This week in NashVegas...

Where do I begin?
Hmmmm...well...how about...

MONDAY, 7/19
Got myself into a good work groove for the week. Megumi and I spent most of the day working on the usability testing plan. In the process, we found several issues that need to be fixed on the site. It is amazing what you can see when you look at something with a new perspective. Because we're trying to come up with scenarios to pose to NFIB.com users, we had to imagine trying to find information on the site as if we'd never been there and had no idea what kind of content to expect. We ended up with a two page list of fixes and Megumi went through the site with a fine tooth comb the rest of this week to see if there were any more...we ended up with seven pages of changes. So, now I'm in the process of prioritizing those changes and submitting individual requests to IT and our content vendor. (Trust me...it sounds a lot more complicated than it really is...)

John spent all his free time practicing (not only Monday, but for the past two weeks). He's got a "Forever Gold" gig on Saturday which consists of three acts, Sonny Geraci, Andy Kimm and Jim Yester. Should be interesting. He's really kickin' booty (as usual).

TUESDAY, 7/20
A day of meetings...five meetings: a content management system upgrade meeting, a NFIB.com editorial conference call, a usability update meeting w/my boss, a member development meeting and an Internet marketing project meeting w/ IT and Hammock. Needless to say, that is pretty much all I accomplished on Tuesday. And, I think we have more things to get done than we have people to do them! Some things never change...it doesn't matter where you work! HA.

On Tuesday night, Micol came over to help me work on a new song. I started it last week but couldn't get a good melody going...it was a boring song with pretty good words but no delivery. I was stuck. (What I had was a good hooky chorus idea, but not good for every verse of the song.  As it was, it sounded like a Martina McBride chorus all the way through the song.  Not good.) So, I called in Micol to see if we could work on it together. We had a blast and she was the perfect person help co-write. We made some progress, but it's not quite there yet. Hopefully, we'll finish it next week sometime.

John had band rehearsal for the Forever Gold gig in the afternoon and into the evening.

WEDNESDAY, 7/21
More usability planning, an e-mail newsletter vendor demo (e-mail labs), a lunch meeting about the next fifteen months of membership promotion, a touch base meeting with the Politics department and more usability planning. (More...yawn...exciting stuff...huh?!)

It was a long day, so I pretty much went right to choir practice from work. Choir practice went well. We've been practicing with another church choir the last few weeks. On Sunday afternoon (7/25) we're performing together at our former pastoral intern's ordination and installation.

After choir, I went out with a few other choir members (a weekly thing) but was home by 10:30. John had spent the day practicing so by the time I got home, he was already out-like-a-light!

THURSDAY, 7/22
Can you believe it...I only had one meeting on Thursday. AND, it was only 15 minutes long. How can you beat that?! So, I spent the rest of the day working on all the things we'd decided to do in the meetings earlier in the week. Got a lot done. It also helps that the three people I deal with most regularly are all on vacation until Monday. (Aaaaaaahhhhh...peace and quite.)

Well...until I got home! John was getting the 11th hour tweaks down pat. I love that. It may sound crazy, but there is something about listening to him play that just relaxes me. Yeah...it's loud...but it is comforting. Sometimes I find myself drifting off to the beat of John's drum. (kind of poetic, isn't it?!)

FRIDAY and beyond
And now...it's Friday already. I've got tons of work to do today. Taking Emily and Lynn to the airport. (They're going to Tampa to work on finalizing the details of buying a house.) John's got rehearsal with the Forever Gold acts today and tonight.

Tonight, I'm going to head down to Cool Springs to check out a jazz piano gig at 8 ish tonight. A recent acquaintance of ours who is a keyboard player is trying to get a weekend jazz duo thing going at this restaurant...his name is Ken Rarick. He called last weekend to see if I'd be interested in singing. Of course the answer is unequivocally, "YES." Anyway, he's a keyboard player we met through my friend Pat a few weeks ago (She'd been trying to get me and John together for dinner at her house with Ken and Chris for a long time.) Chris is from Australia and is soooo cool. She's a musician's wife, too, so she and I are totally on the same wavelength. They used to live in LA and moved to Nashville in '94 for a better family environment. Now Ken's a Nashville studio guy who's played with Cher and I think he also plays with Amy Grant on occasion. I'm sure there's more I don't know. He's pretty quiet about his playing (which indicates to me there's probably more to discover about his musical career.) When we had dinner with them at Pat's, we started talking about how we grew up and the different idiosyncrasies of our families. We connected while talking about saving "Cool-whip" dishes and washing plastic bags of all things. HA. Blah de blah de blah...I'll keep you posted. Gonna give him a CD tonight and a potential song list. Hopefully I'll get to have some gigs with Ken. Sounds fun. I've ALWAYS wanted to do a jazz thing. LOVE IT. Keep your fingers crossed.

UPDATE: Just "Googled" Ken to find out that he's a former member of one of my favorite bands growing up: Air Supply. (Crazy cool.)

Tomorrow, I've got to find my passport. I need it for the cruise I get to go on with John at the end of August. Haven't seen the passport since we moved almost four years ago. Hopefully it will be easy to locate. Keep your fingers crossed. Tomorrow night, Gwen and I are going to see one of my favorite songwriters, Jeffrey Steele, perform. Hopefully Eric and Bob and few others will be able to go as well.

OK...time to go to work.

Hope your week has gone well.
MISS YOU.
Have a GREAT day.

XOXOXO,
BB