glyphard

was excellent.  Pictures to follow.

Perfect blend of maximum enjoyment and being happy to be home.

Had a good day shooting yesterday.  Shot 4 rounds of maze clays. did pretty well.  Missed at least one everytime I called for a true pair.  Kind of irritating.  Decided to go up to bob and leai's for dinner with cat.  I worry I may have screwed up my skeet game a little bit.

After dinner, I was napping on the couch and the phone rang.  Caller-id said it was Travis's cell phone.  Surprised, I picked up the phone, it in fact was Travis.  He nonchalantly said hello.  I told him I was happy to hear that he was alive.  He seemed surprised at my concern. 

Appearantly he just needed to get out of town to clear his head a little bit.  And had left the country for a couple of weeks.  Completely unaware that not telling anyone including his family, or his work(family business) that he was leaving town would create some twinge of panic.
What a f-ing moron.

His parents called me looking for him, fearing the worst I'm sure.  And he seems as usual completely oblivious. 
One positive note, he said that he hasn't had a drink for a few months.   That's a step in the right direction for sure.

Still, pretty unbelievable, all in all.

So, I just bought a Baretta 686 White Onyx 
Expensive hobby number 3, in the bag...

ExpensiveHobby1 = Motorcycles
ExpensiveHobby2 = Golf

I guess we'll see how this goes.  Hopefully I'll at least shoot something that is worth eating come winter time...  and break a few clays in the meantime.

From  the top of a box of shotgun shells...

"WARNING - KEEP OUT of reach of children and incompetent people"

That just tickled the heck outta me!

Have had some strange dreams here on vacation...
Mostly about the markets.

Had a dream about arbitrage in the S&P futures.  Like having them trade below intrinsic value intraday...  very odd.
Some other market realted dream fragments.  Nothing coherent enough to write down.

It wasn't pretty, but I got it done.
3:22
http://www.totalracesolutions.com/2008/Mar/seasidehalfage.html

Not sure if I've got a full marathon in me or not. 

"jesus is coming, bitch.  better look busy."

I heard the best hiphop lyric in quite some time, on album 88 this afternoon.

"You couldn't hold me back if you was a Jamaican chiropractor"

hillarious.

Perfect score....


Prof Gilzot: Are you ready to take the "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?" Test?
glyphard: yes
Prof Gilzot: Here we go and good luck glyphard!!!
...
Prof Gilzot: Not bad glyphard you answered 28 of the questions correctly.

It's nice to not feel burnt out about writing software.  I was really worried that I'd completely lost interest in it.

The other day I finally had enough of the spam in my blind forward box, and decided to do something about it. 
It's a little klunky, but it works pretty well.  Doesn't respect the "no news is good gnus" principle, in that it's a bit chatty on stdout, but hey it works.  It runs every five minutes in a cron job.  Plus it got me back into java again.  I'm looking forward to writing some fun apps next year.

It's nice to work on software again, and actually be genuinely interested in it.

As grad school draws to a close, this last project based on the model in this paper is really really giving me a hard time:
http://129.3.20.41/eps/fin/papers/0501/0501011.pdf

what a f-ing drag!

trading ands presidents...

It cracks me up to watch the ticker on an index go down the instant the president gets on CNBC...

Then it jumps up right after he gets off the air.

we're back from mexico.   a sad existential realization....  vacation does not actually solve any of the problems that you leave behind when you go on vacation.

However, it does give you some much needed perspective.  That counts for a lot.


We did in fact have a blast.  Got in early on friday, since we got lucky and made an earlier flight in guadalajarra.
Checked in on friday and didn't leave the property until monday morning to leave for the airport.

Drank by the pool all day saturday and sunday.  In fact we skipped breakfast on sunday and beat the waiters to the pool.  Got lawnchairs with great views.  Mild sunburns all around... just enough to look healthy on return.

9 weeks left in the semester and counting.

werd.

Cat and I are headed out for a long weekend in Mexico.

we're staying at a Marriot in Puerto Vallarta. 

Hopefully it's nicer than the Residence Inn in Cleveland, the last marriot property I stayed in.

I ran the 5k  @ the East Atlanta Strut this morning.  It was pretty fun.  I actually came up 5 bucks short on my entry fee.  They still let me race.  That was nice of them.  If they have a charity, I'll donate the other 5 bucks to it.  I finished the 5k in 38:55.  Not that great, but better than sleeping in, I suppose.  The first place finisher did it in something like 19 minutes....  Basically twice as fast.  But if you take weight divided by time, and rank on that, I'm sure I would finish somewhere closer to the top.  Too bad that's an irrelevant statistic.  :-(

It was super fun though.  3 miles is the distance that I run 3 times a week, so it wasn't a big deal.  The terrain and the air made it more difficult, hence the slower time.  I can normally do that distance in 33 minutes.  But when you run on a flat surface all the time, even the slightest hill will crush you.

I had to walk twice during the race, which isn't so great, but I did make a determination to run up each and every hill.  Which i came through on.  With as heavy as I am I just can't take the jarring on pavement from running downhill.  It always feels good to breeze by people going up hill when they had to stop running because of the incline.

Anyways, time to take my runner's high and go help a client diagnose a software issue.


werd.

remember when I wrote this application 5 or 6 years ago, back in the vinctura fulton cotton mill loft days?
Fucking Classic!

http://www.telespoof.com/

Market Risk Remains To The Downside

When have you ever heard the phrase:  "Market Risk Remains to the UPSIDE"?

Like that is supposed to be news.  Financial journalism is hillarious.

I had the strangest dream early this morning...

I dreamed that I was going to some small gym, and for some reason I had to take Indie(the cat) with me.  I had him in this black cloth bag.  And for the most part he was just chillin.  But when I got in there he started wriggling around and trying to get out.  I woke up right as the gym monitor person came over to give me a hard time about having a cat in a gym. 

Very strange.

Also, this is funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAA28sfKmiY

Market volatility today.  Helps add some premium in the option chain.  Bad day if you're owned mutual funds I guess. 

In other news,  meow214  made the most awesome rotini pesto last night...  from the basil plant that mom bought at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago.  I think it had miracle grow on it or something because it started as this little tiny plant and is now a hulking behemoth of basilness that dominates the back porch.  Well, not really, but it is surprisingly large.  We mixed in some canned tuna at the end, and it was super delicious.  Really blew me away.  I added a little vinaigrette(rice wine vinegar) at the table and it was f-ing awesome!  The salad was good too...

Mostly finished the stepstool that I was initially planning on giving meow214 for xmas.  Just in time for her birthday.  I think i'll put a coat of paste wax on it before I deliver it to her.  Need to pick up a card, and think of one more thing to get for her.  Racking my brain, but all I come up with is a trip to vegas, and I can't really swing that right now  :-(.

pretty interesting technology that microsoft bought...

also new buzzword that cracked me up:

metaverse 

I guess I should read more sci-fi books.