I like precision. I'm not a precise person, but I like it when things add up.

I just took our most recent bank statement and put the numbers into a spreadsheet I've been keeping of expenses for the last 13 months. I take the big numbers -- so much in and out from the ATM account, the deltas on the other accounts -- but I also take the individual ATM entries, categorize them -- books, cleaners, groceries, etc -- and give them a spreadsheet entry all their own. The net out is that I can see, overall and by category, how spending has changed over the last however many months I want to look. Today I added a small bit of sophistication to that. Our bank doesn't supply the ATM transactions in electronic format (at least, I don't think they do), so up to now I've typed them in. Today, I scanned in the statement and lifted the numbers from the scanned file directly into the spreadsheet. Nice. I still have to categorize them, and I did find that the OCR component of the package isn't 100% reliable -- but it was still faster and neater.

I like that. This is the functionality I wanted in Quicken, that accursed product. (The current version, not the vintage one I'm still using.) Now, if I could just automate the charting, and put some intelligence into it....

Some years ago, I recall reading a Doonesbury strip where a guy is talking to his son about getting a job, and the son says that he wants a job where (I'm making this part up from memory) the environment is relaxed, and his coworkers are an interesting, collegial bunch. The father replies 'So you're not getting a job.' and the son says 'I didn't say that'.

The phrase 'collegial' came to mind a bit ago as I was thinking about the people I work with, and the people that we do our work for -- a state organization with lots and lots of bureaucrats. I begin to suspect that their attitude to life is catching. Don't take chances, get approval for everything, take copies of everything. The reason I think its catching is that I see myself starting to adopt that protective attitude. I don't like it. I know that I'm not the free and independent thinker that I'd like to believe I am, and I know that what I call my inability to suffer fools is partially just a way to keep from dealing with stuff I don't want to handle -- but not all of it. Some of it really is an intellectual aversion to people who manifest the bureaucratic virus, and when I think about the idea that I might have caught it, I feel like I need a long, hot shower.

I can hardly see this screen, at the moment, the effect of standing out in the cul-de-sac in the bright sun, watching my daughter and two neighbor's kids ride bikes and scooters round and round and round. Normally, our life being someone on the dull side, this would count as optional entertainment, but this time it was sort-of required, as our daughter breathlessly informed us that the dog's name was Lil Man, and that his owners weren't home. The owners, it turned out, were the family which recently starred in a police report which used words like drugs, gun, and felon (it is such a delight to drive home and notice three police cars in the neighborhood streets, just sitting and watching), and the dog in question, it turns out, is a pit bull. Very friendly, with big jaws and an oversized chest. And what look like mad eyes to me, but what do I know. Anyway, we thought it would be a good idea to stay out and watch the kids, the neighbor thought it would be a good idea to stay out, too, and another neighbor thought it would be a good idea to call the local cops and say hey, come lock this dog up somewhere. Of course, as I pointed out, we have very few cops around here, and right now there must be one saying 'dammed if I'm going after a pit bull by myself; I'm calling the ASPCA'. But right now we're all back inside, so we don't care what the dog is doing. Although what it was more recently doing was chewing on a fist sized rock.

I am probably certifiably crazy. Within a day of thinking occasionally about retirement homes and what they should look like, I have started to mull over have major renovations to this house -- this being the one which we would decamp from upon retirement, but heck, that's years away. I have often said that if we ever put in a pool, it would have to be in a poolhouse so that we could use it more than the two or three months of the year that our climate allows that sort of thing. Well, one of BH&Gs specialty magazines shows this cool little poolhouse cum patio, except that it isn't a pool but rather a hot tub -- southwestern motif, terracotta tiling, quite nice. I have heard some stories about hot tubs that make me a little reluctant to have one put in, but the image alone is enough to make me start mulling over having a wing put on the house, having the bedroom/bathroom bumped out oh, six feet, that sort of thing. Certifiably loony.

From ABC News web site:

"Not all banned items are passing through security at U.S. airports. Since the TSA took over security at airports in February 2002, more than 8 million prohibited items have been intercepted or voluntarily surrendered. That number includes 51,408 box cutters, 2,453,039 knives and 1,498 firearms."

Okay, the knives, I can see. And maybe even the guns. But 51,408 box cutters? Didn't anyone wonder why these people were carrying these provably murderous tools around? Were they expecting to encounter the need to open a box? Or was it just a test to see if they could get them past security? Or perhaps it should be "security".

As one person said, the TSA is getting good at getting toenail clippers away little old ladies, though.

Would moving jobs offshore in the software industry be more or less prevalent if the people doing it

a) had to publicly announce that they were doing it, and why
b) had their own jobs subject to being moved
c) had thought about the idea that they were training their future competitors?

Didn't think so.

Yesterday, I found myself wondering how an actual light saber would work.

I say this knowing that there are people who can actually put some impressive brain power onto that question and come up with something that might actually have a decent chance of working, with only a couple of 'then a miracle occurs' constructs to power it, whereas my own TAMOs are roughly the size of Albuquerque. And there are probably Star Wars freaks (I mean that in the kindest way, honest) who have given this some thought, and who have written scholarly articles on it. I mean, what the hell -- if there are people who've written about how warp drive must work, surely there are people who've written about how a light saber would work. So, I know my own contribution to the canon would be inconsequential. I do know this, but it doesn't stop me.

Activated, a light saber would have to have a cutting edge on all sides. Though I don't recall ever seeing anyone jab with one (or for that matter, with an actual saber), I would guess that there has to be a point, too. In fact, thinking about it, why a light saber and not, say, a light epee? Or a light foil? Heavy sabers are used for heavy slashing attacks, so they would have to have a lot of power in them, as distinct from lighter-weight weapons. I used to occasionally mull over whether light sabers had swapoutable batteries, or jumper cables.... I know, they're probably powered by the Force, and therefore unlikely to ever wear out, but still...

And there's the question of whether a light saber is tunable, or is it an all-or-nothing thing, either inert, or full furious power? In other words, could you use a light saber as a penlight? A cigar lighter?

I assume that the height of the 'blade' isn't adjustable, so the pulsating 'flame' that you see build when the saber is switched on probably comes from the internal power being translated into the biting edge of, say, an oxyacetylene torch, but controlled by some kind of shield that keeps the blade focused -- though obviously it couldn't be a 'protective' shield, else it'd be like fighting with a sword that is still in its sheath.

Well, that's it. More intro than main act, I guess. But I liked it.

Tonight's the big sleepover, and the living is antsy.

My daughter's having two friends over. Both are qualified as 'her best friend' (despite her grandmother insisting that you can only have one best friend, my daughter says that she has two; my feeling is, have as many as you want, kiddo). One was over last week for a play date which went so badly that at one point my daughter was in the kitchen complaining loudly to her mother about injustices past and current perpetrated by the other girl, while I was in the living room holding the other girl while she cried into my shoulder. The other is the offspring of some well-off people, and so is used to a certain degree of pampering that we're unlikely to meet. She's a decent kid, though.

My daughter has a series of games and events that she wants to do because she saw them in American Girl, and the girls there were clearly having fun, so she is sure she will, too. We've advised her not to take their reluctance to play to her agenda as a personal affront, but that didn't fly with her. She's not a control freak but she does like being in control, which the other kids don't like. She doesn't know how to let that go, and neither do we.

We are holding our breath. My daughter's take is, if tonight doesn't work, she'll never do a sleepover here again.

I'm interested in distance learning.

From what I see in the ads, the elapsed time from thinking about a distance degree to acquisition of the degree is about thirty seconds, which certainly fits in with my schedule. Okay, that's dumb, but the original statement is true. I like the idea of being able to get learning without physically attending a school. Some things can't be taught remotely, I know this, but most can, with varying degrees of effectiveness, so I'm going to look into it. Anything that keeps me from having to go to one of the local colleges, where the staff is an average of one hundred and nine years old, and therefore regards me as just a kid who needs to be strictly controlled and coerced into doing things Their Way, is a good thing.

No courses in being a cowboy, though. Pity.

I haven't been blgging for a while == I know you've noticed == but a couple of events of late impulsed me to do it again, at least for a while.

In one of the Star Trek flicks, there is a scene wherein Spock gives Kirk a birthday present. I think that it's just a quick shot in the flick, but in the book, there is a moment where Spock watches a woman creating elegant package wrappings in an origami style, and purchases one; later, after Kirk has taken the present away, Spock stands and absent-mindedly folds the now-empty wrapping closed again. Most origami leaves me cold -- yes, a dancing mantis, how nice; oh, look, a hopping frog, how creative -- but the image of the wrapping folding silently back to the original perfection of the box has attracted me since first I heard of it. I was therefore delighted when a relative showed my daughter how, with a series of simple folds, and ordinary paper, she could create a cube. I searched for instructions on the Web on how to do it; I came across a number of pages that speak of it, each requiring some level of knowledge that was beyond me. The best of these was here, titled 'Origami for Everyone'. The page is not perfect -- at the end, my daughter had to point out to me where the 'hole' was that you blow into to inflate the structure -- but it's pretty good, and better than the rest. The cube -- now a little battered -- sits on this desk, and pleases me when I see it.

I'm still not going to make any hopping frogs, though.

I've been doing a lot of reading of other people's blogs of late. I'm amazed at the quality of writing that is out there to be found. Some of it is good enough to be publishable.

Because I'm interested in the area, a substantial portion of the blogs whose address I've saved (in Ampehtadesk, if they have an RSS feed; in my favorites folder, if not) are medical blogs. About three fourths of those are written by people in the early years of medical practice; of the remainder, most have been practicing for multiple years, and a couple are in ancillary support positions -- transcriptionist, EMT, and so forth.

I like seeing the enthusiasm and intellectual curiousity of these people, even as I am irritated at their occasional presumption. Like the last 'new crop' of federal legislators, many of them come into medicine swearing not to become arrogant and unfeeling, but rather to remain sensitive and to listen more than they talk. Usually, they keep to that. Sometimes, they don't. Some have already made the leap to regarding patients as either interesting, meaning there's something wrong with them that's unusual or difficult to treat, or tedious, meaning this is the twentieth of this type they've seen today, how boring.

Interesting reading, though -- particularly folks like Doc Shazam and A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure.

I just learned about the DARPA plan today. I like it.

Oh, okay, there's lots not to like, but Wolfowitz said that they were looking (I'm paraphrasing here) for out of the box, brilliant thinking. Well, think about what they wanted. They were looking for ways to forecast what might happen, given that no one really seems to know how to predict where terrorists will work their evil. So you need a way to get people thinking about it, in a real-world way. Giving them the chance to earn money sounds like a decent way.

So far as I can see, the only problem was, they went with the blue-sky approach before anyone had a chance to round off the rough edges. And the blue skies turned out to be greyer than they thought.

Lazy day. Sometimes, that's not bad.

These Netflix people may have my number.

I don't watch a lot of movies. Mostly it's a matter of time -- I just don't have enough that I'm willing to commit to 90 minutes or more in a stretch, and watching in chunks tends to ruin the continuity - and as for going out, I usually don't want to pony up the tarrif. But there is a time when the price is right, and watching in chunks is perfectly okay, and that's when I'm on my exercise bike, looking through the channels for something to distract me as I pedal along. Not a lot on to do that, at 5:40 in the morning -- but a movie, ah, that's a different story. Plus, since I don't see movies when they first come out, usually, I can trawl through the older listings at Netflix, the ones that are always available because no one rents them anymore. I just ordered three for a roadtrip (all kids movies), and three more for when we return. I can already see myself slotting those jewels and peddling mindlessly.

I think I like this service.

I take a while to learn things, sometimes.

For years, I have seen articles that say that if you're trying to address the problems of an organization, you should talk with the people who actually deliver the service. They see the problems every day, and they can tell you all about them. Well, okay, I knew it couldn't possibly be that simple, but it wasn't until this week when I abruptly realized that it was true -- but that you have to listen to a hundred (or a thousand, or ten thousand) bogus comments before coming across the gem -- and even then, you have to know what the gem looks like in the rough, and polish it before it's worth something. And sometimes, you have to see the unpolished gem multiple times before it clicks that this is a gem, and not just another piece of rubble.

Can't believe it took me that long to figure that out.

I just checked, and I don’t have any emails from my friend in the land of granola. I didn’t expect to, but it would have been nice. I like hearing from her, even though... and that 'even though' is the reason that today is day 2 of my latest ‘lets see how long I can go without writing’ streak. That's my recurring effort where I see if I can wean myself from writing to this person so often. Like a compulsive dieter, or a lapsing drunk, I have climbed on this wagon before -- look, there are skid marks on the steps from the last time -- and I’ll likely fall off again, too. But for my own self-respect, I need to try.

I see where some dueling opinions are emerging regarding whether it’s okay for businesses to move work to other countries. The advocates say that this is a way for a company to make its product at a lower cost, thus helping it in the battle against other companies, and helping its stockholders. The opponents say that this manuever enriches other countries by boosting their economies at the cost of ours, thus weakening us economically and prolonging the recovery from the recession. I think they’re both right. It’s not the job of a company to take into account what the US economy needs; it needs to worry about its customers, stockholders, and employees (though that last seems pretty uncommon, these days). It’s the job of the US government to worry about and orchestrate control of the economy. But when the US government is so heavily beholden to companies, and so sensitive to their needs, it tends to adopt a 'whats good for General Motors...' philosophy. Bush says that the tax cut will spur jobs; in the words of one US senator, I’d like a world where Julia Roberts is going to call me, but that doesn’t seem likely. Either.

This is a reading weekend. I picked up a copy of A Tribe Apart, a study of adolescence in a Reston, Virginia school, and it's fascinating. The subject's of interest because my daughter's going to be part of that tribe in four years (four years -- forever, right?), and like any parent, I want to be ready, or at least aware of what to expect. And I've been reading a lot of weblogs, the result of picking up a copy of Amphetadesk, a newsfeed aggregator (boy, there's a couple of words that only tell you what it is if you already know what it is). I'm still reading A Perfect Mind, the biography of John Forbes Nash, and the biography of Benjamin Franklin. All good stuff. And I found a recipe for strawberry soup that I hope to make today. I baked some chocolate chip cookies yesterday, just to get something that I thought my daughter might eat -- she's been sick-- and the soup will be fun. No pies lately, though.

From the web site of the North Carolina Office of the Attorney General -- Kid's Section (http://www.jus.state.nc.us/fkframe.htm) -

The Story of Jack and Jill in Legalese

The party of the first part shall hereinafter be referred to as Jack, and the party of the second part shall hereinafter be referred to as Jill.

The parties ascended or caused to be ascended an elevation of undetermined height and degree of slope. Their purpose was to obtain, attain, procure, secure, or otherwise gain access to a receptacle suitable for the transport of a liquid consisting of hydrogen and oxygen.

The proportions of which shall not be greater than nor less than two parts of the first mentioned element and one of the latter. This composition shall hereinafter be called water. On the occasion stated above, it has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that Jack did plunge, tumble, topple, or otherwise was caused to lose his footing in such a manner as to thrust his body in the downward direction.

As a direct and proximate cause of these combined circumstances, Jack suffered fractures and contusions to his cranial region. Jill is said to have fallen after Jack. Whether after is used in the spatial or time passage sense has not been determined.

From Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science:

"Medical malpractice suites are a remarkably ineffective remedy. Troyen Brennan, a Harvard professor of law and public health, points out that research has consistently failed to find evidence that litigation reduces medical error rates. In part, this may be because the weapon is so imprecise. Brennan led several studies following up on the patients in the Harvard Medical Practice Study. He found that fewer than 2 percent of the patients who had received substandard care ever filed suit. Conversely, only a small minority among the patients who did sue had in fact been the victims of negligent care. And a patient's likelihood of winning a suit depended primarily on how poor his or her outcome was, regardless of whether that outcome was caused by disease or unavoidable risks of care."

As the prior post shows, I'm surprisingly inept at making cogent, forceful commentary.

I never thought of myself as a great orator, but this past weekend I discovered how poor my rhetorical skills are. I was talking with a relative about my irritation with the president's comments, and the best that I could come out with was, essentially, 'geez, what an asshole'. Which I realize is not commentary likely to burnish my reputation for language. I think I ought to be able to do better than that.

When I was in Mensa (briefly), I hoped that I would find that it was stuffed with people who could make lucid, penetrating conversation. I'm aware that unless you're a member of the Algonquin Round Table, or William Buckley, the chances of insightful conversation all the time are slim -- yet I was dismayed to find that they were, for the most part, conversationalists just like those you meet all the time. Dammit, I wanted to say, what is it with you people, that you can't be interesting and obviously bright in your conversation! Instead, this pedestrian garbage -- hell, I could do better than this! And I really did think so. I thought that the fact that I was (and am) interested in multiple disciplines -- medicine, programming, traffic control, architecture -- showed me to be someone who could make insightful, perceptive comments.

But apparently not.

Bring it on? This must be what happens when Cheney lets Bush speak without checking with him first.

What an idiot.