Well Said, Mr. Friedman…

Great quote by Thomas Friedman this morning:

In sum, government’s job is to police that fine line between the necessary risk-taking that drives an innovation economy and crazy gambling with other people’s savings in ways that threaten us all. We need to make sure that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas — and doesn’t come to Main Street. We need to get back to investing in our future and not just betting on it.

Another Year Gone…

If I had to sum up 2007 in one word, it would be “eventful”. A ton happened between January 1st and December 31st. There were moments of joy, of triumph, of sorrow, and of bitter disappointment. Looking back, I would say the good outweighed the bad, though by the narrowest of margins.

First, a look at the “bad” side of 2007:

• Suffering through a miscarriage around the middle of the year.
• Failing to win pitch after pitch at work, and then losing our biggest client, resulting in a mass layoff just before the holiday season.
• Driving through Arkansas. Twice.

Now, onto the “good”:

• Pregnancy. After the grief of a miscarriage, the wife is now on the cusp of her third trimester, and Baby Nolan is doing well. The prospect of fatherhood still scares the bejesus out of me, but in a good way.
• Finishing the first draft of the novel. After toiling for three and a half years, I finished the first draft of my novel toward the end of March. I can’t begin to describe the sense of accomplishment.
• Two fantastic vacations, one to Colorado Springs and the other to Asheville, North Carolina.

I don’t claim to know what 2008 has in store (and if I did, I’d be buying stock left and right), but with a baby on the way and work continuing on the book, I’m pretty sure it will be every bit as “eventful” as 2007.

Matt McDougall – Visionary Philosopher

So, according to an online IQ test, I’m some sort of genius.

What’s more, according to the site (Tickle.com):

Your Intellectual Type is Visionary Philosopher. This means you are highly intelligent and have a powerful mix of skills and insight that can be applied in a variety of different ways. Like Plato, your exceptional math and verbal skills make you very adept at explaining things to others — and at anticipating and predicting patterns.

Sweet.  I’m a visionary philosopher.  That is so going on my business card.

"Hi, I’m Matt McDougall – Visionary Philosopher."

For everyone’s edification, an IQ chart, also found online:

An Update on Life, the Universe, and Everything

Things have been so hectic the past couple of days that I haven’t even had the time to make a proper post, so now that I have a few minutes, I figure I may as well make use of them to bring everybody up to date.  So here goes…

The Current House
We are set to close next week.  Of course, before then, we have to replace the roof and garage door, as well as repaint the front of the house.  Thank you, hail.  With everything else going on, the rush on this front has been particularly annoying.  Thankfully, several of the critical balls have been set rolling.  Hopefully the need for substantial effort has passed.

The New House
In the past week there’s been more brickwork.  We’ve also had the plumbing fixtures installed and now have running water.  The patio’s been poured.  In short things are coming along nicely, if not as quick as we’d like.  We’re set to close on May 27th, but there’s a chance we might be able to get that moved up to May 20th.  Cross your fingers.

Work
SBC is buying AT&T.  That has pretty much defined my job for the last three months.

Vehicles
Jamie gets her Pilot looked at by the insurance adjuster on Monday.  After that, we’re going to have to deal with getting it fixed before we can try for the Mustang.  At least there’s a rental car allowance.

I only wish things were so cut and dry with the Defender.  I’ve been trying to sell it now for six months.  With everything else going on, my patience has finally worn thin.  On Wednesday, I put it up on eBay.  Hopefully it will have moved by this time next week.  I’ll miss it, by I sure won’t miss trying to sell it.  Selling a vehicle has easily been one of the most frustrating, annoying processes I have ever been through. 

Writing
One of the few things that has been going well.  Chapter XIII is at twenty-one pages, and, as of five minutes ago, section five is done.  Three left.

It may sound strange, but I actually find obsessing over events that took place 2,200 years ago stress relieving.

Dogs
Ah, the big news.  Tomorrow, we’re heading out to the hill country to pick up our puppies.  That’s right.  Puppies.  Not a puppy.  Puppies.  Two of them.

For those who are wincing, we’ve given this a lot of thought, and are satisfied with our course of action.

For those who want to know if we’ve settled upon names, we have.  Maggie and Millie.

Maggie is the one on the right, Millie is on the left.

Great Deal on USB Flash Drives

Crucial Memory is selling is Gizmo USB drive (USB 2.0, 256 MB memory) for an astounding low price of $27.99.  If you don’t have a USB flash drive yet, I highly recommend picking one up.  And if you do, get a spare to act as a backup-backup.

Hard to believe I spend $80 on a USB 1.1 device with 128 megs of memory back in November 2003…

Magna Nox Somni

I’ve been plagued by terrible sleep lately.  Morning have been arriving too fast, and I’ve been stumbling out of bed sore and groggy.  When work went all crazy this week, I was even waking up with some pretty bad back pain.  Basically, waking up as sucked.

Today, though, I woke up feeling better than I have in some time.  I literally sprang out of bed, and ten minutes before my alarm clock went off. 

I’ve been trying to figure out why.  I didn’t go to bed particularly early or anything.  The only thing I can come up with to explain my rejuvenated self was that I slept with a pillow between my knees last night.  Must have relieved some spinal stress.

Whatever the case, I’m reminded of the John Wesley Harding song "I Just Woke Up":

I just woke up…
And I feel so good…
And I’m looking straight ahead…
My thoughts are wild…
All I do is smile…
And I’m jumping out of bed…

Quote of the Week, Part 2

"Timeline?  Time isn’t made out of lines!  Time is made out of circles!  That’s why clocks are round."

- Private Caboose, from Red vs. Blue, Episode 53 (see link in previous post)

Concentration

There’s a lot being bandied about these days regarding ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER.  Heck, there’s been a lot being bandied around about it for years.

I know for a fact that I do not have ADD.  If anything, I have the opposite.  Instead of getting distracted easily, I have some uncanny ability to focus on one task to the exclusion of all else.  This served me poorly in my days working in account service (well, that and an inability to schmooze), but has been a great asset in my current research and analysis role.  Oh, and it helps in writing, too.

Since everybody has a condition these days, I figure I’m going to invent my own.  Oh, sure, I could just call myself focused, but that’s not good enough.  I need a label.  So here goes…

I have…ATTENTION ABUNDANCE DISORDER.  AAD.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

It’s Alive! (Again!)

For some inexplicable reason, our DSL has been down since Sunday.  And now, for an equally inexplicable reason, it is working again.

Blogger Mark brought up the definition of insanity not to long ago as "doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different outcome".

So what happens when you do the same thing over and over again and GET a different outcome?  Because that is precisely what happened with the modem and the wireless router.

Anyway, posts have been infrequent.  I apologize.  I need to tell my interesting story from the other night and why I will never go to Borders (yes, the bookstore) again.  Keep an eye out for it.

Hail Mary

This evening I was given the enviable task of bathing the dogs.  By the time I was done, I was tired, hot, and wet.  Deciding I needed to treat myself, I determined to head out for a caffeine-free Diet Coke. 

Good thing I did, too.  As I was checking out at the nearby gas station, I noticed the rain start to come down.  Then, as I turned the Xterra on, the first pieces of hail started to fall.  They didn’t seem like much, but just to be safe, I backed up to one of the pumps and under the protection of the gas station roof-thing.

BAM!, as Emeril says.  No sooner did I put the Xterra in park than the skies opened up.  The hail, which was about gumball-sized, came down hard.  I’ve been through hail before, but never like this.  I could not see the gas station.  I could not hear my stereo.  It goes without saying that my little hiding spot was soon occupied by about twenty cars.

After things let up I got home.  Our yard looks like somebody had spilled ice cubes all over it.  Our realtor’s yard sign – wasted.  Our garage door – looks like someone took a ball-pien hammer to it.  The wife’s Pilot?  Substantial hail damage to the roof and hood.  I’ve taken pictures of the evidence – you can check them out on my Flickr page (see right).

We were actually pretty fortunate.  The house and the Pilot are both insured against hail damage.  The Xterra got away clean, and the Defender, which only has liability coverage, passed the frozen precipitation assault in the safety of the garage.

Still…goodness.  This was like the hail that you always see on the news.  The kind that always used to hit Wise County when I was growing up in Dallas.  The kind that always catches Elgin and Dripping Springs now that I live in Austin…

Suffice to say, we are now looking forward to our new house, and our new, wide-open garage, more than ever.