Thursday 31 March 2005 at 2:33 pm
This morning the weather was pretty nice, so I walked from the Greenbelt Metro station to the office. It took me about 25 minutes, and I think I can shave five minutes or so off of that thanks to
Google Maps. It is certainly no secret that I can a little exercise, and the walk helped me shake off the morning cobwebs and wake up. Most of the walk is through College Park, MD, and included such sights as the local REI, a comic book/gaming store, and a used book store. The traffic was not bad at that time of day, the sidewalks are in good shape, and there are frequent stop-signs and crosswalks. If it does not rain, I am going to walk from the office to the Metro this evening. Just think about it -- in a few weeks there might be less of me to love (in a good way). Take that, Jared, you sandwich-slingin' sellout!
Or something.
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Tuesday 29 March 2005 at 09:27 am
Well, Dear Readers, I have added new resources to improve This Blog's defense-in-depth against the scourge of automated comment spam. I am probably far more concerned about it than anyone else, but it will affect those of you who leave comments slightly. In order to post a comment from now on you must answer a simple question whose answer is painfully obvious to a human reader: "What is John's last name?" The answer is at the top of every page on This Blog that contains a comment entry field. I have also added some stealthy spam-fu in the background, but that should not affect anyone unless something breaks.
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Thursday 24 March 2005 at 1:51 pm
I am feeling a little better this morning, but I decided to stay home and get some rest so that I can try and get over this before Misty and Ellery get home tomorrow. One of my tasks to accomplish in their absence is some touch-up painting. After watching "Shaun of the Dead" this morning, I got motivated and went out to the shed and got the tape, paint, and a stirrer. At that point, I remembered that we borrowed all of the brushes (this is not roller work) we used before we moved in from some friends. D'oh! I am going to scrape the slime off and head for the store. Once I get the painting done I get to start the laundry.
sigh I just took some more Coma Formula (tm) Alka Seltzer Plus, so I am anticipating a sort of loopy outing. Who needs illegal drugs when I have this stuff?
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Tuesday 22 March 2005 at 7:59 pm
The Festivus episode of "Seinfeld" is on. What does is say about the current state of network television that an episode of "Seinfeld" that I have seen a dozen times is better than anything on tonight but for reruns of "Scrubs"? I ran some errands on the way home tonight, such as stopping at Eckerd's for cold and flu Alka-Seltzer Plus (tm) (now largely worthless thanks to its lack of phenylpropanolamine); hitting Giant for cereal, milk, etc.; and stopping by Blockbuster for a quick look-see. Since Misty and Ellery are not home until Friday I decided to grab a couple of DVDs that are not really up their alley:
"The Bourne Supremacy" and
"Shaun of the Dead". I'll let you know what I think.
It's nice to be home after a long weekend on the road, but it always sucks to leave. We had a very nice weekend in Houston. Brad's and Beth's bew house is starting to come together, and it will be great once they have some paint on the walls. Their master bath is a thing of wonder to behold and I covet their tub. I am not sure that I should say anything about Christine out of fear that I cannot do her justice. She is definitely the cutest little girl I have ever seen (thankfully she takes after her mother) and should be walking soon. Then Brad is going to find FIFA-playing time very dear. Friday we were up very early to fly out. Brad met us at the airport, stopped by the house to drop off Misty and Ellery, and then we drove down to Hobby to pick up my Mom. later in the day we found playgrounds for the kids and had Chinese for dinner. Ellery needs to cultivate a taste for kung po chicken with peanuts, after all. Katie and Schoot had us over for dinner and drinks Saturday night, along with Bob and Christa, Nicole, and Julie and Miles. Sunday was nice and restful, including lunch at Le Madeleine's (sp?) with Bob, Christa, and Nicole. Yesterday was long with all of the travelling that I did to get home (including automobile, bus, plane, and train). Misty and Ellery made it safely to Shreveport and at last report Ellery was safely ensconed in Grandma Jo's lap with a stack of books. Today I was kind of sluggish at work; I have another cold/sinus thing going on. Maybe it is best that M and E are not here so that I do not infect them. But the house sure is empty. I took some diapers up to the nursery a few minutes ago and, wow, it was quiet.
One of my coworkers asked about This Blog and may stop by for a read. He is inspired by
Thomas Barnett's blog, but I do not think that he understands how uninteresting my life is to someone other than myself. Well, he'll learn.
Tuesday 22 March 2005 at 7:59 pm
The Festivus episode of "Seinfeld" is on. What does is say about the current state of network television that an episode of "Seinfeld" that I have seen a dozen times is better than anything on tonight but for reruns of "Scrubs"? I ran some errands on the way home tonight, such as stopping at Eckerd's for cold and flu Alka-Seltzer Plus (tm) (now largely worthless thanks to its lack of phenylpropanolamine); hitting Giant for cereal, milk, etc.; and stopping by Blockbuster for a quick look-see. Since Misty and Ellery are not home until Friday I decided to grab a couple of DVDs that are not really up their alley:
"The Bourne Supremacy" and
"Shaun of the Dead". I'll let you know what I think.
It's nice to be home after a long weekend on the road, but it always sucks to leave. We had a very nice weekend in Houston. Brad's and Beth's bew house is starting to come together, and it will be great once they have some paint on the walls. Their master bath is a thing of wonder to behold and I covet their tub. I am not sure that I should say anything about Christine out of fear that I cannot do her justice. She is definitely the cutest little girl I have ever seen (thankfully she takes after her mother) and should be walking soon. Then Brad is going to find FIFA-playing time very dear. Friday we were up very early to fly out. Brad met us at the airport, stopped by the house to drop off Misty and Ellery, and then we drove down to Hobby to pick up my Mom. later in the day we found playgrounds for the kids and had Chinese for dinner. Ellery needs to cultivate a taste for kung po chicken with peanuts, after all. Katie and Schoot had us over for dinner and drinks Saturday night, along with Bob and Christa, Nicole, and Julie and Miles. Sunday was nice and restful, including lunch at Le Madeleine's (sp?) with Bob, Christa, and Nicole. Yesterday was long with all of the travelling that I did to get home (including automobile, bus, plane, and train). Misty and Ellery made it safely to Shreveport and at last report Ellery was safely ensconed in Grandma Jo's lap with a stack of books. Today I was kind of sluggish at work; I have another cold/sinus thing going on. Maybe it is best that M and E are not here so that I do not infect them. But the house sure is empty. I took some diapers up to the nursery a few minutes ago and, wow, it was quiet.
One of my coworkers asked about This Blog and may stop by for a read. He is inspired by
Thomas Barnett's blog, but I do not think that he understands how uninteresting my life is to someone other than myself. Well, he'll learn.
Monday 14 March 2005 at 1:45 pm
My anti-spam arsenal has been expanded with some new tools. The spamstorm seems to have been twarted...for now.
I actually made the express bus connection this morning (wow, did the guy sitting next to me need to bathe), so I have been here since 7:20 or so. My energies are flagging, let me tell you. I have worked on planning on a new project, met with the boss and one of the support scientists, reviewed a paper for the Journal, worked on my manuscript about PyPedal, and rewritten 32 parameter files for my big parameter estimation job that is running. Oh, and I went to Ikea and got a couple photo frames. It makes me tired just thinking about it.
Last night, at a friend's house, Ellery put his hand on the open overn door (something was being taken out and the little guy is fast and quiet). There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but he is fine. The burn is minor and some ice cream, Baby Einstein, and spaghetti managed to calm him down, but he was pretty inconsolable for a few minutes there. Maybe he learned a valuable lesson, though. He passed out in the car on the way home and went straight to bed without a bath or a peep.
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Monday 14 March 2005 at 1:45 pm
My anti-spam arsenal has been expanded with some new tools. The spamstorm seems to have been twarted...for now.
I actually made the express bus connection this morning (wow, did the guy sitting next to me need to bathe), so I have been here since 7:20 or so. My energies are flagging, let me tell you. I have worked on planning on a new project, met with the boss and one of the support scientists, reviewed a paper for the Journal, worked on my manuscript about PyPedal, and rewritten 32 parameter files for my big parameter estimation job that is running. Oh, and I went to Ikea and got a couple photo frames. It makes me tired just thinking about it.
Last night, at a friend's house, Ellery put his hand on the open overn door (something was being taken out and the little guy is fast and quiet). There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but he is fine. The burn is minor and some ice cream, Baby Einstein, and spaghetti managed to calm him down, but he was pretty inconsolable for a few minutes there. Maybe he learned a valuable lesson, though. He passed out in the car on the way home and went straight to bed without a bath or a peep.
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Thursday 03 March 2005 at 3:00 pm
If you take a little stroll over to the Select Sires website and search through the Brown Swiss bull list for, e.g.,
TRIANGLE ACRES POLLYDEN ET, you will see a page that looks like this:
The part that I have circled, Pollyden's calving ease proof, is what I spent all of last summer and fall doing. This February we released the first official proofs for calving ease in Brown Swiss. It is pretty cool to think that farmers are going to be using this to make selection and mating decisions.
Tuesday 01 March 2005 at 1:28 pm
I was quite surprised to see that my paper is not in the lastest Journal of Dairy Science. Based on the author proof I thought it would appear this month. What a crummy way to start off the month. But I am trying to take some consolation in the fact that my friend Albert has a paper this month. I also got my abstract written and submitted for a symposium at Iowa State this July. They will probably reject it in favor of some report of a fantastic new marker or major gene that will later fail to pan out, while I will go on to use my work to actually get something done. But at least I gave it a shot, right? Oh, well, that means that I can get back to two manuscripts I am preparing (I decided to submit a paper to "Computers and Electronics in Agriculture" on my pedigree analysis software), as well as the paper to review I have on my desk.
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