Up at 4:20 AM after getting to sleep after 10 PM. When I woke up, I was in no mood to go to the gym, but I ate breakfast, got ready, and headed into the office. By the time I got to the office, my mood was better and I went to the gym.

25 minutes of cardio today, abbreviated mainly because I became famished while on the elliptical. Even though I ate breakfast, I was still hungry and the feeling was growing more intense with each step. So I made it to 25 minutes and called it quits. When I got back to the office, I had my "second" breakfast (toasted peanut butter and banana sandwich). I feel much better.

You'd think the big news this morning would have been that Obama won North Carolina and nearly split Indiana, all of which was good news for Obama (it would have been better if he had decisively won both, of course). But no. The top story this morning (while I was at the gym) was the fact that northern Virgina area experienced a whopping 1.5 magnitude earthquake.

You didn't read that wrong: 1.5.

For those of us who lived in Southern California, a 1.5 magnitude earthquake making top story in the news would be the equivalent of a 1.5 cm snow storm making top-story of the news in Boston in the middle of winter. Of course, this isn't Socal, but still, a 1.5 earthquake is what happens when a truck passed by on the street.

I may be biased here. I lived through numerous quakes, including the deadly Northridge quake in 1994--in fact, my family lived in Northridge at the time, and had to relocate for a few months while damage to our house was repaired. It got to the point, eventually, where I didn't even get out of bed for anything less than a 5.0 magnitude earthquake, mostly because I am a heavy sleeper and I simply slept through them.

I'm donating blood this morning. The Red Cross is here at my office taking donations and I signed up a while back. I have a 9:30 appointment. This will be my second time donating. The first time, my blood type was identified as O positive and since then, I get at least 1 call a week from the Red Cross, asking me to donate blood. This, despite the fact that you can only donate once every 45 days or so. If ever the term "vampire" applied...

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.

It was awesome out yesterday when I left the office. I decided at the last minute to walk over to Crystal City Sports Pub, because it was so nice out. The temperature was about 84 and the skies were crystal clear. Eventually, there were about 6 or 7 of us who gathered for happy hour, but I was the only guy in the group. At one point, I managed to knock over my beer which quickly found it's way over to Susan, who sat across from me. I felt terrible about that, and when I replaced my beer, I made sure to replace hers as well. It was almost 8 PM when Kelly and I left and headed back to her place. I made us some macaroni and cheese for dinner, and after eating, I was tired and went to bed. Kelly came to bed some time later.

Even throughout the night, the weather was simply gorgeous. The ceiling fan was going in the bedroom and it created a nice cool breeze. Nighttime temperatures cooled down a bit, but it was so comfortable--the perfect weather conditions, really. Even this morning, as I write this, there is a great breeze blowing in from outside and it looks to be another great day.

I woke up this morning with some swelling under both my eyes. Not quite like two weeks ago, when I clearly had a severe allergic reaction to something, and yet still, it makes me a little uneasy. I took an antihistamine just in case. I feel fine, and the swelling neither hurts, nor bothers me in any way, except for it's presence, which disturbs me. I've always been perfectly healthy and to have something like this happen twice in two weeks (after turning 36) is a little stressful. It could be a dust allergy--something I know I'm allergic to because I was tested for it. When I get back from Santa Monica, I'll probably make an appointment with my doctor to get it checked out.

Payday yesterday. Also, Kelly had kindly taken a portion of the change I had sitting at home to one of those bank change machines, which netted me $67. I've got plenty more change sitting at home, but this was a nice little bonus from the collected coffers.

Since waking up this morning, might right ear lobe has ached. I think maybe I slept on it funny. It's never ached before. I don't have any Advil in my desk drawer (usually I do), so I'll have to run out and get some later.

I took a sick day from work today. The allergic reaction I had took a lot out of me and I felt like I needed a lot of sleep. Plus, I wanted to call the doctor and check with him on what had happened. Indeed, it sounds like an allergic reaction and benedryl was the proper course of action. No other symptoms since taking it and I should avoid the shampoo product I used at the W. (I'll probably avoid all W products, and possibly all Starwood products at this point, just to be safe.)

I have lazed around in bed all day thus far. In fact I am still in bed as I write this, but I feel like I've gotten plenty of rest, and it's about time I got up and got a few things done today. I did manage to watch the first two episodes of the BBC miniseries, Planet Earth. They were amazing. I plan on (finally) finishing up I. Asimov today and starting on In Memory Yet Green later today. Back to work tomorrow.

Remember how I mentioned not washing my hair at the hotel Saturday afternoon...? Well...

Sunday morning we were up around 8 AM I felt pretty sluggish. My head was pounding at around 6 AM, most likely from the alcohol, and I felt a little dehydrated, but water took care of that. I texted people, organizing a brunch and we lazed around until 9:30 AM or so. I felt great.

I showered around 9:30, making use of the hotel shampoo. A very short time later, I noticed some swelling around the inner corner of my right eye. It didn't hurt, didn't itch, but swollen it was nonetheless. I also started feeling hot--feverishly hot, in fact, but I kept it to myself initially. We waited.

Shortly before heading down the lobby at 10:30, I finally asked Kelly if she thought it was hot in our little room. She said no, and I was pretty sure something was wrong. She felt me head and agreed that I was more or less burning up. I felt nauseous and just wanted to lie still, but the show must go on, so we headed downstairs to meet people, and bring the luggage of those who had already checked out up to our room.

Eric joked about me wearing sunglasses, but when I took them off and he saw my eye, he stopped joking. By this time, I had cooled off but now felt chills and I knew I couldn't go out to breakfast with the group. I still wasn't sure what was wrong with me. I assumed it was pink eye, or something. However, I had an itch on my right rib cage as we approached the elevator. I pulled up my shirt to find a nice sized hive there. Believe it or not, I was mildly relieved because at least I was pretty certain it was an allergic reaction to something. The only thing that we could deduce would cause this was the shampoo in the hotel room.

I was talked into walking around the block to where everyone was having breakfast and I must admit the cool air felt good. But it was stuffy in the restaurant and I wanted to lay back in bed for while. Over my feeble protests, Kelly came with me, and with all my clothes and shoes on, I pulled the covers over my head and tried to lay perfectly still. Fever and nausea came in ever receding waves. Finally, at noon, we collected all of the luggage and headed downstairs. I got Kelly in a cab to the airport (she was heading of on a business trip) and we said goodbye to Eric, Ryane, Norm and Vicky. Then Jen, Jason, Lisa, AJ and Denisse took cabs up to Jen and Jason's place where we hung out for the rest of the afternoon.

Within minutes of my taking Benedryl, all of the bad feelings, hives and eye swelling went away. I wasn't sure about driving, but we ate some pizza before leaving and I felt much better. Doug and Rachel came over--Doug with very little memory of the evening before, I should add--and we got to say goodbye to them too. We picked up the car, and I drove to Newark Airport to drop Lisa off. Shortly thereafter, I let A.J. drive the rest of the way home.

I was home at around 7:30 and I felt so much better. I called Mom and Dad, opened a few remaining gifts I received (including the BBC DVD series "Planet Earth" from Norm and Vicky), cleaned up the house a bit and got ready for bed. I spoke to Kelly briefly and then turned in for the night.

I left work at 4 PM yesterday and headed to Kelly's. She'd just had two wisdom teeth removed and I told her I'd come over on Tuesday (instead of Wednesday when I usually go over there) to stay with her and make sure she was okay. The procedure went smoothly. She was home when I got there and except for the fact that she was still numb, she was fine. As the numbness wore off, the pain started to bother her a bit. Fortunately, she'd been given a prescription for some painkillers. We took it to the pharmacy to get filled. Unfortunately, the doctor forgot to sign the prescription, so we had to wait while the doctor was contacted. Eventually, I headed back to the pharmacy to pick up the filled prescription. I stopped in at the grocery store and got Kelly some soup so that she wouldn't have to take the medication on an empty stomach. When I got back to her place, I made her soup and afterward, she took her medicine and lay in bed watching a movie.

By the time I finally went to bed, she was feeling better and the pain medicine had started working. She was wide awake and had lots of energy. I, on the other hand, was tired, having been up since 4:20 AM. Besides it was passed my bedtime. Kelly was eager to try out the new toy she'd gotten me--ear/nose hair clippers. (Yes, it is to my utter humiliation to report this, but it is only fair that I balance out this journal now and then with things that are equally uninteresting, and yet humiliating.) And so we passed a frightening (for me) five minutes testing the clippers out. Kelly may have her own perspective on this, but all I can say is that my nose feels bald.

Needless to say, I didn't manage to get any work on the novel outline done last night, but that's okay because I can work on it tonight, and besides, I wanted to make sure Kelly was okay. It was a tough balance. I kept wanting to go into her room and ask her if she was feeling okay (which I must have done half a dozen times), but I also didn't want to "bug" her unnecessarily every 5 minutes and drive her nuts. I hope I struck the right balance.

And in other news, I saw that the Yanks won their first game of the season last night. Their second game is being televised on ESPN2 tonight and I may try and catch a portion of it.

Woke up this morning at 4:20 AM without much of a voice still, but otherwise feeling better. I had some breakfast and caught the usual 5:09 train into the office. Perhaps a third of the way to the office, I began to feel a bit nauseous on the train. This is very unusual for me, but I stopped what I was doing (watching a show on my iPhone) and just tried to relax. I felt much better by the time I got to the office, but I didn't want to risk going to the gym, so I postponed until lunch today. I have 3 phone meetings today which will be interesting, considering the state of my voice, but I'll do the best that I can.

I've been trying to rest most of the day today. I slept in. I kept activity to a minimum. But I couldn't resist the 72 degree temperatures and Kelly and I did head up to Greenbelt to walk around the lake early this afternoon. I picked up some litter for Zeke on the way back. And it's been rest, rest, rest for the rest of the day. Kelly headed home around 3 PM and I dozed off for about 2 hours. And while I am feeling somewhat better, my voice has not recovered yet, which will make for an interesting day at work tomorrow since I have 3 hours worth of phone meetings.

I have laundry to do but I probably won't get to it tonight. Kelly got me a whole bunch of new clothes which I am eager to start wearing but which really need to be washed first.

I'm calling it an early night tonight. I am planning on getting up for the gym tomorrow and want to be in bed by 8:30 PM.

I just finished an abbreviated lower body workout the hotel fitness center. What I thought might be allergies looks like it might be a cold or bug or something. While my throat isn't sore, my head has felt weird since this morning, and my eyes are burning a little--like the onset of a fever. It's not too bad, but rather than risk burning myself out for the weekend, I cut the workout short after about 2/3rds of a full group of exercises (not much, really).

I'm going to hit the showers, then find some place that has some Advil. Then I'm heading down to conference registration.

Yes, it's 6:05 PM by my clock, but I am in bed and about to turn off the lights. I've been putting in long days these last few weeks, especially when you factor in the gym in the morning, and writing in the evenings. I'm taking tonight off. I've had my dinner, packed my lunch, and I've sent my tired, aching body to bed.

Any email that I haven't responded to yet (like messages from kruppenheimer) I'll get to tomorrow.

Good night, and good luck.