I mean, I don't really know or care from Mardi Gras, but I have got to jolly myself back into a better mood.

Yesterday's chores: bank (cash for my trip) and pharmacy (prescription refill). Today, I will potentially go to both the grocery store (almost out of coffee), and apartment management office (to refill my laundry card) on my way home. (Possibly I was a little too laid back and relaxed over the weekend--there seem to be a lot of things I didn't get done.)

Had a conference call with Bernie and Freethinker, the potential new client, Monday afternoon. In a complete reversal of what I expected to see, the Freethinker's website looked great (visually--layout--I didn't read anything during the meeting) and the ads I saw in his Webstrainer campaign looked, really, very good. Generally these things, especially good ads, are where DIY advertisers fail. It was nice to see a campaign where someone did it right.

Everything else was appalling, so, no surprises there. I mean, the guy did seem to have a vague idea of the potential of it all, but without defined goals (Bernie asked three times during the call and got three conflicting answers) and without some structure he isn't going to be able to tap into the potential.

I won't go on and on. I'll just say that if you open your account page and it's covered with red warning messages? Telling everyone how well you're doing it is--less convincing.

The Freethinker was pretty vague throughout the entire call, so I'm not sure if Bernie strong-armed him into agreeing to have someone evaluate his campaign or if it was his idea, but that's not my problem. I don't mind earning two or three hundred bucks for reviewing what he's got and making some suggestions. That's all I'm committed to right now.

Because I'm a moron, I just now realized that my 8:30am flight on Friday means I should be on the road and headed toward the airport by 6:30, at the latest. Since it's my vacation, there's snow forecast, and I'm not at my best before dawn under any circumstances, I'm almost thinking I should book a shuttle or something--get someone else to drive, somehow.

On the other hand, shuttle companies are insane any more. They refuse to pick you up any later than 4 hours before your flight. The odds of me getting out of bed, pulling myself together, and being downstairs, luggage in hand, at 4:00am are surprisingly small. Maybe I'll be wasteful and spend $50 on a cab. (Maybe I'll stop being such a baby and just drive myself--the stupid airport is only 30 minutes away.)

Today's excitement includes the stupid 'Nut Newsletter. We're on draft #6 right now. I only read one sentence (I'm getting very good at coding without reading) but it was ugly enough that I was unable to resist sending TeamChaos an email asking (after the fifth draft) if they were seriously going to leave it in the newsletter. NewBoss Anais emailed back and offered to let me rewrite it, but I refuse to take the first step down that slippery slope. I'm just going to decide to be Over it. Over it, over it, over it.

You'd be proud of me. They've been requesting additional bolding dropped in here and there, huge chunks of text in italics, more white space so titles can 'float' unconnected with the accompanying stories, and other random weirdness and I haven't said a single mean thing.

Over it, over it, over it.