A fine send off.

Today was Mark's memorial service... and it was a wonderful affair: We arrived over an hour early to help set things up, and by a half-hour prior to the service, the chapel had already filled up and people were relegated to waiting outside. There were hundreds of well wishers... Mark was so well liked in the world. The chapel was small, and done is a glorious mosaic on all surfaces - a true jewelbox in the city.

The service itself was perhaps the best I've ever seen: everything in it was a tribute to Mark - the pastor worked with the family on an appropriate sermon, and a lot of time was given to friends and family to stand and remember Mark. One of his best friends from age 16, Joe, gave a lengthy and incredible overview of Mark's life, which left us all laughing and crying at the same time: He truly captured it.

Mark's friend Gene read us poetry Mark wrote when he was 10, and outlined some of the crazier inventions and movie ideas they had imagined... a fitting tribute to his wit and humor. Mark's eldest daughter shared two of his old jokes: "You can't spell Funeral without FUN!!!", and his habit of whenever hearing someone blow their nose loudly, to say "Mmmm, makes me hungry for a cheeseburger". Mark's dad stood up to tell a little about the philosophical side of Mark, about the seeker who read obsessively about religion and the meaning of existence...

In all the service really captured so much of Mark - the clown and jokester, but even more the wonderful father and friend he was. Joe said it best when he made an analogy that a conversation with Mark was like jazz - you'd riff, and he's riff right back, and you'd feel like you were creating something unique and musical with your conversation, and all the while, you're both appreciating the moment... Mark was truly gifted.

Afterward, we went to the graveside, a nice spot by the lake under a tree, and a gentle rain fell. Then it was off to the family home for the reception, and lots and lots of stories. Everyone just made their way around and traded their favorite Mark stories. We wound up staying good and late, but left just a few minutes after my megamix (4.5 hours) completed.

Wednesday, we're having a candlelight vigil, where we're walking from near Mark's house to the place he was found... it looks like a lot of people are coming together for this one.

But perhaps most importantly, we're looking at this weekend and into next week. Once the family starts to go home, and the noise settles down, that family is going to need a lot of support. And I want to be able to give it.

Life does go on

Yesterday, we did a lot of running around to help the Loesch family with preparations. Today, we did our work more quietly over here: We're helping arrange the music for the service, as well as loading up an ipod for the reception afterward. For the service, it's two not-too-well known songs, so I had to scramble to find sheet music and cue audio for the talent, but thanks to Schmitt Music and the Internet, it was all findable.

For the reception, I've been asked to put together a few hours of "Very Mark Music" - so Prefab Sprout, Thomas Dolby, Depeche Mode, The Blue Nile, and even Fatboy Slim will be in there: It's what he loved, so we'll respect him with his favorite music. But i can't promise it'll be somber. It won't be. I'm loving listening to these songs and thinking of Mark at my side, giving the thumbs up or thumbs down.

One of our great moments together was at the Stardust Lanes many years ago: I ripped out a karaoke version of "The Reflex" by duranduran, which left Mark gasping for air. I've been asked to bring that back to the reception if possible. Thanks again to the internet, I now have Karaoke software on this little Mac of mine, and the appropriate music and graphics files. I kept looking for stuff, and I'm afraid I might need to have a karaoke party, now that I have everything we need...

Now, in the Life Goes On category:

Today, I needed a date with Bella, so we went off to the Burrito Store, and then off to Guitar Center. She is still loving the 3/4 size acoustic guitar the most... but seems unwilling to acknowledge that the frets exist, so I think it'll be another year before she starts guitar lessons... or maybe not. Who knows. She does get such a happy look on her face when she strums.

On the way out, she let loose with this:
- What if I had a hundred million eyes? Like my entire body was eyes?
- I'd sure be doing a lot of blinking.
- I bet even my brain would be blinking.
- I'd need to have eyeballs on my clothes too. To match.

This morning when she woke up, before anything else she insisted on getting out her paints and did three very intense paintings - one blue one was all whorls and it was a choppy ocean. An all green one had three distinct brush textures at play in it. The third was a series of colored bands and boxes - an abstract. Once those were painted, THEN she'd consider eating something. She's got quite a brain on her, this girl.

And finally, a factoid:
Tarantulas were thought to be rare, but it turns out they're just nocturnal so people don't see them so much. In the Amazonian rainforest, there is one tarantula every square yard. So basically every step you make, there's another tarantula nearby. I am so NEVER going to the rainforest. (This fact courtesy of the DiscoveryHD show "Insectia" which I completely love, despite my fear of bugs).

An important detail...

The police called the family this morning: A key detail has been misreported up to this point: Mark was not alive when found in the morning... he was most likely down shortly after the attack.

It's a grim detail, but it puts us more at ease about whether he suffered through that night alone. We're thankful for the information.

One final detail

As Pamela and I went to sleep on Thursday night, our minds racing thinking about our friend.... the grandmother clock on our first floor chimed once, clearly. We both sat bolt upright.

It hasn't been wound for over 3 years.

It was nice of Mark to drop by.

My friend Mark

Here's mark from our 10th wedding anniversary 2 years ago... Looking dapper, reflective.



Here he is with me on our first wig night: Now, he was borrowing my wig at the time, since he was the surprised one. I was a German film director.



And here he is with his best friend Gene... in full Goombah mode. It was Gene who he was on his way to visit on Wednesday.



And finally, at my notorious 30th birthday party, Pamela turned our apartment into a space station... and everyone was encouraged to be in costume. (that's Yoshi in the middle, Mark on the right... I don't know who that is on the left.)



There are a lot of pictures of Mark the father in the media right now... I want people to be able to remember Mark the silly man as well.

Missing Mark Loesch

Wednesday night, my good friend Mark was attacked while riding his single-speed bike through a rough neighborhood on his way to pay a surprise visit to a friend. Unfortunately, the friend didn't know he was coming, and his wife had gone to bed, so nobody was expecting Mark... until the morning came and he was nowhere to be found.

When he was found at 7am Thursday in a yard, he was still alive, but he didn't last long enough to the arrival of the paramedics. We're haunted by the thought of him gravely injured, lying alone for hours. (UPDATE: Turns out this was misreported to us all: He was in fact dead in the morning, and probably had expired shortly after his attack.)

We've been spending a lot of time over with the family - he has four kids aged 15 to 3, and a wonderful wife. We're all in shock over this. Some have questioned what he was doing in that neighborhood... the fact is he rode through there a few times a week on his way to his friend's house... rarely calling before showing up for a late night laugh, or even a ride for a few miles to a favorite pub. He was doing something he had done dozens of times before, but this time somebody was waiting for him.

So I've been thinking about Mark a lot these past days. And I want to tell people about him.

Mark was one of the funniest people I've ever met, and with my gang of comedians, that is saying something. His wit was razor sharp, but he had a true gift for physical comedy: His robot impersonations were legendary: Every move made with a servo or pneumatic sound, with mechanical gestures to match. His "old prospector" persona could appear at any time, with him whistling his esses through his teeth... (actually sounding maybe more like the gopher in Winnie the Pooh...)

Walking toward him in a hall was always an adventure: If he didn't run right into you, he'd take a sudden detour down a row of cubes, and come back up behind you... or duck under a desk to hide... he was unafraid to pull any gag in the office, unafraid of what it might make people think.

I used to speak German with him... with full, rich accents... which would devolve into us speaking English with German accents, at full volume, right in the middle of the cube farm.

I met him 12 years ago at an insurance company; I was a contractor, he was an employee. A manager casually mentioned to me that "this guy Mark really likes music, like you. You should go say hi". So I dropped by, and we hit it off immediately: the awesome production skills of Trevor Horn was our first conversation.

We were work pals for a while, but worked on very different projects, and then he went off to something new. A few months later, he called me up with a fascinating new opportunity: He was part of a team moving a Prescription Benefits company from Detroit to the Twin Cities, and they needed to build a team FAST: Did I want to help?

So I joined him, and we worked very closely, at which point he invited me over for a party... so Pamela and I showed up. One week early! But he invited us in, and we had a great time for hours... maybe more fun than the "real party"... at least I remember our pre-party more. We carpooled for a year, and grew very close. He notoriously mixed me the "killer" eighth martini at my 30th birthday bash. I of course blamed it on him making it with Gin... not the obvious issue of it being the EIGHTH.

In 1998, when we bought our first house, Mark and Samantha were the first people we had over to warm the place up. At that crazy evening, Mark introduced us to "Flash Bazbo, Space Explorer", a National Lampoon radio skit with Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest that still makes my sides hurt with laughter. Not long after, we had our first "Wig Night" - for his benefit: It was a surprise party for him, and 8 of us were to meet him at a restaurant. We decided to take it one further: We all bought wigs and fake moustaches, and strange new outfits... and were in disguise at the table. He walked right past us... and when Samantha turned him around to see us, he was just slack jawed with amazement. We had a few more wig night outings in the years that followed.

Around 1999, things started to go south at the Prescriptions company: We were bought out by another company filled with horrible horrible people. Everybody bailed out for different places. I started up a consulting company focusing on data warehousing. Mark went to a Lutheran-focused life insurance company. We stayed in touch... but admittedly we drifted a bit in the early 2000s.

Finally last year I was able to bring him in to work with me at the big Hospital - and for the last 5 months of that project, we sat next to eachother. It was just a wonderful thing to be back together with him, and we had laughs every day. I got caught back up in his life and he with mine. After I left for my new Cardiology gig, we stayed in touch, chatting almost daily, keeping the friendship going. I had only just had a 10 minute message chat with him earlier on Wednesday.

There are so many things in life that were running gags with Mark, that will choke me up to even think about them (and forgive me, but these probably won't be funny out of context, but they mean something to me).

- Taking a restaruant name like "La Casita" and saying "You may not know this, but 'La Casita' is actually Mexican for 'The Casita'"

- Seeing a mattress by the side of the freeway and asking the driver to stop so you can pick it up "there's a perfectly good mattress back there". This got to the point where we would actually call eachother to report perfectly good mattresses.

- When describing the ingredients of any drink or dish, adding at the very end "and with just a HINT of urine". (or Goat urine, or Yak urine).

- Long detailed discussion of men's room urinal etiquette.

- The following two jokes told in sequence:
- Pete and Repeat were in a boat. Pete fell out. Who was left?
- Pete and 'smash me in the face with a broken beer bottle' were in a boat. Pete fell out. Who was left?

- When offered something, making a big show of saying "Oh no I couldn't", but before even finishing the word "couldn't" switching over to eagerly lunging forward saying "Well OK if you insist". Sort of like a light switch change.

- When getting a tour of someone's home, patting on the master bedroom bed and saying "aha, the old workbench, eh?"

Mark's passing leaves a huge hole in my heart, and I will miss him. He was a great father to his 4 kids, and a good friend to so many of us. Thanks for letting me share a little about my friend.

TechnoJinx

First Pamela's phone is awol. Now, my Laptop just died. The hard drive made an ominous "click". And now it is dead.

Fortunately, even though I've been lax on the backups, my actual data loss is looking to be very minimal - one spreadsheet, really, which can be easily recreated. My blog is hosted out here, my email is at Google, my work files are on the work PC, my music is on the ipod and Pamela's computer...

I swear, with my phone mojo, and with my way of killing computers, I think I emit some sort of rays. Perhaps I have a superpower.

And it had been such a nice weekend up to that point. I was reading The Week magazine and there was a recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala that leapt out at me... I felt compelled to spend the afternoon cooking it. My house smells like a tandoori joint, and that's a wonderful thing. And the recipe was SPOT ON - it was delicious. Pamela was out most of the day, as was Bella, so it was us MEN cooking. Or, it was me cooking, trying to keep Isaac from hanging on the oven door to pull it open, or reach up to the stove top (still too short thankfully).

Bella has been full of quotes recently: She was talking about plants and said "but don't water them too much - you can kill them with kindness". We have no idea where that one came from. Yesterday morning, she sang a tender song to Isaac: "Penis boy, penis boy... you're my little penis boy!" Repeat around 40 times.

Well, I'll get off of Pamela's computer now and skulk upstairs and read analog books. Whoo hoo!!!

For the record

Even though the iPhone has dropped in price, all of my previous reasons for not iPhoning are all still in effect. I have terrible terrible phone mojo. As if we needed more proof: Pamela's phone went missing earlier in the week... now, with Bella's still-present tendency to pack things away, I set about calling her phone with the goal of listening for the ring...

And heard a rather strange sound: A hip hop clip followed by a voice not Pamela's saying "you know what to do" BEEP.

So I guess her phone actually got STOLEN, and I got it deactivated... but now I need to buy another phone.

It's just more evidence that Phones and the B-Reays have a strained relationship.

I'm more interested in the new iPod Touch - the iPhone without the Phone that'll be out at the end of the month. Then I get all the cool iPhone stuff without the phone mojo curse. But even that is a LONG SHOT - there is no real need there for me, so I probably will NOT be getting it... No, the technology profile around here doesn't need to be changed right now.

Allright, I'll have more updates in the coming day... there's a potentially very cool work opportunity cooking, but it's very early, and there's no offer on the table yet, so nothing to share just yet.

Evidence

Here's that dog. (Click the picture to see it bigger!)

Ah, the Fair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh yes...

The kid pictures website HAS been updated: go Here!

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

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

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

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

The screw turns...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those darn kids

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

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

You can't make this stuff up.

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

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

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

Off to bed now.

Safe and Sound

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spoke too soon....

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

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

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

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

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

Bad then good then ok.

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

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

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

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

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

Hed Code

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

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

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

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

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

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

The windy cold lake...

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

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

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

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

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

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

The busyness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Toodles!

One week later

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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