The week from hell seems to be over. It has been relentless, horrible and wonderful all at the same time. A lot of it I prolly shouldn't write about here as it actually deals with personnel issues at work.

But you know, sometimes I hate being a director. I'd just like everyone to get down to the business that we love.

And don't worry Captain Ron...I still love my job.

In fact - it's becoming more and more exciting with each passing day. We're in the conceptual design phase for the USS Monitor Center and I've ben working with an incredible team of people. Our exhibit designers were down from New York last week and we got together with John Quarstein to go over the content outline and it was just like those old heady days of grad school all over again. It felt like comps, only I really did know what I was talking about this time! Len and Judy are just ace and a delight to be around. Quarstein is a force of nature and one of the more amazing people I've had the pleasure to work with. Well, him and his evil twin.....

Our architects were down from D.C. as well. What a great team! I love working with them and getting the low-down on architectural philosophy. Also the camaraderie is just exhilirating.

So the exhibition is taking shape as the excavation is winding down. Broadwater hopes to be out of the turret by Thanksgiving so they can get down to the interesting task of removing the cannons.

Then we find out if the kitty is really inside the cannon.......

Speaking of kitties. It's Hello Kitty's birthday today.

Oh - almost forgot. Depite the fact that it was the week from hell, Jim and I still managed to go to Charlottesville to see Acoustic Syndicate on Halloween. Never mind that it's two and a half hours away and that I had to work til 5 and be back at work the next morning....we did it anyway! And I really needed that.

Acoustic Syndicate are one of the best live bands around - despite the fact that I generally hate the whole jam band genre. See - their musical meanderings seem to have a purpose, and I can handle that. So the show was wonderful, the beer was plentiful, and I didn't fall asleep in my meeting with NOAA the next morning. So it's all good.

Working on adding the Maine pictures and what have you - but we'll just have to see if I can get around to that this weekend.