I woke this morning at 5:15 eastern time. 5:15 feels like 3:15 when you've been living the mountain time zone since you were eight. Like me.

The early hour made for restless travel from New York earlier today and I simply don't have the energy to write anything intelligent. In fact, I'm sure I'll read this short disclaimer tomorrow and laugh about how retarded I am.

That is all.

I'm in Connecticut today. I came here at the behest of a client. The client feels that one of the other vendors on the project needs a bit of babysitting. How it's come to be my job to babysit her vendor I don't know. But it has.

So, here I am, sitting in a meeting where it is only my job to glance reassuringly at the client from time-to-time to remind her that everything will be OK. Though I'm not sure it's all going to be OK. But that's not your problem. Really, it isn't even my problem. Except that somehow, it is.

Also, somewhere along the line, my co-worker, who is tagging along on this trip to visit with other clients in the area, has decided that she needs to be involved in every detail of my travel. Saturday night she sent me a text message.

I read a news report about how an ark-load of animals had been rescued from wildfires burning in and around San Diego this week. The Del Mar Fairgrounds are temporary home to about 2500 horses, goats, zebras, and llamas. Also in the group are a fairly large number of a horse/zebra mix called a 'zorse'. A zorse? Is that for real?

I can only think these things were bred for circuses. It's not like there was a group of farmers sitting around bitching about the deficiencies of a horse wishing beyond hope that if only a horse were more like the trusty zebra. Then. Then we'd have something.

No. You know a bunch of carnies got loaded up on absinthe and lighter fluid in a box car when one had the bright idea, "Hey! Let's see if this horse will hump the zebra!"

"I decided earlier that I was never going to fart in front of you any more."

"Oh yeah?"

"But I changed my mind just now while you were going to the bathroom."

When I was younger I remember learning about faith at church. One teacher presented a challenge for the class. "How do you know New York City is real if you've never seen it?"

I'm here to tell you, I've seen New York City and it isn't real. It's all a pretend fairy tale. A reality show passed off as life using clever movie cliches and made-up languages on the subway. Counterfeit reality.

Murray Hill Market

Donna has had a pretty rough week, in a grumpier-that-the-people-around-her-care-to-talk-about kind of way. For some reason or another she seems to have been not quite herself. She's been barking at the kids and refusing any kind of attempts to help her cheer up.

Then today, after Twitter dumped a whole bunch of messages from her tweets, I got this desperate text message...

...read the rest...

Apple announced today that it would be opening the iPhone to third-party development. This will happen by way of a Software Developers' Kit, or SDK. We nerds do love our TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms). The SDK will be out just in time for Valentine's Day. I guess they figure most potential iPhone coders won't have much else going on then anyway.

There are some obvious applications and features missing from the iPhone like a voice recorder, voice dialing, Exchange calendar syncing and the like. Zuma, for Christ's sake. Zuma!

But those things will be covered ad naseum on plenty of geek blogs in the coming days. The add-ons I'm most looking forward to are those that are a bit outside the box. What the iPhone really needs is some really non-conventional but still very useful software.

There are about eleventy-two copies of this email in my outbox.

Please consider me for your [fill in name of exciting-sounding job here] position. I believe I would an excellent fit for this position. I am looking for a position that pays [an amount adjusted for ridiculous Utah v. Manhattan cost-of-living inflation] per year plus medical and retirement benefits.

...read the rest...

Every morning at 5:45 the alarm sounds. Oh, not my alarm. What do you think I am? Sick in the head? No, I'm talking about Megan. Somehow I have spawned a morning person. A perky, bouncy, petite morning person. I'm considering a paternity test.

Each and every school day she's out of bed, showered, made-up, dressed and fed before Donna and I have even thought about hitting the snooze button the requisite half-dozen times. It's a good thing too. Otherwise she'd end up spending these middle school years as I did mine, truant.

Most mornings, she'll poke her head in our room and harass us. "Hey guys, I'm leaving for school. I made myself breakfast. Wake up, you lazy bums." This isn't teasing or playing. She's genuinely amazed that her parents could be such slugs.

A bleary-eyed Donna stumbled into the kitchen and with a quizzical look declared, "My mouth just went totally numb. Like I've been at the dentist."

Donna's fruit allergies often cause this symptom and usually a Claritin will clear things up right away and get her back to her favorite fruits. She's particularly fond of bananas. I happen to find them repulsive but it is fabulous to watch her put the entire length of one all the way in her mouth and slowly eat it.

I found an antihistamine in the basket over the sink. You know the basket I mean, the one with the empty box of Care Bear Band-Aids and three-years-expired baby suppositories. But the usual instant result didn't come. Moreover, Donna hadn't had a bite to eat.

I receive about forty-twelve emails a day. Most of which are nothing of note. Oh sure, from time-to-time I get the very exciting invitation to a project kick-off in the ever-so-glamorous first floor conference room. Not to mention the occasional inter-office announcement about the monthly birthday cake gathering. Jubilee!

But this morning my first email of the day gave me this tender scene:

Aw, fer'cute.

Around our house, LDS General Conference has become and excuse for Donna to hole up in her craft room and scrapbook with a friend. For them, the weekend is meant to be free of spouses and children. An orgy of die-cuts and heart-shaped punches, not to be interrupted by the trivial goings-on of the rest of us.

I, for one, am happy to oblige. The girls and I sit around burping and farting in our pajamas with our hair uncombed and bodies unwashed. We eat anything that can be microwaved or eaten raw. After all, we wouldn't want to leave any dirty laundry or dishes for Donna to deal with once the post-Conference hangover hits on Monday.

The downside is the all-day inundation of hardline Mormon doctrine. The upside is, it's generally the same droned out nonsense we've been hearing for years from them so most of it goes largely ignored. It becomes background noise. Like Coldplay. Every song sounds the same.

Yesterday, as I climbed into my car, I fumbled with my backpack, my keys and my iPhone all while trying to keep my headphones in my ears and keep the door open with my foot.

Long story short, I went all Tony Romo with my iPhone and it slipped like a wet fish from my hand. It hung, in slow motion, hanging onto the headphones by its jack for a moment. And then, it happened. A sudden gust of gravity took her from my clutches.

Thunk. Slide.

As you know I am a big fan of garage sales and if they are a free-for-all all the better. Getting up at seven o'clock in the morning on a Saturday is common place. But this particular Saturday morning I was planning on spending the morning in bed with the PBS home improvement shows blaring in background while Pete and I watched with our eyes closed. Then came the all-important phone call... from my mother... about a garage sale... listed on craigslist.com.

It was an estate sale, my favorite, I love antiques and interesting shwag that old people have in their attics. Best of all it was all FREE!! Yes, Free! I knew it was going to be a nightmare of people, but frankly I didn't care. I was after the find. Jumping around trying to get my pants on with both legs at the same time, I explained to Pete where I was going. "Ok, have fun." was his response. But I know deep down... OK not that deep down... he was rolling his eyes. I guess he didn't want to go with me.

When we got to the massive estate sale people were all over the place like I predicted. There were cars illegally parked everywhere, desperate people milling around the house and the three garages in the back. All four buildings were chock full of everything you could possible imagine. The poor man that once lived here truly and seriously had a hoarding problem. You name it, it was there. I jumped in without a life vest. The garages were smelly and I was pretty sure I was going to catch the hantavirus.

"I think you should do more shows at the theater."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"So I can get a boob job."

I'm not getting all giddy or anything yet. In fact it's probably way too early to even be talking about it. But I may or may not be applying for a job I'm pretty excited about in New York City.

I'll know more details about the position tomorrow like... umm... does it pay enough for me to eat and stuff. I am exactly qualified for the job and I know I would kick its ass. The company also does work I could get very excited about. Some might even call it important work but I wouldn't go that far.

This may be nothing at all. My resume may find its way to the bottom of some dusty inbox, never to see the light of a beautiful, elegant, Manhattan autumn day. But for me, even applying is something. It says that I believe in myself enough to at least consider this an acceptable risk.