The official verdict is in. Four days in Cancun and all I got was this lousy case of bronchitis!

Phlegmtastic!!

Now if you'll excuse us, my antibiotics and decongestants and I will be retreating back to our nest on the couch. A-choo!

Sunny Cancun was wonderful! I had a fabulous time, in spite of my sunburn - which didn't hold a candle to the shade of red that Bruce was sporting. The wedding was beautiful, the beach was lovely, the hotel was spiffy after a few stops and starts. Unfortunately, along with my wedding favor, I brought home some nasty virus that has kept me in bed for the last two days. I'm only awake today because I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon. Oddly enough, people don't find SARS jokes as funny when you're coughing and wheezing and just returned from a foreign country...

Hopefully I'll have my pictures back tomorrow, so I can post and share. (Of Cancun, not my sickness...)

I'm back. I can walk again. (Well, in most of my shoes - there's still a pair or two that rub the blisters on my feet.) The show was utterly exhausting and crazed, but managed to pull off well. Reminds me of acting in plays when I was younger - everything is utter chaos until the curtain goes up and then somehow, amazingly, it all falls in to place. For the most part - though there are always still fires that pop up and need muffling.

Cirque du Soleil was utterly amazing and one of the best birthday treats ever - it started off a wonderful, relaxing birthday weekend both provided courtesy of Keith. Cupcakes were waiting on my desk this morning along with a gift certificate to a local spa for 2 hours of pampering courtesy of my team and friends at work. I can't wait!!!! My friends are awesome!

And now, off I go to the reality of getting back to work and digging myself out of my e-mail inbox. I'll keep chanting to myself that Cancun is only a few days away!

Live from the show floor - day two:

Still 9000 degrees in here, but amazingly everything is starting to take shape. Where there were 40 foot high piles of boxes yesterday, today there are actual booths and video screens and giant logos and statues. A little ways down the hall, a car wreck is being set up, with real cars. It's pretty amazing to watch all this going on around me, and exhausting at the same time. Tomorrow AM, the lights go up, the show begins, and we all start running on auto-pilot for the next 72 hours while we strut our stuff for thousands of people. (And, I expect, I'll be incommunicado starting at that point.)

If I manage to do something stupid again today, I'll be sure to chime in. Oh - and head's up to Bruce - I'll probably be in the NVidia booth for most of the show, so poke your head in there before trying to find me in the NC booth. :)

A little moment from the E3 show floor - live from Los Angeles, CA:

Here's a little tip for the masses. Let's say you find yourself at the biggest industry trade show for your particular genre, in a gigantic convention center filled with rockstar-scale booth setup going on all around you. Let's say you grab a computer to check your work e-mail really quick. And after checking your work e-mail, you decide to send your boyfriend a quick, sweet little e-mail to say that you miss him. If you find yourself in those circumstances? Check to make sure the computer you're on isn't hooked in to the 20-foot high video monitor above the booth and you're not sharing your sweet nothings in 10-foot-high letters with all your co-workers and all of the teamsters on the west side of the booth.

Just a little tip from me to you. Not that I'd know or anything...

Tired, yet happy - that's me! My world is about to go into crazy mode for the rest of the month. Actually, it started going there this morning, but I'm taking a moment before I dive back in.

Due to late-breaking schedule madness, I'll be off to LA for E3 next week, then back for Cirque du Soleil and birthday weekend, then off again the following weekend to Cancun for John and Michelle's wedding. Sometime between now and then I need to do laundry, pack, find a dress to wear to the wedding, get a key made so my bizarro boyfriend can get in to feed the kitties, put together a to-do list so everything gets done while I'm not at the office, and try not to lose my mind in the entire process. I'm pushing myself through all of it by chanting, "sun, beach, margaritas" over and over. John and Michelle are going to have to pry me from my beach chair to get me to go to the actual ceremony. Oh yes.

Sorry no funny today - just busy busy busy!