Hard Weekend

M and I had something of a fight yesterday, did I say something?  Well, by our scale it was realtively bad, in 8 years we've only had one worse so that put a downer on the weekend.  The problems and stresses of the potenetial move are building.  M is alternating between wanting to get everything done right now, and wanting to wait and see.  Now we've reviewed the offer we've also spotted some things that we're not happy with which I need to raise.  Primarily, according to the offer letter, the relocation allowance includes flights out there.  At the current rates, that actually could eliminate a good 30% of the relocation allowance. 

Anyway, we're better now and reviewing the stack of things we have to do.  This is made more complicated by M's employer asking if she could go back to NYC for 3 weeks and help with the go-live on the next stage of their roll out.  The timing couldn't be worse.  I won't be able to travel to the US during this period so we'll be apart a long time.  Plus, there's a lot of organisation for the move needed.

Then there's a trip to Pisa and Paris that M has got booked during August.  We can cancel and claim on insurance (I believe) but she'll be annoyed to miss them, especially Paris as she has Madonna tickets and has been looking forward to the concert.  None of the timing is ideal, however, the experience and the mere offer for going back out to help deliver a major financial IT system is great for her CV and will look good when she starts job hunting next month.

Holy Busy Batman!

Well, subject to approval from the lawyers, looks like M will be away for a month from Monday - but back for the Madonna concert at the bank holiday weekend. This is tricky, her line manager and the manager who wants her in NYC know she is probably leaving, but they really want her to work her magic on the NY project team. So that's making her feel good.

I'm not over the moon at being M'less for a month, OTOH, I've got to go to Asia, which means I can stretch the trip out and stop trying to fit everything into a small window. I could easily spend 4 days plus in Taiwan, I'd rather spend more than 48 hours in Tokyo, but, if it's all the same to you guys, I'll stick with the minimum time in Seoul.

I really ought to go to Seattle again, but I don't think we'll be able to set it up.

Anyway, work to do. Conference call in 30 minutes and a tricky call with a minion of the Beast which I've been putting off.

BTW - Second Life is a huge waste of time. Did you know somebody has built an SL version of the SGC??? Yeah. Weird.

There's a team working on Ankh Morpork. Now that will be cool.