<p>Good grief it is COLD here! -25 without wind chill and -45 with wind chill. I can’t seem to warm up even though the thermostat says it is 69 degrees inside. All kind of warnings out today saying frostbite will occur in five minutes on unprotected skin. D2 and H left for work this morning and thank heavens their cars started. I feel bad for D1’s poor dog who wants to go out and play! Guess I will do more laundry and reading today. I just finished reading “Orange Is The New Black” and am now enjoying “Marie Curie and Her Daughters: The Private Lives of Science’s First Family” . Very interesting.</p>
<p>Feel better Moda! I have a little tickle in my throat and am hoping nothing develops. Please keep your fingers crossed for me!</p>
<p>I am so sick of winter. This morning my papillon went out for all of two minutes–and I kept my eye on her the whole time. I realized that immediately she was having problems moving and ran outside to rescue her–and after I scooper her up, I couldn’t get back in to the kitchen because the handle on our door had frozen. Lucky I had my cell phone in my hand–H came and opened the door up from the inside. So weird.</p>
<p>My little girl keeps skulking under the dining room table–she needs to go but will NOT go back outside.</p>
<p>with neurological issues it is hard to know. Sometimes they will say its hopeless and the person has recovery. The glascow coma scale is a measurement where the person is now. It is not a predictor of the future. They do scans to see where the person is. combined with clinical signs and best medical guess. It depends where the injury is in the brain if its survivable even in a vegetative state. If the centers that control breathing, etc are not affected the person (with help) can live in a coma for a very long time ie Terry S. Not where I would want to be, taking away the feeding tube hastens death. I think a cerebral perfusion scan is helpful determining brain death. EEGs are too but can be blunted by meds, like the ones used to put someone in an induced coma. Anyway, there are so many factors which make the diagnosis, prognosis, etc very hard . neuro is a mystery in many ways.</p>
<p>That cold weather sounds scary. I couldn’t believe the number of players in last night’s Packers game who refused to even wear long sleeves. Even a lot of the 49ers were in short sleeves. My brother’s D is trying to fly back to London and her flight was routed through Chicago so keeps getting cancelled. He is very frustrated. We have rain today, but pretty warm (46 degrees). I hope everybody stays healthy and safe.</p>
<p>NM, I am currently reading the Evolution of God, which I think is very interesting. It’s a good companion book in my view to Guns, Germs, and Steel. I had been disappointed in Zealot and David and Goliath, which are two other recent reads.</p>
<p>MP, I’m so very sorry for your friends and for their daughter. Unimaginable pain. It hurts even to consider that possibility.</p>
<p>Moda – I hope you start feeling better soon. I’m washing my hands so much they’re looking chapped, but it seems that every third person I know is either sick, getting over being sick, or has a family member who is sick. H says his office is nasty. I wonder whether the flu vaccine was less effective than normal this year? </p>
<p>I’m reading The Unthinkable (Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – And Why) by Amanda Ripley. Sobering, but very interesting. Many years ago when I was a junior consultant living in hotels most of the time, our firm had a fire safety guy come in and talk with us about hotels, and particularly to advise us on not relying on the hotel to keep us safe, since hotels tend to worry more about unnecessarily disturbing guests. There have been way too many hotel fires where the hotel’s first reaction to a report from a guest was to send a bellman to investigate rather than calling 911. This book is further reinforcing those concepts.</p>
<p>Well back at work today. When I left for the gym this morning it was 43. 2 hours later when I dropped my car off to get fixed it was 34 so the cold is headed this way. Very windy today with dropping temps. Car will be in the shop for at least a week they tell me. They are finally going to put in a new engine. It’s a 2010 and I have had TONS of issues with it. They did give me a rental - 2013.</p>
<p>Checking in.
mp and Fallgirl, so sorry about the deaths and accidents. Sad and scary.
Mod, hope you are feeling better.
NM, I remember sitting on the floor registers during my teens trying to be warm. I keep telling my H to wear wool but he keeps putting cotton sweaters on. Yesterday I told him they need to be washed and won’t make it back to his closet until it warms up here.
boysz3, cute about your dog and I don’t blame her. Frightening about the door handle though.
Z, hope your D2 has a better Spring.</p>
<p>arabrab, I often say that we have recycling police here. Great guilt if a single things is not somehow recycled. I am very annoyed with our county as they decided that garbage, small cans only, are picked up every two weeks. We have to wrap our G’son’s diapers in plastic and put them in S’s dorm fridge when they visit. What would parent’s do with 2-3 in diapers? I suppose some go to a service. As I understand it, it is a tie between disposable or cloth ones.</p>
<p>D is back in RI and has a drafty apt. I have been telling her to put towels on the windowsill and doors. H and I were glad to see her dog leave. I kept smelling something and D kept telling me I was being overly sensitive. I insisted we ask the vet tech when we took her in for her nails and it was her anal glands. Squirted all over. Of course this was the day before they left.
D will be back in 6 weeks to study for her boards. She will be here 6 weeks. H is already commenting on how messy she is and how she loads the dishwasher backwards. I have made an agreement with her that I will not mention the hardwood floors if she will not put her heels and boots on and tip toe around. She claims that she feels she has an evil sister (the floors). She has agreed that her dog cannot be in the guest room where she will stay or downstairs on the carpet without her.
We all know that H and I are thrilled to have her back for so long as it is most likely the last time she will be with us for so long, even if she will spend 15 hours a day studying and her possessions with be all over the entryway…
She is still hoping that BF comes to his senses and has clarity that he wants to move to RI, marry and eventually have children. H and I hope that D finds peace and that BF is really out of the picture. We both really like said BF but enough is enough and it no longer looks good.</p>
<p>It is 50 degrees here and raining so most of the snow will be gone, but it will drop into the teens tonight. The airways are a mess and I have to fly to Asia in a few days, so I hope they sort things out by then.</p>
<p>I may need to head from Singapore to The Hague before ShawWife comes to Vietnam. Fortunately, her schedule is relatively flexible and she is used to change as my life seems to require a lot of flexibility.</p>
<p>TA, ShawSon and his team has been discussing whether to accept an acquisition offer. The two most important team members want to accept, but it is being vetoed by the other two. They may lose the other most important one and ShawSon is saying, “Can I turn it over to the remaining two and if I am going to do that, how do I do so?” They are doing pretty well otherwise, though the departure would really hurt them and require ShawSon to start recruiting someone new.</p>
<p>shaw, I’m sorry your son is not having the fun he should be having with his start up. He has such a good product, it’s a shame all this is getting in the way. Does he prefer to sell, or not? Will there need to be some kind of buyout that goes along with any direction that is chosen?</p>
<p>oregon, your daughter will be so busy studying, maybe she will forget all about bf…and then she will realize that if she can forget him, maybe he isn’t the right one to be…</p>
<p>I remember when older D’s whole reason for initially moving to Ohio said he thought they needed a break. two weeks later, he was asking to get back together and she was… not so much. Sometimes a different perspective is all one needs to move on. What’s not so great is if she’s in a cold place feeling alone - aka apt in RI in winter. So hopefully she’s also good about having built friendships there and once word gets out she’s broken up, her life will get some color.</p>
<p>It’s miserable cold here today and I am just thankful that I had no where to go or be. Then again, I rarely do and that has become an issue in itself. However, the weather has also prevented the realtor from stopping by, which isn’t such a bad thing seeing as I’ve been sick and it is clear that all my calm reminders about the kids really packing up their rooms since Thanksgiving was completely ignored. And for some reason, H thinks my “complaint” isn’t worth complaining about. Thankfully I am too sick to get into the argument because I fear it would be a doosey.</p>
<p>D called the landlord at my suggestion and it turned out she did not have all of her baseboard vents open. BF texted yesterday (and she did not even bother to let me know until I asked which means to me that it did not upset her). Basically said he knows he needs to sort things out and that the past conversations should never happen again. What I have been saying for weeks if not months. She did not respond. (good girl)</p>
<p>Shaw your S’s situation is very interesting. Does he worry like the rest of us or just go forward?</p>
<p>Mod, fortunately D has a strong group of friends and a few even went to College with BF and they think his being an ###.
I do not blame a young man for having cold feet and wanting to get his own career going. However, make up your mind. And while H and I actually rarely even think of this–BF has RP and is likely to be completely blind at some point. So D can be clear that she is in and he cannot give her the same?</p>
<p>Good morning. Did I hear the bus is taking us to PALM SPRINGS…cause I’m ready, standing down the lane with my ear muffs and balaclava on I don’t have it as bad as nm and Moda, but I think I still qualify for the PS bus ( or in truth, maybe “the short bus” as we say).</p>
<p>Shaw, that acquisition could be just the thing for Shawson in a way…what’s his thinking on it?</p>
<p>TheAnalyst, did you mean you were reading GUns/Steel/Germs now? I loved that book! Or were you comparing the new book to it?</p>
<p>Sending the mojo for warmth, hassle-free travel, wellness, healing, gratitude, and relationship happiness to the collective :)</p>
<p>kmc, I read Guns, Germs, and Steel a few years ago when S1 had to read it in college. H is finally reading it now, so we are having some good discussions that Evolution fits into well. I wish S2s college had required more substantive reading of that type. That is the biggest difference between the quality of S1s and S2s colleges. The engineering classes were about the same. In all of the classroom training S2 has had for his job, he feels every bit as well prepared as the engineers from elite programs. On the other hand, his non-engineering classes were weak, in my view. S2 is starting to read a little now each night before bed. He isnt ready for a book like Guns yet, as he wouldnt even try Player Piano, which I think he would like. He is still moving from short sci fi to longer sci fi, but I have high hopes. </p>
<p>Shaw, thanks for the clarification. I dont know the product since I am not a member of the Facebook group, but keeping it theoretical (widgets, if you will) makes it like a textbook case study, so I like that. When the first person left, I seem to remember that there were rules about how much equity they had accrued up to that point, which was not much. I assume those same rules have to apply to anybody else who leaves. Leaving before an acquisition or the initial equity shares become fully vested, whichever comes first, reduces the financial return to the student founders. Each walks away with his experience, but not much financially. That probably cant be changed. </p>
<p>My concern would be that the equity investors could lose money if the acquisition is declined, key men leave, and the company is mismanaged by the replacements. I assume the investors do not have a vote in the acquisition/no acquisition decision at this point since the company is doing relatively well. Presumably, there are benchmarks that have to be met and only if management defaults on a critical target would investors get to step in to make the management decisions. In your shoes, I would advise ShawSon to make sure the right benchmarks are in place (if not already) to allow the investors to step in quickly to make key management decisions, as needed to prevent a loss in value. I am sure you would prefer to be taken out if ShawSon leaves, but that may be your only option if a key-man escape clause for the investors wasnt structured into the original deal.</p>
<p>A friend just recommended Guns, Germs, and Steel to me. So it’s next on my list.</p>
<p>D2 has taken to some more serious reading lately; she reads her share of fantasy, etc., but lately has been willing and wanting to read more substantial works, including non-fiction. She’s asking now for a good overview of European history. </p>
<p>I’m supposed to fly to the midwest on Thursday for a weekend conference. It’s in the 70s and more here. Don’t wanna.</p>
<p>A good Chinook came through last night; it was howling – but the temp is already up to 45 degrees. It completely blew the snow off some parts of the lawn, and packed it hard enough to walk on in other places, but lots just disappeared into the wind. (As snow should. Slush is nasty.)</p>
<p>D was selected for a new team at work, so she’s excited. She seems to be rolling with the transitions of a mid-stage start-up. </p>
<p>Meanwhile back at the ranch, I’m in my last couple of days of paperwork and financials for 2013. Got a new toy for Christmas – a Sonos system for wirelessly playing digital audio with excellent quality – so I’m going to pump up the volume and get cracking.</p>
<p>Good morning all. With windchill it’s only -3 here in RI, which I’m sure sounds downright balmy to some of you. Geez - maybe I’ll have to take a walk on the beach later …</p>
<p>So sorry to hear of the difficult news from several of you. As many have noted, life can change in a flash …</p>
<p>Well, the Christmas UNdecorating elves finally showed up here, except for the artificial tree up in the tower. I kind of like the look – maybe we’ll leave it up for a while. We’ve discovered this town makes no provisions for disposing of Christmas trees, so we’re at a loss as to what to do with it. We could take it to the town “dump,” but it’s considered yard waste, and they’d charge us $20.00! </p>
<p>After a hiatus of way too many months I finally dragged myself to the gym/fitness center today. It’s really a decent facility – I went there for 2 summers before we tore down the old house. I feel as if I hit the jackpot – turns out there’s a discount on the monthly fee for being “of a certain age.” Once in a while it’s good to be old! Who knew?</p>
<p>arabrab - we put a Sonos system in the new house. For at least a nanosecond we’re on the cutting edge of A/V stuff. It’s very cool, though.</p>
<p>NM, I am using igHome. Can’t say I love it. I set up a customized Google News as a separate tab because I couldn’t figure out how to customize the Google news gadget on igHome. Not as happy with some of the other gadgets either but it was the bet I could cobble together. I find the Internet is becoming so commercialized as to be almost unusable from my perspective. I won’t register to a site to read their news, even if free, so find I am shut out of more and more sites. I fear I will soon stop making the effort and return to a pre-Internet lifestyle (except for cc, of course).</p>
I don’t have it as bad as nm and Moda, but I think I still qualify for the PS bus