Weather Outside Is Frightful
It's really beginning to snow. Heavily. Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooohh it's beautiful.Vermont in snow -- perfect.
Saturday, December 06, 2003
Vermont in snow -- perfect.
About The Snow
I leave Boston yesterday where there was no snow. I arrive in Burlington, VT yesterday where there was no snow. Now Boston's getting pummelled with a big snowstorm. And this morning, I get up in Burlington and THERE'S NO SNOW. First time I've ever travelled NORTH to Vermont to avoid the snow.Meanwhile, just to give you the up-to-the-minute report. I'm here in Dean HQ again looking out the wnidow and YES, it's snowing finally. Mike O'Neil is here next to me, getting a mailing together. This place keeps on keeping on.
What's Up Doc?
Do you know how long I've resisted that headline ... I've known Doc a while now and I have been tempted SO many times to use it, but today's the day. Cause that's what Doc was doing with us last night, taking a tour of Dean Headquarters and everyone got a chance to say "What's Up, Doc!?"He was on Britt Blaser's super supped-up MAC with a video cam saying hi to all the folks here. I have to say though, Doc did seem a bit like one of those prisoners cosmonauts on the falling apart MIR space station.
Great to see you man, Britt and I say a big "Hi!"
Friday, December 05, 2003
Shhhhhhhhhhhh! Secret! At Dean HQ!
Secret cool stuff going on. No can tell. Secret sauce. Secret cool blogging happening. Shhhhhhhhhhhh! I'm undercover with my red santa hat on.
Hot Date With Howard, Rob And Joe
Talk about a hot date with three Alpha Males! Howard Dean, Rob Reiner and Joe Trippi all in the same room, all on the same night! Looks like they're booking my dance card on December 8th. But it's hush-hush so I better not talk about it. Of course, we love Howard and Rob ... but Joe's the Alpha Male heavy hitter of that group.
Stocking Stuffers For Girls Who Misbehave
There are a few paperbacks I want rolled up and tied with a big red ribbon and slipped into my Christmas stocking this year. For starters, and let's give credit where it's due, Betsy Devine told me to get this one. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation And The Gender Divide -- this one is a humdinger about how women don't get what they want NOT because men or anyone else is taking it away from them, but because they just don't ask. Wait, it's not a paperback, but hard cover. No problem, just wrapped it up and slip it under the tree.And then there's always. Why Good Girls Dont Get Ahead But Gutsy Girls Do. It's one of those books that give it to you in NINE steps. I love that kind of thing ... 18 Easy Lessons ... 10 Easy Steps ... 3 large easy-to-swallow pills ... 5 easy payments of $87 Billion Dollars.
and you can't do all books and no music, got to be sure to get this too: Christmas The Cowboy Way
Kwanzaa yenn iwe ha heri!
I'll bet you didn't know all this stuff about Kwanzaa. I know a lot of it was news to me. Hallmark Cards has the scoop on Kwanzaa here. It sounds fun. Maybe I better STOP Dreaming Of A White Christmas.More than 15 million people in various countries now celebrate the holiday, which begins on December 26 and ends on January 1. Kwanzaa is not a religious holiday, and though families and friends exchange gifts during Kwanzaa, it's not a substitute for Christmas. It is a time for people of African heritage to come together and celebrate the unique cultural identity and heritage that they share.
Each day of Kwanzaa is dedicated to celebrating one of the Nguzo Saba, or seven principles, which represent values and beliefs traditionally found in African cultures. These principles, which are all described using the African language Swahili, are:
Umoja (unity)
Kujichagulia (self-determination)
Ujima (collective work and responsibility)
Ujamaa (cooperative economics)
Nia (purpose)
Kuumba (creativity)
Imani (faith)
Kwanzaa begins on December 26 with the lighting of the first candle in the kinara, the special candleholder that holds seven candles. It continues for seven nights, and each night, more candles are lit. The candles are black, red and green — black for the people, red for their struggle, and green for their future and their hope. The kinara, along with six other important Kwanzaa symbols, is displayed on the Kwanzaa table. Each night, all of the people at the celebration talk about what that day's principle means to them. On December 31, families and communities hold a Karamu, a special feast including readings, remembrances and a festive meal.
O Tannenbaum
I have to say, I just love my Christmas tree. It's only been here a week and when we got it I thought I was jumping the gun, but it's so cheerful and pretty and elegant in it's dark green velvety majesty, turning one end of my livingroom into the dark, mysterious winter forest. The little white romantic restaurant lights make it all the more dreamy. And NOW, it's got a big necklace of brightly wrapped presents at the base, boxes just ready for shaking and guessing at. All the familiar ornaments are like old friends visiting for one big holiday party and instead of breaking up the place and drinking too much, they are politely hanging off one branch or another with metal hooks in their scalps. I especially appreciate Barbie doing this, since she can be a bit of a wild party girl.One ornament in particular that I love, and I might do a tree next year completely in thess ornaments alone -- is the tiny Dunkin Donuts white stryofoam coffee cups -- about 2 1/2 inches tall, suspended on a green ribbon, complete with the take-away lid on top.
Thursday, December 04, 2003
And Once More For The West Coast
Love to watch my stats on my site meter as they track to Pacific Standard Time. You can really forget the West Coast tracks three hours back. And everyone seems to wait until they're at work to read blogs. Don't worry I won't tell your boss.
Vermont-bound With Pie
Heading up north tomorrow. Want to talk to these guys about weblogs and women. I'm baking Matt Gross and Britt Blaser an apple pie. Nothing as American as motherhood and apple pie, right?
Just Wait
I keep getting very funny email about my post below -- Kitchen Closed -- where I described how my 8-year-old is eating everything not nailed down.Every email says, "JUST WAIT!" and then tells me by the time my kid's a teenager, it will be nearly impossible to keep him in food and drink. A friend just mentioned that their mom actually rationed the milk -- only reasonable considering he could nearly drink A GALLON of the stuff in a day or two.
I'll have to get a cow.
This is Turning Out To Be Some Flu Season
In case you weren't worried enough about war, terrorism, economic disaster, or slipping on a bar of soap in your bathroom, check out this sad story about an 8-year-old boy dead from flu in record time. Colorado sounds like it's getting hit hard.
Paternity Fraud: When Men, Women, Technology and The Law Part Ways
Interesting piece in Men's Journal by Paige Williams about Paternity Fraud which puts you front and center in the midst of a hot issue -- how DNA testing is letting men find out if their kids are theirs or NOT.She profiles a dad who's been paying a hefty chunk of child support to his ex-wife for the benefit of a much-loved daughter, only to find out, you guessed it, the 11-year-old daughter is not his biological daughter.
What I found particularly interesting is that the law has not caught up with technology. The law in most states would not allow a father to STOP paying support even if the technology allows him to prove he is NOT the father of a particular child.
One interesting pull-out quote:
It's said that 10 percent of the U.S. population are not the biological offspring of the men they presume are their fathers.You may not know much about child support, but start with the hypothetical that you might be a spouse for 2 years, father or mother a child, get divorced and end up paying child support until that 2-year-old is 18, or more likely 21. You pay or you go to jail. As tough as that is, imagine finding out you never were the biological father!
Next Gen Conference
TTI Vanguard's Next Generation Technology Conference kicks off today in Arizona. Here's some of the schedule
THURSDAY, December 4 - CONFERENCE
8:30 am Conference Welcome and Introduction
Leonard Kleinrock, Vanguard Advisory Board
8:45 am Conference Overview
Gordon Bell and Peter Cochrane, Vanguard Advisory Board
9:00 am The Million Book Digital Library Project
Raj Reddy, Professor of Computer Science and Robotics, Carnegie Mellon University
9:45 am Flexible Electronic Displays
Emily De Rotstein, CEO, Commotion Displays
10:45 am TensorTextures and TensorFaces: New Ways to See
Alex Vasilescu, Research Scientist, New York University
11:15 pm How to Understand 100 Years of World History in 10 Seconds
Ola Rosling, Software Inventor and Designer, Gapminder.com
11:45 pm Label-Free Intrinsic Imaging
Stuart Hassard, Head Biologist, deltaDOT, Ltd.
12:15 pm Bridging the Healthcare Information Gap: Wearable Body Monitoring Hits its Stride
Astro Teller, CEO, BodyMedia
2:00 pm The Value and Realization of Large Displays
Gary Starkweather, Member, Hardware Visualization Group, Microsoft Research
2:45 pm Human-Computer Interaction for Large Display Surfaces
Mary Czerwinski, Senior Researcher and Manager, Visualization and Interaction Research Group, Microsoft Research
3:30 pm The Future of Storage
Michael Leonhardt, StorageTek Fellow, Storage Technology Corporation
Stephen Petranek, Editor-in-Chief, Discover
7:00 pm Reception and Dinner
FRIDAY, December 5 - CONFERENCE
8:45 am Nano-Switch/Matrix Technology
Stan Williams, Senior HP Fellow and Director, Quantum Science Research, Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
9:30 am Nanostructured Materials
Daniel Branagan, Chief Technical Officer, The Nanosteel Company
10:00 am The Next Generation of Global Positioning System
Per Enge, Co-Director, GPS Laboratory, Stanford University
11:00 am High Degree-of-Freedom Interaction with Graphical Models
Ravin Balakrishnan, Professor of Computer Science, University of Toronto
11:30 pm Real-Time Language Translation
Robert Levin, CEO, Transclick, Inc.
12:00 pm Technologies That Rewrite The Rules
Padmasree Warrior, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Motorola, Inc.
12:45 pm Lunch
2:00 pm Automated Machine Invention Techniques
James Kowalick, Founder, Renaissance Leadership Institute
2:30pm Next Generation Space Exploration
Daniel Clancy, Director, Information Sciences Directorate, NASA Ames Research Center
3:00 pm Interactive Alert Systems
Rob Welton, Executive VP Marketing & Sales, Knowledge Vector, Inc.
3:30 pm Conference Wrap-Up
Bob Lucky, Vanguard Advisory Board
Hey, bloggers, who's blogging it?
[Disclaimer: I used to be Regional Sales Director for Vanguard. They're a great group.]
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Kitchen Closed
This kid will eat me out of house and home, one of these days, I swear. He can eat so much already at 8 years old -- what future am I looking at? The worst part is he chows down pretty darned well at 6:00 and then wants another meal at 8:00! He had potatoes and roast chicken for dinner and then just begged me for a Halley's Comment Egg McMuffin, egg, cheese, bacon on white bread (sorry, man, no English Muffins).I know he's growing and he needs to eat, but it keeps me in the kitchen for hours on end and makes me EAT things I should NOT be eating.
She Is On My Tree
Yes, Padme Amidala in full battle fatigues with gun and a triad of slash marks (slightly bloody) on her back, is on my Christmas Tree!
That Was Me In The Santa Hat
I got out early this morning. I'm bound and determined to spend part of the day outside even when it's really freezing and it was this morning -- about 17 degrees! So you start with your silk skiing underwear, then you can still get away with cotton blue jeans (when you should be wearing wool pants honestly) and then I threw on a white tee with long sleeves, a pink checked flannel shirt, pink wool sweater, my silver down parka, and my red and white Santa hat -- it's really warm actually.I was at Peet's Coffee before 9:00 am and didn't mind the cold all that much. If I stay in the house, I never ever want to leave.
I had an early morning stunt to pull off too. A friend of mine and I went shopping at Target a week ago and she saw this funny funky kitschy metal sign that said "SKATING LESSONS HERE" with a 1950's retro graphic of a girl in a skating skirt printed on it. She wanted it for her front yard, but is so careful with her money, she was torn.
She put it in her shopping cart, she took it out, she put it back in, she took it out. It was frivolous, but golly, it was only about $8.00.
I talked her into buying it but as we were at the check-out counter, she balked again and decided to put it to the side and not buy it.
So I bought it and she nearly flipped. She was jealous, but of course, I BOUGHT IT TO GIVE TO HER AS A GIFT.
So about 9:15 this morning, if you saw some woman in a Santa Hat in your garden, sticking a skating sign on your front lawn -- that was me.
I can't wait until she discovers it.
Great French Networking Vocabulary Lesson
I have to admit it's fun to get a little netowrking lexicon from the French spam I just got. I've learned a lot of new words like:envoi/reception = send/receive
reseau = network
email = email
PC portable = portable PC
glisser = slide into
acceder = access
information = information
la solution Mobile Data = the mobile data solution
sans fil = without wires ... so I guess this means WIRELESS! That's very useful, thanks.
applications = applications
Le Spam Francais
Okay, guys, which one of you signed me up for a nice helping of French spam ... or maybe you call it pate?Découvrez la solution Mobile Data qui donne des ailes à votre PC portable ...I don't think I want anything or anybody to "glisse dans mon PC portable" without asking me first.
Où que vous soyez, la Vodaphone Mobile Connect Card glissée dans votre PC portable vous permet d’accéder sans fil et via le réseau GPRS de SFR à des applications aussi importantes que ...
L’envoi/réception de vos emails.
Vous envoyez et recevez facilement vos e-mails et restez en contact permanent avec interlocuteurs.
L’accès à Internet.
Vous pouvez accéder à tout moment à une information vitale pour votre activité et à tous les services de l’Internet. etc, etc, etc.
Vermont This Weekend
Trying to figure out how to get up to Dean HQ, throw in some very snowy weather, a few snowboarding lessons, some cross-country skiing, a bit of downhill, some Iowa letterwriting. Just another dull weekend.
Anniversary Waltz
My blog's coming up on her 2-year-old birthday next month and I want to get the same crew who celebrated her birthday last year back to do a Harvard Square lunch. If you're in these pix Dan Bricklin took of my one-year anniversary party, drop me email and we'll figure out a good date and time. January 10 is a Saturday this year, I think we'll shoot for January 12 instead.Any other bloggers in the Boston area who would like to join us are welcome. Don't you just love two-year-olds!?!
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Challenging Gray Christmas
News from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the Chicago executive outplacement and consulting firm that there should be an surge in job creation in ... yeah, get ready ... 2008! The November job cut numbers are grim.Don't miss this link to their Adobe document called HOW TO FIND A JOB IN A JOBLESS ECONOMY which has rather radical but very right-on advice.
Giving Thanks
John Porcaro was busy giving thanks last week to a long long list of folks. Worth reading. I still can't get over him being one of 11 kids as well as a father of 4, now that's FAMILY! Thanks to you John, too, for all the day-to-day stuff and interesting markeing info you share with us in your blog.
Snow
First snow of the season here. Lovely.Monday, December 01, 2003
Sexual Globalization
When I was away for Thanksgiving, doing family things and taking care of my son, I wasn't thinking about Fleshbot* very much. I was thinking how unsexy I felt and how little I was thinking about sex and how inappropriate it felt when I was preoccupied with the big family holiday of Thanksgiving to even consider sex.When I got home, the holiday was over, my kid was asleep in his bed, our suitcase unpacked and dirty clothes in the laundry, I did go check in to see what they'd been up to while I was away. I went to look for all the reasons everyone else goes to look -- I felt a little sexy and it's a sexy blog.
And I was thinking about how we integrate our work selves, our parent selves, our public selves, our sexual selves, now that all this sexual content is available on the web which surely blurs the line between public and private.
Even when I was a kid and my older brother had Playboy magazines hidden under the bed, they could easily be revealed by my mom vacuuming and he could be "found out" and perhaps feel ashamed or somehow dirty. There was a lot of sneaking around in the old days to real world locations OUTSIDE your home to get sexual materials or experiences -- with sexy magazines, sexy clubs, sexy videos, or just plain sex from paid escorts, masseuses, prostitutes. And I think it's fair to say, mostly men pursued these sexual outlets and it was deemed inappropriate for women to be involved in such pursuits. Now this sexual content is available to anyone with a computer, men and equally women.
But the enormous availability of sexual content (notice I'm trying not to say porn, because I'm still not sure what that word even means) online which allows one to privately pursue sexuality in great range and depth is changing the world we know. Changing it fundamentally. We are not only experiencing sexual content from many countries, but we are experiencing sexual culture from many other countries. What they do in Amsterdam, Osaka, Abu Dhabi and Alabama and HOW they do it, are not the same. This is another reason I'm writing about "alpha males" as I believe all the assumptions about how men and women relate in one culture are being challenged by how men and women relate in many cultures. I'm trying to understand who we are, or perhaps who we were and who we are becoming.
I think fundamentalists of many religions (in many countries) are being buffeted by gale force winds of sexual globalization. Women are right in the sweet spot, or not-so-sweet spot of these seismic sexual rumblings. I really don't know where it will lead us, but I think it's changing our lives very quickly and we may not even notice how much and how fast it is happening.
[*Fleshbot is a new sex blog, or I might call it an online review and digest of sexy digital content. ]
About
Halley Suitt is a blogger, writer, editor, mom and all-purpose provocateurwho lives in Boston, Massachusetts, last I checked. She's been blogging at Halley's Comment
since January 2002, at the urging ... no, at the relentless nagging of David Weinberger.
She also blogs at Misbehaving.Net where you can find a more detailed bio and a
picture of her speaking at the BloggerCon conference at Harvard Law School in October 2003.
Why Do We Read Our Horoscope Or Buy Lottery Tickets?
Sometimes I think we are all so odd. We live in a secular world, surely a scientific one, but still we believe in superstitions and luck. We all know better, but we still do it.We just like to imagine the future or have someone else predict it. And despite all the odds (a zillion to one) printed on the back of the little lottery ticket, we keep buying them, expecting miracles.
The Desires Of Young Men Revisited
I read something Scoble wrote about walking around the Stanford campus, in particular, about Leland Stanford the man and railroad baron who started the university. He goes on to ponder the many businesses founded in Silicon Valley and what was behind their spawning.I started to think of what young men see in their lives that make them strive to build things in the world, want things, desire power, position, prestige. I only mention young men because my son is already desirous of building buildings, inventing things. Do girl children see the world the same way? What is behind a young woman's desire to change the world, start businesses, gain power?
I posted a mention of this title yesterday "The Desires of Young Men" and said I'd write about it later. The first person who asked me about it was Scott Johnson, an entrepreneur, a founder of a number of companies and the co-founder of Feedster. He's obviously reading his feeds, and is just the kind of young man full of desire to improve the world that I was thinking about.
Danger Zone
I knew if I sat down at the computer this morning, instead of jumping to get this messy house cleaned up, I would end up emailing a few zillion fascinating people and never get a damned thing done and that's exactly what I've been doing, so DEVIL MACHINE, get away from me. Exactly why I don't do IM or IRC anymore. I'd never leave the screen. Heading out.
Trim A Tree
Well, I got my Christmas Tree up yesterday and beat my last year's tree trimming efforts by nearly two weeks. The pine branches have opened up to a more full shape overnight and it smells so good this morning. I'm still having trouble figuring out how to fix a strand of white tiny lights. I can't figure out why replacing one of the little bulbs didn't make the rest of the string light up. Surely it's not that EVERY bulb in the string is out ... have to think about it.
God Get Me Some Coffee
I am having so much trouble waking up today. Yikes! Those holiday weekends will kill you. Today's plan: Keep Eyes Open.Sunday, November 30, 2003
Advent
Great to go to church today and hear about the Advent season which is starting now. There's so much going on at my church in the next three weeks, it's incredible. They were drafting angels and shepards for the Christmas pagent, a tradition that takes place on Christmas Eve. We act out the nativity and sing about 50 Christmas carols, it's lots of fun. My friends with a new baby are playing Mary, Joseph and Jesus this year ... they do have a girl baby, but no one will be the wiser. I met one of the teenagers in the youth group at coffee hour who was really unhappy to hear she couldn't play Mary this year. She looks a bit like Brittney, "I can't believe they want a real mom and a real dad with a real baby this year." She looked a little pissed off and a lot disappointed.Church is just about the best antidote for the commercialism of the season. They keep your mind on caring about people who are really having a hard time and giving you opportunties to help them out.
Big Present For Single Parents
If you're married, or never been married, think long and hard about how the holiday season feels for divorced or widowed parents -- it's tough sledding sometimes. Here are some things you can do to help them.Don't ask them how they're feeling. Ask them what they need help with.
They'll tell you not only what they need help with, but also how they're feeling will probably come out in the mix.
Single parents with opposite sex kids often need help with shopping for toys or clothes because it's not so easy for a mom to know how to put together stuff for a boy, like bikes or Legos or videogames sometimes and not so simple for dads to buy cute purses, barrettes or make-up for their girls. Moms can use help dragging big things home in small cars, or better still, in your big car. All volunteers welcome.
Also, there's an ongoing tension for a single parent (or double parent, as a friend aptly calls himself) to try to be BOTH mom and dad during the holidays, but also desperately needing, but never getting time to themselves. All aunts and uncles, real and honorary, can really give the parent a break by taking the kids to a kiddy movie, which btw, if you don't know, kids have no problem seeing about 15 times anyway. One free afternoon with your kids well entertained can make the difference between sanity and an insane asylum visit.
Be sensitive about inviting single parents to an event. I'm often invited to events requiring kids when I don't have my kid with me. It makes it awkward. There's no easy way to negotiate all these social situations, nor should the party-giver have to keep track of all those details, but at least, make it clear if a party is a grown-ups only party or a grown-ups plus kids party or a grown-ups plus kids, but I'm welcome without my kids anyway party.
Also be sensitive about inviting single parents to dinner parties with 3 married couples and one single person. If your intention is matchmaking, make it clear in advance. A lot of single parents are not ready for dating and will not appreciate your good intentions. A lot of single parents are not interested (or are already dating without you knowing about it). A lot of single parents are gay, without you knowing about it.
And of course, there's the invitations for kid parties sent to the wrong house problem. Invitations come to my house (or horrors, are found at the bottom of my kid's backpack) for an event taking place when my son's with his dad. If you know the parents are separated or divorced, try calling and leaving a phone message reminder with ALL the details for the party. I get a lot of "just doing our final RSVP's" calls for parties that I have no invitation for and ZERO information about and I have to call back like an idiot asking for a clue.
The Desires of Young Men
This is a title to something I want to write. It's knocking around in my head. Might be a blog post, might be a poem title, might be a short story, might be a book, I don't know. Just want to write it down.
Thank The Lord!
I have to say, if I'd only known there was such a wealth of info online to help kids AND MOMS win videogames -- I wouldn't have hesitated so long when it came to buying my kid the Sony Playstation 2. He's so into it and so am I! The net continues to save my butt when it comes to helping him figure out how to defeat some digital bad guy. It's opened up this new culture to me as well. Really cool.
Work-out Sweat
I'm all sweaty from working out and I feel ... SO .... GOOD. And once again, I nearly talked myself out of working out, feeling lazy and pathetic and thinking of a million reasons I really didn't want to work out. Glad I didn't listen to myself.Today I had good strength and luck with my lower half, but my arms felt so weak and flimsy. It's odd how one day you're all biceps and another your legs are full of strength and another you're weak as a kitten in all areas.
Sometimes I don't think I rest enough between workouts, but I worry if I rest TOO much I won't bother to work out at all.
I started at 5:05 and was done by 6:15 and best of all, didn't even wake up my son. That's the reason I have to do it so early. If he gets up we have a cartoon war and he talks me out of the last tough abdominals part and into Bugs Bunny.