Work is slowing down, for what feels like the first time in six months. I'm catching up on emails, chores, cleaning, shopping, social stuff - there are people I haven't seen in months that I miss. I feel like I'm getting my life back, and it's awesome. I finally have time to think about my own projects instead of just those dictated by work.

My project launches on the 22nd. I've been working on this project for over a year. We've done a big release and a small one, but this release coming up - R5 - is a complete overhaul of a 500ish page site. It's been six months of development time and countless hours of planning and meetings and all sorts of other stuff. The technology has been frustrating, but we're almost there. I cannot wait until we launch. We're going to party like nobody's business.

After that, there's some fun stuff coming up. A girls' weekend in the very begining of June, weddings in July and September... throw a New York summer in there, too. And then there's the possibility of a big trip to southeast Asia. We'll see about that one, though. The jury's still out. :)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian: a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
*Anansi Boys*
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Miserables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
*The Prince*
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes: a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States: 1492-present
*Cryptonomicon*
*Neverwhere*
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: a novel
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
*Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything*
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Otherwise, things have been sort of busy, still. Outside of the hectic project that never ends, I've got freelance stuff going on, and of course a social life. Etc. I've been quiet because I've had too much going on. It's funny how that happens - the more interesting stuff there is to blog about, the harder it is go find the time to blog about it.

Yesterday, I got an email that I had a package waiting for me with my doorman (they email - it's so convenient). I went down and what do I find? A fourteen-pound fruit basket sent from my project team. It's amazing and full of deliciousness and I'm completely overwhelmed. Best team ever.

James left me his Nintendo DS when he was here over the weekend. I'm quickly becoming addicted. And turning into a couch potato. And going insane. It's a gorgeous day out and I have to stay home. :(

I hate being sick.

Now I have a 101° fever, cannot stop coughing for the life of me and am so congested that I have to carry a box Kleenex around with me. I cannot actually remember the last time I was this sick. I'm almost certain I have bronchitis, which I've had many times before, but it hasn't been this bad in years.

James came over last night to play some games and watch some TV and keep me company and take care of me (which was awesome of him - I was going stir-crazy). And I think Wambui is going to bring me some stuff from Whole Foods. I just realized TNT HD is doing the full LotR trilogy today. While I wasn't looking to see it again particularly, because of how amazingly gorgeous it is in HD, I can't help myself.

Still, though, eugh. Can't wait until THIS is over.

There's a seat for me thank goodness... We'll see about the next one!

1:00: Get in cab to airport
1:25: Arrive at airport
1:30: 3:00 flight cancelled
1:35: Rebooked on 7:55PM flight; standing by for 2:00 flight
2:00: 2:00 flight delayed to 3:15
2:55: Fail to get on 2PM flight; start queueing for 4:30 flight standby
3:15: Still queueing (note there's only one person in front of me in this line)
3:35: Assured that that there is no way I will ever in a million years get on the 4:30 flight; rebooked on a 5:00 flight to DC on another airline, which then has a 7:40 connection to Chicago
3:45: Endure eye-rolling from check-in person because original airline sent tons of Chicago people over to them
3:50: Stopped at security: randomly selected for full search
4:15: 5:00 flight delayed to 5:55; still enough time to make the connection
5:15: 5:00 flight delayed to 6:35; talk to desk agent: no more flights tonight
5:45: Cab home during rush hour traffic
6:40: Get home

Tomorrow morning: 8:00AM flight. I'm glad I get to go to Chicago for the weekend, but jeeeeez do I hate flying sometimes.

Update (as I'm writing this): oh sweet Jesus now I'm getting a text that says my connecting flight was delayed to 9:20PM. So I would've made it after all.

I HATE YOU AIRLINES!

Update 7:12: No! 8:50!
Update 7:13: No! 8:20! - either way, still would've made it

It's a post to some sort of Russian game that seems to start with this image.
Here's a translated version.

So random. I originally blogged about the eggs here. I had a pretty cool husband. :>

I laughed. Hard. My God am I a nerd.

Just saying.

Wow. Just wow. This thing is gorgeous. I almost don't want to touch it for fear of smudging it or something.

There are a few seats outside (under little heaters). Right next to the door sat Rod Stewart - complete with little neck scarf and feathery hair and everything. We almost took a table beside him (there was no room inside) but there were barking dogs right there and we decided instead to go down the street to Barolo where we could sit inside.

When we finally sat down and got our drinks, we noticed that there was a Rod Stewart CD on at the restaurant. Coincidence!

Amusingly, the last time I was at Cipriani in Soho, Mickey Rourke was sitting in exactly the same place that Rod was today. It must be the celebrity seat or something. ;)

I had nothing planned for the evening, but Gary suggested we go out for a drink and keep it low key. I had texted him while out of town bemoaning my lack of plans and he had promised: either something small on Thursday or something big on Friday. Monday is a stupid day for a big birthday, after all. Of course with my annoyed mood and him having to do a couple of late breaking things at work, we didn't actually end up leaving the office until around 7. Boo! I wanted to go to Sapa (fusion next to my apt, with great happy hour choices), but Gary had gone there last week so he suggested tapas at Pamplona, which was sort of surprising to me for some reason, but I went with it.

We got there, and I thought, oh look at that big group of people at that table next to the bar. We'd better find a seat not too close to them so they don't back their chairs into us every time they get up.

Um, yeah. Then I heard the "Surprise!"

And it was a surprise. A huge surprise. Apparently, while I was out of town, Gary and Wambui planned this - Gary looks after my apt when I'm gone, and he'd gone through my past eVites to see whom I'd invited, then my address book to get all of their email addresses. Wambui (who got the brunt of my grumpiness earlier that day - boy did I feel bad about that) somehow sourced the cutest happy face cupcakes (there is a story there, but it's a work thing) and it just ended up being one of the best birthdays ever... even if Dustin never will be able to have chocolate cake ever again.

The rest of the week saw lots of other going out for follow-up birthday partying. My friend Jen took me out, Jamie took me out (Craft - delicious!), Gant too me out to Morrocan... I have to say, if this is indicative of 30, I don't see why anyone complains. :>