Spent half of yesterday at the hospital. Not that my spending time at the hospital is at all unusual these days, but yesterday Gary had to have some tests done and wasn't able to drive afterwards, so I needed to be there to drive him home. I hung out in his office in the morning while he made rounds, then went up and waited for his procedure to be completed.

And then . . . VROOM!! [Heh.] I got to drive the BMW home. Boy, is that a nice little SUV. Oops . . . it's actually an SAV . . . Sports *Activity* Vehicle. BMW can't be like everybody else, I guess. No ordinary *utility* vehicle, this.

I'm amazed by the amount of mail that we get from BMW now. They have special things you can register for, BMW logo gadgets you can buy, even a BMW test track in Germany where you can spend your family vacation. I get the feeling that it's kind of a car cult.

[No, we're not vacationing at the test track.]

I had lunch with George and Jon today. They were nice enough to let me horn in on their lunch - and then I ended up being twenty minutes late. Got caught on the phone with a client who is . . .

[Pause.]

[Deep breath.]

. . . just a terrific person and all around good egg. [mutters under breath] But they had just ordered when I arrived, so I was able to catch up. Nice to see them both - a real banner month since I had the opportunity to see George two weeks ago as well.

[Not to mention my stalking Jon at the train station last week.]

I was speaking with some of my London colleagues this morning, and as we were about to ring off one of them made a comment about everyone being hard to reach tomorrow because of the football match. I didn't think much of it until I saw this:

9,000,000 SICKIES IF ENGLAND BEAT PORTUGAL!

Bookies are predicting that nine million people will throw a sickie on the day after England's Euro 2004 quarter final.

Sporting Index have opened up books on how many England fans will pretend to be sick to get a day off after the crucial match with Portugal.

They have set a spread based on a prediction that more than nine million people will be taking an unofficial day off this Friday, June 25.

Here in the U.S., we love/hate our sports teams, but nothing compares to other nations' love of football. I mean, sure, we have our occasional riots following an NBA final, but seriously . . . nine million people calling out sick? For a quarter final, for pete's sake!

[Just think what will happen if they win the final.]

Quote du jour:

"A BMW can't take you as far as a diploma."

-- Joyce A. Myers, US business executive
[No relation that I know of]

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