Monday, May 12, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Terrafugia Transition
When I see Terrefugia, I think "fugly" - and yet I'm sure it's "Terra-foo-ghjee-uh" or something. It would be cool, but it wouldn't be pretty. Yeah, c'mon flying cars. From Engadget.com
Weird: Volkswagen Aptera
1 liter tank, 75 MPH max., 235 MPG. Seats two, tandem. 2010. More on Engadget.com
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
No Less Crazy
It has been so crazy lately. And I really don't see it letting up any time soon. I am getting a little more caught up, though. I slammed through a backlog of MyPoints emails. Most of them had expired, but at least they're all done and gone. I also ripped through most of my Google Reader
stuff. There's still 92, but there's also a lot that I starred that I need to get back to. I am simultaneously reading 2 Reader's Digests, a Consumer Reports and 2 books. There are others, too, but I've lost track. Let's just say there's a giant stack of magazines and books on my nightstand and not enough time to get to them all.
Work, as well, has been crazy. We lost one of our team at the end of last week. I was curious to see how that was going to affect us, but then the thing in Myanmar happened. (They're saying over 100,000 people dead? Hard to actually imagine 100,000 people. Let alone all of them being dead. It's hard to focus on individual people when numbers are so huge.) Anyhow, please consider going to World Vision and giving a small gift. Every little bit helps. The biggest concern is safe drinking water and health. I believe they're distributing kits to help make sure people have those essentials and vitamins and high energy foods to keep them healthy. Apparently there are entire areas still far under water. I hope that at least out of this the government of Myanmar learns to trust the global community a little more and opens up its borders a little more to aid, democracy and a better way of taking care of its citizens.
So I'm supposed to be developing a training plan for someone from another group who's going to come help us. I got some work done on it today, but it's not complete enough to use. Needs lots of refining and reorganization. I won't have it done in time to do any of the training myself, but at least it will guarantee that they learn what I want them to learn and they get trained in the right things in the right order. That didn't happen with the last person we borrowed and it caused them to plateau in their competency far earlier than they should have, which was too bad. I'm hoping this time the framework I develop will help them to be more productive quicker and rise to a higher level of complexity in the work they're able to do for us.
Oh, and the baby will be here no later than Monday. If things don't kick off on their own, they're going to induce on Monday. It's a little weird that in just a few short days we won't have a child, we'll have children. But honestly? Things have been so crazy lately in every other regard that I have not had time to really contemplate this and so it's going to hit me pretty hard. It's going to be awesome, but I am soooo not ready for it. And yet I am.
And the mother-in-law still lives here with no signs of moving out. It's starting to get really bad and really weird again. But at least this time, it hasn't come between Lori and I. But, this is the last time. She's used up all of her "live with us" credits from now until the end of time.
It's getting late, I should be getting upstairs to bed. As far as I know, I'm going to work as per normal tomorrow. If you don't count the two hour lunch break where Rachel comes and stays with me at work while Lori's at a doctor's appointment.
This feels good. It's been too long since I've posted.
stuff. There's still 92, but there's also a lot that I starred that I need to get back to. I am simultaneously reading 2 Reader's Digests, a Consumer Reports and 2 books. There are others, too, but I've lost track. Let's just say there's a giant stack of magazines and books on my nightstand and not enough time to get to them all.
Work, as well, has been crazy. We lost one of our team at the end of last week. I was curious to see how that was going to affect us, but then the thing in Myanmar happened. (They're saying over 100,000 people dead? Hard to actually imagine 100,000 people. Let alone all of them being dead. It's hard to focus on individual people when numbers are so huge.) Anyhow, please consider going to World Vision and giving a small gift. Every little bit helps. The biggest concern is safe drinking water and health. I believe they're distributing kits to help make sure people have those essentials and vitamins and high energy foods to keep them healthy. Apparently there are entire areas still far under water. I hope that at least out of this the government of Myanmar learns to trust the global community a little more and opens up its borders a little more to aid, democracy and a better way of taking care of its citizens.
So I'm supposed to be developing a training plan for someone from another group who's going to come help us. I got some work done on it today, but it's not complete enough to use. Needs lots of refining and reorganization. I won't have it done in time to do any of the training myself, but at least it will guarantee that they learn what I want them to learn and they get trained in the right things in the right order. That didn't happen with the last person we borrowed and it caused them to plateau in their competency far earlier than they should have, which was too bad. I'm hoping this time the framework I develop will help them to be more productive quicker and rise to a higher level of complexity in the work they're able to do for us.
Oh, and the baby will be here no later than Monday. If things don't kick off on their own, they're going to induce on Monday. It's a little weird that in just a few short days we won't have a child, we'll have children. But honestly? Things have been so crazy lately in every other regard that I have not had time to really contemplate this and so it's going to hit me pretty hard. It's going to be awesome, but I am soooo not ready for it. And yet I am.
And the mother-in-law still lives here with no signs of moving out. It's starting to get really bad and really weird again. But at least this time, it hasn't come between Lori and I. But, this is the last time. She's used up all of her "live with us" credits from now until the end of time.
It's getting late, I should be getting upstairs to bed. As far as I know, I'm going to work as per normal tomorrow. If you don't count the two hour lunch break where Rachel comes and stays with me at work while Lori's at a doctor's appointment.
This feels good. It's been too long since I've posted.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Hillary
"I believe we should have a gas tax holiday and we should pay for it!"
-- Hillary Clinton
So... we should pay for it. By more taxes later to make up the shortfall?
This was the clip they played after saying that Hillary had the 90% of the popular support in the least educated counties of some state which I'm also assuming is one of the least educated states. The reporter went on to say that she (Hillary) intends to keep it that way. Which way? Uneducated?
I am really impressed with the strategy the Democrats are laying forward. The Republican party has an incredibly weak candidate, yet another old white guy. So instead of just putting forth one candidate, the Democrats continue to allow Clinton and Obama to duke it out in the spotlight.
And just like that, they've reframed the question... come November, who are you voting for? Will our next President be black or a woman? Granted, you really won't get that choice, by then, you'll have completely forgotten about John whatshisname, if you haven't already.
Gotta hand it to the Democrats, a truly brilliant piece of political engineering. (If this isn't intentional, then they're incredibly lucky to have two people willing to burn through other people's money -- practice for being in office -- and an opposing party with a truly lame duck offering.)
-- Hillary Clinton
So... we should pay for it. By more taxes later to make up the shortfall?
This was the clip they played after saying that Hillary had the 90% of the popular support in the least educated counties of some state which I'm also assuming is one of the least educated states. The reporter went on to say that she (Hillary) intends to keep it that way. Which way? Uneducated?
I am really impressed with the strategy the Democrats are laying forward. The Republican party has an incredibly weak candidate, yet another old white guy. So instead of just putting forth one candidate, the Democrats continue to allow Clinton and Obama to duke it out in the spotlight.
And just like that, they've reframed the question... come November, who are you voting for? Will our next President be black or a woman? Granted, you really won't get that choice, by then, you'll have completely forgotten about John whatshisname, if you haven't already.
Gotta hand it to the Democrats, a truly brilliant piece of political engineering. (If this isn't intentional, then they're incredibly lucky to have two people willing to burn through other people's money -- practice for being in office -- and an opposing party with a truly lame duck offering.)
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Last night as I was clearing out my inbox, I facetiously made the Twitter post:
@h&r block - why are you emailing me? It's May. You are of no use to me now.
In the twitter verse, that's not even legitimate... it only caught @h as the response. But yet, not too long after that, I had a response back from HRBlock:
HRBlock @tvjames Info on tax rebates. Plus, it's what you do now...in 2008...that determines what you'll owe (or get back) come April. Good tips!
So, nice job catching my twit and providing a good response.
I get too much email, so I did unsubscribe, but I've used them for years for my taxes and this goes on to further cement in my mind that they are a quality company.
(And right about now the guy who said "Our logo should just be a bright green square." is probably telling the naysayers to eat his shorts.)