The Magnificent Seven

I've just come from the last of many marathon editing sessions with my DataNet proposal colleagues at the University of Washington.  A group of 7 people, most of whom scarcely knew of one another's existence a few months ago, have just concluded thousands of hours of writing, cajoling, arguing, conceptualizing, persuading, and trying (unsuccessfully) to defeat Word auto-outlining. 
Missed holidays, shared dinners over laptops, and ridiculously long days have forged an estimable team with the courage to criticize, the tentative collegiality to tease and the confidence to compromise.
Tomorrow we will upload the last of some 200 pages of Arial 10 pt type, each of which has been combed and coaxed and coerced from ideas and colleagues and spreadsheets.  Our once and future lives.  We hope. 
We commit our ideas to the judgments of unknown peers with a measure of trepidation, but also with considerable pride and satisfaction.  And hope, of course, that we will have the opportunity to bring our ideas to bear on the future we hope to create.
For now, I'm simply grateful to have shared this arduous journey with splendid colleagues who care about commas.
Oh! And Shannon… no freaking way we get that budget done without Shannon!
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My colleagues near the end of our last editing session.  Yeah, we were feeling pretty good, and not just because we were nearing the end.