Happy Easter!

Had a nice Easter / Pagan Fertility Day brunch this morning. Had about 9 of us squashed into my kitchen, which is really about 3 bodies too many. But we have fun regardless. MH & EI bought mix'ins for Bloody Marys, Majors bought the Mimosa love, NL & RM bought the bacon -- and I do mean bacon, about a pound of it, nice and think slices. I cooked up some eggs, turkey sausages and pancakes, Nicki cooked all the bacon, and we had a nice little feast. It was very relaxing and chill and now I have the rest of the afternoon to play WoW.

Registration Success

Much to my complete joy, we made it through the whole week of registration without any significant problems -- by Friday 5 pm we had registered about 5,400 returning students. Our Registrar got several emails from staff and advisers pleased with the smoothness of registration and then I spoke with a professor who claimed he was thrilled with the simplicity of the system -- and this from a prof who two and a half years ago told me he doubted we could roll something out that would work without problems. Needless to say, I was pleased.

Of course, life on cloud nine was short-lived as our HR folks hit their peak stress level to date and we are now worried they may not be able to go live on January 2. The technical side of things seems to be going well, but the functional and organizational side is having problems with feeling knowledgeable enough about the system to be able to support it at go live. And, of course, no one wants to risk any chance of not being able to have a perfect payroll. Not that I blame them. But at the same time I think the idea of perfection in a new system is unlikely. It won't be my decision, ultimately. If they don't think they can do it, we'll delay. If that happens, though, I will be a very unhappy camper.

On a non-work related note, I'm putting in some good WoW time. Pirjo and Balloch are leveling nicely. I'm enjoying being a paladin for a change. Every once in a while I go in and play Sarilo, but he makes me feel lonely so I tend not to play him too much. I should find a new guild for him and leave Mojo Juju to others.

The last few weeks have been super social and I confess I'm tired out from it all. I've had some nice visits, though. This last Wednesday I had dinner at my friend's new apartment -- complete with a great view of the city -- and celebrated our friend's birthday. This same group will be going to the foothills in a few weeks to cut down our Christmas trees.

Thanksgiving is coming up and I think it will be a quiet one for me this year. The Germans will be coming over, but I don't have much planned beyond that. We shall see. Just a few days to go.

And finally, went to see American Gangster last weekend. It was a good flick. Not great and, despite the hype, not worth an Oscar. Washington and Crowe did good jobs, but I thought the ending was a bit soft. It is worth seeing, though, so check it out. I hope to see Michael Clayton next week.

Busy Week Ahead

This is going to be a busy week for me, both at work and socially. On the work front, we are one week before going live with student registration in our new administrative system. As you can imagine, I'm just a tad bit stressed on this front. Next week I'll be working with the student team in our "registration command center." I can only hope we won't have any major issues, but be prepared to deal with them if we do!

On the social front, except for tonight, I'm booked all week! I hope I will so exhausted that I'll actually be able to sleep this week. Tonight I have to get the house cleaned up a bit for some company. Tomorrow night, my old college roomie comes over for dinner with her 1 year old son, whom I have not yet met. Wednesday I'm having dinner with the Germans. Thursday I'm playing WoW with my slacker bro. Friday a bunch of us are going bowling. Sometime on the weekend I'll probably go to the movies with some friends.

The reason I'm going into such detail of my week ahead? Just in case I don't have a chance to post anything! I don't want you to think I've dropped off the face of the earth!