After the brunch

So funny. Pamela was sort of leery about venturing outside of the hotel environment during out time away - she wanted to remain "outside" of our daily life for the entire "trip". I convinced her that, hey, Ike's is right outside, and we love their brunch, so let's just wander over there. She agreed... grudgingly.

As we sat there, she expressed that yes, this was was pretty good, but she really doesn't want to see anyone she knows, for the abovementioned reasons. I sympathized and said "what are the chances?"

No sooner had that happened, but somebody who I sort of knew from College plopped down next to us, ordered a Bloody Mary, and told us about his apartment being robbed, about his and other people's clinical depression issues, about his time in Russia, and about the inner workings of college Alumni foundations. In short, while Pamela did dodge the bullet, I was saddled with exactly the sort of "in town" experience we were hoping to avoid.

On the way back, I said "you told me so", and we retreated back to our independent international state. The excitement had proven too much for poor Pamela, however, and she crawled back into bed for another two-plus hours. (Late checkout is at 3!)

And soon our flight back to our life will take off, and we'll have these memories - and hopefully our batteries will be recharged enough that I can handle whatever idiocy my infrastructure department has planned for me THIS week, and she can handle whatever sassafrass Bella has been storing up for us this weekend.... ;->

Update from Far Far Away.

Well, technically we're maybe 5 miles from home, but our stay at the Graves601 might as well be in San Francisco - it feels like a completely different world up here. We are in a large room on the 17th floor - the decor is light wood and white linens, with a sleek 42" plasma TV, microsuede chair and chaise, and a ridiculously comfy bed.

We were greeted with a bottle of champagne, which we enjoyed before dinner down at Cosmos, the haute hotel restaurant. Dinner last night was wonderful - Pamela had lobster, I had duck. I got extra foie gras (for some reason, Pamela does not love the foie gras). We had a mid-meal taste of a "Foam" with coconut and anise flavors - it was amazing. For desert, Pamela got some filled globe of chocolate that disintegrated when hot caramel was poured over it. I had a simple Pomegranite sorbet, with a taste of Lagavulin 16 year (my current favorite scotch!).

The evening was wonderful, the morning has been lazy - we had continental breakfast... and plan to drag ourselves out to Ike's for a hearty brunch in a few minutes. Of course, after finishing the crossword, I had to get up and out, so I wandered out to the 24hour newsstand, and got some new magazines - some french and german design mags for Pamela (both for continental inspiration, and to reinforce the 'foreign' aspect to this little vacation)... and I got more geek mags (because being a geek is always a vacation in itself.)

So that's the dispatch. We're loving this. And I'm SURE Bella's having fun with Jenny... but we're not about to go around ASKING anyone. This afternoon will come soon enough.

I suspect we may have the Graves as our in-town retreat again in the future.

A long day

Today didn't seem like it was going to be oh so very long, but indeed it became so. It all started early, when a seemingly innocuous "upgrade" being put in my my infrastructure department started showing signs of being... not so innocuous. I'll spare you the gory details... but it was one of those days when one problem revealed another one... and the solution started getting worse: in the end, my whole team wound up with a half day of downtime, and ONE of my team members wound up losing most of her work for the past month....

If the bad news had come up all at once, that would have been one thing, but today was like a water torture - drip.... drip.... drip.... One shoe drops, then an hour, then another, then another shoe drops.... It was a loooong day.

Once I got home, the family recharged me wonderfully. We went to Lake Calhoun, and had a fish dinner at the pavillion, and then Bella and Jenny played for a good hour. It was just fun.

I'm really looking forward to this weekend: since last weekend, Jenny spent the night here, this weekend is payback. Bella's off to Jenny's house. We're going off to a night in a fancy hotel, good dinner, breakfast in the room, and late checkout. It'll be a wonderful time!

Work did it's best to wear me out today, and it got pretty close. But the weekend is here, I've had a great evening, and I'm looking forward to a GREAT weekend!

Unrelated Subjects

1) Acabo de terminar mis lecciones de espanol - Novente media-horas, y ahora, creo que puedo hablar Espanol con un poquito de excito. Pero, a decir verdad, porque los lecciones son para hablar solamente, se que no puedo escrivar muy bien. Creo que puedo leer, y entonces, podria escrivar mejor...

Yes, I finished my 90 Pimsleur lessons! I will say that I think I "got" Spanish a bit better than German - I'm way more comfortable - and am something of a terror with it now, dropping into spanish with anyone who will listen.

Now I've gone back to Japanese (finished lesson 3 today). It's all part of a grand plan to avoid work at the big client: Now I have Anna and Sue who I can speak Spanish with, Mark who I can speak German with, and soon I'll be able to speak Japanese with Jode and Catherine. My status meetings should get pretty interesting!

2) You ever get to know a person, and you have an initial perception, and over time, they just keep surprising you? At my workout place, there's a bodybuilder-type who leads a lot of the classes. At first, I thought of him as jocky rah rah guy - and on one level he is... he's a relentless cheerleader and really pushes people - never uncomfortably, but believe me, when you're in his class, he keeps an eye on you. More than once I've zoned out or tried to take an easy bit, and he's ON it. Not bad for a guy who's managing 20 people in the class.

One day we're talking about a trip he's going to take to Vegas, and I made a typical "gonna have some fun there, eh?" comment. He really wanted me to know why he was going (for a conference), and that "he gambles enough in life every day - why mess with the odds?" I got thinking there's more there. So I started paying closer attention to how he conducts himself...

Every day, he's open and friendly with everyone, and always calls out everyone's names. And at the end of every workout, he lays on the compliements, and somehow it doesn't sound corny. And while some people get frustrated with how he pushes, he's always working harder than any of us up on the stage... he really believes in what he's doing.

So on Wednesday at 6am he was leading a class. And on the sidelines were two 3 year olds and an old man. His girlfriend was also in the class, and was attending to the kids... so I had to ask. Turns out, he's a foster parent too, and these are his current kids. And the old man? A senior who he's known for 15 years, who has come down with Alzheimers, and he now takes care of him nights.

I don't think I've run into a person who is working harder to create positive energy in the world in quite a while. It's been quite an experience to find out more about this stranger... and it helps me look at the world a little differently.

A busy weekend

Two big things for the weekend: First, Bella had a fun overnight with her friend Jenny. They were together for over 24 hours, and slept in the same room - and boy, it was just a delightful time. They had non-stop playing from wake to sleep. They set up a big "store" with all of the fake food, having sorted it into categories first.

My favorite was when they decided to go to California. They took every toy from the first floor and packed it into something. Then they packed all of the suitcases and baskets under the dining room table. They then set up chairs and a table in front of the packing, and "drove" to California.

During the drive, Bella took a "cell phone" call: "Oh, I'm sorry, I can't meet you at Southdale. Yeah... we're going to California. See you!"

When they arrived, they went to check into the hotel, and moved all of their posessions into the other half of the room. Remarkably silly stuff.

On Saturday AM, I got to play too: I helped a neighbor set up his Bose surround sound system. Jeff is a carpenter, so the fun of the project was running the wires into the walls - He brought out all of his tools, and the drill assortment was simply amazing. One bit was nearly 3 feet long (intended for running phone cabling). We got it all done in a few hours, and later I calibrated the system... boy, I'd say those Bose systems sound very very good! I am feeling a sense of covetitiousness. I am wanting. But I will be strong.

Bella in the Car.

A couple of Bella-isms:

1) This weekend, with Jenny and Bella in the back of the Mini, they were marveling at how it's the fastest car EVER - and started saying "Pass THAT car! Now pass THAT car!" And then they started yelling and cheering with every car we passed. I would be lying if I denied that it made me drive just a little faster, a bit zippier. And it made the trip go pretty fast!

2) Today in the car, Pamela and Bella passed the new Waterpark Hotel by the Mall of America. Bella exclaimed: "WOW, that's a really big slide. OH MY GOD - IT'S A WATERSLIDE!!!!! I am NOT going on that. Maybe when I'm a teenager."

The Bella-ism followers will be comforted by her consistent stand on Waterslides. A year ago in Brainerd we passed a waterslide, and she exclaimed "LOOK AT THAT GIANT SLIDE I DON'T WANT TO GO DOWN!" establishing her understanding of the item, her excitement at it's size, and clearly announcing her disinterest in getting a closer look.

It's called "JimVentions", right?

I have this great relationship with Paul Sebastien - we get eachother started on "big ideas" and we bounce them back and forth and see if one of them might be a million dollar one. A couple of years ago, we actually took one to the proposal stage and met with Venture Capitalists to assess it's viability. We got some interest, but we got some pretty good industry insight from a friend of a friend of a family member, and we decided to drop it before going much further. I can say that nobody has successfully created the service we were about to... which I think speaks less to the technical issues and more to the political issues in the industry we were exploring.

That's the idea that led to my having that Roamfi email address... and since then I've used Roamfi as a catchall fake company to brand any of my big ideas.

I've got a lot of them, and I believe that every single one of them has a degree of merit. We are getting to the stage where our idea sessions are less about the viability and possibility of an idea, and more about whether the idea sounds interesting enough to actually dedicate ourselves to. I'll give you an example:

Paul came home after a week of visiting his increasingly fragile parents and was abuzz with ideas for services to help the elderly get along in life - some sort of intermediate step between having dedicated home help and using the internet to reach out to the world. We sought some intermediate idea.

I thought about the current trend in call center outsourcing: Why not give people a number they can call, and they can talk to a human who will get them what they need? At first it was the idea of saying you want a book, or some groceries. You tell the person, and they take notes, and then go to Amazon or Simon Delivers, and they place the order for you. They call you back if they have questions. These people could be in Kentucky, Bangalore, Spain, wherever. But they need to be VERY helpful.

But how much would people pay? Probably not so much actually. So where does the money come from? We got thinking: What about if this call center was really the front end for a new Same Day Delivery service - call them the "Green Caps" - they drive green microvans, have snappy suits, have green caps, and big badges with their names and pictures on them - very clean. Old people could trust a Green Cap courier is the real deal, and would open the door to them.

The call center gets calls for groceries, and the Green Caps run out to Rainbow or IGA and buy what you need and run it over. Or they run to Best Buy to get your CD for same-day delivery.

THEN, the Green Caps are actually funded by the STORES that they frequent - Best Buy or Lunds or Walgreens offers a "Green Cap 2 hour delivery" option for, say $10 an order. AND the Green Caps can be a delivery option ON the Internet version of BestBuy.com or Walgreens.com (where products are local - can't work with Amazon).

So really, we're creating an internet-based same day delivery service as the FUNDING vehicle to support a call center created to help old people get products over the internet by talking to a real human.

The idea is really cool, but here's the problem:

DO I WANT TO RUN A CALL CENTER AND COURIER SERVICE? This is low-paying, high management requirement work... and honestly I have enough trouble managing a team of highly paid consultants. Is this a skill I have beyond the technical/process flow architecture?

So we hit this final point, and decided, yes, it is a good idea. But it's not the idea we're going to pursue. But I hope somebody does it. So here you go, world. Find this on Google, and make it happen, someone.

And that's what I do with my spare time when I'm not remixing step aerobics CDs or pretending to be a 1980's synthpop supergroup or working out or playing with my daughter. Welcome to JimVentions.

As Bella went to sleep

A conversation with Bella tonight, as she was going to sleep:

B: "Why did mommy go out tonight?"
J: "To find more cool things for your room!"
B: "I don't like "cool things". I like pretty things. Like Pink and Purple things. I also like black and white things... Those are my favorite colors"
J: "What colors DON'T you like?
B: "I don't like Brown very much"
J: "Who does like brown?"
B: "Charlie. He likes Brown a lot. His brother William... I don't think he likes brown quite so much."

B: "I have white skin. It's kind of old though - I've had this skin on for more a week or more. I should put on some new skin. Maybe I'll try some brown skin! Or just more skin like my skin. I've never seen anyone with Pink or Purple skin - that would be neat!"
J: "I think my skin is sort of pink...."
B: "REALLY!!!! THAT IS SO COOL. I have purple skin then!"
J: "Are you from Mars?"
B: "What is Mars?"
J: "It's a planet way up in the sky - another world".
B: "Well, that's probably where I came from then... MARS!!!!!"

And then, channeling a 1930's movie vamp:
B: "Why do I have to go to sleep? The sun is still up!"
J: "Because it's time!"
B: "But the sun is up!"
J: "That doesn't matter...."
B: "Oh what a boring thing to say...."

(at this point, she rolled over and dropped off to snoozerland).

What I did today.

As I mentioned before, we got some new music and dance moves for our workouts. But the Step CD is just not quite up to par: While the previous step sounded good, and both the old and the new Weights programs sounded good, the new Step sounded like audio goulash. Just a big echoey mess of a mix.

So I told Jeannie that I could maybe do something for her. She graciously let me borrow the mix CD provided by the workout designers, and this evening I tweaked it.

Here's what I found. First, the mix tended toward big bassy trance remixes which really demand a lot out of your sound system. House and disco music on the other hand, is more spare, and can sound decent on most any machine. The source material was just too "boomy" with huge reverbs and those "hollow" trancey kick drums that are all low end and no punch.

So I applied some EQ to the mix, rolling off the lowest frequencies, and then compressed the rest of the mix slightly, emphasizing the low-mid (which is where the "punch" needs to be on their sound system, and smoothing out some of the sharper edges on the high end. Through judicious A/B comparison, I figured out that the original was actually "mastered" using the Apple Logic Multipressor "POP" preset. Now, re-compressing a re-recompressed track is just a pretty hopeless case, but it was worth a try.

I have a fresh CD burned for them to try tomorrow - maybe this mix will cut through a little better. Even if it's just a bit tighter, I think they'll be happy. And if it doesn't make a difference, I'll just suffer for 10 more weeks until volume 64 comes out!

And that makes me the king of all nerds - demanding to re-eq a workout CD because the fidelity over the gym speakers isn't up to snuff.

But it was fun!

Two More Things

Can you tell I'm happy to be back on the Internet?

1) Mister Timothy (actually "MrTimothy") did come through and send me three CDs filled with delicious house music. As I drove around on errands this evening, his happy music made me grin.

2) I did see Superman Returns. I did love it. Images from the movie continue to haunt me. The moonlight flight with Lois... all of Parker Posey's moments....

And really that's it for tonight. Goodnight.

GOOD Sci Fi

Alastair Reynold's Century Rain is GOOD Sci Fi. The guy can tell an epic tale, and at the end of it, I am rewarded with the following:
- A story that has non-stop forward motion
- Items that are seemingly casually dropped in and unexplained earlier, are explained and made relevant later.
- Economy of story telling: He rewards me by telling me relevant details that will actually come in handy later in the story.

The story was a tight 500 pages with dozens of characters, but none were superfluous - even those not central to the story were intentional red-herrings - no throw away anything. The man can WRITE. Also, he happily stays away from the bad scifi weakness of attempting to write love scenes. Writing badly written love scenes makes me feel embarassed for reading them, and embarassed for the writer, who I can only suspect has not had sufficient experience to be able to write a GOOD one. Alastair emerges with his integrity intact by side stepping the issue, and doing a tasteful "fade to black" where appropriate.

If you want to discover him, this is a good one - it stands alone. He has done more interconnected works (a multi volume series is what I started with) which I recommend as well.

I am only sharing this because I spent a good page on vitriol about BAD scifi, and wanted to share something GOOD.

Family Reunion

It was the kind of weekend that raises the bar for "weekends away". We scurried out of town on Friday afternoon. On my way out of the office, I literally ran back into the office 4 times with additional "key information" to impart to my troops before taking off for a 3.5 day getaway to Cambridge Wisconsin for the annual family reunion at "The Lake".

Bella was queen bee among 5 boy cousins ranging from 3 months to 7 years. She also got lots of attention from Auntie Carrie, Freddie the Dog, and of course Grandma and The Big Guy. In fact, I was in heavy "decompression mode", and truth be told I don't remember much about Saturday other than being on a boat a couple of times, someone keeping beverages coming, and a truly enjoyable Sci Fi novel.

Saturday was about me realizing that I've been a crazy superball of stress from my new position, and that I REALLY need to take steps to chill out on a more regular basis.

By Sunday, I was ready to engage with the world a bit better, and I was much more of an active player in the activities. My proudest achievement was waterskiing: I have not been able to successfully ski since College, and poorly even then. Yet this weekend, somehow, I just popped right up, and did two lengths of the lake on choppy water, before calmly releasing the rope and sinking contentedly into the water. I feel the only thing I can attribute it to is this: I am actually finally STRONG enough to pull myself out of the water. Working out is the reason. HOORAY!

Today was ridiculously idyllic: Jen and Harman were our hosts - they live in a big house out in the country (so far in the country, they don't even have High Speed Internet... GASP!). Today we had a leisurely breakfast, the kids played, I spent an hour with the kids helping/watching them ride trikes and bigwheels. We walked to the neighbor's and around a lake... with the sun shining and a cool breeze.

What amazes me about the country is how big the sky is. I don't know why it is, but the sky is just massive out there. I spent a lot of time just appreciating it.

So I'm back and it's crazy already at work (I've done over an hour of emails already), but I think that I can focus on this feeling of tranquility, and when I stress out, I think I'll just think about that enormous sky up there. It's big.

What about that second client?

In weeks past I have referred to a second client where I'm providing high-level management strategy. Things got very odd recently and I wanted to give you a quick rundown.

When we started, the client had a proposal in hand to have a 3rd party take his system and rewrite it from scratch. I was brought in to evaluate the proposal and see if it made sense. Turns out the only way it really made sense was if he wanted to shut down his current system and get rid of his staff. Which may not have been a BAD idea, but it needed to be a primary driver in his decision making, not a tangent effect. In this case, we're really talking about one guy - B - who had been with the company for 5 years.

He decided those weeks ago he wasn't prepared to make that choice, so we worked with him on a big plan to incorporate the best parts of the proposal INTO his current system. We worked with his team to identify their weak areas, and to bring in new staff to help with the new development.

This led to some stress, since my new job at the primary client is pretty dang stressful, and it wasn't going to be easy for me to actually MANAGE a redevelopment project in the middle of everything else. Honestly, for me, the outsource would have been better for my time... but the client comes first. Happily my Dad was able to step in and get all of the detail level coordination work going. We were just about to launch the new project... when....

Out of the blue last week, B decided to take a "mental health week" off. Yesterday, he resigned. Add to this, he stated his intent to form a new company on his own, and take the other staff along with him. Suddenly, the entire landscape has changed, and we're back to 6 weeks ago, evaluating the original "outsource" proposal, without the barrier of having to protect the legacy guy.

Of course the Client is panicked, but we're working him through it.

It would have been so much easier if this guy had quit weeks ago and we wouldn't have had to do all of this "Plan B" action... but whatchagonnado?

And that's the other client.

Bella's new room and Mr Timothy.

It's coming together! Pamela got a vision a couple of weeks ago and we've been slowly been bringing it together. Grand Spanish style. Pamela's the workhorse here - she painted the walls with this cool multi-layer paints that makes it look like old plaster in bright and vibrant orange and pink. We got art for the walls... new curtains... it's a week or so away from being finished!

But having Bella in temporary quarters while the room was being painted was wearing on her - she got a bit whiny. Actually a lot whiny. But we made it through. Tonight she is sleeping in her new room...

A side note: In our workouts, I told you about "Stand by Me" by Mr Timothy. Well, I decided that I love the song, and needed to have it. So I went looking for it, and discovered there is no way to buy this song in the USA. Turns out he was on a US label, but it's already out of print (the song is <2 years old?). And now this song is being used in over 10,000 health clubs as a part of the Body Pump program...

I figure that Mr Timothy should at least know about this - in case more people want to buy this track, and to make sure HE knows his track is being played probably 20-30,000 times a day, so that should give him SOME mechanical royalties.

So I found Mr Timothy out on MySpace, and sent him a note. He wrote back, and he's sending me his music along to me... he's a really nice guy! I'm getting a care package of his album and a couple of singles. And I might have someone to say hi to if I'm ever in Australia.

Not sore anymore.

I think my previous post had more to do with the double session AND 5am wake up than the double session, because after 8 hours of sleep (LUXURIOUS) I felt just fine and had a good day at the work.

Today I went back to do the weights program, and loved it - the music just works: Drop Dead Gorgeous by Republica for the squats, Love Shack for the bench press, and a great track by MrTimothy called Stand By Me for the Biceps. It's all good, hummable stuff.

I'm doing Step tomorrow, we'll see if the music works for me - it was a bit noisy noisy for me on launch day.

Other news: While I ended last week feeling positive about work, this week we ended feeling a bit defeated: Things didn't go quite so swimmingly - and the team revealed some weaknesses which made me doubt our ability to hit the date. But by the end of the day I was feeling better... we have remediation plans, and the support of management, so we're gonna make it.

While I was driving the rental, I was doing German refreshers, and am happy with my ability to use the subjunctive tense... today I started Spanish back up (I'm on lesson 76 of 90, so I just need to KNOCK it out!!!)

And the Binks' best friend is leaving for 10 days for a family reunion in Indiana - today as Jenny went home, Bella couldn't even give her a hug, she was so sad...

Poor girl!

So.... sore....

Today was "launch day" at the health club that I work out at. That means they got all new workout routines (that they've been training on for weeks) - all new music, new steps, everything.

Launch day is special because they have ALL of the trainers running around teaching people the new moves, which is a great way to get acclimated to the new routines. So I decided to REALLY participate.

Today at 6am, I started with the Weights program "BodyPump". There were 15 of us, and I was by far the most awake. I felt great afterward and rewarded myself with a smoothie from Byerlys... then off to work by 7:30. I worked the full day, no ill effects, and then returned for BodySTEP at 4pm.

I almost died. Having two full hour, no breaks workouts in one day was just a bit much. I did everything, yes. But I also was definitely feeling some burn from this morning, particularly in my legs... so I was not jumping QUITE as high as I would expect. And now the combo of the early morning and the extra exercise has my eyelids heavy like lead. I'm going to sleep VERY well tonight.

Giving up.

When is it too late to give up on a novel? I picked up a well-reviewed sci-fi epic (I'll leave it anonymous), and was intimidated at it's 900 page length... but you know, it might be worth it. I love a good epic.

After 100 pages, I was thinking that it was pretty slow going.
After 300 pages, I was getting a bit frustrated
After 600 pages, I finally gave up and threw it across the room.

The guy just kept on introducing new characters one after another - or a new world, or a new species... and he'd spend 15 pages obsessively detailing said person, world, or creature, only to have it have NO impact on the narrative.

I'm not kidding, around page 500, the following happened: A world was introduced with over 20 pages of description of it's landscape, how it came to be, it's governing system. Then we met a guy on the world. We learned what he's been doing for the past 2 years. We meet his family. We get to know his son's academic history. After 40 pages into this, I realize the ENTIRE chapter is set up to give us a "common man's reaction' to what happened in the PREVIOUS chapter.

Or how about this - a murder mystery set up in the first 50 pages - with well over 200 pages dedicated to the obsessive minutae in solving this case - which turns out to have had NO relevance to the core storyline and only served to introduce another character, the angry GIRLFRIEND of the accused murderer, who figures later into the story... but the mystery had nothing to do with her other than to impoverish her. She could/should have been ANYBODY. We should have met her with a minor backstory and just started there.

For every single situation, there is too much detail that has no relevance to the story, and then for such careful attention to detail, there are huge plot points just thrown away.

I stopped reading at the 2/3 mark, when after eliding over 20 pages describing the evolution of some other damn species, I decided to skip to the end. Turns out, this isn't the end - it's a setup for a second book.

WHY would I suffer this meandering prose even a moment longer if my only reward would be to buy another thousand pages of drivel from this cretin?

Who could have given this a good review? WHO???? AND WHY???

Pictures....

I've been thinking about pictures a lot these days: Putting Grandma Kenning's photo album together started it, losing Pamela's computer and having to re-import 17,000 pictures continued it, and thinking about my 20 year high school reunion has cemented it. One of the Reunion chairs wrote asking for pictures of ourselves from back in HS...

I'm looking at the pictures I have of myself... and realize I actually have almost NO pictures of myself from 1982-1990 - from age 14-22 I may not have actually existed, as far as celluloid can tell. Here's some of the things I have no record of:

Any pictures of me on stage with a band. Any pictures of me with anyone I dated back then. Any pictures of me in a non-holiday context.

Around 1990, I start to find pictures again: Me with a band. Me with Pamela, me at a party... Before 1982, there are pictures of me at Camp... but not many. You need to go back to my early childhood to get pictures of me.

Part of this is the cost of film. Part of this was that I was a VERY geeky/gawky adolescent and shunned photography. Part of this is that when we took family trips, we DREW our adventures in a big book - we didn't take photographs.

There is one record of me through this time - school/college pictures. One a year, and all of them very awkward. My senior HS picture is so laughably bad - I had an ARGYLE VEST on. Come on. They should have said something like "kid, lose the vest". But no.

So back to the Reunion - I'm afraid I really don't have any pictures to share! Maybe someone else took pictures of me, but I don't have 'em.

Compare to the first 3.5 years of Bella's life: Over 8000 photographs on my hard drive include that binks in them. Digital media is cheap, I can take dozens of pictures and never consider the cost... And as a bonus, MY life is finally documented as well!

At the end of the week

1) It doesn't look like that Dotcom idea is going to fly. I did meet with him, but we didn't truly "click", and his idea didn't have enough meat to it to make it through the first round of financing questions as far as I could tell. If anything, it made me realize that MANY of my ideas that I have knocked around (save perhaps the LED-driven corduroy pants) have as much if not more force behind them than what this guy was meeting to get $10m to start. I wish him well, of course! But I don't see spending much time on this.

2) I had a great feeling on Friday at the big client - I got everything done that was overdue from my predecessor. So I was fully caught up... and the team is back on schedule... and I can actually start moving FORWARD on things. Not that I have any time to rest, but it was a peaceful moment to be in!

3) The MINI is back! Sir Nigel Kippers has been thoroughly repaired (not a sign of the Yukon's violation in sight). It is wonderful to have him back...

4) There is no four.

Chuck's Lunch Story

I went to lunch with 5 co-workers at "Big Louie's", a sports bar not far from the client site. They have good sammich food - I usually get a huge chicken sandwich... but the whole menu is pretty good.

Chuck is a 50-ish man who looks a bit like Bob Balaban - short, jewish, with an accent that comes out the more frustrated (or inebriated) he gets. I love Chuck - he's the Project Manager for the phase that follows mine, and because of my time crunch I've been "borrowing" his people which is leading to increased consternation on his part. It doesn't take much to rile him up these days.

Today he started thinking that BREAKFAST lunch would be a good idea. But it's not on the menu, so he asked the waitress. She confirmed that yes, they could do bacon and eggs, or french toast... no problem. So he ordered two eggs, over easy, bacon, and toast.

5 minutes later, she came out to announce that they can't do eggs over easy - only scrambled. Is it because they're bottled eggs or something? No, the kitchen just won't do eggs other than scrambled. Ok, Chuck is willing to work with that. 5 minutes after that, she comes out to announce that actually, they can't do breakfast AT ALL - that's only for the weekends. Chuck decides that he'll just enjoy his diet coke, thanks.

10 minutes later, our meals arrive. Newton is sitting next to me, and he has ordered a "Big Louie Burger". This is a burger with lettuce, tomatoes, BACON, and a FRIED EGG on top.

Chuck's eyes almost bugged out of his head: GOD DAMN IT he yells! "So I got to order a Big Louie Burger, hold the burger, lettuce, tomato, and bun, and THEN I can get eggs and bacon? THIS IS INSANE. This place is CORRUPT".

X-Men... sigh...

Cards on the table, I'm an X-Men NUT. Issues 94-137 documenting the creation of the new X-Men, the Jean Grey Phoenix saga, Sentinels, the Brotherhood, Logan's origin, etc... it was all VERY formative geek literature for me.

Bryan Singer has been so obsessively TRUE to the X-Men spirit that both 1+2 have been delights to view. It was with perhaps a BIT of trepidation that I went to see X-Men3. I had heard very mixed reviews. But I knew that there were Sentinels and they were going to do a little with Dark Phoenix, so I had to do it.

First the positives - there were some very good scenes, and canonically, it was pretty accurate to the characters. I did love Kelsey as The Beast - he was very fun. And the bit about Mystique was so delicious....It had SO much potential... but....

It really was a FLAT movie. I didn't think that it had much energy or impact. I was watching scenes with a slightly removed feel - I kept thinking "Oh, ZZZZ has just died, and I am not feeling sad - why didn't this affect me?" It just didn't feel artistic or impactful.

And for a movie that quite frankly changes the lineup pretty significantly, I was very disappointed in how flat it was! I think that the EXACT same story could have been redone slightly - pacing, angles, delivery... in the hands of Bryan Singer, this could have been GREAT.

Here's the kicker - I felt more emotionally moved by the Superman Trailer BEFORE the movie.

Here's hoping that IF there's an X4, they don't get Uwe Boll. They need to put artistry back in this.

Carpe Diem

Good Evening my friends.

Work continues to be a very busy thing for me. I feel like I had a breakthrough of sorts today, however: Indulge me for a moment.

The BIG project is being managed using a tool called "Microsoft Project". This is basically an overgrown spreadsheet that lets you set up lots of dependencies between tasks, and is a relatively sane way to keep track of 1000 different things that need to get done in a limited amount of time. My predecessor had a very strained relationship with this tool, and with the plan he was managing.

So every week, the plan would be shown to all of the managers, and he would wave his arms at it and say "yeah, it's not right, but the tool is just wrong. Things aren't so bad". That sort of thing works for 1-2 times, but after 10 times, it got annoying for all involved. He is no longer around. But the plan was not in good shape, and it showed a go-live date a good month after the date we are actually planning on. When I took over, I did my best to update the plan, but I started to notice that there really WAS something off with it.

At this week's meeting, I found my self looking at the plan in the big meeting, and almost found myself saying "yeah it's not right, but the tool is just wrong". But I stopped myself. Instead I said "the plan is not right but next week it will be. In the meantime, here are the reasons the plan is off, and how I plan to fix them".

And I took CONTROL of the plan. I went through it, and corrected a bunch of bad linkages, I updated a bunch of old tasks, and reorganized the priorities. And now it does reflect my reality, and I can get this monkey OFF my back.

Fresh off of that administrative "high", I came home to find an email from a stranger. A reference from my SISTER, for a guy who is looking to recruit an officer for his high tech startup. At first I thought 'whatever, I'm busy', but politely inquired for more info.

Turns out, this guy is putting together a massive data mining project startup, very likely to be acquired if done correctly, which maps PRECISELY to skills I have. Which is sort of eerie - like the position was MADE for me. AND he is actually the real deal, having build a couple of companies you might have actually heard of, and raised millions in development capital.

So look for more info on that one!

The life of Jimmy, not a dull moment!

Lisa Store

At a mall near work, there is a big sign announcing vacancies. For rental information, call "Lisa Store" at some number. It just seems like a name that will lead to WAY too many jokes. "Hi this is Lisa Store, how can I help you?" "Yeah, I want to Lease a Store, Lisa Store. GET IT? HA HA HAH AHAHAHAHAHHAHAAA!!!"

Also on the same trip, I a "phenomenon" gelled in my mind. In just about evey auto shop you drive past ONE bay is taken up by a 1970s british car. MG, Triumph, Austin... It got me wondering: Are any 1970s british motorcars actually on the road?

So then I wondered... perhaps they're all owned by one guy, and it's a PLOT to add a "touch 'o' class" to any repair shop - in amid all of the K-Cars and Cutlasses, they do delicate "foreign work". Perhaps there is no actual work ever being done on these cars - maybe they're just allotted centrally to these shops, and they rotate them around, so you don't get suspicious... Maybe they're all fiberglass replicas on a bug chassis...

It's also possible that the stock imagery the aliens are using to create my illusion of freedom in the world (while I am actually being imprisoned for my past deeds of derring do against the empire) is being reused, and they just need to update it a little, stop using the same car over and over.

Back to work, eh?

Update

Update from the Accident:

The mini is in the shop - I'm driving a rental (a maroon ford focus). The repairs will be $2500, but insurance is covering it. There was no suspension damage, it's all body. That's very good.

My neck got stiff, and I saw the chiropractor, and he loosened things up Monday, and today I had an adjustment - sounded like a bag of microwave popcorn going. But it's good because I may only need 1-2 more after this....

And I gave the Rental company the info about THEIR customer who hit-and-ran me. They were quite interested in that information, interestingly.

Update on OTHER THINGS:
Tonight I went to a "work party", which was a strange little affair - only 6 people in a company apartment without art on the walls, no music, and lots of vodka. There was much drinking (I demurred after my polite one of course); I did have a very nice time with the gang, but I must relate one anecdote - they had a Ms PacMac game that was actually crashing for some reason. The little ghosts would stop running after me and just park. In Galaga, my ship was captured, but flew around the screen randomly, invincible, but able to shoot, while the enemy ships sort of winked in and out of existence randomly. It was more like a dream of Galaga.

I'm back to my workouts, and am feeling very good. After an 11 hour day yesterday, I HAD to go do my Step program, and it recharged my batteries. Dang, if only someone had TOLD me that exercise was GOOD for you, maybe I would have started it earler.

Oh wait, they did.

Finally, two stories about food service: I snuck over to Uncle Franky's today for lunch, and the ADD counter guy who obsessively offers anyone in line a beverage was missing... and in his place, an ADD young lady who obsessively offered any one in line a beverage regardless of where she was in the ordering process. And she rounded every order down, and there was STILL no obvious communication with the cook, who sensed every order.

Secondly, there's a coffee shop in north minneapolis (rough territory) where I got a post-lunch espresso... or tried to. The counter lady was sassing a friend/customer with lines like "girl, you lie so hard, you ain't got no truth IN you, now gimme them two dollars or I'm gonna come over there and rip it out of your greedy hands".

The customer in question had a bum tattoo (visible thanks to the low-rise jeans) that spelled in gothic letters "TROUBLEMAKER".

More friends came in, and walked right around Whitey McNerdlinger to place their orders with Miss Sassypants. Fortunately the espresso maker lady took pity and made me what I needed.

T-Boned

And I don't mean steak. I was driving Nigel the red mini home from my workout this evening, and a black Chevy Tahoe decided to blow a red light and whack my car. What's crazy is that the light was green for me, and had been for a while. This guy had been STOPPED at the red. And out of the blue he decides it's time to go. Into my car. On the plus side, that means he was only going 10-15 mph.

But on the negative side, he decided to wait for just long enough for me to pull over and get out, and then took off. I'm on the phone with 911, and they're asking if both cars are there... and I say, "yes - he's pulled over. No wait, he's driving off. He's gone."

Fortunately, there was a swarm of witnesses - I got 3 names/numbers and his license plate. The police filed a report and we even got the VIN of the car (which was a rental).

Nigel has a big dent on the door and rear quarter, but he's driveable, and I don't think I'm hurt (though neck stuff usually takes a day or two to manifest - I'm hitting the chiropractor tomorrow for sure).

A bummer way to end a very good day: Bella and my dad and I went to see Cars, which was a pure delight. I finished the Ny Times Crossword, and I got my weight training workout in too.

So I think I'll call it a night. DANG IT.

Giraffes? GIRAFFES!

Pamela took Bella to the MN Zoo today. There is a new exhibit with Giraffes. Giraffes are simply our favorite animals in the world. They're the strangest things on the planet. They actually got to feed and pet them, which makes me jealous. I may need to sneak off and visit these giraffes.

They met up with Bella's boyfriend Charlie, his brother William, and their mom, Jessica. Bella and Charlie have been in pre-preschool together, and are very affectionate with eachother.

This morning, Bella wanted to get ready for Charlie, and put on LIPSTICK. Then at the zoo, she KISSED him, leaving a big red mark. A bunch of big red marks actually.

I am collecting sheep, goats, and fine silks for her dowry. Perhaps a pet Giraffe as well.

Into the fire!

We dragged back into town Tuesday, and made a solemn vow: We are just NOT road trip people, and we're just going to have to splurge on plane tickets for any trip over 4 hours in the car. It's that simple, especially with Bella. And it's not that she was BAD - but it was just tiring....

I did not sleep particularly well: Since getting the "big promotion", I had been boss for two days, then off for FOUR. I had crazy dreams of the place in total chaos and me powerless to do anything about it. Of course these were ridiculous - the place was in chaos BEFORE I took the job... my little vacation wasn't hurting anything. But uncertainty at work leads to restlessness in my brain - it's a proven fact.

Wednesday was a marathon of a day - meetings back to back, statuses to assemble, decisions to make. It started at 6:45, and went to 5, when we had a consulting company staff meeting... followed by dinner out at Chino Latino. By the time I got home at 9:30, I was ready to pass out. So I did.

I am managing Phase A of the project. My pal Chuck is managing Phase B, which follows mine by 5 months. Chuck had got in at 6:30 on Wednesday, and had an equally hectic day. All day, we were checking in, and he kept saying that his "extra 15 minutes" made him WAY more exhausted than I.

At Chino Latino, we each ordered a Martini. And neither of us were able to really finish it. The first few sips simply let the air out of the balloon, and we melted into the booth.

Thursday was just as busy, but I started feeling a bit more "in control" - I started being proactive, setting a few things in motion to get people working on my diabolical plans to successfully roll out the big project. Today was even better (and an actual 9 hour day, finally), and I left feeling like I was actually caught up.

I had a brief meeting with the CIO today. I asked how I was doing so far, 5 days on the job. He said "I haven't heard any complaints, so I'm taking no news as good news... but I haven't seen them carrying you around on their shoulders yet either. We'll just have to see" with a smile and a wink.

I told him that the Shoulders Carrying thing would be coming in a few months, and it'll be a thing to behold.

More fun in Chi-Town

Today we got up early to go to the Shedd Aquarium. We had to take two cars - Papa and Bam in one, Lilli, Bella, Jimmy and Pamela in the other. We got there good and early and there was only a hint of a line.... though it was pretty crowded already. Some of the things I loved: The Octopus, the Spider Crab, the Snapping Turtle, the beautiful Poisonous Frogs, and the GIGANTIC ALIEN CATFISH. Bella loved the Sea Dragons, the Spiny Lobster, Nemo and Dory, and the tiny luminescent fish. Pamela was a fan of the alien Sea Cucumber.

We did catch a dolphin show, which was fun and educational (FACT: If you go swimming in the ocean, do NOT expect dolphins to rescue you if you start drowning. It's not that they don't care, but they just don't KNOW you - you could be a predator for all they know). And the Venue was gorgeous, with huge windows showing Lake Michigan behind the pool... But as a SHOW, I have to say that Seaworld was a bit snazzier, and actually having all of that blue sky and vista behind the show made the pool itself a little dark, and the contrast wasn't so great. But it was a good time. I guess when a man has got to the point he is comparing the aesthetic merits of various Dolphin shows, he may need more things to focus on.

Afterwards, we went back to the American Girl store for our late lunch.... it was a delightful meal (very healthy and delicious - I was impressed that they had no pop, no fries, nothing aggressively bad for you), in a very nice environment. Bella and Lilli had their dolls. Papa and I were able to "borrow" a pair for the lunch. They had little clip-on chairs so we all had dolls sitting between us, and they even brought little services out for the dolls.

The drive home was long - total rush hour, but we took the route that had us hugging the lake as far north as we were going, then west to the house. It took a hour and a half, alas (twice as long as the trip down did), and Bella and Lilli snoozed most of the ride.

Of course that means that it was a party around here until 9:30 when Bella first showed signs of getting tired... but her eyes weren't closed until 10.

And naturally, I had to check my mail, and deal with a few things relating to my new role.... I'm just not THAT unplugged. Tomorrow will be 100% offline as we drive back to Minnesota. The only question is what we'll do to break up the trip... the dells? Madison? Naughty but Nice? The mind boggles at the possibilities. I may let the location of Chipotle be my guide....

In all, this has been a wonderful, if short, vacation. We did a lot, and I especially loved spending time in the City of Chicago - escaping the suburbs. We really need to plan more excursions! Revisiting the Peninsula was also wonderful... and it got me thinking about planning a 3 day getaway down there.... how romantic it would be!

Four "Bad Dreams" of Bella

As she was dropping off tonight, Bella told me that she had had some "Bad Dreams". Did I want to hear about them?

1) She was hunting for dinosaurs, and found one... it had a big long neck, and it tried to EAT HER.

2) A Heffalump was on the loose. It wasn't a nice pink one, but a REAL one, with white polkadots. It almost ate our HOUSE.

3) She was looking for a baby Gorilla. She found a mommy and two babies, but they were too big to fit in her bag. So she had to go get a BIGGER bag, and they all fit inside of it, and they came home with her.

4) A Tiger Family was out of meat and was out looking for food. Suddenly, they had to go to the bathroom. They were going to go on the ground, but then they found a VOLCANO. They went up and pooped RIGHT INTO the Volcano.

I told Bella that those last two dreams didn't seem so bad... in fact they sounded sort of funny. She said, yeah well they were just Bad Dreams.

Why Chicago, anyway?

With so much going on in my work life, you may be forgiven for asking "why are you in Chicago for a long weekend, and wasn't Memorial Day already a long weekend LAST week?  What's GOING ON?"

It all started with our good friends the Ks.  Bailey and Ty, the 14 year old twins who I have known since birth are about to become high-school freshmen...  so we decided to go down and join their graduation (from Jr High) party.  They had no idea, and we got GREAT surprised looks from them.  Also, they had a moonwalk, and I suspect I would have made the drive for any excuse involving a moonwalk, really.

Backing up, we split the drive into two parts - staying Friday night in the Wisconsin Dells.  Our minds were BLOWN.  The Dells is just insane - like some sort of wholesome Vegas.  All I needed to know about the place was covered in the following scene:  At Starbucks on Sat AM, I watched a high school girl in pajamas order an iced latte with 4 pumps Vanilla, 4 pumps Coconut, and 6 sugars.  Dang.

Fast forward to Today:  Last Month was Pamela's Mom's 60th B-Day.  We didn't celebrate properly at the time, so we took this trip as a chance to rectify the issue.  We took her to downtown Chicago, and we had High Tea at the Peninsula Hotel.  I can't even start to talk about it.  I'll have to do a second posting on this.  

We hadn't visited the Peninsula since our extended stay 4 years ago at the end of our disasterous year of in-vitro fertilization, when we decided to adopt.  It was actually very wonderful to sit in that place again WITH our Bella.  Thinking that we really "conceived" her in that very place!  

More on the trip coming tomorrow! 

The First Day...

Well, my head is spinning - the day started with meetings from 7-noon, then 1-3, and I didn't leave until 5:30. I needed to exercise so I did step aerobics for an hour from 6-7, then got home and it was my turn to tuck Bella in with Stories. I'm only now unwinding from the day, and I'm sure that between the wonder of the day and the workout endorphins, I'll probably be awake for a while.

I did have a transition meeting with the outgoing PM, which was nice. Everybody is feeling a bit strange about how fast it happened, but we're adjusting... I got a lot of warm congratulations, a few high fives... I am feeling 100% supported.

At the end of the day, I walked into the CIO's office and declared success: I made it through one day and nobody had quit on me.

One of the issues that had been raised about the outgoing PM was his communication style. I went around to all of the team leads and took the time to explain how to work with me - that I'm a walk-arounder, that I will want status on the fly, that they can tell me to come back later, that they can ask me questions, and that they can consider me a sounding board AND an advocate - that I'm on their side and that we're all in this to succeed.

I'll be moving to my new super-cube tomorrow, which will be very nice - I can hold tea parties in this thing. Maybe even a rave. We'll see.

And since I'm not busy enough... Things are going well with the interim IT management gig with the friend. We're still trying to get to the heart of what he considers his real PROBLEM, and what a REAL solution is. He's been a bit scattery. I must focus him.

Enough about work: We're heading off for a long weekend (perfect timing - 2 days off just as I'm trying to get traction!) It will be a wonderful break!

Up up and Away

The last day has been a bit crazy. I had settled into a more involved role at the new client, doing technical management for the big rollout coming up in October, and also starting my interim CIO role at the friend's company.

But tomorrow, I was called into the CIO's office of The Client. Turns out they have had issues with the overall project manager (in charge of all aspects of the big rollout - managing 70 people), and wanted to know if I'd be able to take it on.

Take on a multimillion dollar project that has already been pushed 6 months at a cost of >$2m less than 5 months before golive? Sure! Why not?

Referencing an earlier posting of mine: He said that they had been impressed by my tendency to ask questions, take on new work, and by my personality, and that they thought the team would do well under me. So I'm not the only one noticing the B-Reay Method: Enter client, look for the "fun work", and do it, while being very Jimmy in the process.

This will make for a much busier summer than planned... but I think it'll be lucrative, fun, and it's a GREAT resume builder.

That said, it was an odd day today: For a couple of hours, I was one of 4 people who knew. And then a 5th person found out... the guy I'm replacing. And we all worked through our days... the announcement was not made until after work - 5pm. Sort of stressful. But I am looking forward to coming in bright and early tomorrow and really hitting the ground running!

I tell you, there is no blueprint for the strange things that happen in my career. I am a lucky, lucky man.

Two Quotes involving Octopi

1) We were driving along 3 days ago and Bella decided that she was a boat. What kind of boat? A SUBMARINE. I asked if she could go underwater, and she said, no, A submarine floats ON the water, not UNDER the water.... IT'S NOT AN OCTOPUS.

2) Today Bella asked why bird poop is sometimes white and sometimes brown. I said that it's probably because of what the bird eats....

"So maybe one bird eats a worm, and it has white poop, and another bird eats an octopus, and it has brown poop".

I said that was a VERY likely explanation.

Bella's Haircut

Bella has a little "tent" she has made in our living room just off of the couch. She has toys back in there, and it's her secret place to hide. We love that she's carved our this little space for herself.

Last night, however, she disappeared into the tent for a while as we got ready for a BBQ with the neighbors. She walked in and told Pamela "How do you like my shorter hair? Daddy took me to get a haircut!"

There were several large chunks of hair missing from her pristine bob... and the cut hair was trailing down her shoulders.

We didn't say anything, but she could tell from our looks that she had dome something wrong... And immediately started bawling. We tried to reassure her that she wasn't in trouble, but that only the haircut lady is supposed to give haircuts...

She was a bit quiet for the rest of the evening... and of course we found a big clump of hair and some scissors... in her tent....

Truth be told, it's not so bad - it's more of a "layered look" really.

A new nickname!

A cubemate here, Anna, who is from Mexico, has given me a new nickname.

I am El Gallo Loco.

I am the Crazy Rooster!

Forgot to mention

Thomas Dolby was fantastic the other night. There were over 150 IT Professionals on the scene, not a face under 30 guaranteed... The room was only half full truth be told. But Thomas played a good show, and had some good banter with the crowd. He promised to be back in the fall with a new album, which was news to us... there was certainly no new music in his set.

He played a lot of my favorites, and he had set it up that he made a one-man-synth-show seem as "live" as it possibly could. He was always doing something - always playing a part or singing, or both. He made little mistakes, and it was charming. He seemed like a nice guy up there.

Nick and I had tried to get him to come out for Sushi beforehand, but Thomas was deep in his "zone" playing with his gear. I heard he did this in Portland too - noodling from setup right until his warmups started. I need to respect that work ethic. Of course Nick and I had a great dinner, so in the end, it was his loss.

A telling moment from the show - lost in the groove of Europa and the Pirate Twins, I caught myself doing an air-keyboard move, keying the melody as though I was on stage. And the guy in front of me was doing it too.

A strange dream

Last night was marked by horrible insomnia - I think that these workouts are pumping my energy level up to the point that sleep seems irrelevant. Still, when I did sleep, I had the following dream:

Pamela and I are looking for an apartment to rent. We find one, and it's everything we could have wanted... high ceilings, already decorated in a very West-Elm clean-lines manner. I'm walking around... and notice that the back room seems to keep on going back.

I walk back and find myself in an arty "food court". I turn back and see a large lobby, which I know to be the Walker Art Center. I walk out into the lobby, turn back towards the "apartment", and realize that one full wall of the apartment is actually glass, and that this apartment is actually an installation, and we're being invited to be the 'real couple" living on display.

I walk back into the apartment, and sure enough, I can see out into the lobby - strange that I couldn't before. I'm about to have a talk with Pamela, who is checking out the bookshelf/sofa combination (it really IS a great apartment), when a man I know to be the curator of the Walker comes in.

He is 9 feet tall with a caesar haircut and tiny round glasses, gay as a tangerine and German as the pope, wearing a white linen suit and saddle shoes. His partner is almost the exact same as him, only with black hair, a dark, lapel-less suit (nehru style?), and sunglasses.

The curator is effusive in his excitement, and fawns over us, declaring us an IDEAL couple for this installation, and of COURSE we're going to move in, he won't hear otherwise. For a moment, I bask in his enthusiastic energy, but in a flash, he is off to charm someone else, and I am left feeling somewhat dissatisfied.

Just before awaking, I recall perusing the rental contract - I mean if I'm going to the trouble of moving in, this had better not be a 3 month lease - I don't want to move again that soon. And they can forget about a security deposit - heck, we're doing THEM a favor!

Around that time I did wake up. Because my insane daughter woke up at 5:30.

What's the latest?

Work: I'm just digging into the enormity of the task that sits before me with the "activation manager" role: Basically, make sure the entire hospital is ready for the upcoming upgrade. Make sure there's staff. Make sure the PCs and Printers are set up. Create a "war room" with network and phones. Find out whether the vendor support people coming in for this need TB tests before working on the hospital floors. Really.

This will be a big deal. And it sounds really fun!

So it's a perfect time for me to take on a second client, right? Looks like I'll be doing a strategy assessment for a friend's business - long and short term planning for how their systems need to work... lots of up front work, plus a trickle for a while to make sure my vision is adhered to (or changed as needed).

Working OUT: I did my third "BodyPump" class today, and I've been able to up the weights each time... I loooove it.

Music: I have a FIFTH Project Manager song in the cooker. My compatriots got the sketch last night, and the verdict is... it's a keeper. The song is called "Team Building". A bit slower, like ABC's SOS from 1983.

Weekend: Looking forward to an "Incredible Scotch Night" on Saturday. Two good friends have somehow NOT seen "The Incredibles", and they also do like the single malt scotch. So why not enjoy BOTH in my home? Should be a good time. It's a continuation of the Scotch Matrix series that we did last fall...

PS: When Ryan Seacrest says "That's it for the Guest Stars" and one second later, Prince is up on the stage.... how am I supposed to TRUST Ryan Seacrest?

Workin' OUT

This morning I got up early to join the BodyPump class as my little fitness studio - this one is a weights class, with lots of curls, presses, and lunges... And I came to realize that I have literally NO strength in my shoulders and triceps. I was very shakey-armed by the end... but at the same time I was also able to do a lot of the workout as planned too.

Now I have a goal: To do both the Step and the Weights programs well. I'll approach it like my language! So just get used to "Jimmy the Jock". One interesting side effect - being more active like this, at least this first week, I have not needed much coffee at all... hmm... is this REALLY a good idea? I think my Espresso machine will be lonely.

We had a cookout with my sister today, and took a walk afterwards. In a park, Bella directed me and my sister to do tumbling moves she learned in class: She's show us the move and tell us to do it. She really loved being the teacher. I flipped her out by doing an uncalled-for front-handspring.

The front handspring is one of those things that, despite my gangly-ness, I have always been able to do (well, since college). It's like playing the spoons - a skill that you don't need to bring out often, but when i do, it's to great effect.

I really don't know why doing this particularly difficult move doesn't cause me harm. I just know how to do it.

A Few Notes

First vision:
My daughter wearing a black leotard, violet sweatshirt, violet socks pulled up over the calves, and a pink sun visor, standing with Jenny waiting for Pamela to find worms in the garden. When a worm is found, Pamela hands it to Jenny, who hands it to Bella, who marches off and finds a new home for it. No "Yuck" or anything - the girls are Worm Relocation Specialists and take this job seriously.

Second vision:
I went to a Step Aerobics class yesterday. Actually, I liked it a lot - I didn't get too messed up on the steps, and was able to participate fully. I just might need to attend regularly! (If you must have the visual, I was wearing puma black nylon sweats, and my black Aquateen Hungerforce teeshirt. A funky vision in black.

I was verrrrrry tired. But I am not in pain, and am looking forward to another class!

Third vision:
I am going to see Thomas Dolby this weekend. He has taken on a sort of sci-fi James Carville look these days. Working the retro-steampunk look pretty well. I did meet him years ago (1997? 99?) in the heady days of the DotComs, my buddy Paul went to work for a start up of his, which did... um... I'm still not sure. I think they had something to allow webpages to play cool music (before bandwidth was so cheap and compression so good that you could stream real music).

I'll post a report.

Crazy Language Workplace

So one of my new co-workers is pretty good with Japanese... as is my old buddy Jode who is also here. So when I get back into Nihongo, I'll have some people to try it out with.

I also was speaking Spanish to a coworker and a lady a cube over has kids in Spanish Immersion, and started speaking with me. It was megacool.

Nobody seems to speak or want to speak German, however.

So in the midst of it all, somebody asked me what languages I do speak.
- French pretty well.
- Spanish getting better
- German passable but fading (I need to refresh and practice!)
- Japanese - 4 phrases max. But will learn.
- Russian - two years of college, some things don't leave.

At which point a coworker piped over a cube wall "are you a musician?". I had to fess up, yes. So now I am officially "fascinating" in the words of a cubemate.

Tattoos and Computers

When the new super sleek MacBook was announced yesterday, my first second and eighteenth reaction was to get one. It's small, it's good looking, it's a fast Mac, and it's relatively inexpensive. I even went out to the Applestore to look at it. I proudly announced my intention to purchase.

But in the cold light of the next day, I need to realize: It's just a computer, and yes it's small, yes it's fast, but I am NOT taxing my current machines at all - there has been no moment in the past year when I've smacked ANY of my machines and said "Dang it, if only you were faster, if only you were smaller". If anything, I must say that the new machine is so fast, it could replace ALL of my other computers at no performance penalty.... but not really at any performance GAIN either.

I need to take the same rigor with technology purchases as I do with Tattoos. If you really want a tattoo, draw it on your arm in a sharpie. If after a week you still think that's a good idea, go ahead and tattoo it. For me, no image or concept has been cool enough for me to keep it on for a week, much less a full day.

So for computers (and other techy things) I make the following pledge: I will declare my intent/interest in an item and write it down, make my best case for it, sell both myself AND my wife on the concept. And then wait for 7 days before acting on it. And if after those 7 days, the need is still so start, so brilliantly clear, then yes, I can do it.

In all honesty, it only took 12 hours for my completely undeniable need for the Macbook to pass. Every time I see a Dave Smith Evolver keyboard (a synth with MANY blue lights and a biiiig sound) it takes me a good 4 hours after fully convincing myself this will change my life before the Evolver has passed into "just cool" territory.

What I am concerned about, however, is whether the economy can handle this newly frugal Jimmy. Whether Apple and a host of software vendors can in fact keep their doors OPEN without my continual early adoption...?

I am sure that sometime, somehow, there will be an item that I need SO badly that I still REALLY need it a week later.

Got to admit...

It's getting better. I think that the more I'm busy, the happier I am. So I'm getting busy. Today I was again invited to another meeting well outside of my "job", and wound up really contributing heavily.. to the point that I think there's a good chance they'll give me that project "on the side". Just a little project to figure out how to interface patient monitoring equipment with the electronic health record.

Add to this, there's a public "recognition" board at this place, and I have got two public "kudos" for my help. And I was asked to stay on for a while beyond June. They want me to manage the "Activation" of the project, which really means make sure I know what needs to happen in what order across the entire hospital and manage the "hit list".

Both of these "little" projects are actually pretty massive, and I'm excited to take them on. Add to this there are new people being added to the project who are interesting and smart, and the I can feel the culture of lethargy at that site beginning to turn around. I could start to like this.

Of course even the first thing I was brought in to do (which I am doing well, mind you) was something I hadn't actually DONE before. This whole gig, while it moves frustratingly slow at times, is just a KILLER skill builder. Perhaps the skill it is really teaching me is that I can learn to be patient too...

On a related note, my separation from long-term-client 2 has been sloooow. Finally last week I had to tell them I had no intention of billing them further, and that they need to take me off of the email distribution lists. After a WEEK, I finally got an email back from my old boss, who admitted she didn't want to acknowledge that I was really done with the gig... so we're getting together next week to reminisce.

Amusingly, I'm actually offering free side-advice to another consultant pal who is doing another assessment for them - Sort of a Cyrano de Bergerac situation. ;->

And that's the work update.

I, Consultant

On Friday I had an odd day at the Client: I was involved in 4 meetings, none of which were directly related to my stated "job", but all of which I wound up having a major role in. Each invite was the result of me asking "why".

In one case, my project was tangentially affected by an infrastructure issue from the night before. I read and reread the explanation of the outage, and wrote up a series of questions to get to the truth - what they were saying was not complete. Not that it really affected me, and getting the answer was NOT my job, but I didn't like the fact that the answers weren't being provided in a straightforward manner.

So I asked the questions, and it led to a full scale "lessons learned" meeting, in which all the geeks came together and hey, figured out that there really WAS a problem that needed to be addressed, and gosh, why hadn't they seen that? And maybe they would have done it anyway, but I felt like I had a part in helping them get to the root of their issue.

In the other meetings, it was a case where I was a participant in a larger meeting and a parallel team raised an issue. Again, completely outside of what my job is, but I had some ideas, and I offered them up. And suddenly, I've been invited to a work session to hammer out the problem.

I'm beginning to remember that THIS is some of the extra value I tend to bring to a client - I don't stay in my role - I always ask questions, I'm always curious about the big picture. This is how I rose from managing one hospital's rollout to leading the enterprise project at the last client. This is how I became the "consultant at large" for 4 years at the other last client. This is how I went from business analyst to department director at the insurance company years ago.

And as I sit with other people I realize that many of my peers as "consultants" do NOT have this tendency. The example I saw on Thursday - I was in a group of 5, one turned to me to tell me more details about a Japanese website I had shown him. We spoke about it for 2-3 minutes, and the other 3 people just sat there and waited for us to be done. None asked for background or details on what we were discussing. It's not the first time. I don't think I'm a buttinsky or terribly nosy, but if people are talking about something and I'm at the table, I usually want to know what they're talking about. To not be curious is just alien to me.

As you're aware, I've had some issues finding my "ground" at this client, and I'm still not sure that it's going to be a long lasting gig, but this week, I really started feeling myself "connecting" at the level that makes me most comfortable - getting involved with the larger picture, sharing my thoughts outside of what I'm "supposed" to be responsible for... Though to be perfectly clear, I am also focused on my "job", and am executing on it very well.

It was a strange moment of clarity on Friday, as if I was looking at myself and my behavior from the outside and I got a glimpse at one of my driving mechanisms - like seeing a pocket watch with the back off of it. And perhaps I'm describing something totally obvious to those who know me...

But I wanted to write it down.

Always backing it up...

So indulge a geeky post: Pamela's iMac was more or less fully recovered. The backup drive that finally gave up the ghost, I reformatted again, and tried to start using it to back up. It cacked out and disappeared AGAIN, and I tossed it. I got online and bought a pair of new backup drives - one for upstairs, one for the iMac. Big, new, cool machines.

They backed up Pamela's imac happily... but then after 3 days, refused to back up! Oh no - more haunted computers? No - it turns out this time that the actual interface on the iMac is flakey. Fortunately, I switched to a different port and it's working fine again, but dang it, it's just one more thing. But it's so esoteric, I don't know if bringing it back to Apple will get it fixed (or me a new computer) because it'll work for a while, and then flip out.

Anyway, so we all know, I'm backing up everything nightly now. The only problem is that one of the things I LOST in the crash was our new Mac website template, and I'll have to recreate the whole thing. SIGH.

And so I tell you: Back it up, people, back it up. I shall be the faded old man in the supermarket at 90 telling you to back up your data as you attempt to ascertain the fresheness of the vegetables. I will be the ghostly whisper from a malfunctioning am radio warning you... back up that data.

I was lucky - 105 gig of music (27000 tracks) and 30 gig of pictures (17,000 pics and movies) is not an inconsequential amount of data to lose. I was lucky to get it all back.

Bella in the morning

This morning, Bella woke up with me and we shared peanut butter toast while enjoying the newspaper funnies... which is in itself an interesting job just because not a single "funny" could be considered funny to a 3 year old... So I just have to make stuff up.

I asked her about her tumbling class - if she learned how to do anything new. Excitedly she said "You've never seen me walk on the wobbly bridge before! It's very hard, but I don't fall. Well, I do hold onto something so I don't fall I guess."

I asked what she held onto... "I don't know the word... It's like a piece of salt, but really hard."

Then as I was getting some coffee, she hollered "Dad, come here! You are NOT going to want to miss THIS!!!!" I was rewarded with a small picture of a poodle in a furniture advertisement.

My daughter is completely nuts.

Zombies

I have said it before, I will say it again. When Bella gets a nap, it is a bad thing for us... On no-nap days, she is down by 8 usually, and up at 7, which is a good 11 hours of sleep, and she's in a great mood.

But if she falls asleep, even for an hour... she's up til 11. She's still upstairs, glassy eyed, half asleep, and yelling about wanting lights on and reading more books... She just can't turn off!

And tomorrow, she will still be up at 7. That is not changeable for some unknowable reason. She could be in a windowless, soundproofed room, in a spaceship traveling at near relativistic speeds, and still at 7am Central Standard Time, she'll be up.

Which means we will have zombie child tomorrow, as we desperately try to avoid giving her the nap she will so much need, to break the cycle of insanity.

Poor thing!

Neighborhood Weekend

From Friday to today it has been a very neighborhood weekend. Friday night, Bella had an overnight with Grampette, so we could go to a surprise birthday party for Steve down at the bottom of the block! We had all planned on a big, kick up your heels party, and we definitely started well, but boy, we're all parents, and it was the end of the week, and by 11, that party was done.

So we took our Saturday AM as a good sleep-in. Well, Pamela did (resting in is just one of her favorite treats in the world, so when I can, I like to let her snooooze in!) - i was up at 7:15, knocking around... Once Pamela was up (10-ish), we went off to Zumbro for breakfast, and we got a lawnmower.

We had been using a service for the past few years, and we got to thinking that it was a bit expensive, and they didn't do THAT good of a job. My big thing is that I really really don't understand two-stroke engines, so the very idea of maintaining a mower is just nervousmaking. Add to this, our last mower was a total lemon - taking $100 a year in maintenance costs (not even including sharpening).

So we splurged on a rechargeable battery powered mower. I used it today - it was quiet, and did the job. It was stress free mowing at last.

Last night, we called an impromptu "taligating party" and had some neighbors over for hot dogs, beer in the can, and fritos. It wound up going late into the evening, which was just a blast.

Today, we had a "neighborhood art show" - we put up art by all of the kids in the neighborhood (from ages 1.5 -> 7), and had everyone over for snacks - it was the opening of the "Froggy Gallery" (Bella named it of course). The kids were just amazed to see their work up on the wall with labels (no prices - this stuff is NOT for sale!). I'll post a website of the event soon...

Of course, we all were having so much fun, we just morphed into a dinner, I ran out to grab take our burgers, onion rings, and malts for people! It was all done by 7, and people went home... and we enjoyed the West Wing once Bella was down.

It was really a great weekend! We have such a fun neighborhood.

Movie Idea

Post Removed.... I'm actually going to write up a spec script on this and see what happens. No point in leaving it on the interweb.

See you at the movies!

Three details on a Wed AM

1) As she fell asleep last night, Bella was telling me about her day... she was playing with Jenny (of course) and "We did all KINDs of things. Like, we tested Porcupines." I asked for details: "We put our hands down on the porcupine, and then we brought it back up... and looked to see if any spines came up!"

I don't believe that we actually had a porcupine available for testing... but it's nice to know that if one shows up, she has a battery of experiments at the ready.

2) No gig on the 21st. Apparently it's a small stage and Thomas is unwilling to give up his "ring of synths" for a full warm up band. But the thought is now free and out there, and there's nothing keeping us from making this happen in the future!

3) I had a very surreal online chat last night with Paul S: We were play acting an infomercial. The product on offer was a web-enabled chicken roaster with e-banking functionality - the Chickenbankweb. No money needed, we've already put one in every house in america. Just go to your downstairs bathroom - in the toilet tank you'll find a gold key. This opens the door you've never noticed before behind the toy chest. Bring provisions for a 10 day journey (hard tack, livestock).... It just kept going. Paul was playing the part of the over-the-hill TV personality feeding questions to me, the inventor.

The strange thing is, this morning - there it was, the Chickenbankweb... on my counter.

Yeeeowch - A Geeky Post.

So I moved to a PC laptop a few weeks ago so that I could better support my new client... and I did a TON of work with it... but really no MORE work than I have done on my Mac laptops at any other gig in the world.

Turns out that some combination of the mini trackpad, the stiffer keyboard, and the higher desk at the new gig has caused me some rather major wrist discomfort. Yes, my body is rebelling from having to use a PC product.

I'm trying not to take a big "message" from this. Instead I'm moving to a trackball (same as my office - rest your hand on it, work the ball with your thumb...) and working on my posture. But it is a chilling thought - that a person who has worked on these laptop things every day for 5 years can be brought to the point of pain in a mere MONTH of un-ergonomic life.

In other news, the "recovery" process is slow and painful on Pamela's iMac. Her iPhoto library (16,000 pictures) got a corrupt index, and so I'm re-importing all of the pictures. This is causing me to lose the rotation, but may make things a little faster, not having had the library upgraded from version 1->6. We got all 100 gig of itunes music loaded on the big G5 upstairs, where it will stay.

And this being the 3rd time it's been called upon to do restoration services, the external hard drive has hung up it's gloves and decided not to speak to us anymore.

And finally, a quick update. I LOVE MY MINI. It is maybe the most fun thing to drive ever. And it makes me smile as I walk up to it. Best car decision EVER. The hard part will be not getting a second one when Car2 comes off lease in 9 months.

Monday Morning

We're at 5 solid days of rain and counting... man, this is getting depressing. I feel like we're living in Seattle or something!

But the slick roads were no trouble for the Mini going into work. The Mini was a champ all weekend... It even served well for a trip to Costco! (the seats flipped down easily for the massive units of paper towels and TP... Also, I got the AUX jack working, so this morning I was back on the Spanish lessons for the trip to work. Though my trip is so short, I'll have to do only a half lesson each way!

That's right, I'm getting back on the Language Horse after a few months away - Spanish is back in vogue!

Pamela's Imac came back... freshly formatted AGAIN, with a promise that there was no underlying hardware issue. Lesson learned for me: I'm keeping all of the music and photos on my big bruiser G5 upstairs now. And backing them up weekly.

Finally, I spent time yesterday reading news reports of (and watching videos of) Stephen Colbert's SCATHING appearance at the White House Correspondent's Dinner - oh man, he pulled no punches. I cannot WAIT to see how he spins it on his show tonight!!!

I almost forgot

Pamela's iMac has AGAIN kicked the bucket. It is in techie hands right now... we'll know if it was just bad software, or if it's a hardware problem later today.

This thing has been so frustrating: It has had THREE different logic boards, and a Hard drive replaced. I made it clear that if this is another hardware problem, that's it for this - I'm demanding a new machine. This thing, it is haunted.

What's most frustrating for me is that every time it does die, I have to spend a good DAY reloading everything back on it from backups - all of our music, pictures, and videos... ugh. Ain't nobody reimbursing me for THAT.

Sorry, had to vent.

The land of Wheeeee

Another multiple subject post:
1) The Audi Allroad is gone - long live the Mini! Yes, we downsized the big inefficient wagon (17mpg average?) and got a Mini Cooper S! Chili Red with a white top and white alloys, this is a ZIPPY machine. I drove it all day yesterday, Pamela today, and there may be some fighting over who "gets" this car on a daily basis. WHEEEEEE! Still not as efficient as a bike (sorry TimmyP)... but it is a better thing for my world at least.

Also, it is cool.

2) Watched "Enron, The Smartest Guys in the Room". Very interesting how it broke down the complicated finances for easy consumption. One misstep I think: Why show strippers when you're talking about one of the exec's love of strippers? I don't think the boobies actually helped make a point. Another interesting point - they focused not on legality, but on ethics - even if nobody goes to prison (besides Fastow), there's no question that Ethics were "on hold" at that company.

3) We might might might have an actual GIG in a few weeks... Thomas Dolby is coming to St Paul, and Paul and Caesar are checking to see if they can wrangle an invite to warm up again... and this time Nick (the Chicken) and I would back them up on Keys and Drums. COOL. I'll keep you posted on this. Not a done deal, but if it works, it'll be neat.

4) We were driving in the rain yesterday, and Bella said "what's that sound?" I answered "what sound?", to which she replied several completely odd things:
- The sound like a train tipping over.
- The sound of a duck with a brick on it
I wish I had written them down - there were 6 of them....

The Good Life

1) I finished the tracks for the 4th Project Manager track, and it SMOKES. I'm very excited about this song, and about the Project Manager concept in general. And now that Paul and Caesar are done with their little "side project" (warming up for Thomas Dolby in Seattle and Portland) they can focus on this REAL work - getting guitar, bass, and vocals for the four Project Manager tracks.

2) Work is getting better and better: Remember the guy who walked away from me, calling me a temp? Well, he may or may not have been being "funny" then, but he has come around and is really quite nice to me now. So that's a positive.

Also, my first big project is in mid swing right now, coordinating a 2 week synchronization project with 15 people involved... and it's going pretty well. But get this: I got an actual thank you card for my work on this. A handwritten thank you with a picture of a kitten on it. And it was given NON-IRONICALLY. It almost brought me to tears.

3) Bella has been on a very amusing tear this week (after the brainstorms). Pamela wrote me today to tell me she was singing the following song:

"Bills, bills, bills... nothing but bills....
Bills, bills, bills... nothing but bills....
Cadillac, Cadillac, CADILLAC!"

I have NO idea where this came from, but it made me laugh for a good 10 minutes.

Brainstorming

Little Bella (3.6 years old now) has had in the past some issues with "night terrors" where she starts yelling and screaming at around midnight, not fully awake, and hard to comfort. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's mighty freaky. Usually, her terrors coincide with a developmental "leap" - shortly after a screaming night, she'll start doing something she never did before. I think it's most likely her neurons massively realigning and her brain just freaks out during the upgrade process.

Sort of like brain growing pains... growth spurts.

Well, for the past week, Bella has been regressing a bit - lots of baby talk, forgetting to use the potty, wanting to be carried around... and the armchair psychologists among us were trying to figure out what was happening. Last night, around midnight, we got the screaming - a classic night terror, and far from being freaked out, Pamela and I just said - let's ride this out and see what tomorrow brings.

This morning, Bella woke up, went to the potty, flushed, came in to visit us, and there was no baby talk.... We're back to pre-regression behavior at least! I didn't see any wildly new skills developed, but she may have picked up some basic Calculus or something - we'll just have to see.

It is just AMAZING to watch her brain develop...

On a related note: I did finally get upstairs to work on the 4th Project Manager track, and boy, it was great to finally let it out of MY brain. It's only a minute sketch right now, but the soul of the song is there. An interesting weekend!

The Incredibles

The in-laws were in town all week, and it was wonderful to have them... they're such nice people and we always have a good time. And yet, it was also very nice to have the house back to ourselves tonight. Bella and I had some fun snuggle time, and Pamela got to do some serious vegging - which she needs because she has completely lost her voice!

So even though I've had a 4th Project Manager track knocking around my head all week, I decided tonight needed to be about relaxing. So I kicked back with my favorite movie of all time: The Incredibles.

I have seen this movie over a dozen times, and I am brought to tears and out loud laughter every damn time. This is a movie that hits EVERY geek point I have. I see Fantastic Four, X-Men, Superman, Spiderman references throughout, and it reminds me of being a 12 year old geek drawing superhero comics with all of my friends as a super team. I'm amazed that the movie can still surprise me, that there is no "flab", no moment I tire of... it is a movie that Brad Bird might as well have drawn from my fondest dreams and memories and conjured up just for my pleasure.

It was a wonderful way to end a week of good laughs and company... add to this I got to spend time with MANY of my dearest friends this week - Lunches with Paul and Mark, Dinners with Nick and Yoshi, seeing Anne and Tony today - I'm feeling very connected with my world. And my friends Caesar and Paul S are having their own successes this week, opening up for Thomas Dolby in Portland and Seattle as Basic Pleasure Model.

Can I only mention that my work had some success as well - I have really started to feel like I'm adding value, and I'm getting good kudos from my peers and bosses. AND I found good coffee just 3 blocks away from work... in North Minneapolis (sorry Robbinsdale).

It'll be an early morning as I wait in line to register Bella for summer classes... so off to bed with me. But I had to share some joy with all... 3 (?) of my readers...

Being Sassy for fun and profit

In a meeting today, the management brass was musing out loud on our need to "take care of our people" - apparently they've got a few resignations in the past week, lots of people are feeling stressed out and foolishly believe the grass is greener at other sites (HA!).

It should surprise no one that I had a recommendation for improving employee morale: "Espresso Machine". Yes, I actually said it.

Because this meeting went long, I was on my own for lunch today... and was able to secure a post-lunch espresso as well. Two things I noticed: First, the probably-an-evangelical-trap coffee "house" had a neon sign saying "open" today. As if I'm going to fall for THAT one. Sorry Charlie.

Secondly, I learned that Navy Recruiters don't think it's funny to either dance to or comment on their extremely fruity disco cellphone ringtones. I could have guessed that one though.

The end of the Earth...

Robbinsdale, a small first-ring northern suburb, nestled north of Minneapolis. Place where I work now, and place where apparently they can support multiple gun stores, a firing range, several smoke shops, and NO coffee shops.

Not a dang one.

Oh, they tried - there's an empty storefront announcing "Expresso and Bakery" (Yes, the X is incorrect). There is a house that promises Coffee and even had a LaVazza sticker in the window... but the doors were locked, and the parking lot empty (I suspected this one may actually be a hipster trap when in operation - they lure you into the basement with a promise of coffee, and don't let you out until you accept Jesus as your personal trainer, or something).

Nearest Starbucks or Caribou are even further north in the seeming metropolis of Crystal. A good 15 minute drive, which seems excessive... until you realize that we're talking about MY COFFEE NEEDS here.

I think my three best options include:
1) Wean myself off of my need for the afternoon bean.
2) Bring a thermos with a quad shot kept hot for my afternoon of need.
3) Knock down a cube wall and install an espresso stand here.

I had considered bringing in my mini Espresso machine and parking it at my desk, but two problems present themselves: There is but ONE power outlet for my cube, and the nearest water is literally 20 cubes away (there is a massive server room between me and the "kitchen".

The final option is too horrible to contemplate: Drink the corporate brewed coffee in the break room. OH THE HUMANITY.

Authenticity...

I met Yoshi for lunch at E-Noodle - a little restaurant in St Paul that has many soups, as well as very good stir fries. Yoshi is 4 weeks away from moving to Australia for 3 months for school, then to Pittsburgh to attend grad school... so I'm trying to get my time in with him, because dang it I'm going to miss that guy.

He was very helpful in giving me some context for my current work woes - he says after all of the very intense projects I've been on for the past 3 years, isn't it OK to have one that is a bit of a yawn? Can't you just work your hours and go home and NOT think about it? Pamela made a very similar point, and I imagine that if I hear it just 2-3 more times, I might start to believe it.

Back to E-Noodle - I do love their stir fries, but since their name is "E-Noodle", I feel like a fraud if I don't try their soups every here and again. But I have yet to find a soup that I truly LOVE (in the way I truly LOVE Vietnamese PHO soups, but they don't serve those).

Today I decided to try a Korean Beef Noodle soup. While the flavor was good, I suspect that I was covertly garlicbombed, and that people will fear me. Also, the beef was horrific - and by that I mean big chunks of brisket with globs of fat. I would call it "depressingly authentic" because having had their beef in other soups and stir fries, I know this "special meat" is what they intended for this particular soup. I looked around, and decided that I'm NOT actually in Korea, and I will actually eat something tonight that doesn't horrify me, so I just enjoyed the broth and some noodles and walked away from the beef nonchalantly.

I can be adventurous - especially when I don't know if the NEXT meal will be even odder (see my Tokyo updates for proof), but when I'm in St Paul, I'm going to be a bit pickier. Which is not to say E-Noodle isn't great - they're spot-on authentic as far as I can tell. I just wasn't in the mood for authenticity, I guess.

Back to the grind - Good ol' Visio - how DID we ever get anything done without you?

Back to work...

It's week number two at the "new client"... and things are still going well. Every day I learn a few new things that makes something that was mentioned a week earlier suddenly make "sense". Fortunately, I seem to be "getting it" pretty quickly and people are satisfied with my output.

My first big exposure to the "big group" was to collect their signatures (14 of them) to validate that a software upgrade on Monday had been tested by the team leads. A similar upgrade 5 months ago had gone poorly, but nobody had taken responsibility for testing... so I got names and signatures.

I did have a bit of a grim moment yesterday: I was walking around meeting people, and one of the employees took a look at my badge, said "oh, you're a TEMP" and walked away just like that. WOW. There are definitely some issues with the consultants "versus" the employees.

At home, we're preparing for Easter - The in-laws are coming to stay for a while, Bella's birth family is coming to visit, and our house is a bit topsy turvy, as we had decided to do some "deep organization", which means the clutter behind the doors was brought out and rearranged...

It's sort of making me hyperventalate, actually.

Day Three - back home

With all of the crazy running around on the first two days, we resolved to make Sunday a much more mellow affair. We Metro'ed over to Erik and Heidi's place, got some coffee, and headed out to Brunch at their friends' place.

There were two other couples there, one 18 month old, and one 30 month old recent adoptee from Russia. These were cute little girls, and they had us missing Bella something fierce.

Jim and Erik disappeared to do some record shopping (an allergy break actually - after two hours my lungs were getting a bit tight from the house dog...), while the ladies stayed at the brunch and went to a playpark for even more kiddy goodness.

In the afternoon we hung out at Erik and Heidi's coop, exchanged MP3 files, reflected on the day, and then off to an early dinner - we had a plane to catch! We wound up in Dupont Circle at a smoky burger joint, but the health risks were well balanced by a DELICIOUS burger and onion rings, paired with a Guiness.

Then off to the airport, where we improbably secured exit row seating on an overbooked flight (thank you E-checkin!), left on time, and arrived on time (maybe the first time this has ever actually happened to me). The only downside was that the Wallace Shawn lookalike in the seat next to Pamela snored loudly the whole flight, jangling Pamela's nerves. A seat switch helped somewhat, but man, the dude was sawing logs, and I mean REDWOODS. An amazing snore on him.

We got home and JeMae filled us in on the whole weekend. Turns out Bella had been somewhat sick for much of the weekend, and Mae was being a super mom and holding her nonstop... and concealing this from us so that we wouldn't worry!

We rushed up to see Bella after seeing Mae off with a bag of salty oat cookies we brought back from DC (soooo delicious), and Bella woke up and decided to let it all out - she cried and cried for 45 minutes - she had been a real trouper all weekend, but it was finally time to let us know that she missed us. After a while Pamela carted her into bed with us, and she curled up and went right to sleep! After another hour, I carted her back to her bed - I can't sleep with TWO snoring girls...

This morning Bella came down to see me and we read the funnies together, shared peanut butter toast, and had some cuddles. It was GREAT to be home.

Many thanks to Erik and Heidi for their amazing hospitality, and to Dad, Karen, JeMae, Randy, and Jenny for their excellent care of our little Bella during our adventure!