Looking back through my blog, there really are a disproportionate number of posts written while sitting in the Albuquerque airport, particularly for someone who ostensibly lives 1752 miles away. This is almost certainly a function of the fact that they have free wireless access and air travel between here and Pittsburgh is ridiculously ( Read more... )

It's been a bleary couple days here in the high desert. After a very good meeting at GWHQ about a week ago, I flew back into ABQ and then made the 5 hour drive from there to Lamar. There weren't any new bits of local color weirdness this time, although that was mostly due to the fact that I didn't leave a 2 block radius for the 72 odd hours that ( Read more... )

After the debacle that was Saturday (ended up making the next flight to Albuquerque, but we had constant turbulence and I was wedged in next to a guy that had to tip the scales at over 400 pounds), today was a much needed good one. I got lots of good feedback on the ISW talk, ate way too much at Maria's (which serves the best New Mexican cuisine ( Read more... )

Son of a Bitch. There's nothing quite like traveling on a holiday weekend to remind one exactly how much you hate being around crowds of people. It's 8AM, the Sunday before the 4th of July, and the airport is packed. Even worse, it's the sort of packed that you get in the summer months: lots of families, small kids and old people. The cherry on ( Read more... )

I'm starting to think that investing in one of those hypobaric isolation chambers might not be such a crazy notion. In addition to not being a very good movie, apparently being exposed to all of those coughing, chattering children at the Superman movie on Wednesday set my recovery back further than I'd thought. Yesterday was miserable, albeit ( Read more... )

About the time that I was really starting to get over the weekend's festivities, I was waylaid by a head cold that I apparently picked up during the tournament. Damned young people and their dreaded viral load ( Read more... )

Thanks to the generous budget of the UChicago Quiz Bowl Team, there was a tournament in Pittsburgh this weekend. Basically, they had a couple grand left in their budget and the regular season was done, so they put out the word that they were looking for someone to host a tournament and give them an excuse to blow the cash. One of the guys at here ( Read more... )

Y'know, this had been the best NBA play-offs in a long, long time. Spurs-Mavericks, Suns-Clippers, Mavericks-Suns, Cavs-Wizards, Pistons-Cavs, all very entertaining in their own ways. Thrilling finishes, good team play, tight defense, up-tempo games showcasing everything that basketball should be. This finals, though, has just been absolute crap ( Read more... )

I'm not really sure if anyone is gonna see this since I sort of closed things down here back about 6 weeks ago. It turns out, though, that having this blog had become kinda my outlet for all manner of frustrations and anxieties. Not that I didn't appreciate folks reading and responding, but for the most part I was doing it to get the thoughts ( Read more... )

Tooth-related drama aside, I think I may be closing up shop here at the blog over the next couple weeks. I had half a post up a week ago explaining some of the reason why this is happening, but apparently I was giving away too much information and had to trim it down to its current incarnation. Basically, what I can say is that, over the next ( Read more... )