Not surprisingly, Marley has been subdued since he got home from the vet's yesterday. He does his usual stuff - eat, inspect the yard, wag his tail when he hears Sandra get up - but does so slowly. We can take the bandage off of his foot on Monday if he hasn't already chewed it off. So far, he's left it alone. We'll return to the doctor's in two weeks to find out what's next.

I left the office early yesterday afternoon. The project leader was making the final CD. We're done with the release. On balance, I believe that we produced a better product than we did in the previous release. I'm pretty sure that we won't make it into the Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness. I hope that, in the coming months, I will be doing less writing and more work with the systems and software that the team uses.

My manager reports that he's extended my contract, so it looks as though I'll have work through the summer. I'm relieved. I'm not ready to start interviewing for jobs again.

In the early 90s, AT&T did a study of its staff in an attempt to find out why some engineers were more effective than others. They equalized for intelligence, education, and experience. The study indicated that the effective engineers were the ones who built their personal networks before they needed it. When they ran into to trouble, they knew who to contact and those people would answer the phone. This article reports much the same. (Here's his blog.)

Let's see, a hair dryer that looks like a gun. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, and don't forget something for the kiddies. Let them have stuffed animals mounted like hunting trophies.