November 14, 2009

Since the weather outside is all windy and rainy it seemed like a good time to update the happenings of the week. Many folks have requested a photo of Joann's new bobby haircut and that should be coming. Unfortunately, I can't apparently just take any ole picture of her hair - it must be properly styled and looking good before a photo is allowed to posted. Needless to say and as the absence of a picture this week shows - all those events haven't come together this week. Stay tuned.

We both were in town for the week. I was supposed to be in sunny and warm LA to attend a conference (AAPS - American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists in case you wanted to check into it). But was asked late last week to be in the office as the research division of Pfizer made several key announcements this week. As you can tell from the news, we are closing several research sites around the globe following the merger with Wyeth. The local impact is our New London, CT facility will close and we will move folks over to our Groton buildings. As I'm already in Groton - not much change there. Joann however will no longer enjoy her views of the Long Island sound, submarines going out from the submarine base, and will certainly miss the seals she gets to watch every winter.

On a more cheery note, Jo crossed a major milestone and one she is sooooo excited about. She became a platinum executive flyer on one of the major airlines. As this is tantamount to free stuff and anyone who knows Jo realizes how much she loves a bargain this has caused her to practically walk on air due to the excitement. Of course this has required flying over 100,000 miles since January - this is even more impressive (or depressing depending on your love of travel) is that this is equivalent of flying around the earth 4 times (circumference of the earth is ~25,000 miles) or almost halfway to the moon (~240,000 miles). Wonder how much extra radiation she picked up being in the air that much - no wonder her hair is turning white (although she swears it is just more blond).

My thrill for the week was to discuss with my dentist replacing my capped front teeth. As the rest of my teeth have aged and moved off the brilliant white of my youth - my capped teeth have stayed their original color. Therefore, I'm a bit mis-matched. That along with some degradation in one of the caps has moved this to the probably should do list. In the process of discussing this with my dentist it became clear that what was acceptable practice 30 years ago might make it difficult - and in the case of my teeth, read painful - to remove the existing caps. I'll still probably go through with it, but it isn't easy to knowingly decide to cause yourself a bunch of pain to have matching teeth again.

That is all the exciting news for the week. Today is a haircut for me - although nothing as interesting as Jo's, along with some shopping for a new bird bath (or old concrete finally cracked) and some books. Tonight we are doing dinner and a show in Westerly with Bruno and Sheri. We don't have anything major planned for Sunday so will probably catch some naps and reading.