Critical new information

I couldn't leave for vacation without first knowing you had read this.

Busy week

This week, as per usual, has been pretty busy. Nice thing about that though is that Friday comes a whole lot faster that way. Not that the weekend slows anything down because Monday seems to come pretty darn quick as well. Although, I've got only a couple more weeks until my vacation comes. We're still not sure where we are going, what we are going to be doing or how long we'll be gone, but it will be nice to just hang out with the wife and kids. That's the best part of not being at work; being with them. Plus my best friend from grade school is getting married and my wife and I are going to that big event in Massachusetts, (sans kids!).

This week a couple things happened to me that are relatively unusual. 1) I got to be on TV. It was CSPAN, and it wasn't even shown live, but hey, it's something. Good luck finding it. 2) I was within 10 feet of Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer, and a few senators and members of the house (that I frankly wasn't prepared to recognize). Despite the old adage, the camera seems to take off a few years and a few pounds...

Interesting story

This article shows at least a little bit why I've chosen to be pretty anonymous with my blog. I still have only told 2 or three people, besides my wife, about this blog and I still haven't decided to tell the rest of my family about it. I don't know how it would impact what I post and how I write.

"You look like twenty bucks!"

Which isn't too bad considering a light bulb looks like six bucks.

Of the many things our kids are, they are hilarious. The things they say and do just crack my wife and I up. Sometimes we have to do our best to not let them know they are making us laugh, because really, as the responsible adults in the family, we shouldn't encourage some of the behavior that busts us up. Other times we do everything we can to encourage their silliness. Especially now that Meg faces forward in her car seat, the two of them sometimes sit in the back of the minivan having a laughing contest. Their loud, goofy laughing is a lot more palatable than the alternative.

I remember distinctly my second grade teacher telling me that I was a riot. I didn't know what the heck she meant back when I was at Wolf Swamp Elementary School, but my guess is that if our kids inherited some of our sense of humor from us, they will have more than just their second grade teachers thinking they are riots.

London is not falling

Just a quick note of solidarity. I can imagine what the people of London are thinking and feeling today as they walk the streets, their world completely different than the one they opened their doors to 36 hours ago. I have spent more time in London than probably any other city outside the U.S. (besides maybe Rome and of course Luxembourg City) and remember the city fondly. Kings Crossing was a tube stop I was very familiar with as the hostel I stayed in for several days/nights was very close by.

I pray for the families and friends who have lost their own family and friends. I also pray for those injured, physically and mentally, in yesterday's tragedy and I hope that all wounds will eventually heal. I also hope that with each and every act of violence, that it brings us closer to a world that recognizes the outright idiocy of these acts. The outrage should be universal and one day I hope that we will all no longer live in fear or trepidation.

Geez

OK. Attempt number two.

Yes, I am alive. This new project was kicking me in the ass for the past 5 weeks or so, but things may be coming back down to earth. This work has been extremely rewarding, but there's also been some tears, some mental anguish, and more than a few late nights. And that's just for the folks that are working for me.

Anyway, I needed to check in and make sure that they don't deactivate my account. I hope to be back again soon. I'm sure you can find something productive to do. Or you could take a nap.

I've got 10 minutes

Ok, maybe not 10 minutes, but I've got a moment to catch my breath. Last week was the busiest, yet most satisfying, week of my professional career. I did a lot of running to and from the client's office, setting up "The Team" and all the other administrative stuff associated with starting a contract. We've got a lot of stuff left to do, and unfortunately the client has been too busy trying to accomplish their primary jobs to make our work any easier, but things are coming along. I know that usually these things happen much more slowly, but the client is really under the gun and although we've been keeping up with our requirements, there's been too much "hurry up and wait" for my taste. I feel bad for those on my staff that have been kicking themselves in the butt to get things accomplished and only to have the client be too busy to notice.

I've had "fun" doing managing of people and of the product, and I haven't made any huge blunders. It's weird to not be "one of the guys," but the perspective is much different than I thought it would be. I have been surprised by the amount of personnel management that I have been required to participate in, but it has been nice for people to take my opinion seriously. I've prided myself on being a pretty good judge in character and this is the first time where I will truly have to live with the results of my judgment.

The biggest drawback with this whole thing has been the fact that I've been coming home much later in the evening than is normal. The two hours that I normally have between when I get home and the kids go up to bed are usually the best part of my day. They make everything else worth it.

We won! Now what?

We actually won the contract I wrote about last week. Therefore, time for posting will be extremely limited, especially between now and September. I've already started "managing" and working the details of supporting this new client and only now have 30 seconds to post this because I am ignoring the 23 unread e-mail messages in my inbox and a couple voice mails on my phone.

It's my daughter's first birthday today. I love you angel. I wish I was there to celebrate with you. I cannot imagine my life without your smile.

No subject has come to mind

I'm sitting here at work reading through some reports and listening on-line to the Tribe game. It seems that every game that I've had the time/luck to listen to or watch this year, the Tribe gets pounded. I mean, the Indians haven't won that many games this year I know, but a surefire way to guarantee that the Tribe will get pummelled is for me to somehow watch or listen to the game. 9-zip. Give me a freaking break.

With the possibility of getting this new contract, I would be getting my first taste of managing. I've been wanting to get this opportunity for a while now, not just because I have a strong distaste for my current client, but because I feel that I am ready for some kind of managing role. I am a little nervous about it however. I mean, I've had some bad bosses in my relatively brief professional career, but I've also had some very good ones. One of the previous clients I worked for was an incredible manager. He knew just what to say and do to get the best out his people. His faith that they would do the right things, the majority of the time, coupled with his ability to redirect them when needed, all while continuing to maintain their faith in him and themselves, was inspiring. I found myself trying to pay special attention to how he handled himself as his transfer date approached because I wanted to copy his style as much as I could.

So anyway, I've found myself nearly simultaneously hoping that we win the contract and dreading the possibility that we will. The work will be very hard and stressful for about six months or so, and I don't really know the people I will be working with very well. The company has made it clear that this whole effort is very important (high visibility and the client has significant connections throughout this town) so that will add to the stress factor for me personally. The up side is that if I do a fair job, and the team works successfully, I know that it will be recognized. What would come next, who knows. Let's first find out if we get the contract...

Potent Quotables

"Whether documents on the periphery of relevance would be immediately
disclosable to the public (as distinct from parties who have given undertakings), or whether would remain subject to undertakings until they are introduced as evidence, is a separate debate."

A search of google for the "periphery of relevance" returns a number of documents, but the above quote is one of two (on the first page) that actually uses this phrase. This, I believe, would be considered a poorly written sentence but is about as understandable as some of my writing. Somehow, it all makes sense.

I haven't been posting because of a proposal I've been writing at work. This is the same proposal mentioned in a previous post. Long, not very interesting, story associated with it, but I should find out by Friday whether or not I will be supporting a new client. In the meantime, I will still have little time to post. Thanks for your patience (don't you just love how I write like I've got hundreds of daily readers?) and I will post more when I've got time.

Oh, and yes, I've found a place to go for brunch on Sunday. Actually, to be accurate, my wife found it. I know it's kind of slacky on my part for not finding it myself, but, I've made up for it because for Mothers' Day she's getting an IPod. I figure it is the very least I can do... Actually, the IPod is for everything else she does everyday. I should find something else to thank her for the restaurant find. Perhaps something chocolate will do....

Potent Quotables

"You know what bugs me about him is how can he be so condescending, when he lacks even basic intelligence about things."

OK, I'm quite liberally paraphrasing, but this is the gist of the quote from the woman sitting on the couch across from me last night during our 2 minutes of watching the Presidential press conference (we missed the OC, but we watched Arrested Development o DVD though). She's right you know. The head bob and that look in his eyes like he is searching for a way to get back to that thing that he's been told he should talk about. And yet, that little laugh he inserts, the one that makes you think he's got it all figured out and the rest of us are just stooges. I guess we can take solace in the fact that there's only 3 1/2 years to go...

Otherwise engaged

Unfortunately, or not depending on your perspective, I am tied up today reworking a proposal at the office. So, I will not be getting my 15 minutes of writing on the blog in this morning. However, I will be taking suggestions on the best place to take one's wife and mother (two seperate people) to a Mothers' Day brunch in Northern Virginia next weekend. If you know of a great place, go ahead and make the reservations for 4 adults and 2 kids. That would be great. Thanks.

That's All, That's All

Steven Page is releasing a semi-solo album (title unkown, but the "group" (him and Stephen Duffy) is known as The Vanity Project) this summer and Flagship Recordings has just released a RealPlayer format single. It sounds pretty good. The words are, as one would expect, poetic. I'm looking forward to the full album and think you should check it out...

I think so, Brain, but we're already naked

I've been meaning to post this link for sometime now. If reading this doesn't make you laugh out loud, perhaps you need to reevaluate your perspective on life.

Smells like September 11th

This one of those posts that I've been thinking about for entirely too long. I've delayed posting it because 1) I feel like I have only so many pre-thought out posts and 2) if the posts sucks then well, if the pre-thought out posts suck then what about the ones I don't put any thought into? Part of the reason that I am finally (as if this blog has been going on for decades!) writing this is because of the post here.

I am struck by how much smells are tied to one's memory. There's some cheesy commercial for deodorant or body spray that has a tag line that goes something like, "Scent is the number one sense tied to memory." I'm not sure if I really buy into that because one of the earliest memories I have is when they came to pave my road (Joy Lane) in front of my house in West Virginia. I remember the sight of this event, but not so much the smell. However, there are lots of different smells that will trigger very vivid memories for me. Sometimes a woman will walk by wearing a perfume of a former girlfriend, or I will smell honeysuckle and that will remind me of the summers down the street at my friend's house. Because of its omnipresence, the smell of cigarette smoke will remind me of bars in Europe. One smell that I will never forget is the smell of September 11th. I was fortunately not in the Pentagon at the time of the attack, but I was a couple blocks away. You could clearly smell the uniqueness of it while outside, but eventually you could scent of it seeped back into the "vault" that I worked in at the time.

One of the remarkable things about scent is the ability to unearth memories that are so buried that they can only be recalled by a particular smell. Also, I think it is interesting that there are smells that you won't even notice are there until you've returned to that particular place. I bet you going home is kind of like that for almost everyone. When you walk through that door, there is a smell that sometimes can't even be described, that just smells like home.

Potent Quotables

"I know, but I don't know about that, but you know what they really ought to do is..."

This is not so much a quote, although it was said, but about the person who said it. He is the type of person (unfortunately in a leadership position) that searches for a phrase that reminds him of something that he knows about. Once latched on, he will then espouse his complete knowledge, while someone tries to redirect him to the real topic at hand. This eventually leads to his conclusion, "I know, but I don't know about that, but you know what they really ought to do is..." which in turn, leads to another 5 minute diatribe. He doesn't stop until he has absolutely convinced himself that he is the smartest person in the room.

"Grab the brown thing by the dark pointy parts"

I apologize, I know I got the above quote wrong, but I'm sure my wife will correct me.

I've neglected my blog a little bit because, lo-and-behold, I've been too busy to manage a post. There is a decent chance that I will be working under a new contract that we had 1 1/2 business days to turn around a proposal on. I don't know for sure whether we'll get the contract, and what that really means in terms of how much time I'll have for posting at work, but my guess is that it will be considerably less.

We are about 95% done with the landscaping in our small yard. My wife worked hard this weekend to get everything planted in the garden that rings our home and she even mowed the lawn for me (because I was at work doing the proposal writing thing). It looks great, will really take off once it gets warmer outside, and should help us sell the house in a hurry if we need to.

The housing market here is just silly. I know there are lots of places in the country that are even more out of control than our area, but, really it seems a little ridiculous that we could sell our place for more than my folks could sell their's. When we purchased our townhouse in September 2002, I was really worried that we'd purchased at the peak of the trend. I'd even scan the paper to see if other houses in our neighborhood were selling for more or less than what we paid. Turns out, the value of our home has doubled in the time that we bought it. This is good. If we want to move out of Northern Virginia. But it means we've just kept pace with the other houses in our area, so it really isn't that great if we decide we want/need to stay here. *Sigh*

Well, I'm headed over to the Puzzle Palace for an oh-so-thrilling staff meeting. I should have time later this afternoon (assuming that the proposal bid isn't accepted by then) and will touch base later. I've still got a good 7 minutes of my 15 minutes to go.

Fog on the shirt?

I'm not really sure what I am going to type about this morning. I'm in a bit of a cranky mood and I'm not feeling particularly inspired. Right now things are going extremely slowly at work and my focus is elsewhere. Plus the Tribe is performing poorly, and as silly as I know it is, that has an impact as well. For all that I sit here and mope about, I've got it pretty good and I really shouldn't be bitter. It is just difficult for me to be patient with tomorrow. I feel like I know what I want, I feel I know I can do it, I do not feel I am entitled to it, and I am ready to work for it.

I have now typed up and deleted the equivalent of a long post because nothing I type comes out the way in which I intended it. I can't even blame my anxiousness and unease on the caffeine in my coffee because I am sans cafe this morning. I seem to have always been a bit of a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. Even as I've rounded off my corners a little bit, I still don't seem to fit. I've officially spent entirely too much time not typing anything sensical. Maybe I'll return a little later once I've figured how to string two cohesive sentences together in a row because this is just making me more frustrated.

Bathroom etiquette

Now that I have the ability to post again, I would like to turn your attention to a problem which should be addressed by all self respecting Americans, nay, Citizens of Planet Earth. This problem of which I type, is of course, complete and utter disregard by a large percentage of our fellow humans for bathroom etiquette.

Now, I realize that working in a business setting like I do, I've got it pretty good. I have a nice bathroom with an adequate number of stalls and urinals and generally it is kept in pretty good shape by the guy who drags around that huge transparent bag full of paper towel and toilet paper refills. I only assume that the bathroom is also cleaned each night by the crew that shows up after 5:30pm each weeknight. So, the bathroom is kept pretty clean and relatively neat, with the clogged toilet or disappointingly disheveled stall a relative rarity. However, be that as it may, I still see too many "professionals" violate even the most basic of hygiene and consideration for their fellow man during their time behind the dual cipher-locked bathroom doors. And so begins my bathroom pet-peeve/basic etiquette list.

1) This is a basic rule all of us should have learned by the time we were in kindergarten. After using the toilet, you should wash your hands. With soap and water. I'm not talking about scrubbing up like you're going into perform open heart surgery or anything, just enough to get a nice lather and a good rinse. It takes 30, maybe 45 seconds. No one wants to shake hands with your penis. Please, just take the time to wash. You can use the time while you are washing to admire that perfectly coiffed head of hair you spent $75 getting cut in the awkwardly and inconsistently named salon downstairs. Oh, and those of you who only "wash" your hands when someone else is in the bathroom with you, we can tell you are unfamiliar with the operation of the faucet and you use the mouthwash instead of the soap dispenser.

2) This is (hopefully) a gender specific rule. Do not put trash (gum, paper, floss, match box cars, etc.) into the urinal. There is only one substance that really should be put into the urinal, and if you aren't sure what that substance is, then maybe you should be wearing adult diapers. I mean, come on people. What the hell goes through your head when you put things that clearly are not going to go through that plastic screen at the bottom of the urinal? It makes me mad because you know it's not the chowderhead who put the crap there in the first place that will have to fish it out later. Just don't do it.

3) Don't have a conversation once you enter the stall, or try to start one with someone in a stall. Get in, do what you gotta do, and get out. Your analysis of the Redskins' draft picks can wait. This also includes phone conversations. If I hear someone talking on the phone while in the bathroom, I try to make as much noise as possible so that it is unmistakable to the person on the other end of the phone conversation they are being talked to while the other person is making nasty.

4) Two words: Mercy flush.

5) Speaking of flushing, another thing that should be obvious, please flush once you've finished. Again, unless you are in a drought stricken area, and only if you are doing number one, everyone should always flush. No one wants to see that, least of all the person who shows up afterwards. (There has only been one exception to this rule and that was one time in my college dorm bathroom. People were coming from all over campus to see it. If we'd had a digital camera, this would have been circulating on the internet so fast, it would have made your desktop spin.)

I'm sure I will continue this list, but I think those are the big five rules that need to be followed in order for others show respect to fellow humankind. Until these rules are more rigorously followed, I will attempt to minimize my time in the public facilities and always use the paper towel on the doorknob on the way out.

Looks like I can post again

I'm not sure why I can suddenly gain access to the electronic tablet that allows me to post, but low and behold, this just might work. And wouldn't you know it, I can't think of anything to actually type about.

The news has just broken on the election of the new Pope. Because it is so soon since the billowing of the white smoke, the various news outlets have not yet had time to assemble their experts to let us know what we are supposed to think of the new honcho. From what little I was able to glean from a few news sources, it sounds as if this new Pope from Germany is as conservative, if not more so, than Pope John Paul II. My concern about this selection is not so much that he will continue to focus on orthodox teachings/practices, but the image that this selection gives to the rest of the world (non-catholic/Catholic alike). I'm not so thrilled with some of his comments on homosexuality and the more recent crisis within the American church. But again, this is based on some very limited information and we'll see where this new guy takes us.

My wife and I have done all sorts of hard work out in our .00045 acres of land outside of our townhouse. Really when I look at it, I cannot believe that it actually took us nearly three weekends to do all that we did, but it does look better and when my wife and I complete the planting of the flowers it will look fantastic I am sure. Because I did a bunch of turning over of the clay-like soil, I have developed some calluses on my hands. When I notice things like that, I always think of my grandpa (my mom's dad) and his hands. They have always been so strong, thick, and gnarled and I've always had a respectful admiration for the work that he has performed in his life to have developed these hands. Comparatively, and in part because of him, I have had an easy life. I think when he passes on, the image of his hands will be one of most vivid memories of him.