Blogging on Merrie's Birthday!

Its my (Merrie's) 29th Birthday and I marked the occasion by starting my new job (still at Intel) today. Of course that had to include an all day meeting in Portland. One of Derek's birthday gifts to me was to drive me to the airport at 5:30am on his day off, and then in turn pick me up at 5:30pm. He rocks! During the day I had probably a dozen phone calls from family & friends and lots of great birthday songs on my voicemail (Betsy won out for best voice). It was a great distraction from my meeting to see the Caller ID say Nana in the meeting of an intense debate over strategy.

A couple of random thoughts of mine....
I traded emails with my girlfriend Jolene Ferguson down in Houston today. She said that there are are so many people helping out with the New Orleans "refugees". There was a lot of talk today at work about new orleans folks being transplanted in Seattle and everyone is itching to help out. I hope people keep helping for the long haul.

Derek and I had a great night on Sunday at Steve & Marianne out in Ollala where Derek used to live. We even brought the dogs to play with their outside dog Kate--- they get confused by the whole city dog/country dog scenario and don't understand why Kate doesnt sleep on the couch and bed.