Gchat with Maria (oh snap!)

Maria: Is there something you wanted to tell me or were you just saying hi?
me: I was just saying hey
Maria: oh, that's nice
me: thought maybe I'd drop some knowledge on ya
Maria: don't you mean some acknowledge?

This could be great

A Muppet movie.
Written by Jason Segel.
Possibly leading to a Muppet TV show.
Written by Jason Segel.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2636106/Muppet-Show-to-return-to-TV-after-27-years.html

Bragable

If I may be allowed a moment of "look how great I am", it turns out our little company is the 169th fastest growing company in America. http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2008/company-profile.html?id=200801690

Work

The company I work for is doing really well these days, and still growing like crazy. We are apparently at about 160 employees now (up from 12 when I started in June, 2005). We're bursting at the seams again, despite having a huge office. We're getting half of the floor below us this fall, which should tide us over for three months. Earlier this year I thought the annual doubling of revenue & people may actually taper off, but it's clear now that this train isn't slowing down just yet. Pretty crazy stuff.

I'd like to get more involved in product management or development or something as time goes by - I feel like I have a good team of people who are capable of handling our online marketing, and I think this place offers the opportunity for me to stretch my nerdy entrepreneurial legs a bit. It'd be fun to create and launch something other than yet another lead gen website.

The new plasmas in the office are currently displaying a Google Earth mashup that displays the location of a small portion of the bankruptcy leads we place (where the consumer lives, that is). There appears to be an awful lot of bankruptcies along the Mississippi today. It's interesting to see the clusters that appear every day - always around the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland, and of course southern California and the north East Coast, but once in a while there will be a bunch in North Dakota or something. When that happens I wonder if they're related somehow.

Weekends

Weekends have gotten full again. The next 7 in a row:

-Caps, Metz and Num visit
-Madison for Trapoli Square
-Madison for Kraft & Kate's weddding
-German Fest (& possibly Joe)
-Joe Visits (& possibly a Brookfield visit)
-Infra-Golf outting
-Minneapolis Visit

Then open again, extept a possuble NU football game Oct 11. Really awesome stuff all around, thankfully.

Reset - a Call to Arms

The last two weekends have been deep breaths, and I feel like I'm finally caught up and back on a normal pace. It feels really good to be back on a regular schedule, regular work week, regular budget, etc. Maria and I have been doing a pretty good job of enjoying the new neighborhood by dining out, meeting people for drinks, even playing some tennis with Ben and Lindsay yesterday. We also checked out a lot of Olympics over the weekend (which was good practice for football, which sort of begins tonight). I'm looking forward to fall, and I want to make sure to do some stuff:

*Keep getting out of the house and seeing friends. Its so easy for Maria and I to get out of that routine and just shut ourselves in for days on end. I'm looking forward to going out for more football games this year, plus getting out of the house with Maria more often. And of course G1o's nights need to continue with regularity.

*I've said it many times in the past months, but I really need to get myself into shape. I dropped my morning stretching during crazy July, which was an easy way to feel better. I need to get back to it, but keep forgetting. On top of that, I have ambitions ranging from this 100 pushup challange thing to actually running a little bit (never going to happen). Probably best to start with some simple stuff and try to get into a routine, just to get underway. I have at least been doing a barely acceptable job of getting out to play basketball/tennis/whatever from time to time, so I need to keep that up and do more.

*I want to be more productive. I'm getting back down to some side projects, and I just want to start creating something again. Obviously a balance will have to be struck, if I'm going to follow through on these other goals, but a little less time watching TV and a little more time coding while watching TV should do the trick.

So I'm on call if anyone ever wants to grab a drink or go run around in the park for a while. I'm really looking forward to back-to-back Madison trips and German Fest in Lincoln Square in the coming weeks too. Its good to be back.