Whirlwind

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

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

Ready for home!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So much...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gunshy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Epic Week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cats and Lizards!

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

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

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

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

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

More like FART Lauderdale

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ooooooooffffffffff

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

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

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

Jimmy's Tech Corner

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fashion Plate

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

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

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

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

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

Just back from the Fair

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moments with Isaac

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

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

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

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

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

And we're back...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Orleans Stories

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Update from the Lake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Difficulties in the flying.

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

Hopefully nothing like THIS (via the Onion)

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

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

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

Slayer'ed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some Cleveland Moments

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

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

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

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

Just another week of treading water I suppose.

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

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

Two more things

1) Pamela got back from her scrapbooking retreat tired but happy. And she passed out around 8pm. ZZZzzzzzz.

2) Bella spend a lot of the day out on the front porch with Isaac, Zinsser, and her friend Carly: They had their Littlest Pet Shop animals, a bag of fabric, and a sewing kit, and Bella was making outfits for them. She was sewing capes and coveralls for them. For one, she made a cape and a headband - they called it "The Sweaty Kitty", and had a glass of water they kept dunking her into, to make sure that the headband was properly perspiration drenched.

In the end, there were 7 different animals that were turned into super heroes, including a small skunk with a cape that was 4x the length of her ("Trippy Skunk" was the name given - she uses her long cape to trip bad guys).

Bella, Harry, and Buffy

So ends another great weekend. This time, Pamela was out of town again at a scrapbooking retreat, and it was 3 solid days with the kiddos. We had a wonderful time together. We ate well, we played well, we slept well. We had our block party last night, which was interrupted by two storms and a tornado warning, plus the fire truck was a no-show, but we all had a great time anyway... and the kids were in the moonwalk for a good percentage of the day, and again this morning - they usually come pick it up around 11 the day after, so Sunday AM is a traditional jump fest. And just like last year, the kids got their jumping done and DONE, so that by the time the jumper had to go, everyone was good and ready to see it go, even the kids.

Isaac and I also tossed a football, kicked a soccer ball, and hit some wiffleballs off of a t-ball stand that Grampette gave us. I was doing my best to encourage his sportiness. We also had an epic 45 minute wrassling match which left his energized and me completely exhausted.

Bella and I are reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: I'm reading, she's listening, and we're going through it slowly, recapping frequently to make sure she's getting all of the nuances. She's to the point now where she's starting to come up with her own "guesses" about what might have been in the package Hagrid took from Gringott's. Her current theory: Since Hagrid was kicked out of Hogwarts and doesn't have his own wand anymore, he actually got a Nimbus 2000 WAND and is hoping to train to become a wizard again, and Dumbledore is helping him in secret, which is why it's a secret.

It is fun to go through it slowly - I'm picking up so many details I must have blown past before: Rowling really did lay out so much of this story right in the first few chapters - things she mentions in passing right in the beginning are major plot points later on. Also, I like slowing down at some of the magic moments: At Christmas, one of the wizards decorated a tree by waving his wand and gold bubbles came out and turned into balls on the tree. Bella marveled at that, waving her hand in the air as if conjuring the bubbles herself.

Bella did tell me that there is "some scary stuff" in there, but it's not worrying her or keeping her awake. She wanted me to know that. And also, can I please read just ONE more chapter?

Speaking of chapters: You know I'm watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I just finished Season 5 last night, and I'm quite impressed. 100 episodes, and you really get to know these characters. The stories just keep getting better. And I have to say that there has never been a show that I had so severely misjudged as this one. I really thought it was brainless fluff back when it was on, no matter what Entertainment Weekly was telling me. But dang it, Joss Whedon knew what the heck he was doing. Of course there are off episodes (and some seasons have held together better than others), but as a whole, this story is truly incredible.

There are standalone episodes that I can't get out of my mind - one is "Hush" where sinister visitors to the town steal everyone's voices - 2/3 of the episode is completely without dialogue - just sound effects and music. Then there's "The Body" where the sudden death of a key character is reacted to - and it's not played for shock or learning, just a study of all of the ways the death hits us - how time dilates, how tiny details get focused on... There's "The Zeppo" - in which Xander (a character without any powers at all) has a mini-adventure around the periphery of what may have been the greatest crisis ever to hit the series - a hilarious "outside looking in" episode. Plus just fun stuff like Doppelgangerland where an evil twin is on the loose....

But better has been the continual evolution of the characters - By season 5 nobody is even remotely who they were when the show started, but they all got there in a logical progression.

So here's my take:
Season 1: It's short, it's mostly "thing of the week", and low production values, but it has heart. Buffy fights The Master, who plans apocalypse.
Season 2: Character development kicks into overdrive - you really start caring for everyone... plus a really good mid-season twist to shock you out of your seats.
Season 3: Often referred to as the best of the series - A season long arc about The Mayor and another Slayer, leading to a great climax about the end of high school. Everyone leaves the season totally changed.
Season 4: A tough transitional season - Trying to cover College, plus the Military, it was sort of muddled, but we did get to see Willow start on her epic Arc.
Season 5: Much maligned in fan-dom because it basically added a completely random element into the mix - Buffy starts the season with a little sister nobody had EVER mentioned before, and it's all treated as normal. And yet, it was a 22 episode story that was completely linear with everyone deepening their journeys.

One thing I absolutely loved about Season 5: Everybody's been watching Buffy this whole time, tracking her growth. And yet all through the seasons, Willow has been growing in strength, and by the end of Season 5, it's clear that not only is she stronger than anyone had any idea, she's also got a lot stronger opinions about what should be going on than anyone suspected. This sets up the season 6 story with her as the focus. And it's so cool because Joss and company had been putting these pieces into place for 3 years - little things she's done in the periphery of every story.

I'm probably writing this for nobody but myself, because hey, it's a show that went off the air 8 years ago and most everybody I know treated it the way I did. But if there's someone out there looking for something fun to Netflix, I gotta say it's an absolute blast.

And now I'm going to watch the start of Season 6 before heading to bed. Back to Cleveland tomorrow!

Another great weekend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crazy people.

Karaoke Dream

I had a dream last night of the standard "not prepared for something" variety, but the details were pretty good.

I was at a rustic lodge (Ruttger's in name, but actually closer to a Y Camp I went to as a kid), and was led by a friend to a stage in the middle of the room: Could I run the Karaoke night for everybody? I'm techie, right? Sure, no problem I said.

The moment I step on stage, people are cheering, excited to get started with Karaoke night! I grab a mic and say "we'll get under way in just a minute". I survey the stage:

Speakers are set up. Mic is available. But the Karaoke unit is on a rolling cart next to the stage and isn't plugged in. I start looking at it and realize on my gosh, it's based on un labeled cassette tapes? And there's no master list? We're just supposed to put in a tape and go? I look around the back and find that the tape unit isn't even plugged into the master unit.

But around back, I find a shoebox filled with CDs - AH, this must be it. But these CDs aren't labeled either... and all of the songs are written on a roll of cash register tape in faded pencil. In cursive. I'm scrolling through this list, and the song names aren't legible, and the very act of reading it is smudging them further. I turn around, and the room is full of annoyed people who just want to Karaoke DAMN IT.

I was very happy to have the alarm go off and spare me further.

Wistful

Yesterday we were cleaning up the house a bit and I went to the iMac to find some music. Scrolling down the list, I found "Missing" by Everything but the Girl - this was their breakout house hit that transformed them from a moody acoustic guitar outfit to a drum and bass experimental duo - Listening to their work from the mid 1980s, and this electronic rebirth in the mid 1990s was something incredible back then.

So I queued up Missing, along with their Walking Wounded album and got cleaning. And a few songs into it, I slowed down and just stopped moving. I started listening to the words, and they are all very sad and about longing - breakup songs, being hurt by someone songs... and yes, I always knew that they were that way - the album is called Walking Wounded for crying out loud. But then it hit me.

This was an album that I listened to a whole lot with Mark Loesch. We both discovered it around the same time in 1996/97, and it was playing in the car when we would drive, and it would be in the cd changer whenever we had an evening together. Listening to this music made me remember evenings at Mark's new house, having wine or martinis, just the four of us (Pamela and Samantha too) with his kids asleep in upstairs, and Isaac and Bella not even ideas yet (come to think of it - Isaac's birthmom must have been as old as Bella is now when we were sitting in that living room in 1997... strange to think of).

The combination of those lyrics of loss with the memory of sharing that music with a man who I still miss every day was a bit too much for me, and I had to turn it off. But the songs still play through my head - "I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain".

It's MAGIC!

The other day, the kids did an amazing magic trick with the help of a very patient Zinsser the schnoodle.

The set up: Zinsser's kennel in the middle of the floor. Zinsser in the kennel sitting patiently. Bella and Isaac drape a blanket over the kennel, and then tell me to go into the other room "for a minute".

2 minutes later and a whole lot of scuffling noise... I'm invited back into the room. The kennel is still there with blanket over it, and bella pulls off the blanket with a flourish - TA DA!!! NO DOG INSIDE! She puts the blanket back on, and tells me to go back into the other room for another minute.

Again with the scuffling noises... And TA DA!!! She removes the blanket and Zinsser is sitting there, just like before.

What's amazing about this is that Zinsser really didn't make any fuss during this - I never heard HIM in the process. He's a good magician's assistant.

Some Kid Quotes, plus nightmares.

1) Driving up the block, there's a bright blue Late 1970s-era Pontiac Trans-Am parked. Bella says:
"That car is AWESOME. The Color is AWESOME, and the LOOK of the car is AWESOME".

In case you were wondering, yes, she fell through a time portal. She was supposed to have been born in 1967. She's the hippie kid I never was.

2) Isaac woke us up early Friday morning demanding I crack open the container of powdered sugar donut holes. I gave him one and went back to sleep... an hour later I was up and making breakfast for real and asked Isaac if he wanted another donut hole. He said "No thanks, but they sure are tasty!"

3) Night of horror: Friday afternoon, Isaac was looking a little pale and said his stomach hurt a little. He still had dinner, but by 6pm, he had crawled into Pamela's arms for a cuddle and passed out cold. We put him up into bed. Around 11, when we went to bed ourselves, we changed his pull-up (still refusing the potty, that goat). At 1, he climbed into our bed, and by 1:15 I had been pushed out, so I went to his bed, and lay down.... in puke. IT WAS HORRIBLE. So I cleaned everything up and checked him out - it was cold and dry in some places, so I suspect it happened around midnight. Anyway, I cleaned it up. And will never forget the horror.

4) After my week away, it was hard to be back in Cleveland, though the new offices are very nice. I have a large office with a door and a window that looks out into trees. It's in a nice neighborhood with walking distance to a Starbucks and a great Mediterranean place too. Plus, our team had been split between two sites, and were all together finally... it felt like things were finally going to get done.

Could this be a turning point for my attitude there? Would I feel better about things?

Alas, no. Being out of our depressing place in the bad part of town, I could no longer distract myself with that misery... and the full focus of just how messed up the environment and project are came into sharper focus. I gotta get out of Cleveland.

As I was telling Pamela about all of this, she threw up her hands - "Why are you being so nice to them about your transition plan? They're messing everything up! You shouldn't feel ANY guilt about wanting out". That is so true. My wife is wise. Also, she's rightfully weary of me not being happy. I'm a much happier person than this.

That's the update for right now.... more later!

4)

A good week at home

It was a work-from-home week, and it was wonderful... but no less busy than any other week, alas. I have over 20 hours of regularly scheduled conference calls every week, so I spent a lot of time up on the 3rd floor with the handsfree earpiece in. My cellphone bill will be atrocious: I've already hit 2300 minutes for the month and have a week left in the billing cycle.

Lots of good work done, however... Did have a bit of a blow to discover that one of the two remaining candidates for my permanent replacement out in Cleveland has taken a permanent position in New York. So we're down to either one outsider, or... I don't know. I'm still holding to my August date, however. If they can't move on their own behalf, I can't help them.

Had the boys over for scotch on Wednesday: We went light - only a 4 bottle lineup, including a very old Caol Ila, an amazing Longrow 18, and my Longmorn 30.... and to end we couldn't resist adding in my Port Ellen 27, which was cashed in the process. As to the movie, it was the horrible horrible movie 2012. We went into it with our expectations well planted in the basement, and somehow it STILL managed to disappoint us. There was just too much that didn't work, and it was just too too too terrible. It's tough when a movie has such amazing set pieces (They dropped an aircraft carrier RIGHT ON THE PRESIDENT'S FACE), and yet is so completely unsatisfying. We made due with non-stop commentary... and that only barely got us to the end. When Captain Squintyface says "there's a reason they call it the Cape of Good Hope", all three of us just groaned and threw up our hands.

I'm sure you're wondering: No I didn't get an iPhone4 yet: I'm more than happy to let the craze die down for a while and pick one up in more measured circumstances in a couple of weeks. I wouldn't mind getting the white one, which doesn't come out until late July anyway.

It's a quiet morning here in Edina: We had some storms blow through last night, and the tornado sirens went off, which had Bella in tears. But 30 min later, it was all clear. I'm Solo Dad for a couple of days: Pamela and her "free range chickens" got a line on a free cabin (with boat) for the weekend, so they piled into a minivan with margarita fixings, diet coke, and prosecco and chocolate and headed up north. So the kids and I have some fun planned, starting with Isaac's swim lesson in a few minutes.

Comments...

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Thanks!

A Father's Day Weekend

Oh Strep. On Thursday we discovered Bella is suffering from Strep, not just sunstroke from 3 full days at the pool. By Saturday, we suspected that Pamela might have it, as she passed out for a few hours then crawled off to sleep early. So today, Father's Day, we got to see a Minute Clinic... The quick test was negative, the long test will come back in a few days, and Pamela was back on the couch.

No matter - while Mother's Day is often about "making things easy for Mom", Father's Day is always all about Dad and Kid Action. And action we had: A visit to the Apple Store AND Guitar Center! Lunch at California Pizza Kitchen. And what is Father's Day without a Pixar Movie?

The original plan was flawless:
Step 1 - watch Toy Story 1 and 2 with the kids on Saturday. Watch Isaac's reactions. Can he handle it? YES HE COULD.
Step 2 - Get reserved seats for the 3:55 show at the Icon theater. That way we can walk in at the last minute after the loud scary previews and just watch the movie.
Step 3 - Pamela is on Isaac duty in case things get too scary.

What with the strep, step 3 sort of fell apart, so I left her on the couch and proceeded with the plan, bringing both kids: There were two points in the movie that were just too much for Isaac: One was the sad clown's story, the other was the incinerator scene. I spoil nothing - but these were definite dramatic peaks of the movie, and I had Isaac yelling "I WANT TO GO HOME NOW!". So I took him down to the hallway, and told him what was happening in the movie and that everything was going to be ok. REALLY. And I got him back in the theater and back on my lap. By the end he was laughing and cheering, loving how it all turned out.

I will not spoil the movie for people here: Everyone who liked 1 and 2 needs to see this. It is brilliant closure to the story, and a powerful story about growing up. Of course tears were streaming down my cheeks as the credits rolled... absolutely incredible. I do plan to see it again - but I'll leave Isaac at home. Bella was a champ by the way.

After a dinner of grilled cheeses on the back porch, it was off to bed. I got Isaac ready for bed and cuddled him until he was asleep. Then into Bella's room, where we read 1/2 of a Magic Treehouse (Earthquake!) and she was so tired she nodded off shortly thereafter. Holding both my kids as they fell into slumber was a magical way to end father's day.

And even better was knowing I'll be in town all week - no sneaking off on Monday morning with them asleep. This will be a good week.

Images:
1) Last night before bed, Isaac and Bella both had me pushing them on the swingset. Bella challenged me to push Isaac's swing ONE HUNDRED TIMES. I accepted the challenge, and she counted every swing, but by the end, she had adopted a crazy opera singer voice and was singing each number with a little vibrato trill at the end. I almost didn't make it to 100 I was laughing so hard. Isaac was just in the swing zone. Silent, serious, happy.

2) An image I love: When I do one of my absurd jokes with Bella, she does a fabulous "straight man" reaction: Her face gets stony, her mouth turns down in a slight frown, and she fixes me with a look and narrows her eyes.

3) Isaac has picked up an interesting vocal tweak recently. He's extending vowels into extra syllables: The word "eat" has become "ee-yut", "Please" become "Plee-yus", "good" is "guh-wood"... I'm not sure where it's coming from, but it's cute as all get out. He's also experimenting with big words: "suppose", "eventually", and "probably" are inserted into just about any sentence.

4) Bella with her iPod: She's got to the point now of asking me to add songs to it: Last week she asked for the Spice Girls "Wannabe" - she's been singing it around the house. This weekend, it was "Owl City" who makes very earnest synthpop with kid-friendly lyrics. She goes to a happy place when she's listening to music.

I just want to have in the internet record: My kids are very cute.

It's an ok week...

Those big meetings with lots of people in the room... I haven't spent that much time in them. I've been interviewing people to join the team, and doing planning work, but when you get right down to it, the subjects they're discussing are really low-level "once you're done doing X, do you want to do Y or Z?" sort of design questions. And my job is to make sure there's a team in place who can deliver on those decisions, but not to participate in the making of those decisions.

So in a strange way, the week has been a good one for just getting REAL work done - all of the people I need to be managing have things to be doing.

I started "the conversation" with my boss today, too. I let him know that while I'm happy to be helping out, this isn't the work I prefer, and that I'm looking to transition. It was pretty bold. And we're working on our plan. He had always planned to replace me, but he admitted he was getting complacent because I was actually doing a good job... so we're back on track with the replace-me project.

And just in time - the other, more fun opportunities are popping up all over the place - Data Warehouse, PACS, Cardiovascular.... I'm looking forward to a work-at-home week next week: I'm getting all bold with my demands now that I know that a) I'll be outta there soon-ish, and b) there are other opportunities.

On the home front... Bella has been going to swim camp in the mornings, and Pamela and Isaac have been bringing lunch to the pool for afternoons of splashy fun. We have memberships at the Edina Pool which has both a regular pool (with diving boards AND a ZipLine), and a kiddy splashy area. Isaac and Bella love both areas. I'll be going with them this weekend I hope, should the weather hold. Maybe I'll sneak out there with them during the week next week too... Shhhhhh don't tell anyone.

Got a report from Pamela that Isaac was "adopted" by 4 5th grade boys at the playground today, and the 5 of them played for over an hour. Apparently, they treated Isaac well and there was no teasing - and at the end, they all gave Isaac a hug. The Mayor in full effect.

Media Update:
"Check it Out with Dr Steve Brule" is an a strange fake cable-access show starring John C Reilly as a frizzy haired idiot. These 11 minute shows are simply ridiculous, and I love them. Watch them HERE

Buffy: I'm 3/4 of the way through Season 3, and am in complete awe. Just watched two classic episodes - The Zeppo and Doppelgangerland. This is high art. If you're curious about Buffy, you can pretty much start with Season 2... just get some background details from someone in the know. Season 1 was uneven and while sometimes fun, it wasn't great. But hoo boy, by Season 3, it is just SMOKING. Also, I may need to re-evaluate my calling Isaac "The Mayor" based on what is happening on the show...

So You Think You Can Dance: Not sure about the big re-structuring of the show format, but the past two seasons there were so many issues with "dud partners" - the whole "Mollee and Nathan" thing - how she really blossomed once she got a new partner, and the whole "Evan" thing... So I think the superstars concept is great, especially since Kathryn and Mark are back...

Time to rest. I will NOT Watch one more Buffy before bed. REALLY.

Strategery

It was a short weekend: Thursday I took off from Cleveland to Philly, where I caught the Phillies get beat by the Marlins while we schmoozed clients in a skybox. Friday was an all day strategy session followed by a marathon dinner at Alma de Cuba.

The hotel in Philly was a cute boutique place in center city, with some of the most punishingly hard beds I've ever been on. I think there have been floors that have been more comfortable. All day at our Friday session, people took turns stretching and groaning. It was good bonding, however.

By the time the alarm went off to head home on Saturday, I was well ready to get back to my life... I was able to walk into the house by 11 on Saturday, and spent a whirlwind weekend with the family. Bella had two parties to go to: A dog-themed birthday party on Saturday, and a going away party for her 1st grade friend Minori whose family is moving back to Japan. I asked if Bella would like to be Minori's pen pal.. Bella was concerned that once in Japan, she would only speak Japanese.

I think it would be fun to teach Bella Japanese.

Somewhere in there, Pamela and I got caught up on So You Think You Can Dance (staying up WAY too late to do so), and Isaac and I spent some time at Edinborough Park as well. Also, lots of cuddles, and I even mowed the lawn.

This morning, Isaac was up and at'em at 4:15... even before I was supposed to be up to get to Cleveland. So we had breakfast together and played with some cars. We picked out a couple of cars for me to take to work. A kiss and I was off to the airport. Pamela later reported that Isaac did NOT go back to sleep - but he did get a little nap in the afternoon.

A mechanical issue had us switching planes and getting into Cleveland 90 minutes late. I hopped into a Hyundai at National Car Rental and was thrilled with the radio selection.

I'm a guy who reprograms every rental car I get into: I set the NPR station first on the FM band, and if it has Sirius Radio, I have my favorites: First Wave (80s alternative), Area (trance), BPM (house), Chill (ambient). So imagine my joy at getting into a rental to find all of the above ALREADY PROGRAMMED (and no, I had not been in this car before). So there was one more program button.... what had my mystery benefactor left for me? Sirius Q Gay Talk.

Somehow I felt... categorized. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

Anyway, I have a usual busy week ahead here - more of those long meetings in rooms with dozens of people. But I have a sense of peacefulness: One of the things that came out of the strategy sessions in Philly was full backup from my whole team that we're getting me out of Cleveland. So I don't feel quite as trapped, and it's making me feel ok.

Making me feel even better: Got a call from one of the partners this afternoon asking if I had experience with a specific area of geekitude: And yes, I have that experience in spades. Looks like a gig in New Orleans of the type I like: 2-3 days of interviews down there, then 2-3 weeks of work at home to deliver a design. Just knowing that they're finding the sort of thing that would allow me to flex my geek muscles AND be at home more has already made me feel less panicky.

Three Images

1) Bella on Sunday night: She thinks that when you die you stand on God's shoulders and try to reach the stars. All of the dead people are up there and the pile is REALLY high. And Grant is up on the top reaching.

2) Isaac in the car on Monday: I was flipping past radio stations and stopped on one that was playing some classic 1950s rock and roll. Isaac said "I love this music! Do you know this music? What is it called?" I said "It's Rock and Roll".

He said "Oh yes. I used to LOVE this music, back when I was a different big kid. And you were a different Daddy, and Mom was a different Mommy. And I was black."

Obviously, he was channeling SOMETHING... I'm not sure what to make of that one. The barriers between realities are pretty soft for the young, and I think there's a window in there where they have language but the door starts closing. I think we should listen more to 3 year olds... bearing in mind that a lot of it will also have to do with Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks. You need to listen for the gems. This was the age at which Bella was mystically referring to "Tree is coming" as well...

3) Today Pamela was in the back yard with Bella and Zinsser and Isaac went back into the house. After a while Pamela asked Bella to check on Isaac, and ran back out sputtering.

Yes, Isaac had pulled a chair up to the kitchen sink, taken out the sprayer, and had turned our counter into a waterfall, with a big grin. There was a sloshable amount of water on the floor, and at least one phone was soaked... Good to know that in addition to being a potentially wise old soul, Isaac is also still a rambunctious kid.

I promised cute...

Last weekend was quite the adventure: I flew home on Thursday afternoon and was greeted at the airport by Mister Marshmallow with the whole family and Zinsser inside. I jumped in and it was road trip time - Chicagoland, here we come! The kids were in a good mood, mollified by the DVD player, and Zinsser proved himself to be a stupendous road trip dog, sitting quietly in our laps the whole trip.

We pulled in to the Residence Inn Schaumburg just after 10, and Bam was there to meet us. I cashed in a few Marriott points (well, 90,000 of them to be fair) to pay for two rooms for three nights. Zinsser is a welcome guest at this hotel, and promptly marked his territory in the park behind the inn. Isaac was overtired, and needed some extra comfort, so Dad was with Bella on the hide-a-bed, while Mom and Isaac got the "real bed". This was to be the case for the rest of the trip, by the way.

Friday was mostly for fun - a lazy morning, a Portillos lunch, a visit to Grandma, and 3 hours at a Toyota dealership. Ok, maybe that last part wasn't fun. Last year, we had some "dead battery" issues with Mister Marshmallow, and you know, you don't want a dead battery in an electric car. At the time, they recharged it and tested it, and it was good to go. So when we popped into the car at the Senior Home, I was a bit surprised to find electrical problems.

The funny thing is that in this car, a dying battery looks a lot like a hollywood movie where "the hacker" is bringing down the network: Dashboard lights pulsing on and off, the displays (mileage and navigation) powering on and off, with lines of static, and rebooting rapidly... I was waiting for Isaac to morph into Agent Smith, really. Then it all went dead. So I had to call for help, while the rest of the family grabbed a ride back to the hotel with other relatives and swam the afternoon away.

Long story short - I got a new battery, and had to wait quite a while for it, because they needed to reprogram a bunch of stuff as a result. Do not mess with the hybrid. NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE. I got it.

Lilli and Rich and Bridget came by for pizza and chatting: Bridget was talking about her job as an Apple Store Turnaround Specialist. She gets moved to underperforming Apple stores and gets them back in shape. What a cool job... and of course she has an iPad that she loves.

Oh - sidebar - that "problem" you read about with the iPad and the security: It's not the iPad - it's ATT. And because I use my iPad with a Sprint hotspot, I'm not at risk. Not that there was much at risk really - just an email address and the knowledge that this person with this email address owns an iPad. So the next person who tries to say "the iPad got hacked" goes to Jimmy Jail. At&T got hacked, not Apple. THE END.

I was exhausted from the day and asked nicely for a little nap at 5. Sometime around 6, Isaac came in to say hi... and I didn't hear from him again. At 6:15 I got up and discovered him flat on the ground with a didda - he literally just fell down and went to sleep in the middle of the hotel floor. OF COURSE we picked him up and put him into our bed.

Saturday was the big day (and yes, the hide-a-bed WAS comfortable, thanks for asking). In the AM, Bella got to go with Lilli to the stable and watch her ride AND she got to ride a pony too. Isaac and I swam for an hour, then went to Five Guys: He is now a huge fan of peanuts - I crack the shells, and he opens them up to remove "The Babies" which he lines up and then eats.

In the afternoon: The big event: Bailey and Ty, my friends I've known since they were 3 months old, graduated from High School and are off to college. So we crashed their Graduation Party.

They were completely shocked to see us, in a good way. We had sent decoy cards and gifts, and Ty's first words on seeing us were "but you sent a card! We thought you weren't coming!!!" Of course, we were dressed as pirates (Palatine Pirates!), with eyepatches, hats (I had a combo hat/wig), and red-black pirate clothes. Bella had a parrot, and we all had big inflatable swords. And in a move that could best be described as "awesome" - there was a moonwalk at the party.

I repeat: There was a moonwalk at Ty and Bailey's graduation party.

Isaac spent the next three hours in that jumper, emerging only to take in fluids. 3 solid hours of nonstop jumping. He was the happiest guy in the world. Bella was jumping too, but she was also off with some kids her age talking about things first graders talk about... I have no idea. When we got home, Isaac still took a little time to get to sleep. IN OUR BED, did I mention? But we were able to transfer him to the hideabed, at least until he woke up at 3 and kicked me back to the hide-a-bed. But those were some nice hours I had.

Bella went to bed a little later because at 9pm who should show up finally but Papa! He was on a business trip to Indiana, and got back Saturday night. When he came in, Bella walked up to him without saying a word and held him for a solid minute with her eyes shut. She loves her Papa, and Papa loves her.

Sunday had the kids up early to play with Papa, some more swimming in the AM, then packing up. I went to get Burritos from Chipotle and Burgers from Portillos to fuel us up. We hit the road just after 1, and got home around 8-ish. Again, the car DVD player was a good good thing. We got word about Grant on the drive home... but waited until bedtime to have the talk.

In all it was a wonderful weekend capped with a sad coda... but a wonderful weekend nonetheless.

This Post...

This was going to be about the amazing weekend we just came away from, and about cute things Isaac and Bella have said recently, and maybe a little kvetching about Cleveland... but instead it's an update to this post from last year.

I haven't written much about Grant in the intervening months - he had been going to school for much of the year, in Bella's class. His family did their best to make it an incredible year for him: He went to the Olympics, to Disneyworld, and he got to meet a lot of his sports heroes as well. And then he had a whole lot of medical treatments.

As typically happens, the first round of chemo shrank the tumor and gave Grant some of his life back. The drugs weakened his body so he was put on massive steroids... He bulked up to twice his weight, but it gave him the ability to be with his friends and family. But a couple of months ago, the tumor started growing again: A month ago, Grant decided not to go back to school. And on Sunday at 3pm, he died.

His classmates made him a video a couple of weeks ago: In it, Bella read a poem with her friend Miles. On Monday morning, the whole school found out about Grant's passing, and social workers were all over the place. Bella's class watched their video to him to remember... and in typical 7 year old style, they were giggling at and with their friends... The gravity of this can't really sink in for most of them: Bella was more of an acquaintance than close friend (Grant was a very Boy-boy, and loved sports - I suspect he and Isaac would have been a better match), and by the end of Monday, she was tired of all of the fuss and just wanted to play.

(Update: I should clarify - Bella was and is very sad about this - but I just wanted to show that for a first grader, life moves on pretty quickly... I suspect we'll have echoes of sadness for quite a while to come. While Bella declared herself "tired" of talking about it by last night, she also was on a hair trigger with Isaac, and stayed up until 10 talking... so we all process in our own ways)

It's hard as a dad to even imagine what Grant's parents and family went through: On Sunday night, I spent a long time just staring at Isaac and Bella as they slept. I looked at pictures of Grant's progression, and read his parents brave updates on Caringbridge, and was just overwhelmed with sadness. I don't know how someone could ever get over something that sad... but I know people do.

Anyway, I just wanted to have this post out there... and I'll get around to telling you about the amazing weekend we had before we found out, and about the funny things the kids said, and yes, I'll even tell you about Cleveland some more. But not right this minute.

How they live

While in Cleveland I like to experience the full range of delights at the rental agencies have to offer. I have recently enjoyed the 'driving a cube' life with both the Kia Soul and the Nissan Cube. I have done the USA MUSCLE CAR route with a Mustang and a Dodge Charger. I've done the small car thing with the Escort, the Mazda 3, and the Toyota Echo. but aside from one stinky car in Philly i have not HATED a car until today.

Today i decided to try a Jeep Wrangler. The moment i hit the highway I knew this would be a challenge. Crosswinds buffeted me like a semitrailer. The engine roared but accelerated weakly. The seat was both too low to see properly and too high in that my knees bumped the wheel. The stereo was tinny and harsh. And i think i blew a quarter tank before i made it to the job site. I exaggerate of course for semi comic effect but nonetheless, i was put out: why does this car exist? Why do people BUY these? I want to stand outside of a Jeep dealership and pass out pamphlets. Offer hugs to those lost souls looking to buy one of these monsters.

I think a Hummer actually makes more sense as a vehicle. How sad is that? ANYWAY.

The weekend is over and it was a wonderful long break from work. I didn't touch work for 3 days, and i realized today that I didn't get behind as a result either. Interesting.

I spent a half hour on my outdoor couch yesterday, enjoying the breeze and sunshine while my dog raced about happliy. There was yet another neighborhood BBQ and the kids played and played. Isaac fought bedtime tooth and nail until his head actually hit the pillow, at which point he zonked peacefully. Bella and I had great reading time and cuddles, and she too was out pretty quickly.

I snuck out this morning at the unreasonable hour of 5:20. I told the cab company 5:30, but i guess they were just all up and early. Allowed me to chill at the airport a bit i suppose,

I'm staying at a 'real' marriott this week - not the traveler budget ones (courtyard, residence inn) but the real capital M Marriott. And it is very nice. VERY NICE, A guy could get used to this.

Fencing

First: The other night I was cuddling Bella after her Magic Treehouse book, and said "you know what? This is what home feels like". She rolled away, out of my arms, and said "and THIS is what the hotel feels like, right?" Sassafrass.

Today was a working day: Zinsser has been a "kept animal" in our house - only out on leashes, always pegged down in the yard. There are/were leash-free dog people on our block, but I could never deal with the heartache of a dog hit by traffic or lost in the wild... So Zinsser has always seen the world at a length of 8-10 feet from us. But there are some neighbors with fenced in yards and Zinsser has loved visiting there, running free.

So we decided to complete the fencing in of our yard. We had Midwest Fence come out and sink some posts, run some fence, and it's gorgeous. But they were only doing fill-in around the existing fences... and prior to letting Zinsser out, we needed to do some patching work on the existing fences: The arty wood fence on the south side needed a mesh backing since the slats were wide enough for a dog to slip through. The two chain link fences on the west and north sides of the yard had enormous holes for the rabbit and raccoon superhighways.

So today we patched it all. We got 50" of 2 foot high coated chickenwire, and 80 feet of one foot high "garden border"... plus we had about 10 feet of left over chain link. With a staple gun and a bunch of zip ties, we have sealed the yard, and we "released the hound" at about 4pm this afternoon.

Zinsser was at first tentative, then walking more confidently, and then spent a full hour tearing through the yard at full speed. The kids had a slip and slide going which he ran through a few times too - by the end, we had a wet, happy, tired dog. Just watching that happy animal made me so content. To be able to open that back door and let him run for a while will just be great.

I confess I did get a toy while we were doing all this shopping for fencing. Yeah, I got a gas powered weed whacker. 4 stroke engine for low pollution and high power, and it's not THAT loud. I whipped all sorts of weeds into submission with a cackle. And when I say "weed" I also mean "small trees". We also got a rototiller attachment which looks formidable. With the fence done, our job tomorrow is to whip the victory garden into shape. Hopefully it's not too late to get some herbs and tomatoes started.

We spent most of the day outdoors, and that wipes people out. Isaac was down by 7:45. Pamela by 8:30. Bella took a little longer to conk out at 9:30, and here I am with my content dog at my side still finding some energy. I might watch a Buffy before bed.

It was a good day.

Earthling

Tonight as I was cuddling Bella:

"Dad, you know how [her friend] Remy had a bit of a fancy party [two weeks ago]? How we had our toenails painted and did our hair and everything? Well I want to have the OPPOSITE party.

I want to paint my toenails... with mud.

And I want to have sticks and leaves in my hair. And I want to go down a slip and slide.

And when my friends arrive, the slip and slide will be out front, and it'll be the FIRST thing we all do."

That's my girl. It's good to be home tonight. She has given up on all pajamas and only wears my old t-shirts to bed now. We were also discussing how I make use of the 4 pillows I get in the hotel rooms: I told her one for my head, one for my back (to feel cuddled), one in front to hug and a spare. She suggested I put it at my feet to emulate Zinsser.

I'm looking forward to a long weekend - our fence is up, and we just need to get some fill-in mesh for the existing neighbor fencing, and then our back yard will be Zinsser Paradise.

A Strange Day

Today was the kickoff of the really big work sessions in Cleveland. We had 240 people at our first session - 130 in person, 110 on the phone with web meeting. Then we had between 2-3 simultaneous sessions all day, with between 40-80 people in each one. It was big craziness.

Since this sort of affair is larger than the client can house, we've taken space at a community center. And we're sharing the space with other community center activities. Which led to today's horror: In the middle of the center is a huge room that can be divided into 3 medium rooms. Let's call them A, B, and C. In room A, we had 50 people discussing hospital billing. In room C, we had 80 people discussing emergency room admitting procedures.

In room B, was Bingo for Seniors. With a microphone and a big speaker.

So for 2 hours, our sessions in A and C were punctuated by regular "B5", "I22" "N36", "G58", and "072". Clear as day. It was at first jarring, then distracting, and then I settled into it and realized that this is what going insane sounds like: People dryly discussing the exact point at which an account is due to be forwarded to a collection agency, with a monotone, bass heavy voice calling out random number and letters, with the occasional "WE HAVE BINGO CALLED - DON'T CLEAR YOUR CARDS - WE NEED TO VERIFY".

When the game was finally over, and silence settled from Room B, the people in A and C were still on their guard, looking around, flinching a bit. It was a terrible terrible experience.

But almost worse was settling in after the Bingo was over, and paying closer attention to the hospital billing workflows and realizing: Oh god, what a horrible horrible thing to be caring about. I was reminded of a talk I had with one of my compatriots on the project months ago: He said "I love doing this work, but if I had to actually use this software to do these workflows I have helped them design to do the job they need to do, I'd kill myself".

I must say, he had a point. Working on clinical things (Cardiac, Imaging, Pharmacy) is so much more fun because, well, it's about directly helping people as opposed to getting PAID for helping people. Oh well!