Marc's Musings

Bike to work week

I guess that I'm a week late. Granted, I didn't even know that bike to work week was last week until after I got in via manual powered, two wheeled transportation this morning, but it's the thought that counts, right?

I'm going to try to make this a weekly occurrence, especially since it coincides nicely with my Wednesday training schedule--I normally have a 25-30 mile ride on Wednesdays, but nothing else. The distance from home to the office is about 17.5 miles. I know the round trip distance is a bit longer, but I do have a few hour (like 8) break in the middle there.

My goal is to do this for as long as the weather is nice--even after the training is done for the season.

An interesting social experiment

We currently have an expensive radio in our office--expensive when it was purchased anyway. We have tasked an eMac that we used to use for development work. Often times we're listening to the music that the oldest guy in the office has on his ipod. Sometimes we'll listen to internet radio, but that gets tired pretty quickly.

Pandora has been the radio of choice for the last week or so. If you don't know what Pandora is, run--don't walk--to go check it out. You seed a "station" with an artist or song, and it will find songs that relate. They've gone through most non-classical music and categorized it pretty excessively. You have the ability to add seeds, and thumbs up (you like it) or thumbs down (you despise it) songs that it plays. Over time it generates a pretty good algorithm for tunes.

Today we got into a discussion about what a "lowest common denominator" radio station would play that would cater to all of our tastes. I suggested that we should create an office station, with the following rule: anyone can thumbs down a song, but we all have to agree to thumbs up a song. It will be interesting to see what the station ends up with.

I'll report back in a few weeks.

Last day as a dink

I'll be posting less (is that possible?) here, but I will be posting over the next few days on our family blog. Apparently this kid didn't want to be induced at 6am tomorrow morning...

A sign of the times

I signed into LinkedIn today to look for a long lost friend. In the "People you may know" box is my mom.

Did someone put a quarter in the bed?

Apparently there was an earthquake (5.4 on the good old Richter) this morning in Southern Illinois that could be felt in Milwaukee. Did I feel it? I didn't wake up, if that's what you're asking. I probably subconsciously thought someone put a quarter into the bed.

Beth slept through it as well. When I told her about it shortly after she woke up (still asleep, really), she thought she was dreaming and we had moved to California or something.

The jet taking off from (landing at?) Palwaukee--er Chicago Executive--did wake wake me up at 6a. Maybe I'm just more in tune with noise than "touch."

Heh. As I was writing this, apparently there was another, slightly less powerful one just a few miles away. Didn't feel that one, either. There have been other very minor ones in that area all morning according to the USGS.

Links for 17 Apr 2008 [del.icio.us]

• Urgency is poisonous - "If your deliveries are that critical to the hour or day, maybe you’re setting up false priorities and dangerous expectations."

On living

I came across this quote on another blog that I read and thought I would share it with all y'all...

"The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to make money nor find much fun in life."

--Charles Schwab (the founder of Bethlehem Steel, not the pioneering discount broker)

Links for 20 Mar 2008 [del.icio.us]

• Asking as a Substitute for Thinking - "it's difficult to help coworkers understand that you'd rather they learn to fish" yep.