Saturday, May 08, 2010

This week in Rochester

I:

Launched the new KidsOutAndAbout.com

Dealt with fallout as KidsOutAndAbout.com crashed due to four times the expected stress on the server

Turned 41

Barely kept up with feeding and clothing the new baby (found lots of niggly little problems with the web site, helped organizations get their listings up and running, sold a couple of upgrades)

Accepted congratulations

Got rejected from a publisher for The Frontier Team

Couldn't sleep

Let the house go to hell temporarily

Let the kids do lots of independent work

Went on the radio twice

Picked up my cello from the shop where it was being repaired

Took a heavenly half-hour with Madison and played cello with her as she practiced viola

Realized that playing cello really is like riding a bicycle, except now I understand what music is about much better than I did 25 years ago.

Breathed sometimes, ate sporadically

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It's all in the service of a new and improved work life, but I could never keep up this pace forever.

Saturday, May 01, 2010

This week in the Ross house

Ella had two birthday parties. I will try to find some time to write up a review for each of them. Someday. I have lovely photos, I think. At some point I'll download them from the camera.

Ella got reading glasses. She is very happy with them, so much so that she likes to walk around wearing them. Just looking at her doing that makes me dizzy. We'll see if they have some kind of beneficial impact on her desire to read. I'd settle for a psychological impact.

The new KidsOutAndAbout.com (here's a sneak peek of the test site for the five of you who read this blog) has really been coming together. It is a thing of utter beauty. We launch this coming Wednesday, I hope hope hope. I'm pretty sure we will.

I started to sell the web site upgrade space this week. We're accepting "advertising" in the sense that we give everyone a free organization listing, which they can upgrade to 1) Give themselves a lovely web page within the new KOA site and 2) Increase their standing in the search results when they appear. So far, with little effort, I now have $2000 in hand and about $3000 more on the immediate way, including a big contract that I sold to the YMCA. Can't wait really to start selling this thing.

Last night, we went to see the Ying Quartet. We brought the girls. They're our favorite string quartet. It was a lovely concert.

This afternoon was the annual Imagine RIT community event, during which the Rochester Institute of Technology opens its doors to kids and families with hundreds of free things to do that are oriented toward science, technology, math, and culture. A terrific festival, my favorite, I think. I found myself wishing our young friends Max and Henry had been in town, they would have loved it. Though there was so much, and so crowded, that it was absolutely impossible to do more than 1/4 of the festival in an afternoon. Like Epcot Center, only free.

Tomorrow, KidsOutAndAbout.com has a table at Healthy Hero Day at the Rochester Red Wings game; we were invited to participate by the YMCA. Then we zip over mid-afternoon to the girls' concert in which the Bach Children's Chorus sings with the Greece (NY) Choral Society in the the GCS's 40th anniversary concert.

I wonder how long it's been since I actually cooked a real dinner. It's been at least 10 days. Now I know how the Other Half lives -- the half in which both parents work and everyone is running around. I'm glad that for the most part I've been able to keep the girls doing normal schoolwork. Soon, soon, this will be over and we can settle back into a normal pace.