We had a really good week last week, at least as far as building the business goes. We did a Microsoft Connections event in Dallas on Tuesday and in Houston on Thursday. We've got our song and dance down pretty good, and the presenter we had – Jacob Rivera – is an "Unplugged" host and very talented speaker and presenter. He's also self-confident enough that he allowed us to do a tag-team for our "Client Story" part. Some of the presenters insist on following the script of asking us questions, and then, usually, only Bill gets to do any actual presenting. When we do the tag-team, we have less canned "questions and answers" and more actual conversation between ourselves and the audience. I have a pretty good feel for the audience and am able to cut Bill off when he starts rambling – often the presenters are reluctant to interrupt, and I don't have any qualms about that. We made some good connections with potential clients in both cities, and felt like it was well worth the time we took. Because we are both so Mobily connected we were able to get a fair amount of work done in addition. Bill continued to troubleshoot some issues for a new client that we have hosted through OwnWebNow. We had a conference call with our TPAM as we drove down to Houston on Wednesday. On the way back on Thursday, we were able to make several calls that solved some problems we were having setting up marketing campaign. And I was able to talk to the son of one of my elderly tax clients.

Personally, the week was less than stellar, though. Bill and I had arranged for Grandfather to pick Ian and Kate up after school on Wednesday because we wouldn't be there and Mom had to work. Unfortunately, the school had spent the entire week in some sort of "pre-test testing", and had completely messed up the classes schedules. This isn't a problem for most of the kids, but Ian has a hard time coping with disruptions in his schedule. Anyway, by the time Grandfather got there to pick him up he was in a total state, and Bill and I couldn't do anything but sympathize long-distance. They finally got him calmed down enough to go meet Mom at work and all was quiet for the rest of the evening.

Then on Thursday, we came out of the event, and I had a parking ticket because I had forgotten to hang up my Handicapped hanger when we went in that morning. I will call the city of Houston and beg for mercy, claiming distractions, etc. The problem is you are technically not supposed to drive with the hanger hanging from the mirror (a distraction), but then you have to be sure to remember to hang it up when you park. I suppose I'll suck it up and pay it if they won't accept the number of the hanger that I had, and had in the car, and just plain old forgot. It would cost me more to drive back down to Houston to appear in person to fight the ticket than it would to just pay the d*mned thing.

The third (and hopefully last) problem happened to Bill and family on Friday afternoon. They were driving to Covington (just north of New Orleans) Louisiana for a baby shower for Erika's brother and sister-in-law. As they approached the Mississippi River Bridge, just west of Baton Rouge, they saw a towering column of smoke. Traffic came to a halt. Major accident ahead. After sitting – with no movement of traffic in either direction – for 30 minutes, Bill got out and walked about ½ a mile further on down the road. There were burned out and still smoldering semis, pickups, cars, SUVs, etc., scattered across both directions of I-10. There was no way to get on the service road – marshy ground protected by a chain-link fence – and no way around. So they sat there from 3:30 until 7:00 when they finally got underway again. The first bathroom they came to got a good workout!