for strategic planning and review, preparing for a major project launch. On Friday, they pushed the fast forward button: Our gears shifted into "MAKE THIS THING GO NOW", and I got a field promotion to the (interim) Project Director. So my nice every-other week gig has turned into a full time monster starting now. I actually could have worked all weekend on this, but I put my foot down and agreed to just work harder this week, because come on, the FAMILY was in town.

So I was good and stressed about this - big responsibility, lots of people asking for my time, PLUS feeling sad about having to get back on the road so quickly... and we're working hard to clean the house for the arrival of the cousins. Right after dinner, I take a good look at Bella and realize she's got Pink Eye. Goopy green gunk, red eyes. Bella and I jumped in my car to make it to the Target Clinic before they closed, and just three blocks along the way... my car decides it's time for its annual "throw off a tire" game. So I'm driving on the slippery snow with a tire shredding on the wheel, my daughter with pink eye in the back... (if you're keeping score at home, my car does this once a year - a tire just comes OFF of the alloy wheel on a very cold day)

I found a place to park, and Pamela picked us up with Isaac and we made it a family outing. Pamela and I got our H1N1 shots while we were at it.

Saturday was more scrambling to clean before the cousins came (the christmas decorations came down too), PLUS "gotta respond to this" emails about Cleveland... AND my client in New Jersey appears to have read her email from the past month all in one go, and sent me a strange snippy email that betrayed a complete lack of understanding of what I've been doing for her for the past month. I wisely decided NOT to reply to her, but the stress level went back up.

Now, with the late night at Target, Isaac was definitely low on sleep, so when the cousins did arrive, we got a fair amount of territorial posturing and screaming... he had to go to bed GOOD AND EARLY. Fortunately, he was a good bit more civilized on Sunday...

And the time with the cousins WAS wonderful, and I did my best not to let all of the madness of the previous days impact me, but I wound up just being exhausted.

By Sunday night, I was wound back up again, thinking of all I'd need to do this week (though I had successfully kept from doing any work during the weekend), and I excused myself to get an early bedtime (for my 7am flight - 4:45 wakeup). And spent most of the night staring at the ceiling feeling my heart pounding. Not much sleep, alas.

Driving to the airport, I noticed the car was riding a little rough, and pulling into the airport garage, I saw that the air suspension system had gone haywire, with the driver side riding low low low, and the passenger side riding high high high. So I needed to arrange for a tow truck on that (needs to wait until I return, however).

Fortunately, meetings and work actually went VERY WELL - for all of my worry, I actually got down to business pretty well. I even had a little skip in my step as I left the Jersey client for my car. As I crossed the street, a car stopped for me at the crosswalk (backing up 10 cars behind him). I gave him a hearty wave, and walked right into the ped xing market, knocking it into the street and following it right down.

My client saw it happen from her window and rushed down to make sure I was ok. Sure, she won't respond to emails or phone calls in a timely manner, but fall face first outside her OFFICE, and I get a response. ;) It seems overkill to mention that the hotel lost my reservation... but they did, but they had room for me so it was ok.

Anyway, I took it as a sign to cocoon for the evening. I did venture out for some pasta at the family-owned place near my hotel and had some fabulous gnocchi. There is good in this world.

So that was my crazy few days. I am feeling good about things, but boy, that world threw me some curves these past few days. I'm looking forward to some equilibrium again.

Cleveland Style

1) The meetings here in Cleveland have gone very well, and I got the info I needed to take the next steps in this project. The cat is out of the bag, strike up the band, we're getting this show on the road.

2) We have had ICE DRIZZLE here for 3 days now: My car has been become encased in ice every time I park it, and today I wound up scraping the windows 5 separate times. I AM TIRED OF THIS. We're talking thick ice mixed with snow making all of the windows completely opaque. IT IS RIDICULOUS.

When I return in 2 weeks, I fully expect this situation to be resolved.

3) Speaking of leaving - I am jetting out of town early tomorrow to avoid a lake-effect snow storm that will dump over a foot on the area starting late afternoon. I think the ticket change fee was well spent in this particular case.

4) Tonight I had "Cleveland's Best Pizza" at Geraci's. It's a really sweet tomato sauce and a thick chewy crust, with thick cut pepperoni and sausage with big fennel seeds.. I'm gonna go out and say that I have not had pizza like this before: This is not new york style, nor chicago style. It is Cleveland Style. And I like it.

Between the ice storms and the pizza, my co-workers and I are now applying "Cleveland Style" to have both positive AND negative connotations. It's the verbal equivalent of a shrug.

It was glorious

18 days at home. It was wonderful.

Now I am headed to Cleveland. But it's going to be great.

After the storm...

Whew. Christmas is over. It's a new year. "Twenty Ten" is how I'll be referring to it, not "two thousand and ten". Looking back, my hope for using "Aught" never really caught on - I'm referring to last year as "Oh-Nine".

We rang in the new year last night playing Monopoly (Horse Lover's Edition) with Lilli and PapaBam, who are here for the week. Bella did a good job playing too - we had to help her with some of the money stuff. Plus she was up WAY past her bedtime and was seriously punchy. Uncle Rich rang in the new year asleep with his CPAP machine softly purring. I would have loved to have been in bed too, but nobody likes a party pooper, so I settled for lights out at 12:05.

Yes, Bella stayed up to Midnight, and yes, she got up at 8 and yes, she's crabby. Isaac has had to give up his room for houseguests. On the first night, he screamed for a solid hour at bedtime wanting to be in HIS room. He's used to being in our room now, but here on day 3 of the visit has taken to walking around asking "DAD WHEN ARE THEY LEAVING? I WANT THEM TO GO HOME NOW". So New Years Day will be a day where we give them lots of movies in the basement and count the minutes to an early bedtime.

Of course, it hasn't been all crabby around here: Papa and Bella have clocked a lot of time building a wooden train from scratch. Isaac and Rich have been bonding in guy sporting things. Lilli and Bella have been great cousins... And Papa, Lilli, and I snuck off to see Avatar in 3D. It was my second viewing, and boy, what an amazing film. WOW.

I read an interview with James Cameron in Wired where he proudly zoomed in on one of the NaVi, and showed her headdress, explaining that every part of it had been individually modeled, that no detail was left out. I mention it because when we left the theater, the FIRST thing out of Papa's mouth was "DID YOU SEE the knot work on their jewelry? It was immaculate! The gems and bones were beautiful!" Add to this our Horse Girl Lilli was thrilled with all of the riding/flying scenes, and her 13-year old brain quickly latched on to the political allegories in the movie ("You know, it got me thinking that we did a lot of that sort of thing to the native americans, didn't we?") It speaks to how sometimes there are levels that we as older moviegoers take for granted that will actually turn on lightbulbs for younger people.

So in conclusion: We all loved Avatar. PapaJoe said "It's the best thing I've ever seen".

Being at home has been wonderful: I head out to Cleveland next week, and I have some pre-work to do this weekend, but I could get used to being in this house. I'm also taking advantage of my time to get back into shape: Pamela and I are sharing a personal trainer, and Tammi is completely whipping us into shape. I've had some days where I literally couldn't move (2 days after the workout is when the hamstrings tighten up, she told me), but I can feel this stuff working. IT's different than the work I was doing last year: This is building work - high weights, low repetitions - as opposed to toning work (lower weights, higher reps).

Final note: I love my Kindle DX. The larger screen really does make a difference, and it's completely worth the upgrade for me.