It’s been a while since my last substantial update. Obviously, I made it home from South Carolina OK. My flights were on Midwest Airlines from Milwaukee to Atlanta. Now, Midwest’s prices are usually more expensive than most, but in this case it was only an extra $10 or so. For that I got nice wide leather seats (the equivalent of business class on United or American) on a comfy Boeing 717, free sodas (two rounds), and of course the vaunted chocolate chip cookies (which weren’t all that great, but they were free!). I’m sad to hear that they’re rolling out “Saver” service, which will convert the majority of the 717 cabins from 2 x 2 seating to 2 x 3 seating, which will make them a lot less attractive to me. One thing I did learn in all this, though: Milwaukee Airport is a hell of a lot easier to fly in and out of than O’Hare! Given that MKE is just another 10 miles’ drive for us vs. ORD, MKE is now my airport of choice when fares allow.

So anyway, I got back very late on Monday night. Tuesday I was dragging at work, but got a lot of stuff done. When I started the week, things were looking hectic: two projects that MUST be done by June 30, and we were going to be scrambling especially since I’ll be gone to Anthrocon from June 24-30. As the week went on, though, things started to fall apart. The one project that could have had me working weekends until Anthrocon ran into regulatory delays and is now pushed back to mid-July at the earliest, more likely August. As for the other project, a new packaging line, the equipment won’t be delivered until June 27th at the earliest. Given that I’m not comfortable writing a protocol without the equipment in front of me, and that the following week is Summer Shutdown (meaning that while I have to be there, most of the people who need to sign off on the protocol won’t be there), I don’t expect that we’ll be able to start the validation until July 7th at the earliest. So, now it looks like July is going to be busy, but at least my June has opened up a whole lot!

Also, a funny thing about my trip down South: originally, I was supposed to visit a vendor in Atlanta who is supplying software for the packaging line on Tuesday and Wednesday. I changed my ticket accordingly, and life was good. Except they weren’t ready, and needed to reschedule. So I changed my ticket back. Net result: my employer paid $250 for me not to visit the vendor 🙂 Such is the way of business travel. However, they rescheduled the vendor visit to this Tuesday and Wednesday. So guess who’s flying BACK to Atlanta? The engineer I’m flying with booked a United flight out of O’Hare, but I was able to get a cheaper flight at the same times from Milwaukee (alas, on Delta not Midwest – Midwest’s fare was $600 vs. Delta’s $300). Granted, although we’re supposed to take off and land at roughly the same times, any guesses who I expect will be first to arrive in each case? Hint: O’Hare on a summer weekday afternoon is approximately the fourth circle of Hell.

So work his kept me quite busy this week, as you can see. In my spare (!) time I’ve been working on Artists Alley stuff for Anthrocon, programming the cash registers and working on documentation. rooth, I’ll be e-mailing you this weekend about spreadsheet applications. I found out last week that instead of the 100 seats we were going to have in the Alley this year (compared to last year’s 80), the number looks closer to 120. This explains my panicked post seeking more staff. I’m pleased to say that delphi_of_clf and tecknow have signed on, along with the rest of the Artists Alley/Con Store staff: frostyw98, woodychitwn, ramalion, shy_matsi, chanur2000, rooth, space-dingo, and of course Grandma and Grandpa Kage. As soon as the programming schedule is released (something I’ve heard will be happening Very Soon Now) I’ll be contacting folks to see when they will be available, then build a staff schedule around that. Gosh, the things we do for fun!

So, what’s going on this weekend for takaza and I? Nothing. Absolutely, gloriously nothing. No plans. It’s quite lovely, really 🙂 I expect we’ll venture out and do something, perhaps, but we’ll see what the days bring.