we're back from our mini-vacation. it was nice to be able to do one of those all-too-rare escapes that was attached to work for both of us and therefore had minimal transportation costs. hooray! and to have gone to a fun city where i had old friends to visit (ones i hadn't seen in far-too-long), well, that's just gravy, baby!

if it seems like i'm in a particularly good mood, you're right. i had a new employee in my group start today and i'm very excited about it. i can finally focus on the bigger projects and be all smarty-pants strategic. hooray!

tonight steve and i went for a walk. it was nice to get out (and to get him out!). we didn't really know where we were going, and originally our goal was to find an ice cream parlor. we didn't have any luck on that front, but it was still great to be out. it's kinda in that in-between-seasons season, so it was nicely chilly enough to be rejuvenated, but not cold.

have you noticed that dashes are today's punctuation mark-of-the-day?

did you hear about the artist who spray painted an iceberg off of greenland's west coast bright red? check it out -- any one of a number of sources will pull up the article (covered by the AP) and photos, but i kinda like the graphic design of artdaily.com the best.
http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=9714

oh yeah, one more thing i'm happy about tonight: no more big stress at work about assignments. nothing is changing at all. for those of you i've stressed out to, thanks for listening.

g'night.

steve had me all worried about this blog. he thinks i should take it down since i talk about work so much and that it will get me in trouble. i'm not sure if i should go through and maybe edit it first, but i'm definitely leaning in that direction instead of toward taking it down.
there are two other people in the business center tonight and both of them are playing bridge. i know because i walked by one on the way in, and the other one's computer faces the printer area, so i saw his monitor when i was printing stuff.
is bridge that popular?
he's a younger guy and she's an African-American mom.
interesting.
.
.
i have just figured it out: the music in here is some sort of dreadful taped mix that includes "groovy kind of love" and the other dreck i've complained about before. no wonder i keep hearing that song in here! i thought maybe the front desk staff just really liked some sort of "lite fm" channel. well at least now they're to the better part of the mix: "allison" by elvis costello. i love this song.

today was a wonderfully nice day. it was almost 50 and sunny. i met a rep for lunch a few blocks away and then took some time going back to the office by running a couple of errands. it was so cool to be out and about and to see everyone out in the sun. i'm starting to get excited about what it will be like in the summer.

i wish i had more to say, but my brain is tired. at least this week i've had relatively reasonable hours at work!

this has been a really hard couple of weeks.
last week i was working until midnight every night. i had company for a couple of nights, when we stayed at the office working in a big ol' group on a mega-presentation.
and then there was FRIDAY. big client presentation. lots of work ahead of time.

(call me or email me if you want to know more -- this section has been edited out)

i think i am going to go and flip through "in style" before going to bed. i don't think my brain can actually read tonight.

hooray! alex got into grad school for public policy! now he can officially be a "wonk-in-training!"
imho, the news about him getting in isn't unexpected or surprising, but what i DO find unexpected and surprising is what an online marketing GENIUS he is. tonight i told him what i thought i should recommend for my client's marketing campaign (as well as the dumb ideas that others proposed) and he *completely* agreed with everything i said.
GENIUS.
and a great friend.

can i get a whoooooaaaaaa ALEX?!?

looks like we sold fort awesome!
we only listed formally with a realtor on friday and had about 20 showings this weekend. we ended up with two competitive offers and a bit of a bidding war. i probably am jinxing it for writing this, but hopefully we'll hear that both the best offer and the backup offer are confirmed today. woohoo!

for today's entry, i will re-post and respond to my post from Thursday, January 29, 2004. responses will be prefaced by >>

things i'll miss about fort awesome:

the huge amount of bathroom storage
>> really good thing about chicago: huge walk in closet

making mojitos with mint from our yard in the summer
>> really good thing about chicago: hip new bar just down the block with killer mojitos and some sort of magical never ending supply of ad reps that want to buy me drinks

the lilac bush in the backyard
>> really good thing about chicago: our building has killer flower arrangements downstairs and there's a good, not too expensive florist in my office building

the front porch swing
>> well, at least in chicago i can sit at our home and see something neat -- the view from sky hut's couch is better than from the ft. awesome front porch swing

having friends just stop by
>> well, at least in chicago there is the initial excitement about hanging out with new friends and/or realizing that these are new friends. i actually got my first unexpected unplanned phone call from a friend the other day asking if i wanted to go out (unfortunately we had just arrived back from las vegas and i wanted to shower, unpack and sleep! -- but still, it was very flattering)

the party center
>> in chicago we have signed up for peapod delivery service. steve spent an hour and a half last night (from about 11:30 - 1 am) shopping for groceries online. our first delivery is tomorrow. stay tuned...