well, one good thing about heather being my boss is that she's very aware of the amount of work i put into my job. the past few days have been hectic because we've had a serious deadline... and lora, the newest hire, wasn't taking the deadline seriously. when she finally did begin to take it seriously, she found out (as heather and i had been telling her) that it was a much more daunting and time-consuming task than she expected. the end result was that her work product was pretty lousy, and i've spent the past few days revising her work so that it's submittable. heather and i have been extremely frustrated with the work product we've had to deal with, and heather recognized how much different it is to manage her new underlings (as opposed to managing me and herself). at least that's nice to realize. the drop-down deadline is today at the close of business, but claire came back early from her meetings so she could help do final revisions. i'm leaving early today for the a's-twins game, and i think i've definitely put in enough effort to warrant not feeling guilty about that. *whew* but what a mess.

so, dear readers, that would be why i haven't been around much lately. it seems like there's one bit of chaos after another around here, but for the next five days i won't be thinking about it one iota. i'll be on vacation. :)

i had a really great weekend this past weekend, despite the work scene. on saturday, lora and i attended the annual event of prbo (point reyes bird observatory, one of nfwf's best grantees) up in palomarin. it was a spectacular day, and we had a lot of fun. there were mist-netting demonstrations, bird walks, a bbq at an incredible ranch on the bolinas lagoon, and lots of cool people to talk to. later that day i headed down to san jose for the first earthquakes-columbus crew match-up of the season. what an amazing game! it was definitely an offensively driven game (the final score was 4-3 quakes), but it was such high drama! lots of tough play, horrible officiating calls, near misses, nice saves. the crew are definitely my second-favorite mls team to watch, so it's always fun to see them against my boys in blue. of course, i always want my quakes to win. :) and jeff agoos (a defender) scored! yay jeff! also with stellar games were brian mullan (who is quickly becoming my second-favorite player behind troy dayak), manny lagos, brian ching, and landon donovan (in the second half, at least). woo hoo!

sunday i slept in until 2 (!), lounged with the parental units for the afternoon, then went to see mamma mia at amtsj. excellent, excellent show. hugely vibrant, hilarious, and lots of fun. it's amazing how they strung together a bunch of ABBA songs and created a story that was exciting to watch. we all know some of the biggest ABBA songs (dancing queen, mamma mia, etc), but you don't have to be a fan to enjoy this show. one of the lead characters was even out for the performance we saw, but her understudy was excellent as well. what fun! :) go see it if you can.

and now, i must get my work done so i can get out of here. i'm almost on vacation! :) happy memorial day, everyone.