I am not used to government paying that much attention.

Oh, Maria: our contracting officers are absolute fiends. I swear we waste spend more taxpayer money nitpicking through proposals than we save...

Although given the current political situation, it's kind of nice to know that we are doing our best to comply with both the letter and the spirit of the law and the ethics/conflicts of interest rules. We have mandatory training in it, in fact (which I doubt anyone in the White House has actually taken, much less pays attention to).

JZ, best of luck to your brother, it sounds like he's in good hands.

Me, I'm still sick but feeling well enough to have a hot toddy after work. I'm nibbling on some goat-milk Gouda I bought in the Amsterdam airport, but I should probably eat something healthy for dinner.

JZ, so much love to you and your family.

Barring any last-minute feedback or insanity tomorrow, I am done with the big content deadline. And after make sure of that, I pack and get on a plane tomorrow to go to the Copenhagen office.

I would like to fall over. I would also like to not be dealing with a huge case of impostor syndrome, but oh well.

I went out to a women's event thrown by the gay small business association, because it is full of ballers. But most of them are my friends already. And it was in a cool creepy building I'd never been in that looms over part of the city all Art Deco looking like a villains lair. And then went to a friend's birthday party. And tomorrow fly to see my cousins!

Woooooo, Jilli! Congrats on the deadline, and I hope you can relax on the plane.

I came to work early to Get Stuff Done, but now I don't wanna. I guess I could at least prep for my 9am meeting.

one does not simply drive into Mordor.

I'll bet the roads are terrible. I expect Orc road crews do a pretty shoddy job.

I realize that makes me sound racist toward Orcs. Maybe I should reevaluate my thinking. Orcs can be pretty industrious. Still, I feel like when Mordor sends us Orcs, they aren't sending their best.

Woo Jilli!

Sounds like a lot of fun, meara!

Cannot blame the cats for my not wanting to get out of bed today. That's all me. And I went to bed at, like, 7:30 last night because I was tired. I hope this is not me getting sick.

I realize that makes me sound racist toward Orcs.

It's management's fault. Unreasonable deadlines, crappy budgets, no one listening to the Orc on the ground. Damn the man.

I don't know, the orcs seemed pretty industrious with their construction projects at Isengard. I wouldn't expect the roads to be pretty, but they might be serviceable.

Maybe, but they made all that armor too and, honestly, it didn't seem to do much good.