Saturday, as usual, I took The Girls up to Dojo. We didn't linger up there, however (no trip to the dollar store), but hurried back to get ready to take their mom out for here "real" birthday dinner (as opposed to the dinner that we took her out to on her actual birthday). The Wife had been worrying that the weather was going to be an issue, but a stormfront moved through early, and by the time we headed out to dinner it was clear, and considerably cooler.
We headed down to Greek Town again this year and had dinner in Athena's outdoor patio. I'm really glad that I don't generally have to take cabs, however, as with the latest fare increase, and the recent gas surcharge, it's getting pretty damn pricey ... and this ran $13 each way (with tip). Considering the penny-pinching I do on a daily basis (I rarely allow myself to spend more than $2.25 on lunch, and most days make due with a couple of Little Debbie snacks), it just killed me to spend that on transportation, but somehow going out to a "special" dinner afdidn't seem right to do via subway and busses.
Yesterday we got going reasonably early to catch the discount showing of Get Smart. I thought this was very well done, but I wonder if you really needed to know the old TV show to appreciate it. I'd seen some reviews that didn't "get it" and I'm guessing that those were because the reviewers were too young to have the original in their databanks. They certainly left the door open to sequels, with introducing two characters from the TV show in the last few minutes of the movie (Hymie and Fang).
I also had a work project hanging over my head all weekend. One of my bosses is responsible for a lot of text for our Avatrait division, but is a very slow writer, and was up against a deadline for some preliminary materials going out ahead of this major art conference in Florence this Fall. By Friday evening he was only up to about 1/2 the suggested word count. We'd set it up so that he'd be sending me the raw copy, and I'd edit it and "punch it up" as need be. I'd actually expected to get that on Friday night, but it went from Friday, through Saturday, and into Sunday ... finally hitting my in-box Sunday evening. Fortunately, he'd obviously worked it over quite a lot, so it didn't need a major re-write, and I had it back to him (ready to e-mail to Italy before the conference organizers got into work) within an hour or so. I really think we need to re-structure some of that writing at the office to make it like my other boss, who sits down with me, gives me the "bullet points", a ballpark word count, and the general outline of "what needs to be conveyed to whom", then lets me run with it. One thing I've had to get used to there is not having a lot of editing happening to my initial text. Back in my P.R. agency days, the initial copy was sort of a "first move" in an editorial chess game that would often go dozens of rounds. Here I really need to make sure that "first draft" is distribution-ready, because (as often as not), it's what's going to go out!