Winter tries again

The earthquake that rumbled through Upper Canada last night was not the ruling on the Blackberry. The judge deferred a decision, although it remains likely that the court will order Blackberry to stop using the technology in question. The Ottawa area, meanwhile, had a real earthquake, magnitude 4.5. Maybe it's retribution for the easy passage that, according to Bill O'Reilly, Canada offers to "Muslim crazies."

For a couple of days, the weather forecasters have been saying that we'll have light snow today. Just a few minutes ago, the National Weather Service sent out a heavy snow warning for up to 8".

If you're going to have a donut in Massachusetts, make it a Boston Cream. It is, after all, our official donut.

Bill Clinton has established a foundation in his own name, William J. Clinton Foundation, to do lots of good things around the world. Even better, he's hiring interns.

Yesterday afternoon I had to make it across town and little spare time. I don't think of myself as a fast driver until I get behind someone who's doing the speed limit.

According to this study, we say that we dislike meetings at work, but secretly, we think they're kinda ok.

Happy Birthday, Lynn.

Black Friday?

Well, today will lead to something. NTP and RIM will be in court today to hear the judge's ruling on a possible shutdown of Blackberry services in the U.S. There are lots of stray threads on this one, any one of which could change the outcome of the case. So, we'll watch the news wires and, more importantly, that little red light on the top of the Blackberry that says we have new mail.

Bunny Wailer was part of Bob Marley's band before starting a solo career in the mid-70s. On the way to work the other day, I heard Wailer perform that old folk standard "This Train." There's one reader on this list who will cringe when thinking about that song. He and I lived through the Great Folk Music Scare of the 60s. We sang "This Train" so often and sometimes so not well that we sent the song into permanent exile.

I attended a product strategy presentation yesterday. The senior program manager was using a set of marketing slides. One of the slides showed three people in a pyramid (teamwork). The PM said, of the people on the bottom of the pyramid,"These two are basically women."

Indeed.com is a job search site. You can see trends regarding various jobs, based on keywords that you provide. This chart, for example, plots the jobs that match the keywords "village idiot" and "Massachusetts". Although trending slightly downward, prospects are mostly steady.

Every once in a while, I'm asked about my hobbies. I usually mumbles sometting about music and maybe computers and related technology. These hobbies can get a bit expensive, but they're mostly harmless and don't creep people out, not like this mole trap collector.

Looking up as best we can

Our driveway gives us a good view of Orion's Belt, the three evenly-spaced stars mid-way up in the southern sky. The trees and hills don't permit a good view of any of the horizons, except for a slice of the east. So, we don't see the sun or moon rise or set, but there's still plenty of sky above. For my five-year anniversary at my last company, my manager gave me a nice set of binoculars to bring more clarity to our night-time viewing.

Some sports car drivers develop a heel-and-toe technique, where they have the toe on the accelerator and heel on the brake. Then, with a slight shift, they can quickly change from going faster to going slower. So that's how it's been as my doctors and I try to get the symptoms, treatments, and side effects in the right balance.

Thursdays can be hard days. All that was possible on Monday, if it's not well on its way to completion on Thursday, isn't likely to get done this week.

I think that the only thing that could make Massachusetts drivers worse would be for them to have Ozzy give them directions on their satellite navigation systems. His voice is available for the Brits and look what happens - they drive on the wrong side of the road.

We'll be taking up a collection to buy tin-foil toques for the students at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Citing concerns about the effect of radio transmissions on young brains, the president of the college refused to allow a campus-wide wireless network.

And, on the other end of the spectrum, so to speak, an Amish teenager was fined for wiretapping. What did he use, barbed wire and old cans?

If doctor's surgical equipment cabinet says Craftsman, you might want to get a second opinion. Now.

Wondering what to do with that tax refund? "Scooter" needs help.

Wisdom from Scott Adams to new graduates and to the rest of us who show up at work every day.

ScienceDaily: Oceans Are 70-Percent Shark Free

ScienceDaily: Oceans Are 70-Percent Shark Free: That doesn't quite bring the comfort that one might expect.

Paper makes good insulation

We spent a bit of time moving stuff this morning. A tricky piece of furniture went up the narrow ladder to the attic and one box of Sandra's college papers came down. There are still several boxes of receipts, some dating to the 70s, tucked away in the attic. Y'see, the IRS says that you need to keep records for seven years. There is, however, no statute of limitations on tax liability. In one case back in the 90s, I received an auto excise bill for a car that I hadn't owned for 20 years. Fortunately (and somewhat miraculously), I still had the bill of sale and so was able to prove that I didn't owe the taxes. That one incident justifies keeping stuff for another 20 or 30 years. Add to that my mother's papers and we have quite a stack o' boxes.

The company where I work has instituted a new policy regarding expense reporting. Instead of submitting printed reports with receipts, we fax the receipts to a system that matches up the image with the electronic version of the expense report. The managers then approve the expense reports online. It saves the accounting office a lot storage. But, and there's always a but, we (the employees) have to keep the original receipts, in the case of audits, for five years. Just what my office needs - more stuff for a longer time.

It seems early in the season, but the beavers have brought down many trees, mostly small, some large, and have built another dam in a nearby stream. There was no sign of beavers at the camp yesterday; the lake is still completely frozen.

Some businesses, such as Coke or Pepsi, aim for near-universal appeal, while others are content to satisfy a niche. In this case, boys of a certain age would be very interested in shoes that will help them run away from girls.

When I first saw the headline, Top stars picked in alien search, I thought it was going to be another story about Tom Cruise or Britney Spears, but it's just a story about the possibility of intelligent life someplace else.

The Blackberry isn't very comfortable to use just as a phone, so I often use a wireless headset if I'm on a lengthy call. Invariably, when another guy (and it's always guys) sees me while I'm wearing the headset, he'll check his phone to see if anything cool is going on in there. Guys may be enchanted by the coolness factor, but women are not immune to the cell phone obsession. (You can now say, "Eww.")