Survived Another Work Week

This week was pretty bad too. I worked my normal day from 8:00-6:30 with a 1 hr lunch. Then after the kids are in bed I did another few hours. Next week Jon will be on vacation at work so that will make next week worse probably. There is no end in sight for this kind of crazy work schedule so that kind of stinks.

Got a Suit For Bret’s Wedding

Last night I went to Bret’s house and met up with him. We went to Men’s Warehouse and picked out suits for his wedding. His fiance had already picked out my shirt and tie so I just needed to get a suit and shoes. It went well. Now I just need to go back to get it after having it altered a little.

M is all better

Yesterday he woke up with no fever. He went to swim lessons and all was good. Luckily Z didn’t get it either!

M still sick

Today M is still sick. He had a fever that broke only with medicine. D took him to the doctor and they did a strep test – negative. So, we’ll just keep him fed and hydrated and medicated. He got to play a bit today because his fever broke after dinner. We went out and played with water balloons and squirt guns and had ice cream from the ice cream man!

Pay Raise

I got my pay raise today. So for 2 years in a row I’ve gotten a pay raise that doesn’t even cover inflation. I’ll let you figure out on your own how much it must have been. I’m not super angry about it. I sort of expected it to be bad. The economy stinks, the job market stinks and now I can confirm that my pay raise stunk as well.

New Monitor

I got a new monitor last week. My old one died so I got a new one that matches my work monitor. Now I’m using them together so my work desktop spans across two 20.5 inch monitors at 1600×1200 resolution. It is a nice big workspace! Now I wish I had 6!

Performance Review

I think tomorrow I learn about what my raise will be (if any) at work this year. I got top marks from my boss at review time and I also got a good bonus this year but you never know when it comes to pay increases. Sometimes they don’t give anything out and sometimes it is so small it seems like nothing. Fingers crossed! We’ve come a long way since the 90s and 10-15% pay increases.

M is Sick

This Saturday we left the kids at my in-laws house while we went to a party at my brother-in-law’s house. Today M is sick with a 102 fever. He has slept all day. I hope tomorrow he feels better!

New Business Idea

I’m starting work on a new business idea. It isn’t my idea but it is a good one – sometimes other people have good ideas too This idea came to me from my sister’s boyfriend and his business partner. I can’t go into the details of the idea but I think it has good potential. I will be a 30% owner of the business in exchange for my development of the web application and IT infrastructure. I’ve started writing down my plans and roughing out the code. The cool think is that I’m planning to use Squeak and Seaside to develop the site (so I should enjoy the development work a little bit).

Paris Trip

I was sent to Paris to a customer site on short notice so I had little time to prepare. I went and spent 7 days there at a customer site and helped them get their system running as much as I could in 7 days. It went pretty well and the people were very nice. The food was great. The hotel was pretty good. I worked almost the entire time I was there except for 1 evening in Paris and nightly naps (too short to call it sleeping). Paris is 6 hours ahead of Cleveland time so I would work my long work day there and get to the hotel around 7:30pm. Then I would work until midnight or 1:00AM every night with my team in the USA (7PM EST). It was a gruelling week but I survived.

I did get one evening to go to Paris with a colleague who lives in Paris. He gave me a 6 hour guided tour of all the main attractions:

• Sacre Coeur Basilica (which had a great view overlooking the city at night)
• The Louvre
• The Champs-Elysées
• Arc de Triomphe
• The first Statue Of Liberty
• The bridge where Princess Diana died (which has a torch from the statue of liberty as a monument on the bridge top)
• Eiffel Tower
• Obélisque de Luxor
• Notre Dame Cathedral

My guide (Marc) and I had dinner near Notre Dame Cathedral at an authentic restaurant where I ate crapes with sunny side up eggs, mushrooms, cheese, onions, salad and tomatoes. And sweet crapes with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and a pear. Very different food. We drank cider (like beer made with apples).

I had a good time and worked like crazy. Everything is small compared to America. Cars, showers, toilet stalls, doors, ceilings, homes, roads, food portions, everything.

I’m glad I got to go and very happy that most of the people at the customer site and hotel spoke English. I was on my own everywhere else so it was nice to have English speakers where I slept and worked.