Thursday, December 16, 2010

Very Sleepy ... Must Fall Asleep

Wasted strokes: for some reason I always type "http://" or "https://" before every web address even though my browser will figure it out. What angle of human nature causes me to do that.

Anyway it is midnight and I'm about to fall asleep. I had checked a bunch of data records from raw data to a derived data set used in analysis. It looks right, so some people need to come to grips with what the data are telling them.

OK, I drifted off, so I'm getting off.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Happy and welcome news

We would have celebrated this weekend, had it not been quite so busy. My son got accepted to George Washington with an early decision. We had toured the campus in the spring and there was a clear connection for him at that time. GW has a lot of internships available within or around the government and my son is highly politically aware --- though he's almost libertarian --- so I'm sure it will be interesting. Other choices were American University and University of Maryland.

All would have been great and I do have a warming feeling about "Fear the Turtle," but it was certainly a nice way to spend the weekend. Not to mention, not having to worry about it for another three months.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Odd Debacles and Warm Feelings

First - a feel good story for the holidays - Katie the Star Wars fan saved by fanboys (and girls).

OK the the commercial is over - almost. My daughter is named after George Bailey. At the time my wife was pregnant with #2, we did not know whether it was going to be a boy or a girl. We were watching "It's a Wonderful Life" and we were considering naming a boy "George Bailey ..." (... being my last name). We got a wonderful girl instead, but we lost the George. A tough thing because that name has been around for 3 generations or so.

Anyway, I watched "It's a Wonderful Life" with my daughter for the first time and she didn't shed a tear. Actually the length of the movie was long for her teenage attention span, but what a great movie it is. I can't watch the movie without getting choked up, but that is that.

Odd thought: If aliens show up and enslave us in a 2012 or something, could it be that, ala 2001, perhaps they had manipulated us along the way until we were smart enough to make good slaves. Now that would be a truly evil set of creatures - spending millions of years genetically tinkering with some animals until they got the perfect set of people to capture.

Lesson learned: I recently lost it with the my youngest soccer club. I finally just pulled her from the team and we'll look for a different one. I had become an insane parent - but, in a way, I think I had been forced into it - because I don't think I should pay for someone to tell me how bad my kid and I are. Anyway - as I slowly gain some perspective - I realize multiple jerks were involved and I was only one. Further, as a result, I came up with a plan that might generate some money. It would be a nice little bit of irony if I was somehow rewarded for being a crazed "soccer dad."

We picked up a few new clients in the last couple weeks. After a very hard year. So, hopefully no more layoffs.

Miscellaneous --- the tree's been up since Saturday. I got the lights on Sunday, but still no ornaments. Better go water it.

Later.