Dateline: Grand Hyatt Washington DC, 18 April 2005

Waiting on my cobb salad from room service. Just picked up a cool digital voice recorder that's Mac compatible (I will not go through another interview worrying about flipping those damn tiny cassettes!)

About 120 endnotes into my task, and about 330 to go.

Chapter 5 and Conclusion wrapped up yesterday with Mark, who starts shipping the stuff to Neil Nyren at Putnam tomorrow. I will have the endnotes to him . . . sometime this week.

I have been a pretty crappy dad and husband the last few weeks, and today didn't make it any better. Spent all day yesterday in the basement working the notes cause the room above the garage is too hot and I'm not ready to stick in the ACs yet (we showed one last time on Sunday, hopefully to secure a back-up offer). So I hung out with son Kevin who killed more enemy WWII soldiers than I can remember. Why bother watching "Bridge on the River Kwai" when you can act the whole damn thing out?

Was set to do the same in basement today, but around noon I started getting nervous. Have three more big interviews to wrap this piece up and only one of them is set (45 minutes on Wed). Thursday wife Vonne flies to Indy, so this deal has to go down in next 48 hours on other two, and one of them is the focus of piece.

So . . . to make it easier for my hosts, I fly down on SWA tonight and check into hotel, where I will live on room service and work the notes like a madman, waiting for the call. Hotel is hooked into metro at Metro Center, so I am about 20 minutes from where I need to be, whenever it is I need to be there.

I am going to have to be very nice to my kids next weekend. I foresee spending a lot of money and saying "yes" a lot, and carrying Vonne Mei the entire time on my hip.

Here's hoping it all goes down in next 48, I get my ass home ASAP, and Vonne finds home of her dreams on Saturday.