Remarkably....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Old Dog New Tricks

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some Days...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The big question...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Allright, time to board the plane.

Life

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

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

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

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

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

Arcs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Same Old

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

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

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

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

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

Back in Fashion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Synthpop

2 Media things today, then some family.

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

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

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

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

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

The wrapup on this one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ongoing Crisis

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

But there were some... stresses...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cleveland Style

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was glorious

18 days at home. It was wonderful.

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

After the storm...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Batten down the hatches

Big storm a-coming. We're all provisioned up, have sufficient taco ingredients for several days of nourishment for Bella and Isaac, and have set up a sizeable fenced in dog run for Zinsser that will allow him to do his business without us having to get the leash out.

So Philly is really really done: After a good transition session on Friday, my email box has been silent as the christmas eve mice, so I'm just going to zip up that project folder and turn my attention to Cleveland. The 4 hours of work I referenced last week turned out to be very successful: Our client is headed off to vacation satisfied that things are on the right track, and his admin just sent out our meeting schedule - and it really will be less than 50% travel through March. I'm so excited.

With me working at home this week, I've had a little "helper" - Bella has been up and out of bed right away upon hearing me wake, and has been shadowing me: She nestles in with me on the couch and watches me work on spreadsheets and review documentation, asking questions about what some words mean, and challenging me as to whether this is "really work". But mostly, I think she's just happy to have me around. We've also been reading a LOT - we're on the chapter books, and she gets mad when we reach the end of a chapter... "But dad, you can't stop THERE - it doesn't make SENSE yet!!!"

On the other hand, Isaac has been a bit remote: He's very focused on his CARS: When he's not watching the show, he's playing with the vehicles. He's not cuddling at all, but he'll wrassle. In general we just need to bundle him up and throw him out in the back yard for a while. Dude needs to burn off energy.

With the weather coming up, I'm happy that we're pretty "under scheduled" for the next few days: We carved out a LOT of just us four (plus Zinsser) family time... so I say "let it snow let it snow let it snow".

Quick media update: I know that nobody actually watches Dollhouse, but I'm just going to be one of those voices on the internet hollering out "THESE LAST FEW EPISODES HAVE BEEN INCREDIBLE" - If they had been this good from the start, we wouldn't be looking at cancelation, but on the other hand, it's pretty remarkable to have 16 episodes of backstory to build on, and then put the hammer down on your last 7 episodes, and treat it as a miniseries with an arc. There are some seriously challenging concepts in there (well, the core concept was pretty challenging to start with... programmable people doing your every whim?), Anyway, I'll be sad to see it go, but I am happy to have it go out WELL: I'd rather have this great story than 4 seasons of meh (like what we have with Heroes).

Other media update: I'm so happy for Russell on SYTYCD: He was wonderful. I hope his leg gets better. I think that of the top 4, he really had the whole package: Jakob was the best dancer, but he was so mild in interviews it was hard to get a read for his personality. Same for Katherine, who was so impressive. Ellenore worked the personality angle, but honestly by the end I was a little weary of her "head tilt" move: But her robot dance with Ryan was just the best, even if Nigel didn't "get it".

Allright, my car should be ready to pick up now, fully winterized for the days to come!

I need a break

And I'm going to get one. My work in Philly is basically done as of a half hour ago. Tomorrow is all about packing up and giving hugs. And I'm out. It's strange to have the sum total of what I did here essentially boil down to 6 documents (admittedly, REALLY GREAT documents) that fit into a 3 meg zip file, but that's the information economy for you.

IT helped that the Jersey gig also had a big deliverable this week, which I spent a fair amount of time in Jersey handholding this week, PLUS my second big deliverable for Cleveland. It has been a busy week, with way more billable hours under my belt than I want to see in a single week again in the future.

I'm going to keep this short because I need my typing fingers in full strength: I have 4 more hours of work to do tonight for Cleveland, and I gotta get some food first.

But when I get on that airplane tomorrow.... I get to hang OUT for over 2 weeks. IT WILL BE AMAZING.

I saw a Nook

Having just bought the Kindle DX (and not even having held it in my hands - it was delivered while I was in Philly), I was naturally curious about the competition - setting aside the mythical Apple Thing which doesn't exist, I had to wonder about that new Barnes and Noble Nook: Would it be so cool I'd regret my purchase? Today, I got my hands on a Nook, and I have the answer:

The short answer is no.

The long answer is: If I wanted a slightly heavier Kindle with a cool color screen at the bottom AND I didn't already have a bunch of books purchased in an incompatible format, ok maybe.

The screen is odd, because you use it to select things, but the big screen above is what shows you the options: So the two screens work together, which sounds cool until you realize that the little color screen is fast like an iPhone, and the top screen is slow like the Kindle. The end result was that I was impatiently tapping on the color screen waiting for things to happen, while the upper screen was doing that slow Wipe-Flash-Draw thing that is acceptable when reading a book, but not so much as a computer display.

Plus I have around 80 books of "investment" in the Kindle, which is a closed system (like the Nook), so there's nothing there to sway me across. I'm just excited to see the BIG screen of the KindleDX. It will rock.

On Safe Blogging

Sometimes I feel odd about the level of anonymity I try to keep on this blog: I don't use last names, sometimes not first names, and my clients are by city only... which can be tough when in the family we all refer to a family as "The Gustafsons", but in the blog I say "Matt and Krista" (and yes, those are made up too). This paranoia may or may not be justified, but something just happened to a good friend which encourages me to keep it anonymous:

My friend Paul is working for a major entertainment company on a project with a very high profile Property: The exact nature of his work has not even been whispered to me, and I consider myself a pretty good friend. It's one of those "if this gets out..." sort of things. I know enough about it to know I shouldn't know more, and even if I did know more, I should keep it quiet.

Paul got together one night with an old friend who helped him get established in the business, and this friend is something of a high profile guy himself - an 80's pop star (and I do mean STAR) who has reinvented himself as a geek god. The two shared a good bit of wine and swapped stories...

And The Friend posted something on his (quite well read) blog about the evening, using Paul's full name, and indicating a talk about The Property in detail. Now, he didn't reveal more than I already knew, and Paul has kept things close to his vest with ME, but the unmistakable thing gleaned from his posting was that "There's something new coming in this franchise, and Paul told me about it".

The story has been picked up on the interwebs, and I've seen Paul's name on Ain't It Cool, IO9, and others... Poor guy. I am deeply hopeful that he keeps his job, and The Friend posted a retraction a few hours later... but the damage is done: Paul is believed to HAVE TALKED ABOUT THE PROJECT.

And so, I will keep my musings anonymous, if not for my own sake, then for the sake of those I write about. And on my Tales of the 90's blog, while I do use SOME names there, it's all ancient history (over 10 years), and nobody gets in trouble. I promise.

'Allo Cleveland!!!

Another packed weekend has come and gone: Bella is back in her room, and Isaac is adjusting: He liked having Bella in his room! Isaac is in that horrible period where the nap may or may not be necessary on a given day... he's been VERY tired by the end of the day, and has had some days where that Didda has stayed close at hand all day. He's completely addicted to the Pixar CARS movie, and asks to watch it every day. Lightning McQueen's voice is always in the background it seems these days. Even Bella is getting tired of it, but Isaac can't get enough. HE IS A BOY.

On Saturday, an neighbor had a birthday party at a community center gymnastics room, and Isaac and Bella were incredibly happy, running around, doing somersaults, walking the high beam, bouncing on trampolines... it was a great day. Bella asked to do more gymnastics in the future, so we'll have to see where we can wedge that in! Isaac was fun to watch - he was a total professional with everything, getting a very focused look and determined to do the exercises QUICKLY. We all gasped when he leapt up and grabbed a horizontal bar and swung himself back and forth before jumping off onto a mat... it was quite the show of strength and fearlessness.

Technology News:
Allright, I did it. I got an AppleTV. And I love it... and more importantly, BELLA loves it. She is completely comfortable navigating it, and it's nice to have all of our movies, shows, pictures, and music from the iMac available on the big TV downstairs. And Bella's proud of the fact she can run it all by herself. I was close to just getting a PC for downstairs for this purpose, and I'm glad I went the AppleTV route: Much less expensive and it does what I want it to do.

In other technology news: I have replaced my dead Kindle with the DX model: The bigger screen and support for PDF files is going to be great, especially since my new gig will require that I review huge PDF files filled with Finance-Talk and Technobabble: It'll be much easier to read them on Kindle format than to stare at a computer screen.

The New Gig:
I'm on the final countdown in Philly: I canceled my Zipcar contract, the hotel knows I'm only here for one more week, and I'm making the final rounds of my favorite haunts. After this week there's just 3 more days next week and I'm done. I'm having breakfast with my local friend to see about coordinating some work in mid 2010 perhaps - IN A DIFFERENT AREA.

My first meeting in Cleveland went very well: The sponsors are very engaged, and while we only had an hour on the schedule, they cleared 3 for us so that we could really get into depth. We worked hard this past week to deliver a "straw man" presentation to give them something to react to: The final deck was 50 pages, and they had not only reviewed it, but had great comments on every page. Actually, there was a section I had just fleshed out lightly as a "this is the sort of info that will go in here" framework, with some temporary details that weren't entirely correct, and they latched onto them, until I re-explained that the whole section will be nuked and replaced with the "real" info.... I actually got a little worried... but it ended well. They were very complimentary of our effort, and now I have a big thing to whip up by Tuesday, so I'm getting down to bidness.

The Finance area is in a nice part of town. The IT area, on the other hand, is in a less friendly part of town. A massive converted warehouse that looks like nothing from the outside, but lavishly retrofitted inside with high ceilings and open work areas. But on the way, my partner (the driver) misinterpreted a hand gesture from another driver and cut in front of him... and the gentleman decided to follow us for a few blocks, rolled down his window, and with a disturbing stillness, asked why we had cut him off: We apologized profusely. He stared for a while... then drove off slowly.

And 3 blocks from that very incident, there was a shooting that evening.

But I'm not going to worry (and don't you worry, Mom): There are hundreds of people working at that site, and people take care of each other. And I'm not really working on that site anyway: We established that my work really WILL be done from the home office!!! Yes, I'll be parking on the 3rd floor. We're all very excited. So when I do visit, it'll be for a day of meetings, then back home.

So back to work for me now.

Oh here I am!

Since the last update, we packed the kids and Zinsser into the car and sped down to Chicagoland for a long Thanksgiving holiday. You'd think that a long holiday weekend I might be able to update the blog or something, but no... I was actually a bit more unplugged than usual this time. Maybe it was because every time I turned around, my niece Lilli had absconded with my laptop and was working her arcane horse configuration and trading network game. But I'm ahead of myself.

I started the week working from home: My Jersey Client has finally knocked loose some decisions so I've been spending time wrangling cats: My project is to redesign the ID badge (for aesthetics AND to add a new id barcode for their patient care systems), and to do this I need to coordinate across HR, IT, Security, Facilities, Marketing, and of course Senior Leadership. There are a lot of technical moving parts to consider as well... so I'm actually pretty busy with them.

My work in Philly is winding down: I've been refining my final deliverables and will likely be completely done before Christmas. It's a bit disappointing to me: They're a hugely dysfunctional organization and I could provide value, but they're overcoming a pretty major "consulting hangover" from overspending the past 5 years, and they need some "personal space" while they get their house in order. What this means is I had hoped to help them outside of the carefully proscribed "box" they had put me into, but my attempts to break out have been stymied. So we're ending it, and I'm feeling good about the deliverables...

A similar organization exists in Minneapolis: I had done a lot of great work over 3 years for them, and they're currently in a complete "consulting shunning" mode, due to overspending a few years back. So it'll be a few years before they're ready to accept help again. I just ran into a few people from there last week, and had that view confirmed. Which means that places like Jersey and Cleveland are going to be my places of work for a while.

Back to Home: We packed into the car and drove to Schaumburg on Wednesday. My traveling life at least affords me the perks of points, and I was able to get two suites at the Residence Inn for us and PapaBam for 3 days away from the allergicness of Papabam's sweet cat. The hotel was also able to accommodate Zinsser, who was a GOOD BOY. Naturally, Portillos was the first meal of the day down there. We swam in the pool and had a general great time.

Thanksgiving was with the German side of the family, and Zinsser was invited! It was a starch fest - Sweet Potatoes with Apricots were my favorite. Bella ate a pound of mashed potatoes. Pamela went to town on the rutabagas. Isaac.... Isaac ate crackers. Crazy kid. They had a fenced in yard too, so we had some great running and chasing of Zinnie.

Alas, I think Zinsser got ahold of some rich table scraps, because at 2 in the morning, we awoke to a whimpering dog who had soiled his kennel and got it all over himself. He was so embarrassed. And we were so horrified.

Friday was a relaxing day - we went for a long walk in Elk Grove, got baked goods from Jarosch, and had a classic Johnnie's Beef. Bella and Lilli went to the stables and rode horses (well, Bella rode a Pony), and they were both beaming when they got back. Bella chilled out to the new Santa Buddies movie (where they "make" golden retriever puppies talk all hip like, and get this, THEY SAVE CHRISTMAS). Bella was all smiles, and Lilli was all rolling eyes at the cheesiness, but Bella let Lilli know SHE was enjoying it, and please don't ruin it. I thought that was pretty bold.

Saturday we packed the kids and Zinsser off to Bailey and Ty's house: We were going downtown for a wedding, and Kari volunteered to watch the little ones. With not a shed tear, the kids barely noticed us leaving (the humans were playing Wii upstairs, and Zinsser was wrestling with Dakota, an old 80 pound chocolate lab who became a good friend). Downtown we stayed on the Magnificent Mile (thanks again, Marriott Rewards points!) and ran off to the ceremony.

This was an Irish Catholic girl marrying an East Indian Catholic boy, and both families were well represented. The Mass was long, as they did both western and eastern traditions - I think they spoke 3 sets of vows! The reception was at a hip latin food nightspot, and they shoehorned all 680 of us in. The mojitos were flowing, the food was amazing, and the dancing was crazy. By 11, we were tuckered out and ready for bed.

Sunday we slept in, got some breakfast, drove back to Palatine, and got the kids: Bella, Isaac, and Zinsser were happy to see us, and according to Kari, they were perfect angels, all of them. Isaac didn't want to go! We were all tired, and I think we all could have gone to another hotel and napped, but no, I insisted that it was TIME TO GO HOME, so we drove home.

We got home around 9pm, and the kids zonked pretty quickly. Bella is sleeping on Isaac's floor, by the way, AND Isaac has his big boy bed, so you KNOW it's hard for them to stay focused and wind down.

Oh - why is Bella in Isaac's room? Well, for the past year, as Bella has been going to sleep, she's had a dry cough. We assumed it was some allergy that being horizontal sort of exacerbated. Maybe we just didn't want to think too hard abouut it, but a couple of weekends ago, we had Jenny staying over, and came to the conclusion that SOMETHING is in Bella's carpet, because Jenny was on an inflate-a-bed and had a runny nose every night. So we decided the carpet must go. We pulled a little up before we went on vacation, and were horrified by the stains and dust that were in there: We steam clean this carpet twice a year, and it was still completely filthy. So once we confirmed it, Bella moved to Isaac's room.

Now, Monday I left as a possible open day - you know how weather can get around the holidays. So I had it as a work from home day instead of a travel day (which was REALLY GOOD because Jersey, Philly, AND Cleveland had major things I needed to manage with them in the day). And in the evening, Pamela and I decided to finish the job of ripping up Bella's carpet.

Remind me to NEVER put carpeting in to a house. It is nasty. Also, those carpet tack boards are evil and I not only scratched my hand on them, but I also have sore palms and forearms from working the crowbar to pry them up. Just don't do it.

So now Bella has unfinished wood floors, which actually look pretty cool. We'll probably have them sanded in the spring, and will drop a rug on there in the meantime.

Today I'm back in Philly, and will be in Jersey Thursday. Cleveland next week for a day, then Jersey and Philly - I'll be a traveling fool. But things REALLY are slowing down on the travel: Philly will be done by Christmas, and the trips I make up to then will be 2 days max - it's all transition now. My trip to Cleveland next week will be the only one until January, and even then, they only want to see me out there 25% of the time - they trust I can do most of my work remotely. So I'll be up on the 3rd floor quite a bit in the months to come, and I couldn't be happier!

One final note before I close out this epic update: The Jimmy Tech Curse continues unabated: A poor decision on my part as to what pocket to store a power adaptor in has led to the crunching of the screen on my Kindle. It is Kaput, and the repair cost is the same as a new one (especially with the lower prices they go for nowadays). So I'm currently Kindle-less, and trying to decide what to do: Part of me wants to upgrade to the larger format edition they came out with. Part of me wants to wait forever for the new Apple Thing that nobody actually knows what it is or when it may come out. And part of me is saying "Jimmy, you're semi-off-the-road for a little while - maybe you don't need a Kindle".

I'll let you know what happens.... if the three people living in my head can come to consensus.

And now it's off to bed.