Wednesday, June 27, 2007

It's the little things that make me smile

Came into the office this morning, walked by my mailbox and found a bright red interoffice envelope with my name on it.  Opened it up to find a copy of the draft final report for a project I was deeply invested in before I left to go to grad school with a welcome back note from the PD.  "That's nice," I thought to myself.  Then I looked closer.  My name was on the front cover!  I was given credit for the work I did!!  And I'm not even a real employee anymore!!!



It is kind of an unwritten rule at my company that you don't get front cover credit unless you are a senior person on the contract or you've written large sections of the report.  While I did do an awful lot of work on this project, I have done more work on other final reports without getting cover credit.  Not something that matters a lot in any measurable way, but it put a smile on my face this morning and that is enough.  Thanks, Peter!



You can take the girl out of CNY, but you can't take the CNY out of the girl

I came across this article in my google reader this morning...  I'm certainly no Republican, but I'm not surprised by Gov. Spitzer's lack of attention to the economic problems of upstate NY (which have been a problem since at least the time when I first moved there 26 (wow I'm old) years ago).  Most of upstate is pretty rural and the existing cities resemble rust belt cities more than resort towns.  It's a great place to live...if you can find a steady job with decent pay. (and BTW for all you downstaters, by upstate, I don't mean Rye...)



I have never been a fan of ex-Gov. Pataki, but at least he understood that downstate politicians need to keep upstaters happy in order to win re-election.  This article is a great example of why I am fed up with the two party system - it's become problematic even on a state/local level.  A whole article with two politicians spending all of their time blaming the other for getting nothing done while real problems that aren't nearly as difficult to address as say, the energy crisis or world peace, go ignored.  Or worse, used as a political posturing tool.  [LOUD SIGH]



Monday, June 25, 2007

"Comfort me with apples for I am sick with love."

A few days ago I saw something that surprised me. Paul McCartney in an ipod commercial.  For those of you not up on your Apple (Computer) or Apple (Corps/Records) history, way back in the day when Apple Computers first started getting big, Apple Records, the Beatles' music company, sued them because they had the same name.  The dispute was settled with the compromise stipulating that Apple Computers would never be involved in anything music-related (Apple (computer) fans probably already know that the sound sosumi came out of this dispute).  Years passed and Steve Jobs came up with the ipod which promptly caused the two Apples to go to court yet again.  In 2006, a court ruled in favor of Apple Computer and in 2007 the two Apples reached a settlement (yet again).  Hope sprang eternal among Beatles fans everywhere that the Beatles catalog would appear on itunes.  The more skeptical among us wondered if there would ever really be an Apple/Apple partnership given the years of bad blood.  The ad with McCartney is a good sign that there is hope, I guess.



(This also might be the first and last time you see a post from me entitled with a quote from the Bible.  A shiny nickel to whomever knows that verse without googling it.)



Supreme Court Weakens Campaign Finance Laws

The Supreme Court struck down part of McCain-Feingold todaySCOTUS blog has a few insightful analyses (as always...for those interested in such things, I recommend subscribing to this blog with your feed reader).  At first blush, I am not sure how I feel about this ruling, but then again, I have always had mixed feelings on campaign finance regulation.  The libertarian side of me says regulation is inherently bad, but the practical side of me sees the utility of it.  Thoughts from the peanut gallery are encouraged...  If nothing else, this probably means that we will be deluged with swiftboat-esque ads in 2008...especially if you live in a battleground state.



This also reminds me of why political science is so exciting to research...things are constantly changing which means we will never run out of interesting research topics.  Of course, we also have the problem of measurement more than a lot of other social sciences.  How do you measure power exactly?  You could make a career out of that topic and never come up with a good answer.



Wednesday, June 20, 2007

The Best Thing About Having Friends Marry in Their 30's

They have exciting weddings and even better...bachelorette parties in Las Vegas.  Looks like I'll be headed to Vegas right before school starts to help one of my college buddies/sorority sisters celebrate her impending wedding.  Haven't seen her in awhile since she moved back to CA, so I'm very excited <insert gigantic grin here>.



Saturday, June 16, 2007

Q: How is it that you lose money with AdAc2d...

in Tahoe H/L when you have been raising the shit out of it preflop and the flop comes out 8d6d5c?



A: When your diamonds don't come out even though no one has any in their hands, but an A comes out on the turn even though you have two of them and you are up against the case As with the 2s and someone who thought it would be a good idea to call a bunch of preflop raises with 74x off suit.  WTF is that, like the perfect storm of Tahoe? 



Yeah, I know - boo hoo.



Friday, June 8, 2007

Time to go to the Bookstore!

Since for the past four years I have been in school, most reading for fun has been put off.  By the time I read everything for school (both required and not) I am usually pretty burnt on reading and use my breaks to do other things like playing video games.  The only free reading I have really done in the past year is cookbooks (which do not count) and poker books (more like self-help books for me, and therefore also do not count LOL).  As a result, I haven't spent that much money on "fun" books the past few years.  I have a whole shelf in my home office dedicated to books I have not yet read and I promised myself I wouldn't buy any more until I made a serious dent in it.



At work this week I've been on site and got permission to bring a book to read during the downtimes since I don't have computer access.  Wednesday I polished off this one - all 400 pages of it in 6 hours; yesterday I finished this one and part of this one.  I'm going to be on site for another week and suddenly it seems like I might empty that shelf which has been growing over the past 4 years. 



When I was younger, I loved to read.  Most of the year I was a library regular, but I looked forward every summer to the trip to the bookstore.  My mom would let me and my sister pick out a few books to buy for our summer vacation and those trips to the bookstore were a big highlight of summer.  I have found the libraries around here to be lacking in selection, but still don't make it to the bookstore that often, except the campus bookstore.  I'm looking forward to making a trip to pick out some books for the boat trip this summer!



And yes, in case you didn't notice, I am a nerd.



Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Galfond Dollars

I think I definitely earned my fair share of Sklansky dollars over the past few days.  Too bad I can't use them to buy the right-hand ring I've had my eye on. 



While I was checking Bluff to get leader boards for the WSOP pool I entered, I saw a link to this post.  It's kinda long and a little math-y, but a good read for sure. 



This article also reminded me that I need to watch one of my favorite movies again soon to hear Doyle Lonnegan say: "D' y' falla?"  If the preceeding sentence does not make sense to you, just ignore while musing to yourself how strange I am.  ;)  I can't ever read anything with the phrase "Do you follow?" without hearing Doyle's voice in my head.



Sunday, June 3, 2007

Foxwoods still the same...

I'm at my parent's house for the weekend and I decided this morning it would be a good idea to go to the free money store (aka Foxwoods) since I had 3 hours free.



It is still the free money store; in the first 2 hours and 59 minutes I was there I made $200 over my initial $200 buy in.



Then literally the last hand I was going to play, I get dealt JcJh. I'm under the gun and make it $10 to go. Fold, fold, fold until it gets to the stereotypical Foxwoods donkey at our table. The stereotypical Foxwoods donkye is really something amazing. There seems to always be at least one at every table and you can always spot them in the first 5 seconds at the table because they call you sweetie when you sit down and they are usually also wearing a Boston Red Sox hat. I swear they all must read the same book too because they play AK like it's the nuts and they will try to bluff the girl by putting at least 50% of their stack in there with A high, wheel kicker.



Stereotypical Foxwoods donkey (SFD) reraises to $40 total. Fold, fold, fold. He either has A high or AK, I would bet my whole stack on it. I reraise $100 total. SFD says "She must have a big pair, but she can't improve and I can. I call." OK, he must have AK suited.



Flop is QcJs4h. Perfect... Although he may call with a gutshot if I push... He bets $100. I move all in... I'm thinking this is either going to be a good last hand or a bad last hand....



He calls all in for $4 less with his gutshot, puts on his running shoes, and runner runner flushes me when the 2c3c come out.



I take my $4 and go home sad that I don't have time to rebuy because I know I could get my money back.