Settling in ....
Monday, January 23, 2006 at 6:22PM Dateline: Hotel, downtown Atlanta GA, late, 23 January 2006
Such a day.
After nice go-to-church-and-bowling-with-kids on Sunday. Today is all rush and decisons.
Youngest, Vonne Mei, our baby from China, suffers lost of portion of three of her four front crowns (upper main teeth). We discovered over weekend. So morning spent at specialist who redoes them with great care, and we get even more instructions/limitations on what to do with her from now on. What an education on small kid teeth. Thought I had heard it all years ago with a two-year-old on chemo, but this is entirely new game, as it's not the secondary teeth we fear, but simply holding on to the primary or baby teeth.
After that (all works out), rush home and pack, then rush to new house for meeting with closet lady, who's really cool and easy to work with. So we go through the house, planning this and that, and I save the garage for last--most fun for the guy. My favorite: the pulley system to lift canoe up toward my 14-foot garage ceiling. Way cool.
Also work some issues with builder Kent, who continues to keep everything humming and turning out magnificently. He's a real dream to work with, and all his contractors will bend your ear about how much they like working with him--precisely because he's so demanding and precise and builds great houses they're proud to be associated with. I remain in awe of the coordination of it all. Done well, it's amazing stuff.
Thought I had Kent stumped on home theater floor strip lighting (my idea), but no, they worked that out beautifully in the baseboard. Today I tried special through-wall cat access to basement closet where I plan to store the litter box. He solved that one too, with ease. Working on harder ones in my head, but I will eventually give up, happier than hell he's going to have his guys build my Cedarworks playset extravaganza.
Hard to leave the wife and kids today. Been with them basically five weeks straight. Vonne said she was banking that time for the rest of 2006. I reminded her of the 20th anniversary Hawaii trip.
Flew to Atlanta tonight. Giving speech to about 100 local biz execs in an annual series they have here. Didn't get here until 9pm, arriving 3 hours late due to bad local weather. Spotted B&N across street (Georgia Tech) and signed one PNM soft and 2 BFA hard. Then swam laps in pool and did some treadmill.
Will be weird to sleep alone tonght. No wife. No baby. No cat. No five year old wandering in about 4 am.
I might actually sleep through the night.
That meeting set today (also had one with base painter) basically finished our decisions on the house (all the outside stuff already planned), so a real sense of settling into Indy with that hurdle crossed. Now have done my first remote, first speech, first coaching, first holidays, and have first house basically locked in--plan-wise.
And settling in with Jenn Posda's expanded role at Leigh Bureau and Sean Meade as webmaster... this is icing on the cake. Settled in with Steve and Enterra more and more (counting my first national TV appearance on their behalf with Kudlow). Just plain settling in... and it feels very nice.
Only hole right now? That G.D. Super Bowl with the Colts. That one bonded me. Next year it will be personal for me.
No transference though. Can have local AFC team. Never cared for Pats, even with all the wins on our watch. Just like Skins in DC when we were there. But Colts are old NFL in a good way (no bizarrely racist name, for example), and I hope they will balance my rebuilding Pack in my heart for next few years.
Next year, definitely scoring some tix.
Reader Comments (1)
Thanks for sharing family stuff. I miss that now that my kids are either away from home or mainly on the Web.
I'm glad my Steelers are on their way to Detroit, but the Colts will come back. They're not a one shot team like the Bucs.