THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Monday, July 25, 2005

Another Weiss Curse - Buring Popcorn

I spoke with Beth today. I told her that last week I burned some popcorn in the microwave at work and people talked about it for 3 days. She indicated that she also has burned popcorn in the microwave.

This is another family curse. The other curse is that both me and Beth seem to look like we know the correct time and how to get places and get asked questions on each by strangers. This even happened to me once in Puerto Rico. I was walking down the street and a man stopped his car, rolled down the window and asked 'que hora es?'. The curse is worse for Beth since she has so little sense of direction and yet gets asked for directions a lot.

posted by Martin Weiss # 12:23 AM

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

488 Cats

A woman from Fairfax county was ordered to never own a pet again. She was convicted of several charges relating to several separate incidents where a house she owned had hundreds of dead cats. Not only did the local papers carry this but several far away papers, for example:

http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/0718cats18-ON.html

a site in arizona picked up the story. Apparently she always kept her lawn and the external part of her houses in good order but inside feral cats multiplied. The 488 refers to the total number of cats found in her houses. As of the time of the article, all but 7 were either dead or so sick they had to be terminated.

posted by Martin Weiss # 7:55 PM

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Post Imitates this Blog

Back on June 19, I implied that there might be an Oriole-National's world series. The Washington Post had an article on that today so I only scooped them by 4 weeks or so.

posted by Martin Weiss # 1:05 PM

2nd Trip to Boston in a Month

Back on June 17 I was in Boston for a meeting - left early in the am and returned home about 8 pm the same day.

July 10-12 I returned to Boston for more meetings. I was chairing a planning session for a 2006 conference and presiding in a technical session and there were a bunch of other things I had to do. It was exhausting and I didn't get to see my kinfolk who live in the area.

There were some amusing episodes. During the technical session, a speaker commented that he (the State employee) works with locals a lot and that they impose unfunded mandates. I commented afterwards that he might just as well have added, "Hey, I'm the victim here."

In the planning session one person was representing a group that wanted to hold a workshop as part of the conference. Someone suggested the group be given two consecutive breakout sessions. I said that this was OK with me but I wondered if it does justice to the subject of the workshop. The representative said that the group realizes they aren't going to become technical experts in a half a day. The consultant sitting next to me said, "Yeah. It takes a whole day to be a technical expert."

During a session discussing performance measures and asset management (a subject of sessions for the past 15 years), there was a lot of concern that data collected wasn't reliable or wasn't the data needed, etc. I remembered a comment made back in 94 at a conference on systems management systems. The presenter, a former high level FHWA employee who was then a consultant, said, "What we need are management systems that are robust and meaningful but don't actually require collection and analysis of data."

posted by Martin Weiss # 1:07 AM

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Another Nationals Game

This was the third time I've been to a Nationals game. The first two times were 1-run losses. This time it was a 2-run loss. Interesting gems: Tom Glavine started for the Mets. Livan Hernadez for the Nationals. Glavine was roughed up in the 5th, Hernandez in the 6th. The first ball was thrown out by a small robot - ball was miniture and he stood only about 5 feet from the catcher and it wasn't a good throw - but it was a throw. Later in the game, a broken bat landed 15 rows up on the 3rd base side of home.

posted by Martin Weiss # 2:59 AM

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

M blows a bridge hand

My partner opened 1 spade. I had 5 spades and 21 points. I bid 4 NT. He responded 5H (2 aces). I figured I'd get the extra 10 points and bid 7NT instead of 7 spades. Ooops. Partner had 5 spades and a void in one of the other suits. He would have easily made 5 spades using my hand to lead low cards in the suit in which he was void. With 7NT, I played for a two trick drop in one suit in which I had A, K and J. It didn't work and I had to risk a finesse in another suit in which I had the A, K and J. It didn't work either and I went down one - a loss of 50 points instead of a gain of over a thousand.

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:24 PM

Beach Boys Again

At the 4th of July concert on the mall, the Beach Boys led off the concert. It was their first appearance since 1985. Based on the video footage, everybody from 10 year olds to 70 year olds knows all the tunes.

posted by Martin Weiss # 1:28 AM

Monday, July 04, 2005

Nationals- 1st Half of the Season was Spectacular

After 81 games, Washington is 50-31. Their top starting pitcher has 12 wins (leads the league); their top reliever has 29 saves (leads the league). They are 29-10 at home (leads the league). They are 22-7 in one run games (I have been to two of the 1-run losses). They only lead their opponents 335-333 in runs (both a bit over 4 runs per game.)

posted by Martin Weiss # 9:31 AM