Stomp

There is a bit of an uptick in the optimism meter at work since the return from holidays. At the macro-level, the financial outlook for The Mothership continue to be relatively strong. Closer to home, The Long One is almost ready to come out of the oven and RTM – which means hopefully some new opportunities for Your Faithful Servant on the next release of Whatever-We-Are-Calling-The-Product-This-Week.

Most importantly it seems that the Product-Formerly-Known-As-Pittsburgh is actually something that folks might, egad, actually want to buy and deploy. Our Sales teams closed on a couple of big software/services deals in January with some very large customers whose names you would recognize, but that I can’t divulge (remember the BCG).

Canis Rufus Annoying Drunkus

(Finally carving out some time to blog. I am only about eight weeks late with this one.)

Canis Rufus Annoying Drunkus is Latin for Annoying Drunk Red Wolf (sort of) and is also the title of this post which reviews a road trip to the Belk Bowl on December 27, 2011 in Charlotte.

Not having any real rooting interest in this game, we took this trip to break up the Christmas week (along with a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game a couple of nights later). There is certainly nothing wrong with a little tailgating and college football and the short drive to the Queen City is manageable for a nice day trip, so why not? This game pitted the NC State Wolfpack and the Louisville Cardinals and was an 8:00 PM kickoff for a nationally televised ESPN audience.

IGM Economics Expert Panel

Came across an interesting (at least to me) website associated with the Initiative on Global Markets. IGM is an initiative associated with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and these smart folks have come up with, what seems in hindsight, to be an obvious and interesting idea:

• Get together a online panel (termed the IGM Economics Expert Panel) of the biggest brains in economic research. Real heavy hitters – researchers at the top of their profession at the most prestigious of research universities with an interest in public policy. Nobel Laureates and folks who have sat on the President’s Council of Economics.
• Make sure that the panel comprises Democrat, Republican, and Independent viewpoints and a mixture of both younger and older researchers.
• Pose a series of relevant, contemporary, economic policy questions every week or so to the panel.
• Record their answers and an associated confidence weighting.
• Aggregate and publish the results.

It Is Only February, Huh?

It really is the Season of the Weird. In the middle of the Republican primary season, we now have a full outbreak of Catholic outrage, contraception mania, personhood amendments, abortion-inducing prenatal testing, and government-mandated unnecessary vaginal sonogram probes (mandated of course by small government conservatives). Guess the Social Conservatives just can’t help themselves. BTW, when did Virginia turn into Mississippi?

At the forefront of all of this crazy stuff is Rick Santorum. I am just an outsider, but I am frankly puzzled why a party that has, in its stable, proven executives (Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsmen, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, etc) is apparently seriously considering a two-term senator who got his clock cleaned in his home state the last time he ran for anything. Particularly in a year where, you would think, the economy and basic executive competence, would come to the fore. Why in the hell are these social issues even being discussed? Beats me and who am I to tell them who to coach their team, but, damn, those Social Conservatives, they do love them some Rick Santorum.

Senior Moment #718

My house has two independently controlled HVAC systems. The downstairs is fed from a gas-package system (propane-based forced air furnace and heat pump for AC) and a separate heat pump system handles heating and cooling of the the upstairs (standard split system -- outside unit with an air handler in the attic). The upstairs system gave up the ghost awhile back and after roughing it for awhile, last fall I had a new replacement heat pump installed.

Ask and You Shall Receive

The ACC recently announced their new divisional alignments/scheduling models for football and basketball incorporating newcomers Pitt and Syracuse. There was so much conjecture on this topic since the expansion announcement last September. Some were promoting a North and South partition (with the North Division consisting of the five former Big East schools, UVA, and Maryland). This option would have been nice for nostalgia, but I don’t think UVA and Maryland (or Virginia Tech for that matter) were too keen on that.

The Long One

In the late 70’s, The Eagles released a disappointing album entitled “The Long Run”, their eagerly anticipated follow-up to “Hotel California”. The plodding pace of the recording process (almost three years in the making) as well as deteriorating relationships between various band members led some of the band members to start sarcastically referring to the album as the “The Long One” by the time it was released. Except for the part about the deteriorating relationships, Project Pittsburgh sure has the feel of “The Long One”.

Business Conduct Guidelines

I guess George didn't complete his BCG certification.

In addition to being the month for the annual performance evaluation, January is also the month when my company’s employees must complete a mandatory annual process called BCG Certification. This is a three part process where one must:

• Read the Business Conduct Guidelines (I guess I never realized these were available outside of IBM, but the hyperlink is provided in case any of my blog readers are having trouble falling asleep. Really compelling stuff.)
• Complete an online course on the BCG,
• Electronically certify that you have read, understand, and agree to the BCG.