The Colonel's Forum

1) Today, Ford finalized the deal to sell both Jaguar and Land Rover to India's Tata Motors. The irony of an Indian company owning these two icons of British industry amuses me. Heck, H.R.H. queen Elizabeth II was Queen of India when she ascended to the throne in 1953. 2) I bought a new roof this week. It cost over twice as much as my new big screen, and it's not nearly as entertaining to watch. My crazy realtor wife though seems to think that a functioning roof is an important feature of a home. Whatever. 3) I learned that I might as well skip the Kentucky primary elections. I wanted to change my party affiliation to "other" but because Kentucky has closed primaries, that wouldn't do my any good. Right now I'm registered as a Republican, and the deadline to switch to Democrat and still vote in the primaries was December 31st of last year. Oops. So I can show up and vote for John McCain. Whoop dee do. 4) Leave it to the students at Butler Univers...

Here are some highlights of what I did last week on a business trip to New York city: Developed and delivered a sales presentation with a team of colleagues Won some new business for EDS Got to experience commuting from White Plains to NYC - not something I'd do on a daily basis, let me tell you that. Got "Delta'd" - my return flight was canceled for no apparent reason at all, though Delta blames the weather so that they don't have to compensate anyone Took a $106 cab ride to Jersey City, NJ, the location of the nearest hotel with an available room (a lot of people got Delta'd at Laguardia that day) Spent the night in charming Jersey City. If you're thinking about taking a vacation there, consider Gary, IN instead. Wrote a complaint letter to Delta and got a "sorry about your luck" in response. On the up side, I may get to spend a good portion of the spring traveling to NYC, which would be an interesting change of pace. I'm tired of being ...

George is in the jungle knockin’ on the door come to get your children wants to have a war Brownie's in the outhouse Katrina on the line government's a disaster but George, he says it’s fine Come on, lord you’d better run, be a long dark night before this thing is done The above lyrics are the opening to John Fogerty's "Long Dark Night," one of many great songs on his "Revival" album. I highly recommend it. I also just picked up: 1) Porter Wagoner - Wagonmaster 2) Gloria Estefan - 90 Milas 3) Willie Nelson - Moment of Forever 4) Bruce Springsteen - Magic 5) Blind Boys of Alabama - Down in New Orleans 6) Mark Knopfler - Kill to get Crimson I also broke down and got a big screen TV - should get it home this week. It's a plasma, so you can't lay it on its side. Who knew? Mostly I'm looking forward to watching Dirty Jobs in high definition. I love that show. Oh, the TV is a 50" model from Samsung. In the coming days, we will h...

This is my last day out here in San Francisco, and on my walk to work this morning I found myself reflecting on what a great town this is. This is a city that works. If functions well, especially for a city of this size. With such a diverse population, it's hard to think of San Francisco as a true "American" city, since we're really not all that diverse. San Francisco feels more like the hybrid of a major financial center and a mid-size European city. The tip of the SF peninsula is a collection of micro-neighborhoods that often overlap. There's Chinatown, hippietown, yuppietown, old money on Nob Hill, the Castro and the Mission... a place for everyone. You can walk around town or take public transit - no real need for a car. Sure, the homeless people smell awful and they annoy you, but that's a small price to pay. The locals eat well here and live healthy lifestyles. Real estate prices and salaries are ridiculously high. The city council just passed a...

Mr. Obama’s triumphs [2/12/08] capped a week in which he went undefeated in states across the country, in many cases by big margins, over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. And his strength on Tuesday sliced across nearly every major demographic line, with one element standing out: in Virginia and Maryland, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls, he beat Mrs. Clinton among women. (emphasis added)

I bought a new pair of shoes this weekend. That's not particularly noteworthy, except that I noticed an interesting characteristic about them this morning. What I realized is that my choice of shoes was actually influenced by al Quaeda. Seriously. I bought a pair of slip on dress shoes because I have to take my shoes off twice a week for the TSA, because some Muslim extremists hijacked some planes back in 2001. Upon further investigation though, there's a bit more to it than that. When you travel as much as I do, you notice the small things. For example, the PA system at Lexington airport (formerly and more appropriately known as Bluegrass Field) tells me every Monday and Thursday that "The Homeland Security threat level has been raised to orange, please be aware of the increased threat." In contrast, at ATL, CVG, and SFO, the PA says "The Homeland Security threat level is orange." There are a couple small differences there, but enough to get me curi...

As January comes to a close, it's still much the same routine each week for me. Do laundry and pack Sunday night. Monday morning wake up at 4:45AM to get frisked by the TSA and then deal with ComAir, the worst regional airline in the business. Delta has been upgrading me to first class the past few weeks though, so that makes the 4 hours from Cincinnati to San Francisco a bit more tolerable. Three nights in San Francisco, then fly home on Thursday. Three day weekends with Ella and our friends, then repeat. Ella is having a stellar start to the year, with 3 or 4 real estate deals in the works. I am happy to report that she is no longer president of the Parrothead club, although I myself have picked up the presidency for our neighborhood association. Apparently showing up to two consecutive meetings qualifies me for that position. We're wrapping up our work at PG&E, which is a good thing because I'm pretty much done flying to California every week. Our projects no...

I passed a milestone in my life last week when I turned 30. I don't feel any older though, and the idea of being 30 doesn't really bother me. I think if I were really unhappy with my life, maybe things would be different, but overall my life is pretty good these days. Two of my friends also had 30th birthdays recently, and another friend is turning 30 this weekend. So really, 30 is no big deal to me. Ella and I visited my parents and went to Chicago last week. I don't miss Chicago anymore. There are plenty of things I still love about the city, and it's still a great town, but I am certain at this point that I would not like to move back there. I'd like to visit more often, but there's no way I would move back there. It's too expensive, too cold, and too cumbersome. Part of that is because I've become lazier over the years, to the point that I don't want to fight with traffic on the roads or at the airport. Sure, you get lots of direct flig...

while typing the girl's night post below, I heard: "Tom, I love you, and I mean that with no homosexuality involved, but I hate Ohio. ... Do you know where I am? ... I'm in Cincinnati Ohio [actually, the caller is in Hebron, KY, but I didn't want to interrupt]. They took my seat that I was confirmed on and bumped me to a later flight. ... Just one more reason to hate Cincinnati, as if the Reds and the Bengals wasn't enough. ... You gotta stop sending me down here. ... I know, I know, everyone at this airport is trying to get out of here too, and they're trying to get to Pittsburgh, you know, to God's country." Never assume that no one is around listening to your conversations. If I'm not listening in, Dick Cheney probably is.

When I returned home last Thursday I had the pleasure of witnessing girls' night at our house. Ella and some friends watch Gray's Anatomy every Thursday, and it was Ella's night to host. What an eye-opener this was. The intensity with which these 7 women watched a soap opera was unsettling. Of course they have favorite actors and characters in the show, but it goes much beyond that. They have theories about why certain events on the show took place, and other theories about what will happen next. They have favorite couples on the show and other cases where they hope guy A will hook up with girl B or C but definitely not girl D because she sucks. Oh yes, and all the while there is blood and guts all over this show. In this particular picture, some guy's carotid artery has just ruptured. Nothing goes with romance like spurting blood, that's what I've always said. The ladies at our house that night (and I imagine this is the case with most women who watch ...

NASA put together a cool image collection of Antarctica. I'm not sure how useful it is, but it's cool. http://lima.usgs.gov/

Here I sit, in the lobby of one of San Francisco's great historic hotels, reflecting on what it means to be "on the road again." When Willie sang it, of course, he wasn't talking about IT consulting. I am certainly not making music with my friends, so between those two things, the musical version of on the road again is out of the question. I ran into a nice Australian couple at the bar tonight (John Foley's Irish house, best fish and chips in the city), and it's always nice to meet new people. The husband in this case is a pilot for Quantas airlines, and he brought his wife along for a "holiday" here in the city. They weren't sure what to do with their time here, so of course I offered some suggestions. The conversation then turned to politics - I asked them about Australia's election last week. Here are some key points from that discussion: 1) I learned that voting in Australia is compulsory. It's against the law not to vote. T...

How many refrigerators do you have? I have one. I'd guess that's the case for most families. Sometimes you retire an old one to the garage, and then you have two, but you only really use one. Diana Charles has 2 refrigerators, and a freezer. This isn't because she's retired one or anything like that - this is by design. Tonight she sent me downstairs to "get the andouille and a bag of crawfish tails" in preparation for the breakfast casserole she'll be making for us tomorrow morning. I missed the andouille on my first attempt - it was hiding behind the tasso and the alligator meat. This is a glimpse into what it's like to enjoy thanksgiving in a Louisiana kitchen. We're spending the long weekend with the Louisiana side of my family, which always makes for some fun times. Good food is as much as guaranteed. Here is the menu for the weekend: Wednesday: Dinner Smoked Stuffed Beef Roast Onion Roast Potatoes ...

It appears that I've worked my way straight through the end of October and into November. While the travel is still a royal pain, it sure beats flying coach class to France for (literally) weeks on end. I was reminded of this recently when I learned that the French transit workers are on strike yet again. You may recall they went on strike this exact same time last year, leaving me stranded at Charles De Gaulle airport. "C'est un grieve." If you find yourself traveling through France, you can't figure out why your plane/train is canceled, and you hear those words, you may wish to consider extending your vacation in, say, whatever town you happen to be standing in at that moment. Some transit worker has just informed you that there is a strike going on, and you couldn't leave town if you wanted to, except perhaps on a bicycle. Vive la France! San Francisco is truly a dream compared with most other towns, really. Just ask my wife, who came out to visit m...

Saponification is the hydrolysis of an ester under basic conditions to form an alcohol and the salt of a carboxylic acid . Saponification is commonly used to refer to the reaction of a metallic alkali ( base ) with a fat or oil to form soap . Saponifiable substances are those that can be converted into soap.

Greetings from the Bluegrass. It's cold and rainy here today. The drought made for a quick fall, and tomorrow we're dropping to the 40s. A tip o' the hat (thank you, Stephen Colbert) to the Naval Academy midshipmen, who, after a 43 year stretch finally beat Notre Dame. Coach Weiss, if you're looking for employment (and you ought to be), the Ace Hardware down the street from us is hiring. A wag o' the finger at Pervez Musharraf. In the past week Pakistan's president fired the supreme court because he learned they were about to declare his recent re-election unconstitutional. Then he locked up 3500 people because they don't agree with him. He is also sending out the riot police to any political protests, and has suggested that because of this [self-invented] state of emergency, he might need to postpone elections for a year. While some countries have frozen their foreign aid to Pakistan in light of these alarming developments, the US continues to send t...

"No sex in the champagne room "

I read this morning that Mitt Romney is polling well in Iowa and I couldn't be happier. I saw an interview with him last week and he continues to impress. I'll be the first to admit that I had written him off as un-electable, but I'd really like to be proven wrong on that point. I still don't know who is my favorite these days, but if the republicans don't at least pony up a decent candidate, I fear that Hillary may walk away with this thing, which means I'll need to move to Canada. So what makes a decent candidate for the republicans? Let's start with the basics - competence and eloquence. He'll need to be a family values candidate to pull in the 20% of our country that falls into the wack-job bible beater category. I can't stand 'em pushing their agenda on the rest of us, but one thing that's for certain is that they show up at the polls on election day. I also think the republican candidate needs to run on a reform platform, moving...

So, I got around to reading Delta's contract of carriage today. In case you were not aware, the airlines have a ridiculous amount of control over their passengers. If you read through the fine print and make it to page 48, there is some interesting information in here. Commercial flights are extra full these days. The past two weeks, I've been on 8 flights that were 100% booked. This holiday season will probably be the worst since 2000. So it's in your best interest to read through this junk for whatever airline you're flying to see all the rights you don't have. There is one key right you do have, that most people don't even know about. When a flight is overbooked, don't be so fast to "volunteer" to give up your seat for an "airline voucher" good for future travel. These vouchers are full of fine print and often difficult to redeem. If the airline doesn't get any volunteers though, and they have to "involuntarily deny b...

The Senate today looked at the American Dream Act. Sure it's a dumb title, but the concept is one I think most people can get behind. There are a lot of illegal immigrants here in the US. In Kentucky, we call them the backbone of our horse and agriculture economy, or at least we should, because that's what they are. I don't care how they got here, I don't think they're a national security threat, and based on my understanding of the Dream Act, I'm considering the idea that we ought to look at "illegal" immigrants in a different light. The Dream Act offers the children of illegal immigrants a fast track to citizenship if they a) go to college OR b) serve in our military They'd still have to pass a background check, but that's about it. Can someone tell me why this is not a good idea? We're talking about children age 15 or younger when their parents brought them here "illegally" - why punish them for their parents coming he...