I took last week off and decided to get a new garage, paint my home office, and get a new tooth. Here’s what I learned:

• It takes about half as much time than you think to completely clean out a 20×22 ft. garage.
• It takes twice as much time than you think to completely clean out a home office.
• The dust build-up that occurs underneath an old rug is just scary.
• The dust build-up that occurs while waiting for an “Apron Associate” to help you at Home Depot on Labor Day is just as scary.
• It is extremely easy to jam a Fellowes ShredStik with old checks.
• It is also extremely easy to jam a vacuum cleaner with an old winter scarf.
• Watching people demolish an old garage is WAY fun.
• Getting a titanium screw implanted in your jaw is NOT way fun. Not. Fun.

So, I’ll be back in the saddle September 8. Until then, I’m being forced to enjoy myself without the pleasures that work brings.

And I blame the Republicans.

You see, the Republican National Convention is being held next week a mere seven minutes from my home. Since my husband works near the venue – and since my daughter attends preschool where he works – everything is pretty much closing down because you won’t be able to get within a mile of the place in any sort of vehicle.

And good luck walking around there. Jeez.

We decided to simply take the week off, clean out the garage (joy!), visit with family, and even get oral surgery. Seriously. I’m getting oral surgery next Wednesday. All of this is preferable to the RNC.

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite entertaining and informative bloggers (not an exhaustive list):

The Pink Pamphlet

A Shot at Technical Simplicity

Go Big Always (duh)

Bemused Embrace of Nihilism

It’s the truth, even if it didn’t happen

There are more, but I’m tired.

I shall see you when the madness has moved on (unless I get some really awesome out-of-town wack jobs at my front door. Then, I’ll take pictures and at least tweet it).

Taking a drive along Snelling Ave in St. Paul, MN last Friday, I got to see something you just don’t see every day.

Two miles of giant RVs.

They were all pulling out of the Minnesota State Fair grounds, headed toward I-94. I could only wonder if this was the future of Harley rallies, once the bikes get too much to handle.

When I was a pre-teen and pissed my Mom off, she’d “sentence” me to fold clothes for 30 minutes in the spare bedroom. That’s where we stored our family’s Mount McLaundry. See, my Mom believed in spending time doing fun things, family things. Laundry wasn’t one of them. We didn’t store clean clothes in bureaus or closets. We scaled the Mountain every few days to gather what we needed, when we needed it, much like our ancestors did, I imagine.

Me being a tad more anal than Mom, I can’t handle having unfolded laundry for very long, especially if there’s no more clean underwear in my drawer. Combine that with a love of aloneness – which is ironic, considering my passion for creating a trusting, social, corporate world someday – and suddenly, Laundry becomes an oasis.

Ok, combine that with a 4-year-old daughter who thinks “normal” is spending 16 hours straight playing with me – not her Dad, me. Gee, thanks, Grandma Lyons, for setting that impossible standard.

Every weekend, I look forward to escaping to the man-cave-turned-toy-storage downstairs with a glass of red and a full basket of clothes. I fold, I drink, I revel in unresponsibility. I absorb endless HGTV. It’s the equivalent of my husband watching his recorded Ultimate Fighting Championship episodes while I’m gluing some crazy family “crap” together with my daughter in another room.

When I don’t get “folding time,” I turn into a nasty version of myself. Blech. Thus, Laundry is sacrosanct in my house. I, and only I, do it. And I do it alone. With joy, and surprisingly, a little reverence. I sometimes attend our local spiritual house, but Laundry becomes my sanctuary more often than not.

What’s your regenerative habit?

Gia Lyons has spent 8 years at IBM and up until now has been the IBM Lotus Connections Software Evangelist. This interview post serves as her notice to her colleagues about her new gig at Jive.

Read more…

I’ve finally finished Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, and just… wow. I saw in Twitter that George Clooney might be making a mini-series out of this book, which would be spectacular.

The idea that nanotechnology could connect folks in an almost literal collective mind was an appealing theme in this book. Or, more accurately, the idea is about the ability to use human brains as a computing grid for enormous computations.

Now that would be social software.

My preschooler and I played with my new iMac’s Photo Booth application. She insisted on using the “wrinkly” effect. She was very proud to have snuck in a few potty words during our performance, about a minute in.

Hoo boy. Twitterland is rockin’ with Stacey Monk’s (@StaceyMonk) guest post on Sam Lawrence’s (@SamLawrence) blog, Go Big Always. Dennis Howlett (@dahowlett) and I don’t know how many others blogged to get the word out as well.

Dennis tweeted me, asking what IBM could do. I’ve been on holiday in New York City these last four days (Mom, I couldn’t find your records on Ellis Island, bummer), but now I’m home, and wondering how on earth to move the dancing elephant to assist Stacy’s Epic Change organization. I know there’s a process somewhere, but I will have to blog internally for help to learn which levers to pull and which buttons to push to get the elephant to dance Stacey’s way.

Anyway.

Stacey is looking for:

• Videos for a movie for group of 170+ Tanzanian children who attend Shepherds Junior school
• Donations to buy/build them a school bus, another classroom, and a playground
• Volunteers for lots of different things

Here’s what I’m going to do personally: give donations in my mother’s and mother-in-law’s names for Mother’s Day. They love this kind of stuff, especially since education was practically a religion in their houses. Don’t have a mom? Donate in honor of your favorite teacher of yore on America’s National Teacher Day, Tuesday, May 6.

It would be great if you could participate, even if you just blog and twitter about this worthy cause. Please pass the word, Web 2.0 style.

I read Cryptonomicon in 2006. That was my introduction to Mr. Stephenson’s brain. I then tried to read Quicksilver, no go. Just finished Snow Crash (loved it), and I’m in the middle of The Diamond Age, at the part where Hackworth has just been arrested by Constable Chang. The whole nanotechnological-Victorian thing reminds me so much of the Wild Wild West TV show (yes, I know it wasn’t set in the Victorian period).

In the book, a woman gets a nanosite tattoo known as the “Jodie.” And the protagonist is a little girl named Nell. This book was published in 1995, a year after the movie Nell, starring Jodie Foster, was released (“T’ee in the wayah!”).

Coinky-dink? Maybe.