Leave it to the people at work to come through for a friend and co-worker. As I reported in my last post, Shane has returned. He came in on a fligt today at about 12:30 and about 20 people from work turned out to welcome him back -- most of us wearing our Free Shane clothes. Vic printed out a huge banner that everyone at work signed, Liz and Madalyn made a sign that said "Lesbians Love Shane", and Cathy, Jen, and Shana made a commemorative CD (with a very cool cover, track list, and foldout picture of Shane wrapped in a flag. I absolutely have to get my hands on one of those disks.

So, he's tan, happy, tired, and most importantly, back.

Last night was the Red Dress Party. For most of the evening I was the only guy to actually wear a red dress, or any dress, for that matter. It's funny how funny everyone thought it was for me to actually wear a dress, but it really cracked some of the girls up. I didn't even have the thing on backwards, like the first time I tried it on. I should have remembered, the zipper goes in the back. Ah, well, I don't wear too many dresses.

Overall the party was good, but it started out very, very slowly, with only a handful of us as guests for the first couple of hours. It was fun to hang out and talk with everyone, regardless.

I'm pretty much set for my trip to New York on Monday. I even managed to design a game in about a day as well as get one of the artists to mock up some cards (he did a great job). I'll be taking those and a few other things on the trip with me. I'm hoping to get by with two carry-ons, including the few bulky things I have to take for work. That would make things so much easier.

Valentine's Day for me consisted of welcoming Shane home (mentioned earlier), then grabbing late breakfast with Kelly, Vic, Kian, and Shana at the Original Pancake House in Kirkland (it's like a slice of Madison for me). After that I hung out at work with Kian and played some Magic. I had some time to kill, so I ran over to the game store with Matt, then went to dinner with Shana and Beth at the restaurant Jen works at, so we got to see her, too.

And that's about all. Now I'm hanging out, listening to the Dave Mathews' CD Some Devil that Jen gave me for Valentine's Day along with a gift certificate to a restaurant downtown, a card, and a graphic novel created to memorialize the 9/11/01 attack.

Okay, I'm done now.