winter update...

My mother has complained I haven't blogged in while and whether I still have a cold (that was so two months ago!! quite healthy right now). And I hope I stay health as things are too busy right now. Everything is going very well, just 9.5 out of 10 on the pace. Mostly work, but other things too. Maybe I'll start off with the work Xmas party a few nights ago. I'll share a few photos (there are some others, but there are some work photos that just don't need to be widely distributed!). The party was at the Kensington Roof Gardens, which are owned by Richard Branson and supposedly a posh venue. Unfortunately it was cold and we never really got to take advantage of the roof garden (except Christian and I sneaking out the staff door to see the flamingos).

(actually, the dialog box to add photos is showing up on my 2nd monitor, which isn't attached - despite clicking the right boxes on the driver settings, it's still not working, so maybe we'll add photos at a later time!)

I have another Xmas party this coming week for the Olympics in the London Dungeons space. Not the official dungeons, but an equally neat space of mazey type rooms. I've been there once before as it's also like a club / strange space on Friday and Saturday nights. I'm sure it will be fun and messy.

Work in Ireland is still going full speed, but I'm not making any more site visits (maybe till March when everyone gets together for a meeting onsite). The project is still humming and I'm trying to delegate and hire someone to delegate more. And the delegation is largely because I've taken the PM role for two projects in France, one of which is completely in French, and I'm about to get thrown into another. I'm off to Strasbourg on Dec 15 for a few days to kick off one of the projects. We're talking about renting a company flat in Lyon so myself and others can have a place to go and stay for a week at a time type thing.

Had my first visitor come for a visit (friend from California) and that was nice. I felt a bit guilty that I didn't have more time to "hang", but work blows up when I don't stay on top of things. I have another visitor coming next weekend, but just for a couple days on her way to Africa.

Let's see... other things... I was in Madrid for a few days of meetings and team chartering. (my boss from France came for the meeting and we went out partying till 3AM the day before I led the team chargering meeting... bad idea!) I spent a lot of hours building a Data Management team over the past couple months (all non-billable!) and managed to do what every said was impossible and get two of the key team members (one from Milan, one from Madrid) sent to California for two weeks of training. Now if things don't go smoothly it's my neck on the line. And the really sad things is when I was getting the funding approved by the Global Lead, he asked if I should also go to California to oversee the training and make sure all goes well. And the really really sad thing is, I'm so busy, I had to say no. How pathetic!! Oh well. One of them is in San Francisco tonight and he's being taken out by a few of my friends, so that should lead to some good stories!

I'm heading back to Winnipeg on the 19th for 12 days. (12 days of Christmas?) Then I'm off to Chicago for New Years! Chicago has always been on my list of cool cities to visit and a friend and I have excess Hilton points and we're staying at the Drake for 3 nights! I know nothing about the Drake except it was often the hotel you'd here at the end of Oprah or Wheel of Fortune or some show like that where they'd say "Our guests stay at the Drake located on the .... blah blah". Anyways should be fun.

Okay, must get a move on as I'm off to a French movie this afternoon with some friends. Have been going to this French conversation class thing every Monday and trying to practice as much as I can. I think in the new year I'll be taking proper classes, too. I better since the proposals and workplans and such on one of my projects is entirely in French. Yikes! Hope all is great with everyone!