I was into work later than usual in order to catch up on the lack of sleep last night. Moderately busy day, a couple of meetings. I headed over to Kelly's after work. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and we walked over to Harry's Tap Room for dinner where I had the tequila shrimp dish, for a second time. This time is was far more spicy than the first time. Delicious actually.

After, we walked over to Barnes & Noble where I picked up a copy of The Last Lecture, a much talked about best-seller, and one worthy of it, from what I understand.

Then it was back to Kelly's. We watched TV for a while, but I got tired sometime around 10 and headed off to bed.

We got to sleep in this morning, which was nice. Kelly's friends picked us up around 10 AM and we drove to a quaint little place for brunch where I tried to wreak havoc on the strawberry pancakes and failed. It was really nice meeting Kelly's friends and I had a good time at brunch. I also had a good time on the walk back to the hotel. Kelly and I decided to take the long walk back. We passed through sections of Santa Monica with which I was completely unfamiliar, until we got to the park above the beach, and then walked the length of the park and finally back to the hotel. It took us well over an hour, but we walked at a leisurely pace. The weather was perfect. I think that walk was the best time I had all week.

We packed up the remainder of our things at the hotel and then got a cab to the airport. There were no lines of any kind and we were through security before we knew it. We spent nearly 2 hours in the Red Carpet club, before heading next door to our gate to board the plane. We didn't have seats together, but we made the best of it. The flight went by surprisingly fast, actually. I spent about 3 hours reading, getting through more than 100 pages of In Joy Still Felt. We finally touched down at Dulles shortly after midnight and headed back to Kelly's.

We met Kelly's friend in the morning for brunch and shopping. Mostly shopping. It was nice though. The weather was warm and we wandered about the Third Street Promenade. Kelly decided that she needed a skirt because she hadn't really packed for warm weather. She ended up getting a poofy white skirt and a nice dark blue tank top at the last store we visited, which was Banana Republic, of course. We had brunch at California Pizza Kitchen and then Kelly and I walked back to the hotel.

We napped for a while and then got ready for Mom and Dad's visit. They arrived shortly after 2 PM, and met us at the hotel room. It was the first time Kelly met them, although she'd spoken to Dad briefly on the phone a while back. I think it went well. After sitting around chatting for a while, we walked over to the Santa Monica pier, walked it's length, talked browsed, took pictures, and got a little too much sun. I was very thirsty and suggested we head back to the hotel, which has a lounge and bar. Wouldn't you know it--the bar was closed and wasn't scheduled to open until 5:30! I ran over to the local AM/PM to get sodas for everyone--and managed to get the wrong one for Mom. But we sat around some more, chatting, and then finally headed over to Ocean Avenue Seafood for dinner.

We were seated in the patio area and I think we had a very nice dinner. I had the salmon, and Kelly had the Mahi-mahi. For some reason, I couldn't eat very much. I'm not sure why. But dinner was great, Mom and Dad were great, and we couldn't have asked for better weather. They dropped us back off at the hotel sometime around 8 PM, and I think we were both pretty tired, although we did stay up long enough to watch a Harry Potter movie on network television.

I didn't feel great when I woke up this morning, and I once again had some swelling around my left eye, and hives. My guess is that I have developed an allergy to Ibuprofen, which I took late last night. Or I've developed an allergy to alcohol, which seems less likely. In any event, Benedryl took care of the problem and by 10 AM, I felt much better. I'm scheduling an appointment with my doctor for a general check-up and I'll ask him about it.

Fairly busy day today, but the retreat was over. It was nice to be able to work with my team face-to-face for a change. In particular, I spent a lot of time with Carol and Rob, who together, are like Abbott & Costello.

I had lunch with Beth today, at a Mexican food place near the bowling alley on Pico. It was really the only time we had to talk while I was out there, and the first time we've talked since she's been in her new role. It was good to get to see her.

Kelly came by to go to lunch with someone she used to work with, so that I saw her around noon. I saw her again at 4:30 when she was with Laural. We headed over to Eric and Laural's house in the Valley and had dinner there. Eric must have been cooking all day. We had all sorts of delicious foods: homemade flat-bread, on which we put homemade hummus. There was an excellent tuna dish that we also put on our flat-bread, made with delicious avocados and sushi-quality tuna. There was homemade pizza, which was outstanding. For the main course we had salads and pasta with crab meat. And for dessert that was a strawberry dish. The strawberries were marinated in sugar and balsamic vinegar, and then served with a Marscapone cheese and vanilla bean sauce. Yum!

It was really nice getting to hang out with Eric and Laural at their house--something I did only once before when I worked for Eric, way back in August 1999.

Eric drove us back to the hotel after dinner and we were both exhausted.

Another busy day, but only half of it was spent in the retreat. We wrapped things up this morning. I gave a presentation on "application support tail" for which I put together a PowerPoint slide deck with some animated slides recapping the week in a humorous way. I think it went over pretty well.

I had lunch with Cathy today. We went to a fairly new Japanese place on 2nd and I had pot stickers for the first time. For some reason, I had never gotten around to trying them before, but they were very good.

The highlight of the day was the happy hour after work at El Cholo. Quite a number of people showed up to it so that it was a complete success. kruppenheimer was there, with her friend Heather, who happened to work in the Santa Monica office, so that she was among her people, although she hadn't met any of them. El Cholo has the best margaritas I've ever had. I had one. And two shots of Patron. That's it. For the rest of the time I was there, I drank water. But I made the mistake of not eating anything so that I was not feeling too great in the middle of the night.

Kelly managed to get on an earlier flight and she arrived at the hotel in Santa Monica around 9 PM.

Beth and Megan (and Shakespeare's) birthdays today so happy birthday everyone!

Up just before 6 AM and into the office by 6:30. Did some work on my "futures" presentation and then back to the retreat. Once again, meetings from 8 AM to 5 PM. Breakfast brought in. I was supposed to have lunch with Cathy but there wasn't enough time because we went over. She seemed really disappointed but we arranged to have lunch tomorrow; I felt terrible, of course. Fortunately, I had flowers delivered to her for Administrative Support day, and hopefully those cheered her up some.

Good sessions again today, and long day. Dinner with Jim and Janet after, once again at the Galley (Jim heard it was good and didn't know we'd gone there the night before, and I didn't want to spoil it for them). Had the Australian lamb, which was outstanding. Got to talk with Jim and Janet for a while which was nice.

Was supposed to do a software upgrade tonight and had to abort due to some technical problems. We've rescheduled for Monday. Back to the hotel around 8:50 PM, checked the bar but still no Sambuca. Came back up to the room to put finishing touches on my "application support" presentation and them I'm off to bed.

So busy with the retreat that I don't have much time to write here, so I'm doing mostly simple diary entries that stick to the basics, so forgive for a few days. Eventually things will return to normal. At least you'll get a glimpse of what my "diary" blog entries look like.

Up at 6 AM, into the office by 6:30 and in meetings from 8 AM to 4:30 PM. Breakfast was brought in but lunch was on our own. I had lunch with Jim and Robert, who took me over to McDonald's, which has been remodeled and looks completely different from what I remember. The food wasn't any better.

Good morning session and good afternoon sessions, and when it was over, I was exhausted. But we had the group dinner at 6 PM at The Galley Restaurant. I had the spicy shrimp diablo, which was very good. 11 of us at dinner, and had a great time. Afterward, Neal, Will and I headed to the hotel bar for a drink. They didn't have Sambuca or Ouzo, so I just had water. In bed around 10 PM, finished up In Memory Yet Green and then off to sleep.

I left the office at 4 PM yesterday, after a busy day, and headed over to Kelly's, enjoying the walk from the metro station, down the hill to her house, because the air is finally getting warming around here. Eventually, we headed back up the hill for dinner, going to a place called Mexicali, which we thought was Mexican but might have been Salvadorian. Kelly had fish tacos and I had two shredded beef tacos and 1 chicken taco. It wasn't bad. The guacamole wasn't particularly good, but I'll be in Southern California next week and plan on dining on good Mexican food a couple of times while I was there. On the other hand, they had $2 drafts, which was nice.

Earlier in the day, I picked up a copy of Juno on DVD as a little surprise for Kelly. I gave it to her yesterday when she got home from work, and then we watched the movie before going to bed. We'd both seen it before together when it was in theaters. Kelly saw it another time with a friend. Even on a second viewing, it was a great movie, with a great soundtrack.

I had a dream last night that I was having a bad allergic reaction to something and was breaking out in hives. I'm pretty sure I know what that dream was all about.

Got to sleep in this morning, which was nice. Two full nights of sleep in a row. It was warm already when we left for work. It's supposed to be up in the 70s today and into the 80s tomorrow. Tomorrow, we're planning to attend our first "outdoor" happy hour of the year.

548 pages through In Memory Yet Green. No writing yesterday.

Busy day at work today, I'll be in meetings from 11 AM - 4 PM. Which means I won't have time to get a whole lot done.

Kelly's flight was delayed 2 hours yesterday, but I picked her up from Dulles at 7 PM and we headed back to her place. I think she was glad to be home because it had been a long trip for her.

We slept in this morning and then made pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast, Kelly went to the gym while I lazily read more of In Memory Yet Green. Then we packed up stuff into our cars (including my new telescope) and headed over to my house.

I was in a cleaning mood. I cleaned up the kitchen, and took piles of books from the living room and put them in the office. I mopped the floors. I emptied trash. While Kelly did her taxes, I went grocery shopping. I had to stop and get litter for Zeke and found that it was on a rather incredible sale. I got 2-14 lbs boxes of litter for $3 each. They normally cost $15.99 each. Crazy! I also got us stuff to make dinner. Later in the evening, we had a 3-course meal: salad with sliced tomatoes and broccoli; ravioli and pasta sauce; and apple pie for dessert. Meanwhile, I put my telescope together while Kelly did laundry. I took it outside to get it aligned. It was so cool. I managed to lose a small screw and spent about 20 minutes searching for it but to no avail. I gave up when I realized I could find an exact match at Home Depot for less than a dollar. Unfortunately, it was overcast out so I couldn't use the telescope to look at stars tonight.

I gassed up my car today (over $30!), and then, gassed up Kelly's car before she left this evening so that she could drive straight home. She left at about 8:20. I'm heading off to bed in order to get a good night's sleep.

Saturday began early for I was anxious to see everyone and wanted to get an early start. Kelly and I had gone to bed around midnight and I was up at 6:40 AM. I showered and then headed downstairs to sit on the couch and read until everyone else woke up. Kelly was up early too, and so we waited for vickyandnorm (Norm and Vicky) and kruppenheimer (Lisa) to awaken and get ready. It didn't take too long but it seemed as though it took forever. However, we were ready to go by 9 AM, which is what I was hoping for, and at that point, we hit the road.

( How's this for a great day... )

To be continued...

Kelly and I decided to brave the cool (but clear) weather and the potential crowds downtown today to check out the annual blooming of the cherry blossoms in D.C. As it turned out, more than the cherry blossom festival was going on. The National Marathon took place today. There was a kite festival on the Mall. And indeed, the Orange line train heading into downtown was pretty crowded. In fact, the whole mall area seemed jam packed with people and cars and buses. It was a good thing we took the train in and decided to walk. The roads were a mess.

We got off the train one stop before Smithsonian to avoid the major crowds. We then took a leisurely walk down to the Mall, past the Washington Monument where the kite festival was taking place. Kites of all kinds filled the skies there. We continued on past the first few cherry blossoms, and then made our way down toward the basin, which was surrounded by blooming trees. (And crowded with people.) We walked passed the Jefferson Memorial and then over to the other side of the basin, following the path around to the FDR memorial. Kelly had never been to the FDR memorial, so we wandered through that. I'd been there before, but this was the first time I'd learned that the memorial was divided into 4 sections, each one representing a term of FDR's presidency.

( More pictures of the Cherry Blossom festival... )

After stopping briefly in the gift shop, we walked toward the reflecting pool, and past rows and rows of soccer games. We passed the Lincoln memorial and then made our way up 21st street to H street, and finally to the Foggy Bottom metro station, where we caught a much less crowded train back to Kelly's. We stopped in at Hard Times Cafe for chili, which really hit the spot after our long, walk.

Later in the afternoon, we headed over to Kelly's friend Sarah's in order to take her dog, Oliver, our for a walk. We drove him over to the Congressional Cemetery and walked him there. Apparently, for an annual fee, people can take their dogs into the this old cemetery and allow them to roam, leash free, among the ancient gravestones. We probably spent about an hour there, and Oliver seemed to have a lot of fun. There were quite a few people out with their dogs. The temperature was cool but the sky was bright and clear.

Finally, after returning Oliver home, we headed up to my place. Later in the evening, I made us dinner: ravioli and spaghetti sauce, and before going to bed, we watched a portion of the movie, Enchanted, which Kelly had rented through Blockbuster.

Kelly and I met up after work yesterday and drove into Old Town Alexandria. The skies were overcast, but the weather was springlike, and we spent 45 minutes or so wandering about the streets of Old Town, popping in and out of little shops (including a cute little Irish shop) before heading over the the restaurant for dinner.

We had reservations at the Chart House Restaurant. Kelly managed to wrangle us a window by the water, and we spent much of our time commenting on the behavior of the 12 and 13 years old pooling around outside, waiting to board a boat for a dinner cruise.

It was a very good dinner. We started with an appetizer called a Crab, Avocado and Mango Stack
Jumbo, which was essentially lump crab meat tossed in remoulade over layers of fresh avocado and mango. I also had some clam chowder, and we both ordered fish dinners which were excellent. They have a famous lava cake dessert there, which must be ordered 30 minutes in advance, but we had dessert waiting at home. In fact, Kelly had made 36 chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting (how well she knows me!) They were moist and delicious. I have four of them with me here at work today.

And to top it all off, Kelly got her hair cut and I love the new length and style. I couldn't stop looking at it throughout the evening.

She got me a book that I've been wanting, as well as an excellent Dr. Seuss birthday card. She got me something else, too, which is supposed to arrive via UPS today. I guess I'll find out what it is later this evening.

I received phone calls from vickyandnorm and A.J. and Denisse, and stubiebrother last night. I also had a birthday voice-mail message from mabfan.

It was a wonderful evening, and a very happy birthday.

Today was a lazy day and it was great. We slept in until around 9 AM, then headed to a relatively empty grocery store to do some grocery shopping. Came back home, at breakfast and then lazed around for hours while doing laundry and watching TV.

About mid-afternoon, we headed out to get some air, up to Greenbelt lake. The weather was a little cool, but bright and sunny and the lake was crowded with lots of Easter picnics. We walked twice around the lake, getting our exercise for the day, before coming back home.

For dinner, I made ravioli (large ones this time) and spaghetti sauce, to which I added, while the sauce was still heating up, some hot pepper that gave it a nice kick. And for dessert we had apple pie, which we got at the store. Then more TV watching and lazing around until all of the laundry was done. Kelly headed home around 7 PM. I won't see her until Thursday (I'm going there on Thursday this week instead of Wednesday because my birthday is Thursday and we're going out for a birthday dinner.)

I'm packing my lunch and then heading off to bed. I'm 65 pages into Factoring Humanity and I plan on getting another hour or so of reading in before lights-out. Tomorrow evening I hope to finish up the revisions on "The Golden Watch".

Called he11o_sunshine and stubiebrother today but got voicemail. Maybe I'll talk to them later in the week.

Yesterday afternoon began late yesterday morning. After Kelly cleaned off her desk and I finished my book, we headed out for a day full of errands and fun. First we went to the post office so that I could mail all of my tax papers to my accountant. With that out of the way, we headed a short distance down the street to the Silver Diner, where I had my first-ever egg salad sandwich. (How it it I've missed egg salad sandwiches? The same way, I supposed, I have missed many other types of foods: there's so much out there it takes a while, but eventually, you get around to it.) I enjoyed it. The atmosphere at the diner was fun too. We stopped at the vet to pick up some cat food for Kelly's cat, Simon, and then we headed down to Potomac Yards.

We met Kelly's friend Sarah there and proceeded to do a bunch of shopping. There was shoe shopping (or browsing). We went into PetSmart and Target. We dashed in and out of shops. Kelly and I even bought a basketball because she's had the urge to play now that the weather is starting to get nice again. (This has nothing to do with March Madness, I can assure you.)

Next we headed over to the movie theater and the three of us caught a 2:15 PM showing of Under the Same Moon, which turned out to be a pretty good movie. I found that, for the most part, I could understand the Spanish without the English subtitles.

After the movie, we stopped at the grocery store, loaded up the cars, and finally headed into D.C. where we went to a Mexican restaurant just south of the Capital South metro for dinner. They had pretty good Margaritas, but remarkably, they were all out of avocados, so there was no guacamole to be had with any of our meals. Still, it was a good meal, and a good afternoon.

I drove us back to my place after dinner and Kelly started in on something like 5 loads of laundry. Tivo had recorded What About Bob? and so we watched that, but we were tired and headed off to bed at 10 PM, as soon as it was over.

Kelly and I went to Harry's Tap Room for dinner last night, and it was a particularly good meal. I had this spicy, tequila shrimp dish which was very tasty. Our server warned me that this was a spicy dish, but I was looking for something spicy--turns out "spicy" is a relative term. I'd call it "medium", but it was still good. Kelly had trout. We both had dessert and then walked leisurely back to her place. The evening air was mild. It was all very pleasant.

We spent the rest of the evening watching a few episodes of Dexter, which I had never seen before, but which I really enjoyed. It's a well-done show.

We were up around 7:30 and slept off and on until almost 9 AM. Kelly got up to go to the gym and I finished reading Up the Line. What a great time-travel book! I'll have more to say on it later, but I thoroughly enjoyed it--gave it 4 stars--and it has to rank up there among the best time travel books I've read. I've now read 3 Robert Silverberg books and none of them have disappointed me. They have all been terrific.

I'll be starting on Rob Sawyer's Factoring Humanity sometime today, and I'm looking forward to that as well.

We've got some errands to run this morning and then plan on catching a movie this afternoon. Sometime later today, we're heading over to my place. I've still got some revisions to complete on "The Golden Watch" and I'd like to get those finished this weekend.

Kelly and I headed over to Denisse and AJ's last night where we gathered with some of their other friends for a Peruvian dinner that Denisse prepared. I can't remember the name of the dish, but it was terrific! Lots of mojitos and beer, as well as snacks and desserts. Good company, too. We got there a little after 6 PM and finally headed back to Kelly's around 11 PM.

After a good night's sleep, I left Kelly's at around 10 AM this morning. I got home remarkably quickly. My first task was cleaning up the place a bit. That took about an hour. Then I had work to do. I agreed to write some documentation for a beta-test we are conducting beginning this week, and I spent much of the afternoon on that, taking a break for lunch, and a bit of reading.

All told, I managed to write about 15 pages of documentation (a tad under 4,000 words) and I completed enough to be ready for tomorrow. But the day is done now, and it's already 7:30 which means it's nearly time for me to go to bed. I'm going to eat some dinner, make my lunch for tomorrow, and then hit the sack.

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon with AJ and Denisse. We went into Georgetown for a late lunch at an Indian food place. In fact, we got in just before they closed the kitchen, but the food was outstanding. We lingered over the meal for a while and the folks in the restaurant were patient, but eventually, they started to vacuum and we figured we should probably leave.

So we wandered up the street to Barnes & Noble and browsed through the book store for a little while. Eventually, we made our way back to the front of the store, looking for AJ and Denisse. They were by the magazine section, skimming magazines. Kelly and Denisse began commiserating and when I tried to get in on the action, Denisse shooed me away. "Go read a magazine," she said.

"I've read them all already," I said.

"Oh yeah, right," said Denisse. She glanced randomly at a shelf. And then she said, "So what's on page 39 of Q magazine."

I paused for a moment, thinking, and then replied, "An advertisement."

"Shut up," Denisse said, "prove it."

I walked over to the shelf with issues of Q magazine. I pulled off the top issue and turned to page 39.

It contained a full page ad.

It took Denisse several minutes to recover.

Last night, Kelly and I headed up the street to Hard Times Cafe in order to satisfy my craving for chili. They gave us a chili sampler when we got there, and of the four times of chili they have, I chose the Terlingua chili, which is described as "a tribute to the Texas ghost town that hosted the first chili cook-off. A redder color and spicy kick of championship chilies." It was delicious, but all of the chili they had was delicious. I added some home brewed root beer. And for dessert, we had a brownie sundae. What a great meal for a cold, wet, dreary evening!

We started off the day with a breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes and sausage courtesy of Steph and Jim. After breakfast, Kelly and I headed toward downtown to see her brother and nephew. We got the tour of their new place (the balcony overlooks downtown Denver) and hung out for a while before deciding to head up to Boulder, Colorado. Then all four of us piled into the rental car for the 40 minute drive to Boulder.

We ended up at Pearl Street and spent a few hours wandering around there. It's like a much mellower version of Third Street in Santa Monica, except instead of bordering the Pacific ocean, it bumps right up against the Rocky Mountains. Steph and Jim met us there, and I tried to get in touch with Paul to see if he could meet for a little while, but we just couldn't do it this time. We ended up stopping for pizza before heading back to Denver.

Once back in Denver, there was a quick change of clothes and then we headed downtown to Lucky Strike where we'd rented a lane for 2 hours to bowl. There were six of us and it was a lot of fun, especially since all of us were pretty terrible bowlers. We bowled for 2 hours, drank a lot of beer, and in general, great fun was had by all. At the end of the two hours, Kelly's brother and nephew headed home. The rest of us went over to an Irish bar where we sat for a while, munching and drinking.

We got back to Steph and Jim's pretty late and Kelly fell asleep almost right away. I stayed up a bit longer before crashing myself.

Spoke to Dan today. Looks like he an Megan are not coming out in April, but coming out in May instead. Also spoke to Doug today.

Friday night was a weird one. I was exhausted from both a long night, preparing for the big rollout, followed by a long day, of second and third winds to keep going throughout the day. When I got to Kelly's after work, I was literally running on fumes. We decided to stay in for dinner. Kelly made ravioli. Sometime around 7:30, I got into bed, barely conscious. Kelly tells me I was pretty funny throughout the night, saying things. I think I was so tired I was just hallucinating.

We had breakfast at IHOP on Saturday and then headed up to my house and spent much of the day doing laundry, cleaning up and watching a few movies. We took advantage of the mild weather to go for a walk around the lake in Greenbelt. Afterward, we did some grocery shopping and then came back and made a late lunch/early dinner. We cracked open the Grilled Cheese cookbook that he11o_sunshine and stubiebrother got me for the holidays and made one of the sandwich recipes (I think it was the California Grilled Cheese). We used the sandwich maker and they sandwiches turned out really good. Before going to bed, we watched the first half of Disney's Escape to Witch Mountain, which I hadn't seen since I was a kid.

We were up pretty early this morning, but spent the early part of the day lazing around a bit. I managed to finish Our Oriental Heritage. I was really hoping to finish the book at the end of January, but work got crazy. In any case, I finished it this morning and it was outstanding. More on that later. We went for another walk around the lake in Greenbelt, and then we had a late lunch at Appleby's before Kelly headed home.

I'm back at the gym tomorrow morning. Lunch is packed and I'm about ready to head off to bed.