THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Shopper's Hard Card Coupons Work

Some time ago G had signed us up for a program that dispenses points for each shopping trip if the company scanned a key-card. We didn't know whether it would work or whether we would recognize the 'rewards' correspondence. Well we did receive a hard cash card for $10 off on Shopper's Food Warehouse goods (same discount grocery that I've seen limos exit from the parking area). I used it today and sure enough the card scanned and the store took the $10 off a $52 bill. 5 point for Griffengeorge.

posted by Martin Weiss # 1:08 PM

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Post Yom Kippur Dream

On the way home from synagogue after YK - Sept 22, we discussed the subject of transferability of metrorail cards. This came about because Ann may buy them at a discount from her employer as a 'perk' of employment. The cards themselves say 'non transferable' (in very small letters that neither I nor Ann had noticed). Ann had been buying them and giving them to G to use. G suggested that practice be discontinued.

Last night I had a dream that I had retired and took up a new job driving an ice cream truck selling ice cream made under the ORT brand (Ann is a big supporter of ORT and a chapter President). In the dream, people were offering to pay for the ice cream with metrorail cards.

posted by Martin Weiss # 5:56 PM

Friday, September 21, 2007

M in Denver - nearly in an Airport Incident

M was in Denver 9-19 to 9-21 using one of the few long distance flights available out of National airport. I was speaking at the invitation of 3 highway corridor improvement associations. More interesting was that I got to see both Dave Rochlin and Rocky Smith on the evening of the 20th. We met at a place called The Supreme Court which was affiliated with my motel (the Adam's Mark which was on the 16th street mall). The airport is far from downtown but it only took about 30 minutes to get there. The evening was very nice and the beer wasn't too expensive.

I almost didn't make it home. While I was in line at the ticket area, a fellow gave me about a 2 minute speech about how I was violating his space. I told him to take some more space since it was free and he soon went up to the counter. Its a good thing I didn't get angry back at him. Within a few minutes from his approach to the counter, he was gesturing and yelling and apparently threatening the counter attendant. The attendant called the airport police and he was taken away.

posted by Martin Weiss # 8:36 AM

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Goal conflicts with Regulations

I was at a meeting yesterday. It was about soliciting research proposals for transformational, breakthrough research (under an FHWA funded program). We were discussing the previous year proposals and there were comments to the effect that there were a lot of proposals that we for ordinary research but not for transformation research.

I remarked, "Well our goal of soliciting proposals for transformational research is in conflict with the statutory requirement for a drug free workplace."

People realised this as humor, because they know me reasonably well.

posted by Martin Weiss # 12:36 PM

Monday, September 10, 2007

Its not the grapes that are making you overweight.

Well yes, I must admit I have a weight problem. I was making a comment I make frequently when people praise natural foods, "Grapes are nature's own junk food".

G said that he made a comment like mine in the preceding sentence one year at the U of Md during a Nutrition class. The teacher said in response something like "people don't eat enough grapes to be unhealthy; they do eat enough doughnuts, potato chips, etc....".

This time, in response to my grape statement, he made a comment like the title of this post.

I can't find a good web site to back up either my original comment or G's retort.

posted by Martin Weiss # 3:31 PM

Thursday, September 06, 2007

14 Pitchers Used in 6-4 game (8.5 innings)

SAC and I were at RFK for the final game of the Nationals series with the Marlins (the Nationals won all 3 games of the series).

The game lasted 3 hrs 14 minutes partly because of many pitching changes (each team used 7 pitchers).

Each team used one pitcher who began and ended the game with a 0.00 ERA.

The Marlins used Logan Kensing who had only pitched 1 inning previously (this year - he pitched for the Marlins in 2004-2006 with a total of about 60 innings of long relief) and who pitched another 1 inning during the game.

The Nationals used Jonathan Albaladejo for whom this game was was his MLB debut.

Both Kensing and Albaladejo were born in 1982 (Albaladejo on 10/30, Kensing on 7/3)

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:02 AM

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Sheepshead (Schafskopf) Game -
First local 5 person game since 2006

Yesterday we had a 5-person sheepshead game, first local game in quite a while. To get up to 5 people we had a recruit who was originally worried that the game involved an actual head of a sheep.

I explained to her that the 'sheepshead' was the top of a barrel of beer and she accepted the invite (she might have examined my explanation on the internet - my version is the same as in the wikipedia entry at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheepshead ).

So anyway we had the Walrus (who misplaced his cell phone after the game but found it about 10 minutes later), Berg, George, myself and Emily (the new recruit).

posted by Martin Weiss # 1:32 PM

Sunday, September 02, 2007

George puts in some overtime

Ann is taking 3 on line courses. This requires use of some software produced for SUNY Alfred. This software was sent us with poorly thought out directions and also requires the use of the most recent Internet Explorer, we migrated to Mozilla Firefox several years ago. It took George about 4 hours to get everything fixed and much of this was done between midnight and 3 am Sunday morning. Fifteen points for Griffengeorge.

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:04 PM