Airline bad luck or ... MLK Day ... Wake County Schools

Air Luck?

I am on the road - writing from Silver Springs MD. I was supposed to fly up from NC today in order to be ready for a meeting tomorrow morning. Surprise - for the 2nd time in a row - my flight couldn't make it and I ended up driving. So .... all future trips will be by car and I have $1,100 in flight credits to use from non-refundable tickets.

MLK Day passed generally peacefully. It finally raised itself to national attention, but a GOP school board is ending school busing for diversity - setting up a re-segregation of parts of the school system. Wake County is home of Raleigh, the capital of NC. North Carolina has been a fast growing area in recent years and Wake County has benefit from one of the more successful public school systems in the country.

So - you might ask - why fix what isn't broken?

Good question - no good answer. However, leave it to the Colbert Report to provide some insight to the workings of Tedesco (a GOP wanker):

Word of the day is disintegration.

These guys are a special piece of work. They recently decided they wouldn't seek accreditation for the school district because they didn't want to share information with the accreditation organization. They also hired General Tata to take over running the school system. Meanwhile agitators are trying to make it so that all people can vote for any of the school board members. The GOP has a 4-3 advantage and it not necessarily a majority rule because of the districts. (However, I am not sure that is really the issue at all and I don't really have an opinion about their process because I don't know how it came to be - though the board is clearly legitimately elected under their rules.... this ain't Florida after all).

Later gator.

3 Weeks and more

Wow - it has been a long time without a post. Happy New Year Everyone! Merry Christmas! Tres Reyes! and whatever else I missed.

Things are going OK - I guess. Kind of odd and intense. I am not sleeping quite enough.

The Destroyer (Baxter) has continued to grow even bigger. His large square pit bull head hold massive powerful jaws that render everything to small shreds. Naturally this dog is not to be trusted - though he seems good natured.

Christmas passed pretty well. I got 6 things, two of which I bought myself.

We passed my the anniversary of my Mom's death due to heart failure just after the start of the year. Things remain so rentlessly busy that it doesn't leave much time to reflection.

Michigan got trounced by Mississippi State ending Rich Rod's reign. Brady Hoke is in and it seems like a better fit. We'll see.

Anyway, I've spent the last month or so feverishly working on a website. I'll probably have to pay someone to make me a decent template, but that hasn't stopped me from creating the SQL templates and edit screens for databases. I locked up a domain name, but I won't attempt to put it online until I get it farther along. I have learned a lot about PHP, MySQL, Apache, and a bit of new form options. Once I get the website going, I'll probably start making a Web/EDC system for clinical trials. I wrote one using SAS and SAS/Intrnet. However, this can be much better and development will much easier.

It still amazes me all the things you can get for free on the web. The fact that you can download the Apache web-server, PHP, and MySQL for free and be working on a fully functional database driven website is mind boggling. I am just running the website off a desktop in my house and working on a laptop most of the time, editing the files on a shared drive.

This is a long term project. I suspect it will be about 2 more months to bring it on line. If I get it up, I'll post the link here.

Business is a bit down and slow right now. I thought we had outlasted the recession, but the recession has caught up with us. I hope that it heats us before we have to layoff anyone else. That is kind of depressing. We have a lot of our money in business related property that we would lose if things go real far south. That would do a lot to destroy retirement. So, for my kids sake as well as my own, I hope that doesn't happen.

The NC-Va Tech is almost over. Both teams haven't been exactly an example of greatness.... but UNC may be able to pull it out.

Peace everyone.