Shelly - what a trooper cleaning up the barium leakage! I'm sure that was not fun.

One thing you might suggest would be to have them use beer instead of barium. I suspect Craig's body is wired to retain beer even with leaky fistulas!

Vacation Management - since Craig asked I thought I'd share my tips on maximizing vacation time:

1) Negotiate a good amount of vacation when starting a new job. This is one of the advantages of changing companies. Regardless of how much time you really had at your old employer, tell your new employer you had at least 6 weeks and need to retain that amount.

2) Make sure you change bosses often by getting them fired/promoted and/or getting yourself moved to another area. Always use most of your vacation early in the year and tell your new boss you haven't used any yet.

3) Friday half days after working those grueling long hours Mon-Thur are not vacation. That just flexible work hours.

4) Schedule 'developmental' conferences at nice locations and make sure they include a day or two of free time in the overall conference time..

5) Volunteer for special jobs, like Big Table negotiations - again in nice locations where the meetings are only 2 hours/day.

6) Volunteer to recruit new employees at distant college campuses. Them just leave sign up sheets asking that they leave a resume.

There are more good ways to stretch vacation, but we can't give away all the secrets!

I've saved plenty of vacation for the Craig Recovery Bash.

Greg