Tony K's Blog

We did it. We bought a Windows computer. It hurts real bad. We needed a PC that could run Microsoft Project, and I didn't want to go through the Virtual PC rigamarole on a Mac. It hurts.

Now the Cubs are all alone in the Major League Baseball futility standings. It's sad. I wish they would have won before my Mom died. She was a diehard Cubs fan. Team Last WS Win Cubs 1908 Indians 1948 Giants 1954 Rangers ---- Est. 1961 (Washington Senators) Astros ---- Est. 1962 Padres ---- Est. 1969 Expos/Nationals ---- Est. 1969 Brewers ---- Est. 1969 (as the Seattle Pilots) Mariners ---- Est. 1977 Pirates 1979 Phillies 1980 Cardinals 1982 Orioles 1983 Tigers 1984 Royals 1985 Mets 1986 Twins 1987 Dodgers 1988 A's 1989 Reds 1990 Blue Jays 1993 Rockies ---- Est. 1993 Braves 1995 Devil Rays ---- Est. 1998 Yankees 2000 Diamondbacks 2001 Angels 2002 Marlins 2003 Red Sox 2004 White Sox 2005

Woo hoo. They did it. White Sox win the World Series. First the Red Sox, now the White Sox. All we need now is the Cubs and we will have definitive proof that Hell has, in fact, frozen over.

Having grown up in Chicago, I am a long time victim of Chicago sports. Oh sure, there were a few bright spots (Jordan and the Bulls, Walter Payton and the Bears), but the record of futility may be unmatched. I have just watched the second world series game in 2005. The Chicago White Sox are now ahead 2 games to 0 and I am cautiously optimisitic that maybe, just maybe, the White Sox might have a chance of winning three world series games before once again breaking my heart. We'll see. World Series Tickets $185; Cub Fans At Home In October: Priceless I have been pondering something. In Chicago, you are either a Cubs fan or a White Sox fan. There is no middle ground. I know that most cities with more than one team are this way as well, but I think that Chicago it is a little more polarized than most places. Why is that? If anyone out there has insight on that I would like to hear from you. In my family, my mother was a diehard Cubs fan. I'm not sure why I became a White Sox fan th...

My name is Tony and I'm a planner. There I said it. Six years ago I was describing the work I was doing to someone and he said, "Oh, you're a planner." I was shocked to be called such a name. Today I am out of the closet. I am not a planner though in the mold that most organizations think of planners. In many places, planning is a combination of very mechanical rollups and dysfuctional negotiations; collect sandbagged data, add it all together, twist arms until people go back to what they were willing to live with, repeat yearly. This type of planning adds little if any value, but is very common. In many places, even the adding up of the data is extremely painful. We used to use Excel for adding up all our data. I have no problem with Excel, when used as designed. Once you start to treat it as a database, all kinds of bad things can happen. First, Excel has capacity limitations. The tool I had built in Excel had to contain 500 assets, 20 to 50 years looking forward of...

Castro made a very eloquent, apparently sincere, almost certainly politically motivated offer to help by sending 1,100 doctors to help in New Orleans. Our official response was to ignore him. How many people have died and will die because of this tacit refusal of aid? What if Bush had made a positive response? How might it have gone? "My fellow Americans. America and Cuba has an intertwined history going back hundreds of years. That came to an abrupt end in the late 1950s when Fidel Castro led a communist revolution in that country. Since the early 60s, the US has observed a trade and travel embargo with Cuba. "In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Cuba has made a historic offer of assistance to the United States.They have offered the services of 1100 physicians to assist in saving the lives of the desperate people of New Orleans. I know that there will be people who disagree with this decision, especially in Florida, where many former residents of Cuba still reside. This decisio...

I had heard that Cuba had offered help in the wake of hurricane katrina. I had no idea how eloquent Castro was. From Andrew Tobias' Website: TWO QUESTIONS FOR YOU Read the passage below. 1. Do you think the U.S. news media should have more widely reported this offer? 2. Do you think our government was wise to ignore it? If so, why? If not, why not? “Discuss.” Castro, addressing 1,586 doctors assembled to offer assistance to victims of Katrina. Havana Convention Center, September 4, 2005 Hardly 48 hours ago I . . . once again explicitly offered the United States to send a medical force with the necessary means to offer emergency assistance to the tens of thousands of Americans trapped in the flooded areas and the ruins Katrina left behind after lashing Louisiana and other southern states. It was clear to us that those who faced the greatest danger were these huge numbers of poor, desperate people, many elderly citizens with health situations, pregnant women, mothers and children ...

In all the debate around evolution and intelligent design, one thing has been lost--does it really matter what is taught? Evolution is a fact; intelligent design is poorly supported opinion. That's my bias on this. Darwinians can't necessarily give evidence-supported explanations of all the complexity of life. This doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Put all that aside though. Who cares? Geologists care. Evolutionary biologists care. From the standpoint of most science and engineering though, it doesn't matter at all. Solid state physicists don't care about evolution or the age of the earth; they care only about how semi conducting materials respond to electrical current. Software engineers don't care. Even doctors don't really care. What happened a million years ago on earth, and whether humans and apes have a common ancestor has zero impact on most people's daily lives. We do know that evolution happens at some scale. It is the reason bacteria beco...

I have Music in my life again. I don't mean that metaphorically, I mean it literally. With the advent of the iPod, iTunes, and MP3s, I have started listening to and appreciating music again. I have digitized my entire CD collection and downloaded a lot of songs from iTunes. now I have all my songs in one place and backed up. I bought an Airport Express to allow me to play directly from my computer to the stereo, so now I have instant access to my music through my stereo. This is all too cool. The other thing I did was buy an electric bass. I have always wanted to play, but somewhere stuck in my head was the idea that they did not make left-handed bass guitars. So I didn't do it. Then one day, I actually saw one in an instrument store. It was a revelation. I bought one and have started lessons from a CD. Unfortunately, my computer chewed up my CD, so I am going to have to get a new copy, but wow!! Rock is my life.

What Kind of American English Do You Speak? Your Linguistic Profile: 70% General American English 15% Yankee 5% Midwestern 5% Upper Midwestern 0% Dixie Kind of fun. No surprise here though.

OK. I'm not as young as I used to be. And I'm a little bit overweight... Actually, overfat. You see, the normal standards of weight vs height as expressed by the Body Mass Index are a bit flawed. I'm not tring to make excuses or anything, but focusing on weight alone can be counterproductive. The medical community has used the weight of average people in computing the range of acceptable BMIs, but it doesn't account for people outside of the norm. For example, Walter Payton, one of the greatest running backs ever to play football was 5'10" and weighed about 210 lbs. That gave him a BMI of 30.2--obese. He was not obese. He probably had about 10% body fat. That is why BMI has problems. It is used as a proxy for body fat percentage. The fact is though that today you can get a scale for under $100 that measures your body fat directly. So if you are an athlete or are somehow outside the norm, you can see your real progress. Which brings me to the topic of this note,...

The title says it all. What the heck is that about? You see it a lot in third world countries and bars in the first world. Do people really think that mothballs can take the place of the urinal "breath mints"?

I'm sitting in the first class lounge in Lagos, Nigeria, chilling out before flying home after a three week trip. I'm sitting with a German and a Canadian, and we were talking about kids' college education. It occurred to me that in the US we do not have any kind of coherent philosophy about education. Let me explain. The system in the UK is based on merit. If you are smart and get good grades, you will have the opportunity to go to a first class university. The phosophy is that the people with the best chance of achievement, the best chance to really add value to society, will get the best training. That training is almost free to the student and is returned many times by their achievements. In the US there is a loose meritocracy, but it is also blended with a plutocracy. So many of the smartest people go to the best schools, but at the same time a significant number of people cannot afford the best schools--or even the average ones. There is a philosophy, but...

I am a divorced father and a stepfather. Recently I have done some soul searching around the issue of parenthood vs. step-parenthood and how and when it is appropriate for which parent to provide discipline. I caught my son downloading some pornography on the internet. He's 16 years old. In my book this is not a horrible crime, nor can it be ignored. It was near the end of his week visiting, so I did not make a big stink about it. I did take away his computer privileges for the remainder of his stay (about a day). I called his mom, who lives across the country, and told her what had happened. She is going to do something to punish him. I don't know what exactly. Now, what would I have done if it had been my stepson who lives with us? I think something similar. He has gotten in trouble for computer use and we have taken away his privileges. I had to really think through the issues on this and make sure I was being fair, consistent, and acting in the kids' best inter...