I don't understand a word of it, just the height of each owl, but this is a genial animal.

 

 

I found it as part of a top ten list that is worth looking at the Wired science blog.

 

As I mentioned, I will be taking it easy until next year. Now I am off to play with my daughter - Happy New Year for everybody.

I've been trying to take it easy over the past couple of days. I have way too much noise and pressure at work to be able to do what I am really paid to do: think creatively. It is pretty easy to hire someone to run around creating work and going through the motions of writing code. Even easier when the job is to support who writes the code instead of actually writing it. That, of course, generates no value to customers and no satisfaction to whoever is going through the motions.

I've been considering whether going back to writing code would make me happier than designing a new product. It is more practical and has less politics, I also think it would give me more immediate gratification (even fixing bugs would). There are two things preventing me from going back to developer. The first is easy to fix: I am rusty on coding. The second there is no fix: it would smell defeat.

So I'll be taking easy for the next couple of days and see if the energy comes back. I have to work really hard on something I never asked to own, have no interest in owning, but politics dumped on my lap so I will do my best to make it great for customers. 

If the energy doesn;t come back I will find omething else to do pretty soon.

I just came back from the Seahawks win over the Jets. Winning was a rare event for the Hawks this year, but even less frequent was the type of accumulation we had in Seattle. It's been snowing for the past 11 hours non-stop in the region. This picture is moi standing on the parking of Qwest Field.

 

 

More or less like the difference between trekking with boots through dry woods and walking on an ice skating rink wearing greased shoes.

 

It snowed about one foot of snow here the last couple of days, and that was for the weak storm. There is another one on the forecast that is supposed to be the dangerous one. It will combine the windstorm from last year and the snow storm from two years ago. If that happens as advertised I expect a full week of weather house arrest.

 

Considering how packed the grocery store was this morning, everyone is expecting a pretty bad one. I suppose my paranoia is justified given both the science and the wisdom of crowds backing it up.

 

Ho, ho, ho - the Seahawks, Packers game next Sunday will be fun.

 

For the other person that reads my blog, an update. I mentioned that Obama was not the president yet, despite winning the general election. Now he finally is.

 

The Electoral College met last Monday, December 15, and made official the wish of the people. See a sample of the less than stellar press coverage here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28241363/ 

 

The American press deify the founding fathers way beyond reasonable. They paint them as if they were infallible. For me, their genius was exactly their understanding of how fallible and flawed they were. The electoral college is a check over the popular vote. The three powers (judiciary, executive and legislative) were designed to balance and monitor each other. Even the idea of bearing arms was about the people keeping an eye on the government.

 

I am so looking forward to four years of rational government. No witch doctors, no message from god telling the man to become president, no need to redeem past life mistakes, none of that crap. I really hope this turns out to be a good government.

 

After a couple of hours hugging wet trees and hanging from the front porch all the Christmas lights are hanging. My house is now visible from space!

 

I just dug out a pile of Christmas decorations boxes from our garage and carried them to our living room. Tomorrow I will hang enough lights on our trees and house to lit a Rolling Stones show. I am not a big fan of hanging all this stuff outside, but my daughter loves it and I cannot say no to my wife.

I used to have a hard time enjoying Christmas, but not anymore. I love the message of joy, peace for all and having friends and family over. Now I have a hard time to understanding protesters and people that try to sabotage Christmas. This time of the year is special in modern western society because people celebrate the birth of Christ (wrong date, I know) and his message. For some bizarre reason some college professor created a black (as in african-american) version called Kwanza that is 100% American and 0% African. And for some magical reason a Jewish holiday I cannot spell and that should be based on a lunar calendar happens to happen on similar dates. Go figure.

Regardless, Meery Christmas!

If you get an alert when browsing my blog, don't worry. The latest version of the CA anti-virus issues a false alert for embedded YouTube videos. See more here: http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/12/02/actnsswift-virus-affecting-embedded-youtube-vids/