BBQ'n

Nice day for a little BBQ, if you ask me -- I headed to Sam's yesterday to get the brisket and sausage; picked up some chicken at Randalls. Wanted to get ribs, but everyone seemed to be out of the pork spare ribs -- only had the baby backs ($$$$$). So no ribs this time around. Got up early this morning and got the pit going. I had to drag it out of the back of the garage and wash it off, since it's been about 8 months since I smoked BBQ last.

The boys are over at Carolyn's for a couple of hours while we get everything for the neighbors to come over around 4. I've got the beans on; already cooked the pasta salad. Katie did some cookies with the kids yesterday, and Carolyn got the plates, napkins, etc. Should be a good time -- and hopefully not any big production.

I just want to hang out, visit, watch the kids play and eat some smokey meat.

Rehab exercises suck

I went to the doctor yesterday to get my exercises for bringing my arm back to full mobility -- I'd thought that my range of motion was pretty good, and in theory, it is; but boy how actually going through the motions makes such a difference. I've got 4 flexibility exercises; 4 strength exercises.

OH THE PAIN!!

It's just at the extremes -- right at full extension / full bend. I never realized how I was 'babying' my arm while it was hurt. Now I know. Should take 6 weeks or so to get back to normal -- hopefully the pain during stretching will ease sooner than that, though.

In other news, I'm back in Dallas this evening. Had a team dinner at one of the guys' house (good burgers, beans, mac salad). Drank a few beers (not much really - too tired); and back to hotel. Flight up here sucked real bad -- rain in Dallas kept us 2 hrs on the runway in Houston, turning a 45 min flight into a 3 hr ordeal. I got lots of reading done in my book, though. Few meetings in the morning, then back home for Memorial Day Weekend with the family. Planning BBQ on Sunday.

Great weekend at the Beach

This weekend was perfect at the beach -- great weather, good food, and a celebration for Katie's birthday. We headed down mid-afternoon on Friday and were there for plenty of daylight. After unpacking, we pulled out the crab traps and took the boys to Bright Light to get some candy and some chicken necks for the traps.

Water temp was perfect, and even though it was windy and rough on the gulf side, the bay was nice and calm. I put out the traps and we headed back to the house for dinner -- fajitas, chips / guac / queso. I also had a chance to try the new St. Arnold's IPA, which was yummy. Nice and hoppy.

Boys stayed up very late that night, and I think we all were nice and tired. We got up on Sat and hit the beach early. I cooked the boys breakfast -- but no one seemed interested. They were itchin' to get out. There was lots of seaweed this weekend, but that didn't bother anyone. I remember just last year Jackson cried if he got near the seaweed -- he wouldn't walk over it, we had to pick him up. Now they both just run right across, no problem!

We pulled in 15 crabs during the day, and the boys had a chance to fish a little in the bay during the afternoon. Sat night I cooked some burgers and after dinner we boiled the crabs. Katie picked them so that we can cook crab-cakes later this week when I get back home.

I'm sitting in our Dallas office, numb from thinking about what we need to do to get phase one of this project put to bed. I had a doctor's appointment this morning to check on my elbow -- looks all healed, but Dr. said it will be a little sore for 6 mos to a year; he has me starting some range of motion exercises just to ensure I get back fully to normal. Other than that, major medical condition over. Nice.

Think tonight I'll either hit Hooters or Outback Steakhouse for dinner. Read the newspaper and then head back to the hotel to vege out. Busy travel week this week, but at least I'll be home most nights - just not tonight.

Back to normal project time

Finally got back to normal project time this week with the team -- no more 18 hour days. For the first time in about 4 weeks Ian, SK and I had a chance to go to eat after work. We did Humperdinks, for the Armadillo Eggs (fried jalapenos) and good brew-pub beer.

I took the early flight to Dallas this morning, and it was not the normal trip. I tried to log into Southwest.com to print my boarding pass this morning before showering so I would ease past security -- but the system was down. So I went to the airport and just planned on using the walk-up kiosk. No go. The entire system was down, nation-wide, and everyone had to stand in line to wait for one of the staff to HAND WRITE our boarding document -- no looking up our reservation; no security check; no nothing -- just our word for it that we were scheduled on that plane. Pretty scary.

I thought I'd miss my flight, but they had the process down to a science and I made it with 9 minutes to spare. I guess I was kinda juiced after that, and I couldn't really sleep on the way up like I normally do.

Project is going well -- we're in the final testing and mods resulting from user accecptance testing. Hopefully we'll get into final production by the end of this week, and we'll probably end up doing training / hand-holding through next week.

Well, for now, it's settling into the relative comfort of my hotel room -- watch a little news TV and catch up on some casual reading (probably Detective Comics [Batman]). Full belly will make sleep easier, too.

Trying to get it right

I think I scared the living shit out of Porter tonight. He started throwing a fit -- which we don't allow -- and I told him to go to his room and pull himself together, to get control of himself. I told him that we don't like it when he throws a fit, so he would have a time out. I was pretty loud and stern -- but in control, myself. Once we got in his room, I made him sit / lay in his bed, like I normally do with Jackson and him when they're in trouble. I figure it helps them calm down. I told him he could come out when he calmed down and said he was sorry.

Anyway, he had a book in his bed and when I walked out, he was still screaming and out of control. When I sat back down in the other room, I suddenly heard the book fly across his room and hit the floor. Well, that's another thing we don't allow.

I went back in and asked him if he threw the book -- I was pretty mad, and was pretty loud -- and he said that he didn't. I asked him if he kicked it; he said no. He lied to me. He's been doing that lately to try to keep from getting in trouble. But it only makes it worse. Lying is the other thing we don't allow.

Well, I was still under control myself, but I let him have it with a little screaming of my own -- I told him that was not what he should do, and that he was going to have to go straight to bed, no dinner, no stories, no nothing. And I was taking his book away. I took him in the bathroom to pee, changed his clothes and told him he was going to bed, no ifs-ands-buts. And I did it as 'Mean Mad Dad.'

Discipline is hard. I don't want to spank; and the simple, "That makes Daddy sad" doesn't seem to work all the time, so I do the Dr. Jekel / Mr. Hyde thing and light into them with a tirade that pretty much scares the shit out of whoever is being bad -- Jackson or Porter.

I hate it.

I never feel quite right about doing it, but I don't know what else to do -- they need to know that there are right things to do, and wrong things. We don't throw a fit when we don't get our way; we don't throw things when we're mad; we don't lie. I know it makes an impression on them to know that I am not happy with them -- and I try to save 'Mean Mad Dad' for things that are truly important... It just sucks that I have to do it. Porter was totally beside himself that I was mad at him. He couldn't bear knowing how mad I was, and he just crumbled.

Long story short: Mom played good cop to my bad cop and loved on him. Told him he needed to be good, and that he needed to tell me he was sorry. And he did. Ten minutes later, he was fine, and didn't act up the rest of the night. Just like earlier in the afternoon, we hugged, loved, and snuggled like he and I generally do. He's my little one -- my Piddy.

I love Porter and I love Jackson -- Sometimes being a Dad sucks. I'm just trying to do the right thing, teach them right from wrong; I just don't know if I always get it right, though.

Dentist and stuff

Had a dental appointment this morning; basic cleaning, tarter scraping, etc. Teeth feel 'clean' and hurt like hell. That's the thing about 'clean' teeth -- you notice them. Normally you don't notice your teeth; but after a cleaning, I can feel them. I guess the don't really 'hurt' as much as I just can feel them, when I normally can't.

Spent the rest of the morning talking Sarbanes-Oxley strategy with some of our execs. Trying to figure out what is the next significant message / wave, and how to ride it. We've done good so far with getting exposure, openings, etc. with the strategy I put in place last fall, but it's time for a change. More to come on that as we find out more, but I think it will be interesting. One key message is what we are taking to the Cognos Forum session this summer at Disney: Real-time SEC disclosures. We'll use that as a sounding board and see where it takes us.

Had lunch with Travis today. Good chance to catch up and bounce some ideas off of him. I'm trying to figure out what's next for me in my job -- I know there's no foreseeable time that I won't be on the road, so I'm trying to figure out how to make myself a new job, one that will bring some more time in my home town. Anyway, we had a good talk. I can always count on Travis to gut-check me, and give me good ideas.

I'm off to Dallas tomorrow for the final week of Phase 1 at FSMB. We've got a full, stressful week ahead.

Back home

Nice to be back to Houston -- I had a scheduled 1PM flight home that would have put me in prime position to make my guitar lesson, but as fate would have it, weather delays put me 40+ min behind. Lucky for me Giancarlo (my guitar teacher) wanted to push our lesson back to 4, so that fit just fine.

Got home, checked mail, tossed my bags in the bedroom, made sure email wasn't blowing up on me, and grabbed the Martin acousitc for my lesson. We worked on a little bit of Clapton's take on Robert Johnson's tunes contained in "Me and Mr. Johnson." Little slide guitar (would have been better if I brought my electric) and a little bit of blues licks in A.

After that, I headed down to Hadden's just up the street to hang and talk about music, life on the road, upcoming gigs, etc. He gave me the idea that the boys can really start playing the guitar now, if I get them a 3/4 size acoustic and tune it in an open tuning, so they just have to strum and it sounds good. Then, it's just teaching them to bar the neck across all strings to make more chords up and down the guitar. I'm pretty pumped -- I never thought of that, but it makes it really easy for them to pick it up and play, regardless of their age. I'm going to look around for an inexpensive guitar that they can use.

Anyway, nice to be back home -- tomorrow it's up to Mom's unitl Sunday.

Movie Night

Quite a bit of work today getting ready to finish up our work out here. I think we're almost finished with all the hard stuff -- we just have a few straggling things left, like getting the forms to scan and put the data in the right place; getting the ID server to not lock up on us every 10 min... but those are little things that should just take a bit of trouble-shooting.

Plans are well under way for Phase 2, and every day it seems someone else is rising up saying, "I want my stuff in there, too!" That's good for our cause -- hopefully it carries over to what FSMB's COO thinks, and he signs off without much extended effort.

Ian and SK are going to be able to cut out of work today around 5-6 for the first time in 3 weeks -- and to give them a much-needed pat on the back, I got tickets to "Van Helsing". We'll go grab a bit to eat, then catch the movie. Should be a good chance for them to relax. Ian said he's looking forward to it; but he's worried SK will fall asleep!

As for me, I got a lot done today in terms of getting out drafts of my upcoming webinar on 'Fixing Problems with Internal Controls Over Financial Reporting, using Business Process Management Tools'. It's in 2 weeks -- this is the first time in months that I feel ahead of the game.

Katie called at lunch and said that she fell / slipped on the steps this morning and that her neck hurts. I told her she could certainly use a full massage -- and told her to go get one this afternoon before picking the boys up. Hopefully she had a chance to -- she deserves it.

Spoke with Myra this morning about plans for the weekend at Mom's. Looks like it's fried catfish on Sat night, which is just OK with me.

Pitching Phase 2

Dallas today. Just got back from dinner and settling into the hotel for the evening. Worked all day on getting things ready for a discussion with Scott at FSMB (client) about scope / timeline / cost of the next phase of the project. It's going to be 8 of us, topping $725K as it looks now. Should carry out 4 months, with enough cushion that we're not pulling too many 80+ hour weeks. We're thinking that it will start mid-June, which would be good for me -- and my team. I think we need a little quality 'bench' time between closing this phase out next week and starting back up again.

I confirmed today that Ian has a few extra flight freebies so that I'll use one of mine for one of our Dallas guys, and he'll pick up the other. That way, none of us have to spend any $$ on flights to Vegas -- That's the light at the end of the tunnel! After we finish this project, we're all going to Vegas, Baby!! 5 of us from the project delivery team, plus the 2 sales guys for 3 days in mid-June. Hotel is being taken care of for us, so really it's only entertainment that we have to worry about. I'm just looking forward to 3 days sitting in a cabana at Mandalay Bay drinking rum drinks...

On the home front, I spoke to Katie and the boys about 6 this evening -- Porter was hanging around nekkid; Jackson was telling me about the shot he got at the doctor and how it mad him afraid and sad. Katie was finishing up their dinner and getting them ready for a little TV before stories and bed.

As for me, I'm hanging out this evening watching CNN / Fox News as is my usual out of town nightly ritual (when there's no baseball on) and will hopefully hit the bed earlyish.

Big story of the day: Beheading of Nick Berg, American kidnapped in Iraq, in retaliation by Al Quaida for the US actions / atrocities at the Iraq prison.

Walking in Memphis

Got up at 5:15 or so this morning to get ready for the flight out -- I
had a 7:40 flight to Memphis from Intercontinental, and since I never
really fly out of there much, I didn't know how long to allow. Anyway,
I ended up sitting around for about 45 min before being able to get on
the plane and get out of town.

I got to Memphis about 9:30 and caught a cab to Harrah's, our client. I
met up with Rick, a consultant / contractor that is working for us
there, and went over where he is on the project. It's behind schedule,
and the client's PM is frustrated -- and not real satisfied with our
contractor...

I basically needed to do three things today: 1. Figure out why he was
behind schedule; 2. Get a feel for him as a person / his ability to
deal with the remainder of the project on his own out there; and 3.
Figure out how to make the best out of a difficult situation, with the
client a bit frustrated.

Answers were not really what I wanted -- that's all I'll say -- but I
think overall we'll get the project done, and possibly continue to get
work, but just not with Rick there. I think they'll want someone else,
just based on what I'm hearing. I hate that, too -- I knew we should
have put one of our Aces there, and backfilled another project with
contract talent. Putting a contractor out there alone was just too much
of a risk. Not my decision, though...

I was done by 1:30 and ended up heading to the airport early to try to
catch a flight home early, but no use. Weather in Houston was tying up
air traffic, and my 3:00 flight didn't end up taking off until about
5:30. Got home at 9, ate Pei Wei, watched some baseball, and did a bit
more work. Katie went to bed after the baseball game

I'll kiss the boys in a minute and slide into bed myself -- I'm already
packed for the second half of my week's travel. Dallas tomorrow morning
to Friday.

Getting ready for Memphis

Just printed my map to Harrah's office in Memphis, TN, and my boarding
pass for the HOU-MEM leg of tomorrow's flights. I'll spend the day
visiting with the client and making sure our consultant that is working
on an integration project out there is doing what he needs in order to
keep everyone happy, and the project moving in the right direction.
Seems to be a bit rocky lately, mainly based on the fact that I think
they jumped into development before doing any real design work -- that
always leads to mis-steps and false starts. I think we'll be
gut-checking the project tomorrow to see if we are on the right track,
and if we're doing things we planned, or if we need to re-forecast the
plan.

Travel this week is going to be busy, with the up / back trip to
Memphis tomorrow, then off to Dallas for the rest of the week. I may be
able to get back home earlier tomorrow (around 6), but I think I'll
have to take the later flight that will get me back after 8. Worst part
of it all is that I can't fly Southwest, since they only fly to
Nashville, and that's not close enough to drive. Oh, well -- I still
got a free ticket in the mail today from last month's SWA travel, so
it's not really that much to complain about!

On a family note: Porter got his certificate / T-Shirt for completing
his swimming basics class -- he's able to float, get out of the pool
himself, survive being thrown in with all his clothes on and make it to
the side, dive down and get rings, and everything!! He makes a big deal
about not wanting to do it, but he's a pro -- and from what I can tell,
when he's not in his official lesson, he loves the pool. Way to go
Porter!

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Ed Lee
http://www.ellisgroup.net/

"I missed the boat once when I was young and stupid, but now I am able
to miss the boat repeatedly with great skill and accuracy." -- Jon
Fishman

Theme of the day: Doctors

Well, I'm using my day in Houston to get physical -- or more accurately, visit doctors. I had my bone/joint visit this morning to have my elbow x-rayed again; then off to the eye doctor.

I am getting better with the elbow -- the doc says that I should be OK and as normal as possible in about 2 weeks. I'm about 66% back to full mobility with it right now, and it really only hurts at night, or when I do something to move it too far out of its range of motion. I'm able to play guitar again (starting last week), so I know it's improving. It sill hurts when I do bar chords, but that should bet better in time.

As for the eyes, I haven't gotten new glasses since 1999 so I figure it is about time... I couldn't find any frames that I liked better than the ones I have, so I'm just having new lenses put in them. Bummer, in a way, since I really hoped to get some that had clip-on sunglasses. Without that, I really don't want to wear my glasses on sunny days when I'll be squinting the whole time. Most of the times, that's at the beach, or in driving on sunny days when I just want to wear glasses. Oh, well, nothing to do about it.