Anthony Braden

Once again I’m trying hard to work from home, but now with the added stress of having a sick kid at home with me. She’s really not a great deal of trouble, but I’ve become used to having the house to myself during the day and I find it distracting to have someone else here.

Selfish? Yes, I guess so, but I must admit I don’t have a great deal of sympathy with this particular sick kid. She definitely had something very nasty going on last week, when she was felled with some sort of virus. She was running a fever, and generally felt very run down. But all the more alarming symptoms have subsided now and she’s left with simply a nasty cough.

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Well, our West Wing marathon has come to an end. Just as I remembered it, the West Wing really was an extraordinary show. We started again from the beginning and realized that about halfway through was the point at which we had stopped watching the first time around. The last one that we both remember having watched was the episode when Donna was in Gaza, and the motorcade was attacked by Palestinian terrorists.

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In general my wife tends to do more of the cooking at home than I do … my hours tend to be irregular, with a lot of late afternoon and early evening meetings. The organizations I work with have both professional staffs and volunteer boards, and when meetings include the volunteers they’re scheduled to try and avoid the workday when possible.

But occasionally I take over the cooking duties, and the result is often my infamous beer can chicken on the grill. One of the greatest recipes in the world, at least for everyone except the poor unfortunate chicken.

Why is this recipe so much more intrusive for the chicken? After all, most chicken recipes end badly for the chicken. But this one’s particularly undignified.

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Back to the office now … it’s still pretty warm, but not as horrid as it was last week. The rest of the family had a good time at the museum, and I got a fair amount of work done, so a good time was had by all.

I’m in the middle of an interesting proposal for a client that wants to experiment with online advertising for their organization. This will be a new departure for them, since most of their previous communications have been free media and direct mail. I’m curious to see how successful a pay per click campaign will be for them … from the reading I’ve done, it seems that the most effective online advertising involves a call to action, but they’re interested in a branding campaign. I’m happy to do the proposal for them, but I’m not convinced it’s a great idea.

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It is insanely hot today, hotter than it’s been all year. Usually we have a pretty dry heat here, but the last couple of days have been both hot and sticky, and it’s just unbearable. Since we don’t have air conditioning at home, I’ve taken advantage of an errand to sit in a coffee shop and write. My wife is at a local museum with our two youngest kids and one of their friends, and she really doesn’t like driving in town so I was roped in as chauffeur for the day.

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