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.

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.

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.

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.

Richey Rich

As we knew when Reagan first preached it way back when: trickle down doesn't work, giving the rich massive tax breakddddddddddddddddddd

Guilty Pleasure versus So Glad You are Gone

Having teenagers in the house means you watch a few different shows - may be not all of the way through - but at least a big.

Guilty Pleasures:

Glee, Secret Life of the American Teenager, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit


Glad You are Gone or Looking forward to When you are Gone or Will be Gone:

Huge, 16 and Pregnant, Sister Wives, 19 and Counting, anything involving Sarah Palin or Kate Gosselin


Secret TV theory:

TLC is run by Mormons. Not only do they routinely go out of their way to promote massive families, they also promote polygamy. Next years TLC big hits will be the Glenn Beck reality show and a reality show based on a family that goes from millionaires to living in poverty by shoveling their money into the "Church of" Scientology.


If only I were a freak enough to have my own TLC series.