Work has been one wild ride recently. We have a product, not normally part of my documentation responsibilities, that has a big docs deadline due, and everybody who has any kind of free time or who can delay their regular responsibilities a bit is getting pulled in to the project. This includes me.

It's actually kind of fun. The writers on the project are very grateful for the help, and it's always good to help a fellow writer out of a jam. (Since said writer will almost certainly be helping you out of a jam later.)

So, I went in yesterday morning to get in some work on the project. Then Daniel came up to Palo Alto and we wandered around University Avenue. We went to Borders, and I picked up the last three books in C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series. I seem to be in a bit of an odd reading mood lately - the only books I seem to really be able to get into all seem to fall loosely into the category of "thinking person's adventure fiction" - Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels, Iain M. Banks's space opera. Cherryh seems like she ought to suit that mood.

We spent a few hours sitting in Starbucks and reading, and then we had dinner at Nola, which used to be our favorite restaurant in Palo Alto, but I think probably isn't any more. They've taken one of Daniel's favorite dishes off the menu, and they served him a chicken andouille gumbo that was dismal. (I've never liked their chicken andouille gumbo because they don't put okra in it, and I think a gumbo should have okra. But this gumbo could not even have been saved by the addition of okra.) On the other hand, they do a good wedge salad. On the other other hand, wedge salad is not exactly easy to screw up, provided you start with quality ingredients. Perhaps they were just having a bad night with the gumbo.

Anyway, the plan for today is mostly to run a few errands, laze around the house a bit, do some laundry. I guess I'd better get to it.