The Week Past, the Week Ahead, Mailbag ETC

Suffice to say, yesterday was one of the best days ever!!!!

I am prohibited from working from home, due to compliance, thus one can imagine the ear-to-ear smile I had when I got the opportunity to leave work at 3PM, scurry home to finish up the pipeline, and send it to Pat for editing at 9:30PM, whereupon I awoke at 7AM and sent the Feb. 2nd Groundhog Day vs. Snowmaget-it-on issue out around 9AM yesterday, leaving the entire day to play outside!!!

The early release was a true miracle, because I had set my alarm for 4:30AM on Tuesday, with intent of finishing the pipeline before 8AM, so Pat could edit it while I was at work, though there were a ton of errors and links not inserted, etc. so I was feeling horrible about leaving Pat so much sloppiness to deal with, and wished that I had heard my alarm, though it was likely a sign that I needed sleep.

Hollywood Grill at North and Ashland was indeed open yesterday, so I put on the boots I purchased in Alaska and trekked over there to meet a friend. I was sans camera because I have strict self-imposed rules about "No camera Wednesdays."

Naturally I saw some amazing people shoveling along the way, and texted my friend to bring his camera, so I ended up borrowing his camera and taking pictures on the walk back home and interviewing people about their snow day. As I don't have my friend's camera cable cord and software I'll have to upload them later in the week.

Another thing I did yesterday was drop off the Historic Bars of Chicago book to the winner!

Five people responded to the very easy clue! Stephanie T. was the first to respond, but she did not title her subject header, and so I overlooked it and opened the first email which referenced the contest, coincidentally from Todd, the winner of the last contest. This guy likes to win! The good news is that Sharon of Lake Claremont Press had mailed me two copies, so both Stephanie and Todd are winners!

I also received at least five emails in response to the Q&A between Nandika and 1st Ward Aldermanic Candidate Deborah Lopez.

To go on record and assert that the person whom you are running against is not doing anything for the community is probably not a good idea if he indeed IS doing a lot for the community, based on the responses that came in about 1st Ward Ald. Joe Moreno.

We will share the best of those support letters in the next pipeline (Feb. 8).

Now, time to go to work. I really did feel bad yesterday, because I wanted to follow up with one of my clients, but I did not want to contact her if the call was not recorded for quality assurance, etc.

The awesome thing about my job is that I give it my all when I'm there, and my manager and coworkers are all super awesome and cool people, as were the people at the last inside sales job that I was at (well, minus the manager who came in after my initial manager resigned). Jobs such as the one I have tend to attract liberal arts majors and artistic types who do not define themselves by what they do for eight hours each day. For me, the eight hours is a nice release from the pipeline which often feels 24/7, thus 8 hours is like a drop in the time bucket, plus it's nice to get dressed up and not be in sweats all day, speaking of which there's business casual calling my name right about now. Adult day camp, here I come!