A quick note

Just a couple of things:

• I'm quite upset by the Kelso Supreme Court decision. Talk about hosing the right to personal property. If your house is not sacrosanct from some middle-manager "civil servant," than nothing is. We have been betrayed by the Court.
• I have been in another Six Sigma class this week. I can't help but wonder why this is such a big deal. Seriously, let's review the ideas here:
• use data to make decisions
• follow some methodology, any methodology, just be consistent
• think about possible ramifications of your actions
• consider the customer when designing new things.

And this is a big deal why?!?! I tried my best to be optimistic and enthusiastic, but now I feel like I am going to work in a Dilbert cartoon.

• I'm cleaning out my "office" so we can paint it. The red paint never took, so we will be reverting to some more neutral color. It also gives me a chance to trash a bunch of crap.

More later.

an iOddity

I was just using my iPod as normal, but unfortunately did not pay attention to the battery meter. It went dead while listening to Coldplay's "X & Y," which I had bought from the iTunes music store. After plugging in the iPod, I tried to continue to listen to the album.

And the iPod just went through each track, playing no music. Just track number 1-2-3-4-5-6...the album was done in 20 seconds.

After trying it a few times, I accepted defeat and tried another album from the iTunes store.

It did the same thing. What the...!?!?

So I had to reload all of my music from the music store. How irritating.

Alumni assumptions

Now that I am an alumni of two institutions, I am constantly getting phone solicitations for some of my money that they feel they are entitled to. I used to just brush these off, but this morning, I am just mad.

I got a call from my undergraduate alma matter last night at about 8:45 p.m. I thought it was odd for them to be calling so late and "gently" described my displeasure. Well, this morning while going through the week's bills I find that they have built this monstrosity on campus: the new student recreation center. The article in the alumni article was almost obscene. Every picture had a TON of flat-screen TVs in every room. In one, some stairmaster had its own personal LCD TV screen.

No wonder they wanted my money. This is on top of their new basketball arena.

Minnesota is no better, constantly bitching about how they want a new football stadium. The place where they feel this should be is the ONLY on-campus affordable parking for students.

I have spent a long time (until recently) on these campuses. And the lack of reality in the management, faculty, students, and alumni associations are enough to make someone believe the Earth is flat. Schools are for learning, not for football, basketball, or much else. And they are not doing their primary mission well--the students graduating now are less prepared than ever, especially in the engineering fields.

Bah. Enough of that for now.