Y’know, if there were a God, He’d set it up so that if I make a pot of coffee, and put another pot on when I go back to pour…
Y’know, if there were a God, He’d set it up so that if I make a pot of coffee, and put another pot on when I go back to pour my first cup, there’d still be some frelling coffee left when I went back for seconds.
Dammit.
Remarkably enough, besides going 150% calorie-wise while the Big Boss was out visiting (and may I recommend Luke’s – A Steak Place in Wheat Ridge? A faboo steak house in…
Remarkably enough, besides going 150% calorie-wise while the Big Boss was out visiting (and may I recommend Luke’s – A Steak Place in Wheat Ridge? A faboo steak house in a strip mall. Who’da thunk?), and not getting some of my exercise to boot, I still dropped a little this week, down to 216. Huzzah!
Next few weeks should be more normal, and more amenable at lunch to walking. I’ve found a more interesting route to take, so that will help. I’ve also discovered, on hot days, that a full-sized Jamba Juice is as refreshing and filling as a Tokyo Joe’s rice bowl, and a few hundred calories less, so I’ll be doing some of that, too.
I’ve decided, though, to do weighings on Tuesday and Friday, not Monday and Friday. The last two Mondays my weight has spiked up a few, and been back down by Tuesday, so I think this will help smooth the graph a bit.
Sooner or later I know things will plateau, but I’m enjoying the coast downhill just fine while it lasts.
See, when you’re out late drinking and playing pool with the CIO, even if you leave the party before most of the others, you really should be able to sleep…
See, when you’re out late drinking and playing pool with the CIO, even if you leave the party before most of the others, you really should be able to sleep in. But it wasn’t my alarm clock (which I’d set ahead an hour) that woke me. It was all the damn birds chirping away like mad at 4:30 in the frelling morning …
… well, and maybe all that drinking the night before, too.
… and maybe the huge meal I ate.
I’m mildly peeved that after special care in selecting attire today, etc., it turns out that the dignitaries will not be in until tomorrow morning. Though I get nice dinner…
I’m mildly peeved that after special care in selecting attire today, etc., it turns out that the dignitaries will not be in until tomorrow morning.
Though I get nice dinner with them tonight.
Needless to say, when sending out personnel announcements that you’ve been drafting in Word, it’s an excellent idea to make sure that you commit all tracked changes so that folks…
Needless to say, when sending out personnel announcements that you’ve been drafting in Word, it’s an excellent idea to make sure that you commit all tracked changes so that folks who get the announcements aren’t looking at the earlier drafts of the org changes that include names and positions that are different from the final, official version.
This has been your quality moment for the day …
We did a group shot of my department here the other day. I thought I’d offer further demonstration of the whole tie-wearing gig we’re now in. Though, of course, they…
We did a group shot of my department here the other day. I thought I’d offer further demonstration of the whole tie-wearing gig we’re now in.
Though, of course, they waited for the day that I was wearing a pinstriped shirt that would make the most fabulous Moire patterns …
Ah, well …
Y’know, it’s really hard to schedule conference calls during business hours when you have folks scattered from Californa to Singapore (15-16 hours difference)….
Y’know, it’s really hard to schedule conference calls during business hours when you have folks scattered from Californa to Singapore (15-16 hours difference).
It’s a hugely sensitive topic, of course, the outsourcing, or offshoring, of US jobs, particuarlly now that more white collar positions are being thrown into the mix. But it may…
It’s a hugely sensitive topic, of course, the outsourcing, or offshoring, of US jobs, particuarlly now that more white collar positions are being thrown into the mix.
But it may be not only that the problem has been overblown, but that actually it’s been stated backwards.
“Any way you slice it, the world is creating or transferring more jobs to the U.S. than we are doing to the rest of the world,” said Daniel T. Griswold, a trade specialist at the Cato Institute, a research organization in Washington.
India’s Essel Propack Ltd., Taiwan’s Teco Electric & Machinery Co. and Denmark’s Vestas Wind Systems A/S all have built plants in the United States in the last year and a half.
Other non-U.S. companies announced plans to increase hiring in the United States last year including Japan’s Nissan Motor Co., with 3,350 jobs in Canton, Miss.; DaimlerChrysler AG of Germany, with 2,000 at a new Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Ala.; German appliance distributor BSH Bosch and Siemens Hausergate GmbH, with 1,300 in New Bern, N.C.; and Magna International Inc. of Canada, with as many as 800 in Bowling Green, Ky.
The movement of U.S. jobs abroad “has been blown out of proportion” mainly because domestic companies in the United States have been slow to increase hiring, said Martin Baily, chairman of former President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers. “There was lots of offshoring going on in the 1990s, but job growth was so strong in the U.S. that nobody really took much notice.”
While reliable figures aren’t available for the last two years, the Commerce Department estimated on March 18 that the number of Americans employed by U.S. affiliates of majority non-U.S. companies grew by 4.7 million from 1997 through 2001. In the same period, the number of non-Americans working at affiliates of majority-U.S. companies abroad rose by 2.8 million.
If we don’t want to be encouraging through tax policy (assuming we are) the transfer of US jobs overseas, we also want to be sure we don’t set up barriers that prevent the importation of jobs to the US.
Another article, here, notes:
The first mistake of many politicians, argues Matthew Slaughter, a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, is to assume that a job created overseas is one not created in the US. “An overseas worker is sometimes a substitute for a US worker but very often they are a complement for a US worker,” he says. “Expanding an overseas network frequently means you have to hire more workers in the US too.”
Even if much low-end production takes place outside the US, the management, logistics, research and development and international IT remains in the US. “As the international network expands, so does the the US network managing it,” Mr Slaughter says.
Which was, after all, one of the arguments behind the Clinton-era NAFTA legislation. But that’s a difficult argument to make, in a period of economic uncertainty.
There are but a smattering of stores over at the Colorado Mills that carry ties. Three observations: There are a lot of ugly ties out there. The vast majority, in…
There are but a smattering of stores over at the Colorado Mills that carry ties. Three observations:
So far, two comments (from managers) asking why the hell I’m wearing a tie (especially when they’re not). Not sure if it just seems weird, or if they’re afraid I’m…
So far, two comments (from managers) asking why the hell I’m wearing a tie (especially when they’re not). Not sure if it just seems weird, or if they’re afraid I’m putting ideas in peoples’ heads about proper office attire.
Many congrats to Margie for her faboo bonus. Definitely helps on that To Do list I have below ……
Many congrats to Margie for her faboo bonus.
Definitely helps on that To Do list I have below …
After about three days of intense meetings, the mind does sort of begin to wander in self-defense. Lunch today was (ta-daaaah!) sushi. Yum, yum, yum. Everyone was eager for sushi….
After about three days of intense meetings, the mind does sort of begin to wander in self-defense.
Except, of course, that my ancestors evolved out of the ocean explicitly to avoid having to eat fish, let alone cold fish of dubious cookingness.
Ah, well. The sukiyaki was good.
I’d forgotten, of course, that pesto sauce (which was both tasty and copious) is basically olive oil with basil for color. Not exactly lo-cal, or even moderate-cal.
But it was good. And we didn’t have dessert. So I was only a bit over-budget calorie-wise.
Well, the place has grown up amazingly, and now there’s this big mall/restaurant row/fancy townhouse/retail center in the middle of it, full of lots of good places to eat. Actually, a pretty good place to stay.
And the boss was quite nice about opening up his house to our meeting. It was very comfortable, well-stocked with coffee and soda, and he’s been a very nice host. So I went to a very nice liquor store a couple of blocks away and picked up a bottle of wine for him.
My corrollary to that? “If you take meeting notes and annotate the various documents that are being reviewed, and do it well, not only will people appreciate the output, but they’ll appreciate that they didn’t have to do it.”
And the boss might suggest that everyone owes you a lunch.
And you might be able to tweak the notes to favor some of the positions you held, too …
And now to do my homework …
Notes from the day … We’re meeting at the boss’s house, which is both nice of him, and useful. We’re out of the office, so there’s minimal temptation to be…
Notes from the day …
And then came the bombshell …
… on a diet. Even if you try to be judicious in what courses you partake in. Hmmm. They have a gym in this hotel? UPDATE: (1) Yes, they do….
… on a diet. Even if you try to be judicious in what courses you partake in.
Hmmm. They have a gym in this hotel?
UPDATE: (1) Yes, they do. (2) It opens at 5 a.m.
UPDATE 2: Wow. How virtuous. Treadmill program. Plenty o’ sweat.
FRIDAY Fairly pleasant day, as I recall now. The original evening plan had been for Jackie’s Necropolis game, which would be the giant “We’re all going to die” battle. Instead,…
FRIDAY
Fairly pleasant day, as I recall now. The original evening plan had been for Jackie’s Necropolis game, which would be the giant “We’re all going to die” battle. Instead, we ended up playing Wit & Wisdom, which is essentially Fictionary/Balderdash for aphorisms and sayings from other cultures. Some of us had great fun, others not so much. Since I collect that sort of thing, it was certainly my cuppa. Not surprisingly, I’m the one that bought it for Jackie for her birthday …
SATURDAY
Margie took Katherine off to dance class. Haven’t mentioned dance class yet, have I. Down at the rec center, Saturdays at 9. Since one of us always up by then (with Kitten), it’s not a big schedule issue. And there’s nigh on nothing quite as cute as a gaggle (say 16 or so) 3-4-year-olds in pink/purple/black leotards and tutus, whirling about the room like giggling leaves.
As for me? My sleep-in day, o blessed sleep-in day …
… interrupted by a phone call at 9 a.m. from Doyce (not his fault, and 9 is not an unreasonable number, though I tend to wait until 10 to call folks on weekends, even if I know they’re early risers). Did we want to do the Necropolis thang today? Sure.
So that’s what we did, cunningly scheduling two hours before the scheduled Chrysalis get-together (which nearly all the same folk). Of course, we dawdled around for close to an hour. Then, of course, the Huge Melee took more like four hours.
After it was over, with nobody on our side quite dead (but with significant collateral damage to stuff in the room), Doyce decided to bag the Nobilis game. He headed home, and Stan (who’d come over for that, and instead gotten to watch a couple of hours of D&D melee) and Randy and Margie and I watched some episodes of Blackadder III.
SUNDAY
We skipped church, since Margie was bone tired (still getting over her bug), and Kitten was down with the sniffles. That didn’t net me any extra sleep-in, since Kitten was up at 5:30a, crawling in bed with us, which lasted about 25 minutes before I went downstairs with her.
The Chrysalis game was moved to Sunday afternoon, and, ultimately, started. Tremendous entertainment, as Margie and I both assumed NPC roles for goodly chunks of time (Stan’s daughter and mysterious fiancee).
That broke up in time for folks to head home for Alias, and we had a relatively quiet evening, until I noticed that it was 10:30p already and I still had some cleaning to do.
And, of course, Katherine — who had been bouncy hyper-girl all day (when she wasn’t dissolving into dissapointed sobs that someone had said “No” or “Later” to her) was hit by more buggage during the night, waking up around 2:30a with a fever and general not-feel-goods. Which meant we got to wake up then, too, to indictments of “You and Mommy gave me your germs!”
So I’m home with Kitten today, working from here. Amazingly enough, all of a sudden my IPSec VPN connection is working, which is a lot handier than the all-or-nothing PPTP VPN connection I’ve been having to use. Good stuff.
Other items of interest for the coming week are traveling out to Faerie for brief vacation time and long business meetings, and work on the Nobilis Lexicon of the Lost 500 Years project, which, so far (one entry) has been a blast — and which has renewed in me a desire to play with Wiki stuff even more.
Man, I really hate it when I get all politely righteous over someone in another department having done something without my required notification, let alone approval … only to have…
Man, I really hate it when I get all politely righteous over someone in another department having done something without my required notification, let alone approval … only to have it turn out that, in fact, I had been notified, and had spaced on it.
Oh, well, at least I was politely righteous toward them …
The phone calls you make that you’re most apprehensive about often turn out to be a piece of cake. It’s the ones you receive when you’re not expecting them that…
The phone calls you make that you’re most apprehensive about often turn out to be a piece of cake.
It’s the ones you receive when you’re not expecting them that can royally screw up your day.
(Fortunately, this was one of the former days, not the latter.)
Friday night was Margie’s D&D game, so I was batching it. Relatively quiet evening. I finished watching The Professional (good, in a vaguely creepy and slightly exploitative way, but good)…
Friday night was Margie’s D&D game, so I was batching it. Relatively quiet evening. I finished watching The Professional (good, in a vaguely creepy and slightly exploitative way, but good) and finally watched Reservoir Dogs (a fascinating if gruesomely bloody vignette, but not what I’d call a story), both of which I’d borrowed from Stan (and both of which I’m glad I’d borrowed rather than buying). I’m glad I watched both, but I don’t expect I will again.
Slammed away (unsuccessfully) on my page design.
Saturday was general errand day, punctuated by an unexpectedly long nap. In the evening, Margie had a company award dinner she’d been invited to (a project she was on being a finalist), which was a posh and entertaining affair at the Hyatt DTC. It struck me that my employer would never in a zillion years hold such an event, even though I suspect it benefitted the company a lot more than it cost, both in terms of raising morale among the invitees and in terms of the award process itself.
Our sitter nearly no-showed again, and if it weren’t for the fact that she’s usually available and lives just down the street, I’d renew my intent to not invite her back.
Sunday was, after church and brunch and all, Spycraft day. Better going this time, I think — finally had a battle, finally got the plot lurching forward once more. The group has, not through any fault or bad play of their own, done some — well, not quite breaking, but certainly twisting of the module. I did a little bending back, perhaps unfairly (as it will turn out), but I can contemplate that for a few weeks until the next session, as I halted us about an hour-and-a-half early, knowing we were getting into some potentially meaty occurances that might well take about three hours to resolve.
I am finding more and more annoying the seams that show up, badly, in scenarios crafted for Living Spycraft tables when run as full-blown home-game scenarios. Especially since I try to go over them with a fine tooth comb, only to discover that what seemed perfectly logical in terms of possible ways of approaching things when I was reading the thing turns out to be woefully inadequate when I get five very clever and experienced gamers with no 4-hour time limit hanging over them tackling the problems so presented.
I suppose I could simply make up my own scenarios out of whole cloth, but that would entail (a) work, and (b) admitting that inadequacies in the sessions that ensued were my fault, not the module’s …
I just realized that one of my employees has a voice that sounds on the phone (which is how we communicate 9 out of 10 times) exactly like a particularly…
I just realized that one of my employees has a voice that sounds on the phone (which is how we communicate 9 out of 10 times) exactly like a particularly obnoxious and irritating individual that I butted heads with several times whilst in college. They also share the same first name. And I now understand why I always am surprised on those occasions when we get together in person because I vaguely “remember” the person looking “different.”
Hrm. Something I’ll definitely need to keep in mind.
An oldie but a goodie … A psychiatrist was conducting a group therapy session with four young mothers and their small children… “You all have obsessions,” he observed. “These have…
An oldie but a goodie …
A psychiatrist was conducting a group therapy session with four young mothers and their small children…
“You all have obsessions,” he observed. “These have been expressed in the environment you have created around you.”
To the first mother, he said, “You are obsessed with eating. You’ve even named your daughter Candy.”
He turned to the second mom: “Your obsession is with money. Again, it manifests itself in your child’s name, Penny.”
He turns to the third mom. “Your obsession is alcohol. This too manifests itself in your child’s name, Brandy.”