June 5, 2010

Weather this weekend is mixed with storms and sun alternating through the day, so guess what, time to write my post early for once.  I'll start on our work week since it was a shortened week.  Jo and her group continue on their big roll-out project which is a new human resource portal for the entire company.  They are turning it on this weekend - "going live" as it is said - so she is busy checking in periodically with her team, but they seem to have the brunt of the work to do.  Guess it is nice being the boss.  Only a day trip to New York for Jo this week so we got to see each other more than usual.  Nothing particularly exciting for me this week at work as I continue to define what my new role will be.  I'm going to be leading a set of technology efforts for my division, the key work being to define exactly what that means.  Especially, getting all the other scientists and managers in line organizations to agree that the technology effort I'm working on are worthwhile.  It is going to be a long time before we have all this clearly defined and I feel like I'm really delivering high value back - hope I can be patient (hint, this isn't always my strongest skill).

On the home front, our garden is slowly pushing up new plants but the big news of the week was the strawberries started to come in.  We picked enough for Jo to try out her jam making skills after a several year hiatus.  I must admit there isn't too many things better than warm, freshly made strawberry jam on bread.  The rest of our garden efforts this week consisted of pulling the ever present weeds - they never seem to stop coming.  Our peas and tomatoes are showing their first flowers so we are hopeful for some treats from there.  I have more painting chores to tackle this weekend as I'm repainting the door into the garage and need to start prepping the floor on our 3-season porch for a new staining or prep some of the interior walls to repair some cracks that have appeared (I think our house is slowly falling into a sinkhole and the constant wall cracks are just the first indication - after the Guatemala sink hole, I am a bit concerned and do you really know if all the homeowners in the area didn't see cracks in their walls in the years before?  Makes you think doesn't it).

We are heading out for dinner with our friends Sheri and Bruno tomorrow to celebrate Sheri's birthday.  Heading to Watch Hill, RI which is a lovely coastal town with great views of the Sound/ocean.  Then it is back to work for an entire week.