Hillary and Paul made it to Atlanta on Thursday evening, and after enjoying Chinese & sushi for dinner, we made the trek up to South Carolina to visit my parents. We got there around 11PM and sat around and talked for a little bit and realized that our guests had been awake for nearly twenty eight hours. It quickly became bedtime and the next morning we took an hour long trip around the lake on my father's boat. Afterwards, we went to the club house for lunch and had a few beers (well, the men did anyway). After lunch, we walked around and then made it back to the house for an afternoon snooze. The remainder of the day was uneventful, but relaxing. We cooked some burgers on the grill and opened up a few too many bottles of beer and wine. A little groggy the next morning, we made the trip back to Atlanta.

Once back in town, the girls had manicure and pedicure appointments and a lot of shopping to do (imagine that, huh?). Not sure of what I could entertain Paul with, we decided to take a trip to Total Wine to buy some wine for dinner that night. Being an Aussie by birth and a European by choice, Paul had never seen anything like this store before. And for those that have never been to one - it is the epitome of America: excessively large and full of selection. He jokingly told me that if I wanted to, I could go home and come back in a couple hours to pick him up. He was floored by how many bottles of wine could be found in a single store. And after an hour and a half of shopping, we made our purchases and headed home.

We had dinner at Chops Lobster Bar that evening and brought two bottles of wine with us. Seems like the new thing these days is that you can bring wine with you and pay a small corkage fee. Paul and I both had the surf and turf; the meat nearly moo-ing rare with a flash fried lobster tail. The girls both had fish. Yum!

Unfortunately, the weekend came to an end on Sunday morning as we had to take them to the airport at 7:30AM. The second leg of their trip included a 5 hour flight to Seattle to visit family and friends. Kristen and I really enjoyed spending time with them again and are actually planning a trip to Bern, Switzerland in December to visit them in their territory. Kristen has been there once before and I have never been there as an adult, so we are both looking forward to the trip.

On a different front, I had an interview with my future client this morning as he wanted to get to know me and what I was bringing to the table. Not sure why, but it made me nervous. In my five-plus years of working at Accenture, I have never had to be interviewed by the client before starting a project. To top this off, it has been over five years since I have had to interview; a little rusty I must admit. :) Tomorrow, the roles are reversed and I start the interviewing of potential candidates for my own team. At 7:30AM tomorrow, I am interviewing a resource from Bangalore, India, who I would eventually end up bringing here to the United States. Yes, I know... it seams backwards, but we can get some really good skill sets out of India and the hourly rate is cheap enough (even with the cost of visas, airfare and corporate apartment) that there are some great margins to be made.

OK. Its and early morning for me, so bedtime it is. Good night.