Ok. Life got busy in a hurry last week and over the weekend.

The course ended up very well. Thursday night we went for dinner at 302 West in Geneva, IL, which was excellent although quite expensive: US $65 per person. Friday the course teams presented their final results to the "steering committee" (their peers) and the course ended on a high point.

On the weekend I went up to the Snymans' cottage and had a wonderful time. They've recently bought a snowmobile, which fits into the category of things that I disapprove of in principle, but enjoy in practice. We went zipping across the lakes (frozen at the time, mostly) and other than one rather scary moment where Christine and I almost rolled the thing (we hit an ice block with one ski as the other one went into a depression) we did fine. I hadn't realized how fast those things go -- 90 km/h -- and how much ground you can cover in the open. I can see why the northern communities in Canada use them all the time. Still, they're smelly and loud and somewhat dangerous, and I think I'll stick to cross country skis (better exercise and ability to enjoy the environment) for my own winter excursions.

Today I rebranded my stored documents at work, which for 75% of them meant the circular file. We have sheets of Accenture stickers around the office to paste over the Andersen Consulting logos on anything that's worth keeping. Seems excessive, but we're under a deadline to no longer even refer to the old name after March 31. Which reminds me that the superbowl was last weekend and the Accenture ads were quite prominent (not that I watched the superbowl). They did, however, get a mixed reception. It wasn't clear what message the bacteria forming a chip was supposed to convey, for example. Branding is a complicated subject, and I'm glad I'm not in the marketing department which must be coming under some fire.
posted by Tom at 4:13 PM | link |