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Tonight, just before dinner, Alex peeked in the oven to see what we were having. We’d been at parent-teacher conferences, which went a little long, so Laralee had commented that maybe the dinner would be burned.

Alex looked inside and yelled out, “Whoa, those potatoes are really burned all right! One of them is so burned that it changed shape and looks all yucky!”

It was a sweet potato.

I’m about to head out to play some volleyball. I haven’t played for over a year (couldn’t find a league team that needed an extra player) so I’m excited to be back in the game.

A couple friends of mine invited me along, but I’m a little hesitant because they invited me after telling me how disappointed they are in the team and how the captain is a bit strange. Whee– that’s inspirational!

Hopefully it’ll be fun nonetheless, and I’ll be able to meet up with some people who might provide me a way to get back into the scene…

Today I gave Kyra her lunch and then tickled her prior to sitting down. She reprimanded me for tickling her:

“Dad, when you do that it makes me feel playful. But I need to feel eatful.”

Now that Zack is sleeping in a real bed (albeit low to the floor) he has a tendency to wander the house late at night. Apparently he’s sleepwalking, because I’ll find him walking around downstairs– which is completely dark– looking kind of sad and lost. For whatever reason, he bypasses our room, scoots down the stairs, and wanders until I come down and get him.

Strange stuff.

Alex and Kyra officially rode their bikes on the street for the first time today! Both of them have been practicing in a grassy area in the neighborhood, and today they went out on the road and managed to get down the street (albeit with a bit of wobbling).

The neighbors were cheering– it was funny. Kyra got frustrated a little early, but Alex managed to learn how to start by himself (without anyone holding the bike) and even did a few nice smooth turns.

Now both of them want to know when we’ll go up in the mountains and ride the trails there… I told them it might take a little bit of practice first.

The article about me showed up in today’s issue of the Longmont Times-Call. It turned out really good, although I was (sadly) not the “top” story. Still, the three other companies featured in the article all had several employees, had been around for many years, and had done millions of dollars in business. The fact that I was in such company was certainly good news in itself.

Now I have to try to capitalize on the “media coverage” I’ve been getting. This marks the third time in six months that I’ve been featured in an article somewhere– first a page in the UMR alumni magazine, then a quick blurb in the Rocky Mountain News, and now an article in the local paper. I spent a little time tonight scanning each article, cleaning them up, and getting them ready to post on my (new and improved!) web site; in addition, I’ll probably convert them to PDFs and send them to a few clients just for fun.

Today’s stuff was courtesy of Stef, my friend and “PR agent”. She’s thrown my name around a few circles, and she’s (obviously) good at what she does, so I’m getting results like this. Hopefully my popularity– if you can call it that– will continue to spread and the work will start to pour in.

Alex was playing “hot and cold” today. The twist was, he was playing against himself. As he wandered around the downstairs, his chatter went something like this:

“You’re getting warmer…”
“Warmer…”
“Oh, now you’re getting colder.”
“Oops, warmer.”
“Now you’re getting really warm.”
“Hot!”
“Ow! You’re burning up!”
“I found it! Yippee!”

Today’s client moment is something you don’t hear much as a consultant. This quote is taken from an e-mail message I received:

“I have $2000 to spend before the end of March on web upgrades or additions. What should we spend it on?”

Whee!

A great Darwin Award candidate:

“When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder: He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.”

I’ve heard it said that we all demand justice, but ask for mercy.

For a year and a half, I’ve shown mercy to Mango– the client who has refused to pay me for work I did. I’ve tried to work things out, tried to reach an arrangement, tried to be patient as I heard (week after week) that surely next week the money would be there. At last, my patience gone, I sued in court, won, and now find myself in the frustrating process of collection.

And yet, even after all this, I was willing to show mercy. I didn’t want to disrupt Mango’s business, and I didn’t want to approach their clients to explain the situation and demand the money. It just seemed mean-spirited.

Today I interviewed someone for a potential position at my company, and in the course of the conversation I learned that he was doing contract work for Mango. I asked what sort of PHP development that involved, knowing full well that the PHP expertise of that company was extremely limited. He explained that he’d been tasked to enhance a slick back-end web administration tool that Mango sold to clients. Hmm. I asked him the name of the software.

“Forge.”

My response? “I wrote that!” Yes, two years ago I wrote Forge from scratch, and explicitly told Mango that it was for that particular project, and reselling it was out of the question without my explicit permission. My files contained very clear legal instructions to that end, and I know they were aware of those restrictions.

And yet, two years later, it turns out that (1) they haven’t paid me for my work developing the software, and (2) they’re reselling it for a profit to their clients… and certainly marketing it as their own. As I thought about it, I was absolutely beside myself. Unbelievable.

So no more mercy. They shall have justice.