Saturday, August 26, 2006

Opening night!

Well, Guys and Dolls opened last night and the opening was great! We had over 100 people there and the mistakes were minimal, forgivable, and well covered. The North County Times did a bit on us in their Preview section and the Union Tribune listed us as a Best Bet. Recognize the guy in the NC Times photo? We also had a few reviewers there last night. It will be interesting to see what they say. Of course, I'll link to all reviews as soon as they come out. Stay tuned! And if you are in the area, stop by Kit Carson park and check us out!

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Thursday, August 24, 2006

Perhaps There IS Hope for Democracy

A new poll came out recently on the heels of the assorted "voting irregularities" in places like Ohio and California

Asked whether Americans have the right to view and obtain information about how elections officials count votes, 92% of respondents concurred.

Zogby International


In the poll, they asked a number of questions about voting transparency. People overwhelmingly support checks and balances on our elections process. So, how do we turn this sentiment into action? November is nearly upon us and e-voting machines are becoming more and more prevalent. Here in San Diego, you enter and electronic vote and it gets stored in the machine at the precinct. Then the precinct votes are aggregated and sent to the central tabulator. It spits out the results. No ballots. No paper trail. No verification.

The Open Voting Consortium has what I would consider a decent solution. Any thoughts as to how we make it happen?

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Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Level 1 reached!

Thanks to all your donations, I have achieved level 1 of my Breast Cancer Walk fundraising goals. I've actually made it to level 2 and am frighteningly close to level 3, but level 1 is the only one I have had time to complete. I assure you that the picture you see *is* of the back of my head and I have been parading around with it uncovered. In fact, this has resulted in four more individuals donating.

Special thanks to the folks in the finance department for helping paint my skull. Rebecca, Tara, Tanisha, Wayne, and Heather all helped, though Rebecca did the actual painting. We opted for the back of the skull as it seemed more visible.

Shortly after the painting was done, my donations jumped up a bit to $666! I was concerned that perhaps my work was the work of the devil, but then someone threw in another $5 to make it $671 and I was saved!

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Monday, August 14, 2006

It's the Law

So, Josh was recently climbing on the climbing wall in the back yard and he was trying to explain how to do it to a friend of his. "You have to hang on or you'll fall. That's cuz of grabbity."

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Thursday, August 10, 2006

Think Pink!

Time for some good old-fashioned self-abuse. But not just any old self-abuse. It's self-abuse for a cause. How many times do you think I need to type self-abuse to be tops on Google for the term? Of course, that may direct the wrong kind of traffic here. Ah, who am I kidding. I'm a traffic whore.

So, what is this self-abuse, you ask? I have joined my company's team in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk. So, I am working on raising funds. If our team raises $15k, Cymer will match it! However, I've never been good at telling those sappy, syrupy tales to get people to give money. I'm opting instead for giving some entertainment for people's donations. This is where I need your help.

I'm creating donation levels. Every time my funds raised pass a certain level, I will do something silly or embarrassing and post pictures and or video. For example, when my total has passed $300, I am going to complete shave my head and paint a large, pink ribbon on it. I need ideas for other levels. How can I debase myself for people's amusement in order to raise money? You can check my progress here. Ready? Go!

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Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Is This Thing On?

Ok. So, I've been gone a while. I don't think I've transitioned from "while" to "eternity" just yet, but I'm on the cusp. Life has been a bit on the hectic side. There's too much to go into right now, and I don't want to scare myself off. I gotta ease back into it. So, I'm probably going to throw a few quick hitting updates in over the next few days and get back into a rhythm. After all, it's been weeks since I've read or wrote anything. And I'd like to re-establish myself in my net communities before I throw too much of my own stuff out there. I feel like I need to reconnect with you all first. Find out what is going on in your corners of the world. But, rest assured, I am back.

I do want to thank everyone for their condolences about Nala. That was a pretty hard thing to go through. And I still see her death replay in my mind's eye a little more often than I'd like. But we are doing much better with it. The only lingering affects are Maya thinking her room is haunted by Nala's ghost and Josh developing an obsession with exactly when everyone and everything will die.

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