At 11:42 pm this past Saturday, I had a moment: I had a useless piece of information to impart regarding the topic at hand, and I DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING.
I’m usually the guy who’s throwing in random facts. This is because I have (or had) a burning desire to appear intelligent.
This marks the only time in recent memory where I had the opportunity and didn’t say anything
Idyllic weekend…reading, exercise, and trying to buy a piano in Da Hood.
Friday night: walked around Scott Co Park for 1 1/2 hrs.
Saturday: The Piano Story.
Sunday: Church, hanging out at home.
* * *
The Piano Story:
Whitney wants a piano. She wants the kids to take piano lessons, and she’d like to start playing again herself. I dig pianos, too. Well, I like music in general.
Thing is, in order to afford one, we need to get one used. This isn’t really a problem, because lots of people move cross-country and don’t want to take their thousand pound piano with them.
Project management in the software industry seems to suffer from a level of delusion that would get a person heavily medicated and assigned to a padded room for their own safety. One definition of insanity is expecting different results from the same input. And yet project after project gets planned with the same naive assumption that deliverable dates will be met, changes will not be added at the last minute and that senior VPs will not want to mark the project by making a pointless last minute addition just so they can say they had input into the project and justify their salaries.
A couple of years after the last film came out we have the next installment of the Daniel Radcli…er…Harry Potter movies, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Let’s get this out of the way–I LOVED THIS MOVIE! The trio can really act these days (particularly Emma Watson and Radcliffe), and the movie was a visual and comedic delight. From the first scene on, we’re in the land of tasteful CGI–From the first scene’s dementor attack throught he climactic battle between Voldemort and Dumbledoor, it’s a wizard’s world, and wonder abounds.
Had a fascinating conversation with Chuck the other day, where he said:
The best thing that ever happened to me is when they cut out my pension
This got me thinking: Today, if you’re lucky you have some employer-matching, tax-deferred retirement plan, like a 401(k), 403(b), SIMPLE, ABC-XYZ-Dooflatchie. These plans are all portable–quit or get laid-off, and you take the money with you.
From a corporate perspective, this moves legacy costs off the books. once you’ve contributed to the plan, your obligation ends, and the employee and the servicing company (say, Fidelity or Vanguard) handle the rest. This is A Good Thingtm.
When I started at the credit uni… Whitney - Jul 2, 2007
ABSOLUTELY!!
When I started at the credit union, retirement benefits included 100% pension with 100% healthcare costs covered.
As soon as the first people retired (5 in one year, four years ago), they cut retirement for everyone, changing it to 50% pension from the average of your last 5 years of salary with no healthcare costs covered, including cutting the healthcare coverage for the 5 existing pension recipients. Granted most companies offer no pension (their excuse and main bragging point during transition) but it definitely negated any niggling loyalty I had to the CU. If a company’s not going to offer retirement benefits, in addition to treating you like crap while you’re there, why bother to stay?
Replying to your earlier email about the quality of my work.
I’d just like to reiterate that while your comments about the bathroom and vending areas are valid (and appreciated), I would remind you that this building has four floors. I agree that your floor is sub-optimal. I think our whole product support organization would join me in echoing your sentiments that toilets that flush are preferable to ‘sewer gas spewing [expletive deleted] holes’.
POWERS OF CONCENTRATION
If there is one trait that best defines an engineer it is the ability to concentrate on one subject to the complete exclusion of everything else in the environment. This sometimes causes engineers to be pronounced dead prematurely. Some funeral homes in high-tech areas have started checking resumes before processing the bodies. Anybody with a degree in electrical engineering or experience in computer programming is propped up in the lounge for a few days just to see if he or she snaps out of it.
I’ll take an E30-size car with 240 hp for under $30k, please, Alex :-)
I think BMW finally figured-out that the 3-series was getting a little too big. Supposedly, there’s plenty of the previous gen 3-series engineering in this car (as there is in the R50/R53 MINIs).
Nummy…now in about 10 years when I can afford a used one :-)
J-M (with heavy French accent): …and now vee have zee tree per-son who get ze ‘ate wall certification.
J: [raised hand] May I ask a question?
J-M: Cer-tan-lee
J: What’s ’eight wall’.
J-M: It is zee next thing af-tur seven wall.
* * *
Perhaps this was one of those ‘you had to be there’ moments, but dang was it funny! J-M goofing on my old boss. Beautiful.
At Georgetown College, I took Compilers, a 400-level capstone course that scared the hell out of everyone. Everyone was like 10 students, because our CS department was that small. However, it was a required course. If you wanted to graduate witha B.S. in CompSci, then you had to have this course.
The prof was Bryan Crawley. Mister Crawley (insert Ozzy reference here). A strange guy, he was without a terminal degree, which made him the bootheel of the Math, Physics, and Computer Science department. The one thing this guy *loved* was compilers–he started introducing compiler-like concepts back in CS 111.
Jeff Roberts - Jun 6, 2007
Our compiler class at UK, taught by Prof. Kubota was a joke. Lotsa theory scribbled over the board and one project that it took most of the class the whole semester to complete. I wish we HAD done some hands-on with lex and yacc - I get the concepts behind it all but it’s still easier for me to write a strtok() parser for simple stuff. That and so few people know enough to maintain a lex/yacc parser that you’re just asking for trouble. Drives me nuts when someone “shows off” by writing a parser for something nearly as simple as a property file.
Two words: Loved it.
Dumb, enjoyable comic book movie. Not pretentious (a la “Hulk”), nor overlong (Spidey #3).
Any move where a flaming skeleton rides a demonic motorcycle up a skyscraper to defeat an elemental demon is worth at least a look. The CGI looked great, and Cage got to chew the scenery (and co-star Eva Mendes) for a full 112 minutes.
Probably the best part for me is Peter Fonda as Satan, strolling by Cage’s motorcycle offering “Nice Bike.” Cage’s bike is a replica of Fonda’s from “Easy Rider”
Whitney - Jun 5, 2007
yeah I liked it too. campy, but I’d hit that.
Happy Father’s day to all the men out there.
As I sat in Church today, I was taken back to February 10th, to a particular moment I’d like to share.
* * *
The operation was over. Maria was fine–pink, healthy, and squalling. Whitney was holding up well; I hated to leave her, but I wanted to stay with the baby in her first minutes of life. I gazed upon her as she got her first examinations; the pediatrician said she was fine, with a nice twinkle in her eyes.
Yes, this is an article in Pravda (the former Soviet newspaper) about the blue Fugates from Troublesome Creek, on the border between Breathitt and Perry counties.
Fun times.
