Chicago

This week was my first one on my first project with IBM. I was in Chicago for an HR implementation with a big pharma company. The facilities reminded me a lot of Lilly. The cafeteria was really nice and every day we got big salads from a seemingly never ending salad bar.

The work was really good. I am on early with this project, and I was working with some very senior people this week. Two partners and two associate partners. And me! The are still ironing out the details of the contract which is why the people are so senior right now. I am learning a lot, and I feel a lot like a sponge just absorbing my surroundings.

I found out today though that we are not going back next week. Things are strange with the contract situation and they don't want us there until it's sorted out. So I had all my travel arrangements and everything and had to cancel them tonight. I'm glad for the cats so they don't have to be left again next week, but I'm a bit worried that things might not work out and the project might disappear. It's a great assignment for me so I hope it all pans out!

There are new things about me that I thought I would share so everyone is all caught up:
1. I am pretty much going gray. Or is it grey? Regardless, I found not one but TWO non-brown hairs this week. I plucked one this evening that has just been ridiculing me. Enough was enough. It won't be long before I start coloring. Then I will play around with the color I think. A little darker, or maybe lighter. It will be fun. I'm going to wait a bit though and see if this is going to be a fast process or if these two suckers were a fluke. Rubbish!!
2. On a similar subject, I don't like my hair. Unrelated to the non-brown thing, I have not been happy with my hair lately and am going to grow it out again. I think my hair just does better long. It used to look better short when I was a teenager but I don't think that's the case now that I'm one or two years older than my teenage years.
3. I think I might be addicted to sushi. I actually annoy myself with how much I want to eat sushi. In fact, as I write this I am about to meet up with Tom and Tracy and Rachel to .. wait for it .. have sushi! And I had it on Tuesday in Chicago. By myself. No one else on the project likes sushi (what?!) so I went by myself. And last weekend I wanted sushi but Tom and Tracy were busy so I bought some at the grocery store and ate it at home. Again by myself. It's ridiculous!
4. I have discovered - or rather been introduced by my friends Sunil and Eric - two very funny shows, The Daily Show with John Stewart and The Colbert Report. These are evening political 'news' shows that report on the day's events, usually focusing on politics, and basically take the piss out of everything. It's really funny. Although any American reading this probably figured this out years ago. I'm a bit behind!

I think that's all the new stuff. I got some feedback from someone last week that he enjoyed reading my blog but felt it could do with more references to him. So, in that regard, Scott Seton is a good friend of mine from England. I have known him since the early days of my UK residency. For some reason (the origins of which surely involved many units of alcohol) his nickname for me is Princess and mine for him Pookie. Scott is the husband of my great friend Gemma, for which he is a lucky bastard as Gemma is a beautiful person with a kind heart. They make a very cute couple and once I dreamt that they adopted an adult which still makes me laugh when I think about it. Anyway, Scott enjoys playing and watching football (go Palace!), playing on words (that's a whole other story), and eating proper meat and potato dinners. And, of course, he misses me immensly. ;-) He is human after all.