...is messed up. You may recall that I injured it just before going to Vegas by getting a bit too enthusiastic sparing with an upper black belt.  I clipped his hip or something else quite hard (dang iron-bone training).

I went to the doctor this morning for x rays.  Doc says I "impaled the end of my knuckle onto the bone behind it".  See below:

( Read more... )

Monday was our last day in Vegas. We were scheduled to fly out in the evening, so had a whole day to kill.  We slept late, had a slow morning, packed and eventually went to lunch with Hjalti at the buffet again.  He also wasn't flying out until very late.  Then he ran off to a gun range to shoot a machine gun, which is quite the novelty since ( Read more... )

 Sunday, our last day :(
Although in truth we are starting to be ready to go home by this time.  Vegas offers very little to those who don't gamble.  And one really has to be numb to not be deeply saddened by all the horrid examples of walking death one can see in any direction.

This morning at the conference the talks were all short papers ( Read more... )

 This was our big day of meeting people.

I got my picture with James Randi again!  

( Read more... )

On Friday, I was something of a walking zombie due to lack of sleep the night before.  The day started with a live recording of my favorite podcast.  I barely made it down there, but did get to see some of it.  It must be so gratifying for these guys to have hundreds of people practically acting like fans over their completely volunteer labor of ( Read more... )

 Still having a great time here.  Tia is feeling a lot better.  My hand has finally started to go down in swelling, biut it still feels like I have a lobster claw for a hand ( Read more... )

We are up!  We ate leftovers for breakfast, we are all dressed and groomed and ready to head down to sign-in.  Yay ( Read more... )

 We have arrived in Vegas.  My hand hurts.  
We took a nap, spent an hour at the pool, and are now preparing ourselves for dinner with some old friends.

Vegas is... well, worse than I expected.  HOT.  Arid.  Lifeless.
The hotel stinks of old smoke.  I hadn't expected that.  Not terribly, but ubiquitously.  The lobby is a casino.  Not sure what I ( Read more... )

Finally!  it is time for TAM8!

In a bit of perfect timing, I had my mid year review yesterday and it went very well.  I got a small raise, and we worked out a plan for the next six months which will almost certainly result in me being made Manager of IT in January.  Wonderful!

I feel very good in this position and at this company, and I look ( Read more... )

There is this old joke:
You know how studies show that 25% of Americans have some kind of mental illness? 
Think of your three best friends.  If they're ok, it's you.
This post makes me think of that joke.  Something along the lines of:
You know how there is always some kind of evil, opportunistic, manipulative state out there corrupting the little ( Read more... )