Go Conservatives…and something really Cool

I really hope this puts the kibosh on all the rampant liberal spending that has been happening out of DC in the last year. I was truly impressed with Massachusetts last night by taking a state election and making a national statement out of it. Nice work. Restored my faith in our electoral system. Fun watching the entitlement crowd spin this. Gosh I hope the “Chosen one” is paying attention to what middle America is trying to tell him.

Ok, now to something less aggravating and much more fun although I don’t know if my kids would agree with me after the ride into school this morning… I will get to that in a minute. So IPods are everywhere. You probably have one and if you don’t, your kids do I am sure. A friend of mine pointed something out to me the other day that has completely blown me away. It is absolutely incredible and I felt like I needed to tell others about it… at the risk of telling everyone something they already knew thus leaving me to look like the geek at the “in crowd” party...A role I am used to playing by the way. Here goes.

So launch ITunes (if you have it… if you don’t, it’s a free download)
Look on the left side and find ITunes U. It stands for University.

Look and behold… it is truly a wondrous thing. There before you are thousands of hours of lectures and courses from all the most prestigious universities from around the US and abroad. I am completely gob smacked by what is out there. Architecture? How about lectures from MIT? Business school classes for MBA students? Stanford. History? Yale. Languages, tons… I spotted German, French, Italian, Chinese and even Hebrew with just a glance. Of course some of this is only first year classes but I know that some schools put even graduate level work out there. MIT puts almost everything out there for consumption, even tests to quiz yourself on the material.

This morning on the way to work I started in on Beginners Philosophy from Oxford and made the kids listen to it with me on the way to dropping them off for school. It was being taught be a very British sounding woman professor and it literally starts off with the first day of class and her giving an overview of the lecture. Max only had one question… “Dad, is this man from England?” I said… “Woman, and Yes” I told him. I then said that not only was she British but that this lecture took place over in England and they recorded it and put it on the internet for anyone who is interested in listening to it. I think they probably thought I was crazy to be listening to “school” work when I have so clearly outgrown it and wasn’t required to go to school anymore. Ah, youth…it is truly wasted on the young. ;]

I have lined up some business and marketing lectures after I get done with philosophy, and then I am on to computer programming from Stanford. Anyway, check out ITuneU. I think it has to be one of the coolest things I have ever seen on the internet.

Oh, us? We are all good. Everyone is happy and healthy. Karah needs an eye test and probably new glasses so we are doing that this weekend. Let’s see if she wears them this go-round. Luc and Max both got haircuts… I think Amber was impressed that I got both of them to agree to it. Shaggy is Luc’s nickname… especially when he wears a green T shirt. Have you seen him walk? RoROH. ;]

Amber is edging just that little bit closer to 40 this Friday. We took the day off to spend it together and we are both really looking forward to that.

Speaking of being the dork at the “in crowd” party… going to the “Gala” tonight for our company’s sales group. Our company seems to be run in a very sales-centric manner and at times (often) the pie seems split unevenly between Sales/Exec and Engineering folks... at least in terms of importance. Its funny but I don’t think either party wants the other there at events like these. The CEO is ex-sales so go figure. Long story short is that my group (all 8 or 9 of us) won an award this week for the work we did in 2009. We won the “Spirit of Genband” award for doing exceptional work in the face of adversity was the way it was put I think. We got trotted up to the stage to shake hands with the Exec VP of Engineering and the CEO who handed us our plaque. I joked with them on stage that had I known beforehand (about the award) I would have tucked my shirt in which got a chuckle out of our VP. Anyway, as award winners we were "invited" to something we never really get to see, like this "Gala" (love that word). Even the "invite" wasn't handled very well and it all felt very forced... I am guessing that our entire compensation for our efforts will culminate with the plaque (and mention in front of company) and a mediocre dinner with a room full of people that probably wouldn't talk to us in the hallway the next day anyway. On the plus side we will get a peek at the inner workings of the other side of the company, the side that gets to do all the fun things like executive off-sites in exotic locales... that sort of thing. I am sure there will be lots of "patting themselves on the back" kind of moments but it should be interesting nonetheless. Hopefully I don't get fired for my comments. The internet is a strange thing that way... hehe... maybe they will like reading about my goofy life.

OK so Political comment, quick update on Family, Work happenings, and even something cool thrown in... yeah, I think I covered it.

So bring on 2010. It’s definitely going to be better than last year and infinitely better than the one before that. I hope this finds you all well. Catch up with you soon.

-bb