Mostly linkage
1) It should not take me most of two hours to handle an expense report and make some travel arrangements.
2) Sadly, the Willow Creek Church Conference is happening at the same time I'll be in Chicago. This means that I'm dissappointed 'cause the hotel my boss suggested (the one with a pool and jaccuzzi and wireless internet) has been sold out for 4 months because of the event. I'm also kinda boggled by the concept of a single church with 50,000 members. Wow.
3) The hotel I'm booked in has full kitchens and high speed if not wireless Internet. They have a 24 hr fitness ctr and privileges at Bally's down the road. Not too bad. And I'm waitlisted at #2.
4) I don't think I shall be driving 1.5 hours from Fairlakes to Baltimore tonight. Instead I'll drive all over creation with Mom & Grandma tomorrow.
5) It was very good to see geminigirl this mid day, and to finally meet dababybean.And the links:
First off, for those of you who've seen all of Firefly -- Here's the Television Without Pity version.
Ernie & Bert Are Dead, a cheerful story about murder, revenge, and a grouch called Hamlet.
Tattooed Fruit is on the Way, but at least that will mean the end of those annoying stickers.
Not Exactly Turtles All The Way Down, a Red Dwarf / Discworld fanfic. I hope she continues.
A whole bunch of people (particularly deza, if I recall) posted last month about 16 year old Zach, from Tennessee, and his being shipped off to "gay reform boot camp". His story hit the New York Times last weekend.
Also last weekend, the NYTimes magazine had a cover story on The Framing Wars -- language in politics, and George Lakoff's theories of how to tap into how we think.
The next day, an article that fits in with some of what I've been hearing from CZ_unit re financial outlook: America's Truth Deficit -- worries about foreign dept and global trade imbalance, and what happens if other countries stop buying dollars. Relatedly and more recently, Krugman sees China's announcement on Thursday that they're unpegging the Yuan from the Dollar as a potential first step in that direction.
Less scarily, a pretty neat article about How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart. Did you know that Costco pay their employees, on average, 42% more than does Sam's Club?
And finally, completely unrelated to all of the above, though it shows that the world needs to chill: Fresno Police went and kept an 11 year old girl under house arrest for 30 days, for throwing a small rock at some kids who were taunting her and hitting her with water balloons.*
Yay. Far fewer open tabs! Off to drive out to VA.
*link fixed
2) Sadly, the Willow Creek Church Conference is happening at the same time I'll be in Chicago. This means that I'm dissappointed 'cause the hotel my boss suggested (the one with a pool and jaccuzzi and wireless internet) has been sold out for 4 months because of the event. I'm also kinda boggled by the concept of a single church with 50,000 members. Wow.
3) The hotel I'm booked in has full kitchens and high speed if not wireless Internet. They have a 24 hr fitness ctr and privileges at Bally's down the road. Not too bad. And I'm waitlisted at #2.
4) I don't think I shall be driving 1.5 hours from Fairlakes to Baltimore tonight. Instead I'll drive all over creation with Mom & Grandma tomorrow.
5) It was very good to see geminigirl this mid day, and to finally meet dababybean.And the links:
First off, for those of you who've seen all of Firefly -- Here's the Television Without Pity version.
Ernie & Bert Are Dead, a cheerful story about murder, revenge, and a grouch called Hamlet.
Tattooed Fruit is on the Way, but at least that will mean the end of those annoying stickers.
Not Exactly Turtles All The Way Down, a Red Dwarf / Discworld fanfic. I hope she continues.
A whole bunch of people (particularly deza, if I recall) posted last month about 16 year old Zach, from Tennessee, and his being shipped off to "gay reform boot camp". His story hit the New York Times last weekend.
Also last weekend, the NYTimes magazine had a cover story on The Framing Wars -- language in politics, and George Lakoff's theories of how to tap into how we think.
The next day, an article that fits in with some of what I've been hearing from CZ_unit re financial outlook: America's Truth Deficit -- worries about foreign dept and global trade imbalance, and what happens if other countries stop buying dollars. Relatedly and more recently, Krugman sees China's announcement on Thursday that they're unpegging the Yuan from the Dollar as a potential first step in that direction.
Less scarily, a pretty neat article about How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart. Did you know that Costco pay their employees, on average, 42% more than does Sam's Club?
And finally, completely unrelated to all of the above, though it shows that the world needs to chill: Fresno Police went and kept an 11 year old girl under house arrest for 30 days, for throwing a small rock at some kids who were taunting her and hitting her with water balloons.*
Yay. Far fewer open tabs! Off to drive out to VA.
*link fixed