InnerTeub

(subtitle to this post: “God, I will do anything to procrastinate, won’t I?”)

I remember this argument when the year 2001 came around: people arguing that it was the real start of the decade, not the 1999-2000 flip over moment etc. etc. (This argument was awesomely portrayed in the West Wing: when one character commented that the demarcation point between the old millennium and the new millennium was a “largely unresolvable issue,”  Toby replies: “Tough to resolve, yes;  you have to look at a calendar.” ANYWAY )

I love me some good semantic arguments, and I also love winning them. So, to that end, I feel compelled to share with you Linda’s slam dunk statement of fact regarding this:

The period from 2000-2009 is a decade. A decade is a period of ten years. If I said, “the 201st decade of the Gregorian Calendar,” then we could get into a charmingly nerdy argument about how there was no Year Zero, so the first decade went from 1 to 10, and the second decade went from 11 to 20, and so on and so forth, so the 201st decade would go from 2001 to 2010. A decade, however, is any period of ten years — ask the dictionary — and the decade to which we refer at this point is the ten-year period from 2000 to 2009. I know you will e-mail me anyway. You know who you are. But consider this your warning that it will change nothing.

This entire post should be footnoted with the fact that you really need to add the above link from Linda into your Google Reader. With the exception of the snippet I excerpted, the article linked to is not it’s best moment, but trust me, the NPR’s  “Monkey See” blog is an awesome daily read for all things TV/Movie/Book related.

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Here is my one sentence review of the latest Dan Brown* book:

I’ve dated men like this book: A decent enough way to kill time when lacking other options, but that doesn’t mean I’m glad that I did.

*The Boss and I have both now read this book, and we STILL can’t remember the name of it. Possibly because there is not a lot in there that is memorable. See above re ‘people I’ve dated’

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I love the movie “Christmas Vacation.” The Boss and I frequently discuss whether or not we’re trending more Todd and Margo or Griswold, and honestly I’m not sure how it’s going to end up, but I’m sure our neighbors roll their eyes mightily when we spandex up and head out for our weekend bike rides.

Ahem. Anyway.

Having just returned from what ended up being a logistically epic Thanksgiving, I am thrilled to be settled in tonight with an AMC showing of Christmas Vacation. I just spent the past week with my family (which included about 20 people when all were added up), my in laws and my other in laws (my step-daughter’s mother and her husband) (to be fair, we only saw them for an afternoon, but it was great to catch up) (I’m not saying that sarcastically, we all really get along) (that’s another blog post).

ANYWAY. I think this is my long way of saying, this Thanksgiving, I find myself thankful for my family, both ones of origin and of choice, and the perspective they give me in all things… even if it’s just a newfound appreciation of an classic Christmas story.

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I have a theory that if you can personally relate to a Stevie Nicks song, you are in a Bad, Bad Place. I mean, really: it’s like Stevie sat down one day and said “Gee, I think I’ll chronicle all the different ways life can tear open your soul and rip you to shreds.” I really think that when you start thinking to yourself “Man, she speaks the truth” it’s way past time for a massage, a happy hour, and a vacation.

(Note: this rule also works for Adam Duritz.)

Anyway, this popped into my mind this weekend while I was watching the season finale of Mad Men, right at the part when Don Draper had a nice little hissy fit:

I am sick of being batted around like a ping pong ball. Who the hell is in charge here? A bunch of accountants trying turn a dollar into a dollar ten? I want to WORK.

And you know, I’m a little concerned about feeling at one with Don Draper, but it’s like, GOD, YES.

I’ve been struggling a little bit at work lately; my company was acquired by a bigger company in May, and subsequently my job and responsibilities have changed drastically. It’s taken about six months for the dust to settle, I’m still feeling a bit tossed and turned and am trying to figure out how to right my career again.

I feel like I’ve been taking a six month nap, waiting to figure out how we all fit – from the top leadership down – into our new company and new roles and I just really seriously miss having a concrete goal and pushing towards that, understanding how what I do matters to the overall purpose. I show up every day, I feel like I provide value, but it’s very one-off and very reactive, and I’m so, so tired.

When caught in moments like this – where I feel lost and devoid of purpose – I try to read things written by people smarter than me (it’s a large sample size, btw) looking for inspiration and perspective. I read these two today that I really liked:

• “Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the words ‘impossible’, ‘never’, ‘too difficult’ too often, drop him or her from your social network.” (Quote here)
• “Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them.” (Ibid)

I like these quotes, and they’re nice reminders of professional qualities I’d like to have. A good thing to remember when getting caught in the day to day stresses.

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I attended an industry conference last week, and one speaker made a point to emphasis his ongoing personal “Required Reading” list. On his list he had a slew of great books – some recent, some classic – that he considered necessary to read in order to maintain personal career growth.

Now, the military is pretty good about this concept; for every rank and responsibility there is an agreed upon list of books that at relevant and should be read. This concept gets less play in the commercial sector, however, and frankly, it’s too bad. There is a lot to be said for maintaining and increasing knowledge about your field, and continuing personal development.

When setting up a reading list, however, I think people tend to neglect the online resources at their disposal; this takes less time commitment than a book, with more frequent updates of ideas to get you thinking. In addition to the books I have on my list to read for this year, I also have a Google Reader account set up for daily (or at least weekly) reading of blog and/or online sources of relevant information. So far a few of my favorites are:

Chris Dixon: His blog focuses mainly on advice for startup companies, but he has great insight into industry and personal career growth as well. I have distributed several of his articles to people I mentor, and personally really like his take on how he sees his industry. Now, his industry and mine are quite different, but I think some of the ideas he has and lessons he offers are universally interesting. Definitely check him out.

Department of Navy CIO Blog: The only government CIO to maintain a blog, Rob Carey provides great insight into how to maintain both innovation and mission directive while working within the Pentagon. Most importantly, he’s opening up conversation across rank barriers in a way that doesn’t happen much in government. Would love to see more thought leadership like this from his peer group.

DoD Energy Blog: Not as robust with insights as some of the others, but a great resource to see a consolidation of what is going on in the DoD Energy world.

Joel on Software: Like Chris Dixon, Joel has a great take on his industry and spends a lot of time thinking about what his customer wants, and how to provide – a thought process that is interesting regardless of your industry.

TechCrunch: TechCrunch is an onslaught of information, but it’s short, to the point, and a good way to quickly scan what is going on.

Revolutions: “News about R, statistics and the world of open source from the staff of REvolution Computing.” Having worked in the Statistics Computing field, I find this blog interesting and I find it makes me slightly nostalgic, but also it’s a great way to continue to think about the ways statistics permeates my life and job… and how to use different models of open source software.

So, that’s me. What’ve you got on your list?

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This is a new type of keeping up with the Joneses, for me, a way that goes beyond cars, and houses and who has the newest toy. So dangerous to want things because others have them, so dangerous to not be happy with what you do have; it scares me, this feeling. I’m caught off guard by my level of sadness, my longing, when all I expected was joy and excitement, happiness for my friend as she tells us about her new baby, due to meet us all in May.

I haven’t felt like a little sister in quite awhile; it’s been years since I’ve felt left behind, watching the big kids run off with new and exciting life experiences while I wait my turn. I was finally feeling Old Enough, feeling caught up, content, settled. The Boss and I go about our daily lives, and it’s not a manufactured ‘Happy In Spite Of’… it’s a ‘Happy Because Of’, a purposeful way of living, of prioritizing, of wanting to be the family we are, and feeling earnestly lucky to be so. I feel as though I’ve been gut punched, not expecting this overwhelming sadness, this feeling of being left behind, of wanting to catch up, again, always the little sister, always just almost a part of the group, and as I feel this I think “How unfair” and I think “I know this is what I want, who we are, right now” and I’m angry at myself for forgetting that, for feeling this way.

But as I sit around the fire pit, holding my friend’s nine month old in my lap, baby head against my chest, gummy fingers in my hair, I hear my friends discussing Pregnancy and Second Babies and Day Care and Working While Mom-ing and just for a moment I feel my heart beat: I-Want I-Want.

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A common argument in my house: I think we have too few bookshelves, the Boss things we have too many books.

I love books. I love reading them, I love talking about them. I dog ear, underline, break the spine, read them again.  My favorite job I’ve ever had was working at Barnes and Noble, talking to people about books all day. When I’m in the middle of a good book, I’m almost incapable of participating in the world until I’ve finished reading it, and when I’m done I have a sad little moment, as if a good friend was visiting and has now left.

So I’ve been intrigued by devices like the Kindle and the Nook – the capability to download books with a click and carry as many as you like around with you? That sounds fairly awesome: How much easier would college have been if I could fit all my text books onto one device instead of lugging them all over campus? Much. How much easier would traveling be if I didn’t have to make room for books in my carry on? Much.

But I worry about the underlining, the dog earing, the loving of holding a physical book in my hand – would the experience be as satisfying on the screen? I don’t know, but I’m starting to come around on that thanks to a new post on Loo.Me:

What i think could happen with me is that my book purchasing starts to look like how many music lovers purchase vinyl.  These people consume music digitally, through mp3’s, but for bands they really love they like to have the physical product – thus they purchase the vinyl record.  I could see myself doing this with books.  I read them all digitally and for authors/books that i really like, I’ll actually pay a premium and buy the physical copy.

And there we go. Just like that, we’ve solved our bookshelf problem.

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God, it is so lonely running on winter mornings, up before the sun, fingers too cold to tie your shoes, your lungs catching on the chill, legs creaking in protest at moving through the cold, the early. I never feel more like a runner than I do on these mornings, shivering,  making deals with myself that would take me back inside, warm in my house with puppy and coffee and husband. I never usually let myself win these deals, I usually remind myself that if I can make it 10 minutes down the road I’ll be happy that I did and I won’t want to turn around, my legs will warm up and my breath will move freely and I’ll feel part of the world, no longer just me in the morning, getting to see the day begin the way only other runners do: sleepy, quiet, stirring. A secret part of the day that is just for me, for us, as we move through the cold morning, our cheeks red, our toes shivering.

Sharon Olds must have been a runner; her poem “Sex Without Love” (which is – obviously-  not about running but might as well be) captures so perfectly what it is like to run through these winter mornings.

like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health–just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

On those winter mornings, those first steps out of the house that require every ounce of cajoling and demanding and motivation that I have, I do feel like it is my body, alone with the universe, against my own best time. And that is what I love about running, when you get beyond the shoes and the watches and the music and the race schedule: it is just you, moving through the world, on your own. I love that part of the day, the intense me-ness of it all, a piece of my day that I get to have before I give my energy to work or to the house or to the many things that pull my focus, pull my time.

But I also love the part of the run when you catch another runner’s eye and nod, when the sun starts coming up and the morning isn’t dark around you anymore and the scenery begins to sharpen and focus and it’s not just you running through the dark but you running in the world, and then when I get to my doorstep and my dog is waiting to lick sweat off my face and I’m bubbling over with a run’s worth of thoughts to share with The Boss, and we’re figuring out our plan for the day, buzzing around, changing from run-uniform to work-uniform, and that’s when I know I’m more than just a single body alone in the universe, and I think to myself that God, yes, it IS so lonely running on winter mornings, but in this crowded and busy world, maybe being alone for a little bit with the road surface, the cold, the wind, isn’t such a bad thing after all.

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So, last week was one of those weeks where you find yourself sitting on the kitchen floor spoon feeding a 100lb dog while your ceiling drip drip drips water through a light fixture. In other words, you know: totally awesome.

To sum up: My 100lb dog now weighs 80lbs and after many, many MANY te$ts at the vet, it’s boiled down to: give him these drugs, hope for the best. So we’re hoping for the best, but meanwhile he’s not eating OR sleeping, which means WE’RE not sleeping, and while I appreciate that everyone is like “oooh, great practice for a newborn!”, my thought remains: “Does getting practice for the no sleep I will get with a newborn actually make that process suck less? I mean, REALLY? Because it seems to me right now I have a vague understanding of the suck that is coming, at no appreciable benefit to me, AND I still didn’t get any sleep last night.”

So. There is that. There is also the insult to injury of water leaking, home warranties that (apparently) only selectively cover stuff that breaks, and the fact that the only way I can get my dog to eat anything is if I put it on a spoon and hand it to him. Now if you can imagine what occurs when you try to spoon feed something that DOESN’T HAVE LIPS, while you literally have ceiling plaster falling around you, as a precursor to a night that included two loudly barking dogs bringing forth wrath of an otherwise soundly sleeping eight month old (not mine) (the 8 month old. And one of the dogs. Look, it was a weird day, Ok?) and multiple phone conversations with repair people who decided to tell you at 9pm (and not, say, 5pm, when you first called) that they only repair stuff during daylight, you will understand how I came to mainline scotch on the kitchen floor with the Boss.

Sick Puppy

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While procrastinating a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon an article from, REvolution Computing’s blog (they focus on the predicative stat computing package R):

Varian used R to fit seasonal autoregressive models to retail sales, automotive sales, home sales, and passenger arrival data, and in each case made better predictions by including Google Trends data as a predictor than without

Hello, what’s this? Real time trending data? Apparently:

From the Google:

Google Trends and Google Insights for Search provide a real time report on query volume, while economic data is typically released several days after the close of the month. Given this time lag, it is not implausible that Google queries in a category like “Automotive/Vehicle Shopping” during the first few weeks of March may help predict what actual March automotive sales will be like when the official data is released halfway through April.

Duuuude. This is so cool. In my last job I did a TON of market research and provided reports with trending data aligned to company goals, and the trending data we had was always SO OLD, but was accepted as standard because, really, what else could we use? Well, apparently there is a better way.

(This reminds me when we learned that TiVO stored all the data of what commercials people were fast forwarding through, which ones they would watch, and which ones they would watch again. That is a TON of consumer marketing data just begging to be analyzed. If I worked at an advertising/marketing/PR firm, I would be eating this stuff up!)

I hope this takes off and becomes standard. I’ve been playing around with R and Google ever since I read about this and am having a blast. If I was still teaching lab courses in statistical computing  to English majors (which I did throughout grad school), this would become an integral part of my lesson plan: “Look, ye English Majors! Stats IS useful!! No, really, Google says it is!”

As it is, I’ll just geek around with it and hope that I can use it the next time I’m asked to do trending reports on government spend something or other.

/geek

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