I had a pretty rough return to reality today; after disconnecting almost completely for four days, bamm, work!  My todo list was frightening, especially since two of the highest priority entries were "sort through notes from X" and add to todo list.  Fortunately I slogged through and made progress (that is, my todo list is now up to date :)

Among the difficult tasks I had to confront today was posting pictures of my family at the beach.  If you have ever tried to choose pictures of women in swimsuits you know what I'm talking about.  I have a great looking family (if I do say so myself) and they do not take a bad picture, but this is still an enterprise fraught with peril.  If my posts cease mysteriously, you will know what happened...

For those of you who recognized yesterday's reference to Creedence Clearwater, thank you.  For the rest of you, sorry, it is what it is.  Not everything I post is explicable :)

In a small orgy of naval-gazing, I enhanced my already-better-than-most archive to show monthly stats.  Clicking on a month in the grid takes you to the posts for that month.  Yes, this is cool, you're welcome.

While testing the new archive I was drawn to a few old posts, such as this one from two years ago: estimating in meatspace.  This remains to this day one of my best tricks.  Trust me, for an engineering manager being able to coax good estimates out of people is crucial.  Yes, you're welcome for this, too.

So I see where TheScientist was voted Magazine of the Year (by someone, presumably not their own staff :).  Congratulations to them, I must say, I enjoy reading it and [as you know] frequently link their articles.  Good stuff. 

Want to see some awesome pictures from the Tour de France?  Here you go, on a Polish website.  They're really amazing.  I think this picture of Carlos Sastre in yellow on the Champs d'Elysee is my favorite. 

Glenn Reynolds notes another grim milestone: "Thirty years ago Jimmy Carter established the Department of Energy. And all our energy problems were solved..."  As he would say, heh. 

La Shawn Barber: Is Climate Change… Racist?  I love La Shawn; a black woman who deals in truth, and ends up on the conservative side of many issues as a result.  Can we vote for her? 

This is pretty cool: Brian May, founder and lead guitarist of Queen, gets his PhD in Astrophysics.  Not, that is not an Onion headline :)  Good for him. 

A lot of what you find on the 'net is "fanned in"; you read a blog, and they link or post something, and so you find it.  But sometimes you actively seek content, and so it was today; I was looking to comfort a friend dealing with a crappy situation, a wine-enjoyer, and thought to find a cartoon depicting "in case of emergency, break glass".  Sure enough, poof, I was able to find it; thank you Mr. Google.  I liked this visual pun even before I saw it :) 

In the course of finding this I serendipitously found something else awesome, too...  isn't this wonderful?  (I guess I meant "aw"-some :) 

The time/money formula of free.  "At some point in your life, you will wake up and discover that you have more money than time. And you will then realize that you should start doing things differently, which means not walking four blocks to find an ATM that doesn't charge a fee, driving for miles to find cheaper gas, or painting your own house."  Yep, I passed that point quite a while ago, but it is an equilibrium; as soon as you begin hiring people to save you time, you have less money :)