12 hours of meetings and a wife AWOL...

Family,

And a good evening to you from across the Pond. Today was a super busy day, but man did we accomplish a lot. Again, I am really proud of what we’ve rolled through this week – 1 more day to go. SPARTANS!!!!! Prepare for glory…

So we didn’t get out of the office until 8:30 today. Why you ask? Well, maybe because, according to some, I am a tyrannical ogre who works people like Grand Canyon donkeys. For proof, please check out the agenda we created for the week (thanks to Margaret for killing the sequoia necessary to print that thing off). Yes, basically it's "Sammy and the Amazin' Technicolor Spreadsheet (but thanks to the X-Factor, Cody Schwob-Nelson, for pulling it all together).

That agenda is now on version 22 (a version for every shot in a Jack Daniels bottle plus 1 – fitting, eh?), and I am SO GLAD that we won’t be making any more updates after tomorrow. However, probably not as excited as Cody, who probably now owns stock in the local ABC store. And yes, to confirm - that schedule represents only 3.5 days of work. THAT'S HOW WE ROLL ON INTERNATIONAL, BABY!!!

After work, we walked over to the Cat and Canary (see – more proof of the “any two words” theory) for a pint. Jenny actually beat me there by about ninety minutes, where she was able to sample and confirm that Honeydew is fresh again! It was good to chat with some of the guys I hadn't caught up with all week, like the Bristol Pistol Duncan Hollyman (who I'll be locked in a darts death match with tomorrow). We then sauntered over to GBK (well, most of us, but I'll get to that in the next paragraph), where I tried the Bleu Cheese burger (medium rare), which was OFF THE CHAIN. That place is SO GOOD. Check out the gang in action (and Dinger, since he's your hero, notice Ray "Old School Cool" to the right).

Noticeably absent in this photo, however, is my wife. Why, you ask? Was she hard at work? Nope. Was she busy making us money in the stock market? Nope. Instead, she really wanted Thai (she said this when she went to bed last night, for the record) and convinced some of the other members of the project team to go there for dinner. The result is that my wife is probably consuming Green Thai curry as I type this, basking in the joys of mint leaves and bamboo shoots. I love you, pumpkin! Come home to husband bear!

On the (not so) athletic front, I did 25 minutes on the treadmill today, but it was a humbling experience. I ran for 2 consecutive minutes, but at the ninety second mark, I accelerated to reach a “full stride.” The result was a pain after one step that’s still with me 15 hours later. Needless to say, I’ll be visiting a GP (general practitioner) when I return from vacation.

Okay, that’s all the news that’s fit to print. Chat tomorrow!

Love,

Sam and (somewhere out there) Jenny