Saturday night – Taxing day

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<arghhh… the stupid ipad app (blogsy) Ive been using to create this blog just erased this post 4 times.. here goes again>

woke up today knowing exactly what i had to do… I had to prepare our taxes.. I don’t enjoy doing it, but its a good feeling getting it done. Truth be told, i dont actually even do our taxes, I just prepare all the data for our accountant.. and even that is more than i like thinking about money each year. I would be such a bad businessman.

doing our taxes, reminded me of the youtube video that our friend Gary posted the other day. It was about wealth distribution in America. It compared what people thought the wealth distribution in the country was and compared that to what people thought it should be.. then compared both of hose to what the distribution actually is. I found some of the statistics in there to be pretty shocking…  for example the fact that some CEO’s can make nearly 400 times what the average worker in their company makes just feels wrong. I was also shocked and saddened to see how much of the country lives at or below the poverty line.. and how little of this countries wealth is actually owned by the middle class.

I know its heresy  , but I would be very willing to pay more taxes if it could help make things more equitable…

II also found a calculator in a WSJ blog that lets you place your own family’s income along that curve.. sobering.,.
OK.. on that cheery note.. I’m of to bed.. more tomorrow
nite all, nite sam
-me

 

Friday night – Ides of March

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Today is the Ides of March… The day that Caesar was killed in 44 bce. We all remember the story in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar where the old seer warned Caesar beware the Ides of March after looking at the guts of a chicken. Cesar saw the old man on that day and And remark to the man that the Ides of March had come to which the old man said aye ceasar, but not gone. This is one of the few lines of Shakespeare I can remember and I can never say it without doing it in a pirate voice. Don't ask me why it must be the Aye

I had no chicken Guts nor pirates nor fortunetellers in my day. But I did eat some Caesar salad dressing to Mark the day

Hope your ides was as good as mine.
Night all, night sam
– JC

 

 

 

Thursday night – Pi day / Geek test

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Happy Pi day everyone.. March 14th == 3.14  the geekiest  day of the year.!

Geeks everywhere are celebrating by shining their slide rules .. I know my work neighbors had a big Pi(e) celebration in the cafeteria.. but I was traveling back to the states..    You know.. i should take this more seriously now. I was thinking about it yesterday how much I’ve grown to be the nerd I always dreamed of being. The hobbies, the look, the poor social skills. …the whole stereotype !.  Its only a very happy accident of fate that has equated being nerdy with being cool again.. where would I be if hat hadn’t happened ?

This week in Turkey I met with many other wonderful  nerds and geeks at work.. one of them pointed me at the Geek Test . Its an online test of just how geeky you are.. I noticed a sec ago that it’s even been updated for Pi day.. how geeky is that ?  It’s many pages long.. so give yourself a good 20 minutes to do it..

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Anyway..   the fine folks in IBM Turkey asked me to take the test and submit the results.. I came in with a score OF 60.51661 % .. a solid “extreme geek”.. I actually would have done “better”.. but Im not into sci-fi, video games or RPGS… actually.. with those three strikes against me, I should be proud of having any geek cred..  I did score bi on electronic gadgets, peculiar interests, anti social habits , .

geektest

I’d be interested in hearing what you, gentle reader, score on this test.. i suspect that there are some Geek G-ds lurking out there..  please try it and let me know !

 

anyway.. happy Pi day everyone !

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

 

Wednesday night – Constantinople

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3AM and I’m still on a phone call. trying to multitask and get these photos posted.

good productive day here in Turkey. got to spend more time with the IBM team which is always good. Did have some email connectivity trouble, which made for the late night…

I got a nice run in after an 8 AM meeting… did the hills around the beautiful residential section near the hotel.. what a climb !

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had a great Lunch meeting with my friend Esra.. It was very good catching up with her. .. she’s awesome.. she used to work on traffic (like me) but now has a new job in the area I’m working on..  we had our meeting while walking around the modern art museum and ate there..  it had an amazing view of the bosphoros.
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when I got to the IBM site i was surprised to see riot police with water canon watching a protest.. evidently a long standing one. in front of a nearby business. They hadn’t paid heir employees in 2 years.. pretty tense.. .
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I spent the rest of the day working in the busy 19th floor open office where Nihal and Esra work.. the setting is really nice.. but I could NEVER work in an open office setting like this..i am way too dis tractable.  i couldn’t help listening  every ones phone conversations.. (and I don’t even speak the language)  and kept looking up when new folks walked by.. I know Id drive everyone around me insane as well. I
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we even had some surprise drop by visitors.. !
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the place was still buzzing when I left at 7PM..

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my good freind Reha came by to give me some cool new toys.. he’s given me one of his cellular sensor nodes.. he gave me an assembled one.. and a DIY one.. that’s all surface mount.. how cool is that !!!
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Reha’s old boss and freind Guseli cam in to say hi, too
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around 7:30 i met Zegnap , and Nihal for dinner, We picked up Viktor. (Czech Republic) . then drove down to the Genovise district.. where we met Christina (romania) , Elena (Spain), Guron (Macedonia) , Laura (Poland) for a great  Anatollian meal.

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then we stopped for a Raki overlooking (you guessed it) the bosphorus..

on the way there, they showed me this resturant thats totally dark with blind waitstaff.. interesting !
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now its really late.. I love this country.. i love the people..

thanks so much Turkey..

 

nite all, nite sam

-me