Happy Birthday, JR! The streets of Budapest will never be the same after he goes out tonight... errr.... this weekend. :-)

Some Atlanta news that I enjoyed:

Georgians can now buy beer up to 14% alcohol. Due to the previous 1935 prohibition era law I think the limit was 6%. I don't drink beer, so it won't affect me but my Libertarian side says people should be able to drink beer at whatever perecentage alcohol. People can buy 95% (grain) alcohol already, so it seems like a stupid law to me. The people in Russia realy love their high alcohol Balticas which are numbered based on the percentage of alcohol. The American lushes on my trip there could drink one serving of a huge strong Baltica that would do them for night for a few rubles (less than a dollar). We always joked about importing it back home, but now it could actually happen!

The 17th Bridge is fully open now. The first bridge built over the interstate in 20 years. Crazy. This is great to reduce the Tech area traffic, and I think will really heat up the midtown area. The whole Atlantic Steel project has me excited for Atlanta and GT students. Also, hopefully the post Tech game traffic will be reduced with another way across the highway.

The Blind leading the blind

I have seen more blind people in the past few days then close to the rest of my life. There is a convention of the blind, so there are tons of people walking around downtown with dogs and canes tapping away. I am really amazed watching them walk around. A lot of them have ability to barely see. So they can see a flashing light, or perhaps stop and read a sign if they get up close. I think it's also amazing how they train those dogs to lead them around. I'm impressed.

I think losing your sight might be the hardest of the five senses to lose. Smell I would give up the easiest, then taste, touch and hearing would be really hard, but sight would be the most difficult.

I have started looking around on autotrader.com a litle bit for a used car. My car is close to hitting 140,000 miles and is still really low maintenance, but I wanted to be prepared to quickly purchase a car if mine suddenly died. Buying a new car isn't even in my thought pattern - those new cars lose so much value driving off the lot it is crazy.

My car has been a good one. When I got it, it was in really top mint condition with only 35,000 miles on it in 4-5 years of driving. It was parked in a covered garage, and when I first saw it, I really thought it was a brand new car. It was quite a sweet deal.

It still drives fine, but has lots of little problems. The A/C only works on the highest level, (ie it can only be off or blasting) the passenger window goes up and down slowly (due to an attempted break in), and the trunk will not open from the button in the car any more. But no engine troubles, etc.

I need to figure out what type of car I would want next. Any suggestions? :-) Low maintenance again would be key, high gas mileage is a plus. I will also put a CD player in my next car. I've actually never had that. I usually like just a touch of luxury, and a hint of sportiness but neither are neccesary. I want a four door car, or maybe a truck. But likely a sedan. I just like truck owning people. Truck people are good people. :-)

I am quite tired - waking up at 5am is always way too early. I just really can't stand waiting in traffic.

Congrats to Iraq on their new independence. Despite people downplaying it - I feel it is a major step for Iraq. Sure people will say the government is controlled by the US, but when they have their first elections, the people will decide.

I ran 4.5 miles tonight - I could have gone longer, but I knew dinner would be coming soon and I had to get in and get showered. I will be able to run the Peachtree, but Chrissy and I have had trouble finding time to run. Chrissy usually trains harder, but my competitive edge makes me run to death to keep up. But this year I have done more than her with her ankle not feeling good. So we shall see.

I will not be in D.C. for three weeks - but the good news is that Kent is coming to us. Potentially for quite a while. So that's good to hear.

Time had the 50 coolest websites lited, but I didn't think many of them were that cool. Maybe because I had seen similar things. I think sometimes non-techie people are impressed by different sites than techies, also I haven't invested much time in a bunch of the sites which could be cool. Like friendster.

Also maybe I have gotten in a rut. Except for searching for information, I go to a lot of the same sites. Is my sense of exploration wanning, or is it just simply that there isn't much new cool stuff out there that appeals to me. Perhaps on the group blog we should all post our favorite three websites that most other people may not go to regularly. Hmm..

House cleanup weekend. With the anticipation of guests on Friday, Chrissy and I did some house cleaning and outdoor work. I'm trying to figure out what to do with the lawn since we have two types of grass growing - Zoysia and Bermuda. We like the Zoysia better.

We saw the movie "Stuck on You" - a recommendation of one of Chrissy's coworkers against our better judgement. It was pretty stupid with a lot of slapstick humor.

I finished the book Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy this week. It was good, taking the Jack Ryan character back to the early 80s. I have a feeling he did that so he could sell the movie to Hollywood to have a young leading man. But regardless, good Clancy.

Before that, the last five books I've read:
1. Prey by Michael Crichton (nanotechnology - interesting)
2. Shogun (feudal Japan - an era I really like)
3. The Foundation Trilogy (I'd like to read more sci-fi)

I have partially read "The Economist's view of the world" which is pretty interesting.

Love and marriage, love and marriage,
go together like a horse and carriage.
This I tell you, brother,
you won't find one without the other.

It has been a wedding weekend. Randy and Lauren are blissfully wed. Thursday night was the rehearsal dinner, which was great with lots of funny toasts making fun of Lauren (barely) and Randy (mostly). It was at the Piedmont Driving Club - a pretty ritzy country club type place right at Piedmont park. A very nice evening. Randy's family is a lot of fun. I was a groomsman, so I interacted a lot with the family.

The wedding was also a lot of fun. It was a good group they had gathered, and I enjoyed getting to usher people. There were a good number of Delta Chi's there also: Justin C, Andy B, Wes K, among others, and lots of Tech people in general. Tech in colors also, with the gold/yellow bridesmaid dresses. They had a live jazz ensemble there to play while we ate dinner, and for their first dance which was a nice touch. We didn't get to do all that much dancing was my only regret.

One funny story: I had to go to Phipps to pick up my formal black tie to wear at the wedding (we didn't rent tuxes since we had them - just matching ties) and traffic was horrible on Friday afternoon. I was in the car for two hours driving up to Phipps and back. The last two miles on Ponce took 35 minutes alone! I arrived about 30 minutes late, so as I am sitting in traffic on Ponce I completely change into my tux. Changing clothes in the car - another reason it's great to be a guy. A woman would have held up traffic with all the spectators!

Finally, today was a BBQ at their new house for family and some out of town guests. Chrissy and I were the hosts for the party. They had a catering place for all the food, ironically the same place that was catering the Delta Chi BBQ down at Tech the same day. Delta Chi is expanding our house, and they were having the groundbreaking. I enjoyed the BBQ and could tell that Randy was relieved to have this taken care of for him, but I also wish I could have done both events.

Between work and wedding - I really need a break! But house chores await me!

A poll of young Americans (18-25) found that more believed in UFO's than that their Social Security would be around when they retired.

Read some bad news today that the system is worse off than expected. The CBO had more bad numbers, saying that Social Security (even with optimistic assumptions) will begin running a deficit by 2019.

It is not a question of if the current model will work, it's only when it will fail. There are two options to fix it: Raise the tax rate, or lower the benefits. The tax rates will have to be very high to sustain it, so I feel the answer is to cut benefits. Make the retirement age older, or the payouts lower. Social Security was intended as a supplement, not a retirement program.

Unfortunately, the AARP is the one of the strongest voter groups in the country and will kill any mention of change to the program, even if you must to save it. So sad that "the greatest generation" that was so willing to sacrifice in WWII are unwilling to let this dying program be killed off or transformed. It just can't work the way it was set up 50 years ago due to the changing demographics of America and longer lifespans in particular.

We can either deal with it now to give people time to make adjustments, or wait until the system goes bankrupt and have everyone deal with it then. I prefer change now - a lot, on this issue.

Isn't ironic... don't you think?

I finally got my security badge today up here on my new project after weeks of having to borrow an ID to go to the bathroom. What's ironic, is this could be my last day here. There have been some big changes around here, and our project is pausing to re-evaluate a new direction. I had planned on not being here the next three weeks, but now I wonder if I'll be back up here at all. Should be interesting.

Maybe I should try to get those Monday night Chastain Counting Crows tickets now... hmm.

Some friends have had some bad luck with relationships. One friend found the guy she had been dating for six months was married (despite asking him on the first date!). It's more complicated than that - very crazy. Another friend found out his girlfriend was A) secretly keeping a blog B) was lying to him and C) was interested in someone else and not him any more. Ouch, ouch, ouch. The dating world can be so rough.

The good news is that I won't be sleeping on the street tonight. I found another hotel for one night. You couldn't book it over the web, but when I called the place they had an available room that was listed as needing a two night minimum stay, when really they were already full for the 2nd night anyways. Uhhh... ok.

Rant of the day - Confirmation Numbers
Why do they still give Confirmation numbers out? This seems like such a thing of the past. When I am booking a Delta flight, why can't they just look up my flights based on my skymiles number. Why do I need to record this different number? The only case I can imagine, is if they took down your info wrong over the phone and when you arrived and gave them you credit card that they couldn't match your name or credit card to any reservation. That seems over the top, but I can't understand it.

I think they do it because it makes people feel better. Why would someone feel any more secure about a transaction having a confirmation number? I feel like if they lose my reservation, they will lose the confirmation number too. It's just another way to look up your reservation, but if the record isn't there it doesn't matter if they use some other piece of information to look up you reservation.

Update: the hotel is pretty bad. The front door handles are practically falling off the building. Even the upgraded room was the worst room I have stayed in on business. The one redeeming quality is the free high speed internet access. All hotels for business should have this - just as long as I don't have to pay for it. :-)

Went to a Thai place that was pretty good. Table for one - my first time doing that in quite a while, but there were no quick places to pick up food unless you called ahead.

Blogger ate my Saturday post, so I figure if it bored even blogger then it was probably better off not being posted.

The weekend was great. Got a lot of time to talk with Chrissy, which we had missed while she was out of town. One of the weekends where coming back on a Monday morning and I can hardly remember what work was like. That's a good sign for your weekend, but perhaps a bad sign for the work you need to get accomplished. ;-)

I am staying in a hotel in Maryland tonight, but only have it for one night. I will have stayed in D.C., Virginia and Maryland. There are no hotels available tomorrow of the 25+ I have tried, so I may end up sleeping on the street. I've heard the hotel tonight is bad from a coworker - we shall see.

Come fly with me...

One semi-annoying thing about my job is the last minute nature of my schedule. I have been waiting to hear whether I'd be in ATL or D.C. on Monday, and got a call last night at 9:30 that I was likely needed in D.C. But now I hear I may not be needed from another team member, and I should to reconfirm.

Also D.C. is hotel crazy - expensive rates, and not much availability. Of the 17 hotels on our internal booking site only one had rooms and it was for over $300. I might as well stay at the Ritz again for that.

I usually don't mind not knowing, but now I'm being rude. I had received a written invitation to an event on Tuesday, and still have not RSVP'd because I wouldn't know my schedule. I will have to find out in the next hour and RSVP tomorrow.

Another bummer of being on two projects is I feel I can rarely leave early on Fridays which is a usual luxury for out of town project teams.

Soul food

I love southern cooking. The meat and two vegetables places are some of my favorites. Today I went to a place I had never been, and it was pretty good. Son's Place right near the Inman Park Marta Station. I heard they had caramel cake, but they were not serving today. What a shame. The meatloaf and veggies were great. They ring a bell and introduce you to the place if you let them know you are a first time customer. I'd recommend it for lunch.

I have a bowl of apple cobbler staring me in the face right now, but I am just too full to eat it. My eyes were bigger than my stomach. :-)

The weather has been amazing the past few days. The way the clouds change from ominous to lovely white and fluffy in a matter of minutes. Or just the sky going from very light to incredibly dark when I know that dusk has not even drawn close yet. Looking out from over a dozen stories up I guess maybe it is magnified.

I saw that in an AP poll today that 57% of Americans think that we have lost jobs in the past six months when in actuality 1.2 million jobs have been created in that time. I don't understand why all these people are talking down the economy. Well actually I do. I belive it is to hurt Bush before the elections, but despite the press and the quotes about the economy the public will have to pick up the message soon. I am seeing the most lucrative opportunities since my college days. This growth is great. I can only hope we can keep it this strong. (Keeping down inflation too would be a bonus.) ;-)

I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend

Seriously, this has got to stop. There were not one, but TWO suicide attempters today on bridges over major highways that caused them to totally stop traffic. The guy who did it and got so much media attention a few weeks ago must have inspired.

The guy holds up traffic for something like six hours, cutting off all traffic while they tried to get him down. There was a guy driving his wife to the hospital who got stuck in it, and I don't think they made it to the hospital in time.

That seriously risks lives - cutting off ambulances, etc. They didn't even charge the guy with anything! He was all over the news, so of course so more idiots decided to try it.

To me, for the greater good of the population, the police should quickly try negotiation, and then lasso him with a rope or something. Not a six hour standoff. The guy ended up jumping anyway, and only ended with minor injuries because they partially grabbed him. I would rather risk losing that idiots life then losing the lives due to people who can't make it to hospitals, or ambulances/police that can't get to a spot fast enough. People have so much compassion for the one guy with mental problems who brought this on himself, and no compassion for the thousands of other totally innocent people who were put at risk. Or even the hundred thousands that were inconvenienced by this man, missing planes, meetings, family events, etc.

Anyway, dinner with the grandparents tonight should be fun.

I'm back in Atlanta for the week, but it is bad timing as Chrissy is out of town for a convention. So sad. I miss her even more when I am in town and she is away.

I will get a home cooked meal with the parents tonight... cooking one of my favorites. Chicken Divan.

Saturday was relaxing. The Tech-UGA baseball game was quite a letdown. Tech had four errors to four hits. You can't win playoffs like that. Chris, David and I met up to watch the game, and it was blazing hot. I put on some sun tan lotion there, but I still got a little burned on my face. I was sweating through my clothes it was so hot.

David and I went to Rocky Mtn. afterwards for some food, and it was good catching up with him. David is a great guy. We were talking about our careers and where we wanted to go in life. He is thinking about getting a MBA also, but as I was telling him I don't know that I'm going to get one now. I have seen some research showing that the people who would pursue a MBA do not get a career jump out of it, because the caliber of people who would go for a top MBA are going to be successful regardless. So it wouldn't really affect your salarly over your career, or get you in a "better" job. So I feel some people go back for a MBA for their own ego, or go just because that's what a lot of other smart people do. Hmmm.

Some jobs do require a good MBA. I am thinking that if I don't like my options where I am ready to change jobs, that would be an option. For now I'm planning on moving into another challenging and interesting job if that is possible.

Also stopped by Carter's to relax in the pool, get some Mexican food and watch a movie.

Today was just going through mail, cleaning up, and sorting through email. I also did a run and worked out. Reading Men's Health makes me feel pretty out of shape, so in that way it is a good motivation. :-)

What a sad day. The funeral of Ronald Reagan. My team took lunch to watch the funeral. Ronald Reagan was a great man, who was even well liked by his opponents. I believe him to be one of the best presidents this country has seen.

While in office he had a large hand in the downfall of the "Evil Empire". By showing them resolve, they could not keep up with us and essentially imploded. Then tearing down the Berlin wall. "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" And soon there after it was torn down. People today don't even realize how big that was.

Finally his economic recovery that brought us from the horror days of Carter with double digit inflation and a high misery index to a booming economy. He unified this country and gathered more Patriotism that was not seen in this country until after Sept. 11th.

I liked with the first two how Reagan did not give into "Moral Relativity", and clearly acknowledged that democracy was more free than Communism. His active strides against it were admirable.

Finally, Reagan was just a great guy. I have heard too many awesome stories about him. Like when he was shot in D.C. and was being operated on. He says to the doctors, "I hope you guys are Republicans." lol.

A very sad day for our country, but also a relief as he had truly left us years ago.

Three busy days in D.C. We have an important meeting coming up on Monday, and we have to have our presentation ready for the Steering Committee. All the employees want to know about our plan, because they of course want to know the affect on them. People come up and introduce themselves to me to pump me for information.

We have worked 12 or 11 hour days, so I am looking forward to leaving early tomorrow to head home.

We had lunch with my dad and mom today. Mom would be in town for less than two hours before heading off again to some other trip. She is quite funny. I haven't seen her in two to three weeks, and what does she talk about for the first 30 to 45 minutes of lunch? She talks about her high school friend's family, and how they are doing well, what vacation they are taking, how their jobs are doing, etc. She even spends 5 minutes talking about the disease some person had that she saw at the McDonald's.

All the while I am wanting to her how SHE is doing. What is the update on the teaching position she is looking to fill etc. My family calls it her "data dump", where she just wants someone to talk to and tells them EVERYTHING. Like at a Tech basketball game she will find someone to talk to about anything other than the game. I look over and she is telling them about our relatives, and I am thinking "she has never met this person, and will never talk to them again". It is kind of charming in a way, but today it was annoying because in our short time together I want to hear about important details.

Spent the late, late, afternoon lounging by the pool, then watched Chrissy's dad play tennis. He was playing doubles, and averaging both people his team probably was 15-20 years younger than their opponents. It was funny, but he still one.

A good weekend, but too short. I'm not ready to hop on a 7:30 flight tomorrow morning. Nor the wakeup in the four o'clock hour. :-(

Chrissy and I were hoping to spend a day in Roswell with my parents, but my family was mostly gone today. Claire still off in Europe, Sarah is a counselor at a Jr. High church camp, and my mom is off helping with a Sr. High church camp. My dad was still around, but he was off playing bridge. My mom always wants me to come visit, but for this weekend and next she is going to be entirely gone. I am travelling during the week for work, so what can I do?

So we just did some errands today. We also went and saw Randy and Lauren's new house, which is only ten minutes or so from my parents house. Their wedding is only a few weeks away! If you go to the Wedding Chanel you can see their website and registry. Their house is very large and quite nice. In such a convienant area, I would imagine it would cost quite a bit, but who knows?

Then we went a wedding shower / luau for a high school friend of mine, Matt. He was probably my closest friend from that time that did not attend my high school. We went to the shower, and Matt wasn't even there for the first hour! He had to go back to get the hostess gifts for his fiance. We didn't know a single person there. We pulled up and there were 15 or so people smoking outside. The average age was probably 30, they had a keg, and lots of luau decorations. His fiance had been to our wedding and that was the only time she had met us, but surprisingly, she recognized us. She was very nice, but we mostly talked to each other.

It was just a different crowd. Their were some people there who were in a band, and they were playing their last show ever. They invited us, but we politely declined. Looking out on the street, even my car stood out. Even though it's a very nice model imho, it is about 13-14 years old. Everyone else was driving what looked like new BMWs, Mercedes, and SUVs. Matt finally arrived, and we talked to him for about 20 minutes, but everyone wanted to talk to him. Since we had talked to everyone we knew for sometime, and everyone else seemed to already know each other pretty well we just decided to head home.

We ended the night with some Bruster's. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough all the way. :-)

A busy day of work and play

I started the day with an 8am meeting downtown, then drove to Macon for a five hour meeting. In this meeting, some people were doing some industry analysis. They were rating industries in different categories. They were rating industries on a scale of 1 to 5 for their level of innovation. "Aerospace" received the highest rating as most innovative, while "Software Development" received the lowest rating at least innovative. I had to call them out on that one. No offense to my aerospace friends, but what has happened in Aerospace in the last 10 years that has changed our lives. Who has not been amazingly affected by the Internet and new software? There are several other examples that had me in shock, but I won't go into detail...

After work I switched into some more comfortable clothes and met Chrissy, David and Brittney for dinner. It's great going out with them, because they are going through a lot of the same situations as us. Decisions about home improvements, future education, careers within the constraints of marriage and balancing everything with your spouse. It is nice because we can share our similar experiences and what we learned.

We went to the Tech-Jacksonville State ball game. There was a loud annoying Jacksonville State fan in front of us, but he got quiet and moved away when we got up by six or so runs. Carter and Jay joined us, and I found out Jay is leaving my company also. There are a lot of people leaving to go back to school, go do something completely different, or just switch to a competitor. People always said it was like that in my industry, but now I am experiencing it.

Tech won big, and it was a fun evening.

Today I feel like I am juggling. I am working on two projects and a proposal, any one of which the other people on my teams are all full time. So they all want lots of my time, but I only have so much. I think I finally cut off the proposal time which is very good. Someone else couldn't make our proposal meeting, and it was explained he "had a billable opportunity".

I was thinking, "I have TWO billable opportunities - why are you keeping me here?" So I told them I would have plenty to do with my other two commitments, and would not be able to commit much to these. We don't even get credit for doing proposal work at my company. At least I got to know the project partner. That made my effort at least somewhat worth it.

Good news - I am leaving on a 4pm flight today. So I will be heading to the airport soon. I will not miss this mess. Ciao!

I had dinner with Kent last night. It was good to catch up with him and hear about his plans. I like having some one on one time to catch up with friends, because when we often all get together we don't get that. Like even though JR came and hung out around New Year's, I didn't feel like I got to talk with him much at all.

Kent's a good guy, and I'd like to have some more time with him.

Rudeness in the morning...

While arriving in D.C. I went to their Metro system. I saw a rather large woman standing in front of the gate to scan your Metro card. I noticed because she was in front of the one handicap entrance, and since I had all my bags I was planning on using this entrance. As I walked through the station, I pulled out my card, saw I did not have enough money, put money on my card, and walked to the gate where she was still standing about a minute later.

I approached the gate to go in since she was just standing there for the past minute, but she started to move towards the gate to go in as I passed. I, being a gentleman, stopped and motioned for her to go through first.

She says (with LOTS of attitude), "No, no, no! You just go on right ahead. You just need to learn to say excuse me!!!" I'm thinking, "Lady, you've been sitting there for at least a minute talking to someone. I didn't think you were going, but when I saw you were going I stopped to let you go." I don't know what her problem. But it bothers me when people are jerks like that.

Like this other time in MARTA where a redneck/ghetto guy and his girlfriend get on a train. She steps on my foot and says "excuse me." I say to her, "No problem." Her boyfriend gets all up in my face and says (with lots of attitude), "What did you say to her?!?!?" I told him, and he says (so the whole train can hear), "That's right!! That's what I thought you said!"

Some people must like telling other people off...