More Travel, More Fun

Fun stuff, that karaoke. I'm still amazed at how talented our neighbors and perfect strangers can be, much less our own family members! And since the smoking ban in Colorado took effect a year ago or so, it has been downright pleasant to spend a few warm hours at the Derby. The only reason your throat is sore at the end of the night is going a little too overboard belting out Changes in Latitude or You Can't Always Get What You Want.

This week I have a business trip Wednesday-Friday to Philadelphia for a customer event. For the first time I'll actually be presenting and interacting with customers instead of just observing and taking notes. It'll be weird and different, but involve a lot less typing and a lot more schmoozing. They expect me to be an expert in MySQL and JBoss, which is partially true, but only among certain audiences. At a developer conference I'd stick out like a sore thumb, but among the CXO and director set, I'm a super star. Or so they think...

Last night I got an hour to myself while Alex slept and Dana studied to work on the house. I began touch-up work on the new closet upstairs. I had previously cut and stained the shelves for the closet, and last night I installed them permanently. I also patched all my screw and nail holes with wood putty, and began work on fixing the alignment of the strike plate for the bedroom door. All of this involved drilling and countersinking woodscrews, then filling with a truly noxious substance called plastic wood. It looks and feels like peanut butter and smells like nail polish remover. ick. But the stuff just works.

My colleague from China, Tommy, came for a visit this week and delivered a little green bottle of strong rice wine. Mmmmm... so after I knocked off for the night I tipped back a very small glass of the stuff. It's about 110-proof, and $0.80 a bottle for the cheap stuff, but for some reason I like it.

Dana is studying for her Intro to Patents class final exam, which is Tuesday afternoon in Denver. I think she'll knock it dead, but you just never know, and it's especially hard for me on the outside because this fall I haven't been following her progress as closely as past semesters. I've been stressed out and having those forgot-to-study-and-naked-on-exam-day dreams. I hope she's not as stressed out as me!

In other great news, I sat for and PASSED the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam on Sunday morning! I began pursuing this professional credential almost 2 years ago, taking a formal 6-part class after work for several months, but then a lot of things got in the way. Being a self-directed study program, it was easy to procrastinate and put it off. So it's a huge relief to have this "in the bag" and not have to worry about it anymore. Not to mention a nice feather in my cap! The most rewarding part was when I told my friend, colleague, and fellow PMP Julie at work today and she said, "Nice job, pimp!" (a common compliment among certified project managers).