Odds and Endings

My camera battery died on the day that Dean left. I got to take a couple of pictures and then nothing. This is Dean, looking very happy about leaving. All who care will be happy to know that he is pursuing all that he had wanted to pursue, including his grand daughters.

He had packed up his desk. What a mess of memories spread out all over it. You wouldn't believe it today. Dianne came in and took out all our unused computers to be used in a different office. She works very hard at managing the hardware, software and technicians used by and at The Times.

Here she is at her desk. Talk about messy places. She has a lot of nieces and schedules. Remnants of both are on her walls and all over her desk.

We celebrated my 30th anniversary last week. I'm afraid I embarassed Bill. He gave me this pen and pencil set as a, hum, what, rememberance of my 30 years? The Times used to give out lovely gifts in the past. Poor Dan got a film camera for his 30th. In an age of digital, to give a film camera to a tech person is, hum, what, stupid? So we have gone even lower tech. Pen and pencil. It has Times written on the clip. I threw it in the trash. A note would have been nice. A cheap ass pen set? Insulting. Dianne dug it out of the trash. I guess she is holding it until I calm down. That will take a while.

I was rewarded for my bad behavior with a trip to Chicago. I arrived a day early so I could enjoy a bit of the city. Since Laura lives close, she came into town so we could have lunch at Gino's famous pizza place and then go to the Art Institute of Chicago. The pizza was not thrilling. The Art Institute was. They had a special exhibit with 3 of the 10 panels from the doors of the Bapistry in Florence. They are called the Gates of Paradise. I love the panels and was very excited to see them. The museum also has a good Impressionist section. Once again, I missed the American modern stuff because I don't really care for abstract work. They have a bunch of that too. It was all lovely, but my knees could only take so much. So we went back to the hotel to visit the wine, cheese and chocolate bar. Num.

They offer different wines in flights. A flight are 3 small glasses of wines of a type. White, sweet, dessert, dry. Whatever. The presentation is beautiful and there are cards to remind you of what you ordered. They do the same thing with the cheese. You can see that we got 3 cheeses. This one included condiments. We had guava paste, olives and almonds, and slices of bread. This was very good.

We got two flights of wine and two of chocolates. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The chocolate was the weak link. Go figure. It was good enough and it went well with the wine. It's just that 3 little pieces for the money they charged was not pleaseing to the palate. Or a sense of value. It all was enjoyable, just not the experience I would have wanted.

We stayed at the InterContinental. They have a gorgeous swimming pool that I was directed to see. Per has stayed here often in his consulting days for CCI. He was right, of course. The pool was amazing. Harriet was tempted and next time, I think she will bring her swim suit.

You may not believe this, but we worked, too. We met with people from Sun Sentinel and Newsday as well as Tribune. No boring details. But we did meet in a conference room and all tried to connect to the Tribune network through a hub that Sarp had one of his folks set up. It never worked right. On the first day, I was the only one who could connect to the network. Bill tried to get things working the second day. He is older than me. Yes, it is possible. And look how limber he is. That's him, under the table, plugging in my laptop. I couldn't get that close to the floor, much less turtle up like that. Go Bill.