6 miles!

I walked 6 miles with the pups today, 2 miles with Izzie and 4 with Georgie. We tried to include a bunch of hills so I was definitely feeling it when I finished. Let me tell you, there is a big difference between 4 miles and 6 miles. The 6 miles made me feel like I really got a decent workout. The walk was great and the weather was beautiful. Unfortunately the allergies kicked in and I spent the afternoon napping and trying to recover.

Thanks Amy!

My cousin Amy had a great suggestion regarding the theater scam that I wrote about a few posts ago. She recommended that I call my credit card company about the fraudulent charge. It's funny- I had thought to call the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General, etc but it didn't even occur to me that my credit card company could do something about this. I guess I thought that since my credit card wasn't stolen and I made the charge, it wouldn't count as fraud. So I called them and they are sending me paperwork to file and will look into it but most likely they will credit my account for the charge! I'm so happy. It will probably take a couple months for this to happen but at least there is hope that I won't be out all that money. Thank you so much Amy for the suggestion!

Long List of To Do's

I've been feeling overwhelmed this week with everything that's been going on so I took some time to get my life in order. I keep a list of things I need to do and the list was getting out of control. So I finally sat down and just started taking care of things. Major stress relief. Am I the only one who feels like there are constantly about 10 things I need to take care of outside of everyday life? And it seems like the list ends up containing all the stressful things I don't want to do (that's cause I'm an expert procrastinator). I'm glad it's done.

Izzie's Tongue

So in case you're like me at this point and thoroughly worn down from my past few depressing posts, here's something to change the mood. Here's Izzie and her huge tongue! It cracks us up. For so long she couldn't figure out how to pant so she would get really hot and lay on the tile or whatever she could find to get cooler. But she figured it out sometime in the last couple of months and now she's a panting fool. :)

Allergy Season

This is just not my week............. Allergy season is here in full swing and I am hurting. Seems like the allergies just keep getting worse every year. I used to have allergies but nothing that really bothered me but in the last 2 or 3 years they have become considerably worse. A year and a half ago was the first really bad season and I was sick for most of the fall. Spring is not so bad but this week I've been a mess. My eyes itch, I have trouble breathing, and I get headaches. I tried walking with Georgie today but we only got to do 2 miles because I couldn't breathe. When I went to Florida in December I was outside on the grass and my feet turned red, swelled, and itched like crazy. So apparently some switch has flipped in me and my allergies are now out of control. It's hard not being able to enjoy the nice weather or open our windows at home. And when I take allergy medicine it makes me "foggy-brained" and I can't concentrate or work. So I'm going to an allergist next week to talk about allergy shots. I never thought I'd be a candidate for these but apparently now I am. I've been tested before and basically I'm allergic to everything that grows and blooms. You know it's bad when I'm willing to subject myself to being poked by needles- I'm very phobic. I'll tell you all about it after my appointment next week. :)

Statistics for Dummies

Should I even bother blogging about this? You all know what I'm going to say so I'll try to keep this short. My professor is still a moron. We did not get back our midterms today but he did hand out the "solutions". Some of the answers he provided were just plain wrong. For instance, he came up with a probability that was equal to 8. Uh, probability must be between 0 and 1. And he was NOT saying it was 8%. His answer was just 8. Idiot. I'm pretty sure I learned that principle of probability sometime in high school. Good thing he has his PhD. Other "solutions" were to problems that were not actually on the test. Nice huh? And yet others were worded differently. For instance, on the test he wanted us to calculate a distribution if x was equal to 6 or more but in his solution, the question asked to calculate if x is more than 6. A very different answer. So based on my grading where you actually grade the questions given on the test with correct solutions, I should have an A. But my guess is he will be giving me a C and then I will get to spend next Wednesday night explaining to him why his answers are wrong. I can't wait. Seriously, this is getting really old. I did talk to other people in the class and there are several of us that are going to go to the department about this. It's one thing if he's an idiot but it's another if he can't grade properly. What's going to happen on our finals when we're not there to tell him he's wrong???

Scammed

I got scammed. I bought season tickets for the Warner Theater here in DC. It included 4 shows throughout the year. After paying and receiving my tickets, all 4 shows were cancelled. And although I received a letter stating that a refund would be mailed, the company that sold the tickets has disappeared, disconnected their phones, and no refunds have been issued. The company is called Baci Management (to warn you if you ever hear of them, although I'm fairly certain the guy took his money and ran). The President is Nick Litrenta. Just wanted to put that name out there to make sure it's known that this guy is scum. He has disappeared with all of the money, collected from thousands of people. What makes this guy think that he's entitled to this money without providing anything in return? Apparently Litrenta did this in a bunch of cities and there are a LOT of people in the same boat as me. Not a great consolation when I'm out $558. The worst part is there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do about it. Here's some of the many articles on the subject:

Nick Litrenta is a Scam Artist, Take 1
Nick Litrenta is a Scam Artist, Take 2

It irritates me that the Warner Theater takes no responsibility in this. They advertised for the company on their site and directed people to use this service. It wasn't like I found some random sketchy discount tickets somewhere- this was through the Warner Theater's website! And now they do nothing. At minimum, I think they should have some information available for the people who were scammed- like the number for the apropriate authorities to place a complaint with. Instead, they are taking the stance of "it's not our problem and you should contact the company" even though they know that isn't possible. Frankly, the theater promoted the company and therefore should help its potential customers. At least have a little compassion. Telling their customers it isn't their problem isn't likely to make me want to buy tickets for shows at the Warner again, even if this isn't their fault.

So here's a question: should I be responsible for all of the lost money or should the people I bought tickets with be responsible too? When I bought the tickets I explained to the other people the cost of the tickets and we agreed to split the cost. But I just put it on my credit card to be easier and told them to pay me whenever. If I had collected up front, we would all be suffering now. But since I didn't collect up front, it's awkward to ask someone to share in that load. Not that I want my friends to suffer, but should I be responsible for all $558 just because it was my credit card used in the transaction? The bad part is- I didn't have money for all these tickets. I only bought them knowing that I was splitting them with people. So am I now supposed to just be out the money by myself because it all turned out to be a scam? I'd be curious to know what people think. If I'm supposed to just pay for it all myself then it leaves me with the lesson to never pay for something without the money already collected. That seems unfriendly but probably the tactic I would take in the future.

Is it really spring this time?

So the last time we got nice weather I fooled myself into thinking it was spring which was fairly depressing when the next snow came. We had really nice weather again this Sunday and I'm thinking maybe this time it's going to stick. Georgie and I had a great 4 mile walk and enjoyed the sunshine. Poor pup isn't conditioned to these walks yet and passed out for a good portion of the rest of the day. Apparently his mama isn't either- I required a nap by mid-afternoon as well. Izzie couldn't figure out why no one wanted to play. I did notice the allergies kicked in though. Ugh, I hate that about the spring and fall. Something started blooming and my allergy headaches have come in full swing. I'm pushing through though- Georgie and I love our walks!

Shoe Shopping

I had a shoe shopping spree this weekend. I went to DSW just to look around and apparently they just got a new shipment in because it was shoes galore and they even had my size! They never have my size because they don't think women should have feet smaller than size 7. I think most stores order one size 6 and one size 6 1/2 so I have to catch them when they first get their stock to have any chance at new shoes. But I hit the jackpot this weekend. 4 pair- 2 black sandals, 1 brown, and these awesome orange sandals. (I've been on a major orange kick for awhile now.) I'm so excited- I've literally been looking for some cute black sandals for years now. And I am in need of some sandals for the summer.

I haven't posted pics in a while so here's pics........... of my shoes! :)

Dinner with Dan

Tonight I met up with my friend Dan for dinner. Dan is one of my best friends from college and we both ended up in the DC area after school. He lives about 20 minutes from me. Despite the close proximity, both of us always have so much going on that we only see each other every month or so. But it's always nice to catch up on what's going on in each other's lives. Since we're both engineers, it's easy to talk about work and know the other person is going to get it. It's been interesting how our friendship has developed over the years. We were close in school but then became closer after, despite the fact that we have developed very different views on a lot of things, like religion and politics. He's one of those people I feel confident I'll know for the rest of my life.

Tonight we tried a sushi place in Alexandria that's rated #1 in DC by Zagat, called Yamazato. The place had more specialty rolls than any place I've ever been to. So we tried a couple of new things and everything was pretty good. Personal opinion- the eel was not so great. But the combinations in the rolls were new to me and very good. The best part is it's only a couple miles away which is nice because Michael and I usually drive a lot farther for our favorite sushi place. This place will be a good second choice.

Midterm

Where to begin............ My professor showed up 20 mins late. Then he decided that going over a previous homework problem would be a good idea before the test. Some background: He graded a homework problem incorrectly and a bunch of us asked about it after the last class. We all had the same answer but he insisted that we were all wrong and he was right. He told us we could talk to anyone, including asking God, and it wouldn't make us any more right because he was right. Very professional right? Well today he admitted he was wrong about the homework question and worked the problem out for us. (I don't think he understood that the entire class got it right- we weren't the ones requiring an explanation.)

And the test he wrote was terrible. The wording was poor and there were several problems that didn't make any sense. Several of the questions covered material that was never covered in the course. It was bizarre. Everyone in the class was really angry. Almost hostile. Class is from 7:20 til 10pm. I left around 10:30 and there were still people in the class! In the end, I actually think I did ok but only because I happened to have seen some of the material in a previous course. But who knows if he'll be able to grade the test correctly either, since he hasn't been able to grade our homework correctly. Apparently the statistics department is known as being a little "lacking". I take some comfort in the fact that this is the only statistics class I have to take; the rest will all be in Operations Research. It's just sad though because I've always loved statistics. I'm that random 1% of the population that gets really excited about stats and data. I was looking forward to this class. Now I just want it to hurry up and end.

Pet Peeve: people who don't think things through

A huge pet peeve of mine is people that don't think through things. For instance, there's a guy at my work who wants to implement a new idea. However, when asked questions about his idea, he can't answer, can't explain the idea, and gets defensive. So it doesn't lead to a lot of buy-in on my part, ya know? Who are these people that think "oh, i have an idea, i'll just implement it without thinking through any of the details???" I don't get it. He wants to implement the idea and figure out the details later! He just expects us to take his word that he knows what he's talking about and go with it. The kicker--- he's been with the company for only 2 weeks! Who does this??? At two weeks, you still have to prove yourself and your ideas; I had to do that with my idea. I guess he's decided he's above that. This guy is so irritating. I never know how to deal with irrational people. I'm happy to say that I work for a company now that won't let this behavior fly.

Sometimes doing nothing is a good thing

I took the metro in to the city today for work. I've been trying to figure out what will make the metro trip better for me because it always makes me feel sick. And I'm not talking a little queasy or something. I'm talking 'I could throw up if I don't make a conscious effort not to'. I get car sick too without air circulating in the car. So I attribute my metro issue to lack of air flow. I think I need one of those little handheld fans for my metro rides. :) j/k

Anyway, today I decided to not do anything while riding the metro. I've tried reading before and that makes it worse. So today I did nothing. Just stared out the window and thought. And it helped a lot. So at least now I don't have to show up at work feeling like I might throw up on our client. I like that. I bet our client does too........

Virginia Beach Work Weekend

I went to my mom's house this weekend to help out with some house stuff. It was a working weekend but we managed to make it fun with some wine and general goofiness. My mom gets stressed out over doing house stuff so I just got her drunk and laughing and it was fine. Just kidding- sort of. ;) Really though, we had fun and the weekend flew by.

I took Georgie with me and he was so sweet. It's funny how a dogs temperment will change depending on whether they're an "only dog" or whether they have siblings. He was such a sweet, cuddly boy without his sister around to play with and wouldn't leave my side the whole weekend.

"Spring Break"

This week was spring break at Mason so no school on Wednesday for me. Soooo happy! It's always nice not to have to sit through a few hours of nonsense, aka my stats class. But it made me reminisce back to the days when we actually had breaks from work (school) to do nothing. I miss that! I want a break from work to just laze around. My vacation time at work doesn't quite add up to the 4 months a year we got when we were in school. :) Sigh. What do you think it would take to institute spring break in the workplace???

3.5 miles

Woohoo. Another 3.5 miles today walking with the puppies. It would have been more but Izzie can be a bit of a handful. We took a new route today and she was zig-zagging all over the path, needing to sniff everything! I will have to bring my camera on one of these walks so I can post a pic of her happy face. It cracks me up.

One eventful moment of our walk: While walking with Izzie, we ran into another puppy and its owner. The owner and I were talking about the age of our pups and what kind of dogs they are and he said "wow, she's really big for 6 months". Wow. Now we know our girl is kinda chunky but do you really have to call her out on it in public like that? Messed up! :)

Where did the weekend go?

This weekend has flown by. I got so excited about my work idea that I spent much of my weekend developing it. Besides that, I've been really tired lately and managed to sleep until noon on both Saturday and Sunday (minus getting up for 2 hours in the morning on Sunday for the puppy). I NEVER sleep that late. Ever. But I guess it was needed. We did manage to find some time to play this weekend too. But it just went so fast! Must be that one hour time change. ;)

Today was a beautiful day. I decided to take advantage of the great weather by walking with the pups. We have a bunch of paths all around the area so it's great for walking, running, biking, whatever. So I took Georgie on a 2 mile walk, immediately followed by taking Izzie on a 2 mile walk. This was Izzie's first really long walk and she loved it. She kept looking up at me with these huge excited eyes and tongue hanging out the side of her mouth like she was thanking me for this amazing treat. It was cute. Towards the end of the walk she started moving a little more slowly and kept stopping right in front of my feet, I think hoping I would carry her. I think 2 miles might be a little much for her for now. Georgie, on the other hand, is used to the walks- we did this almost every day last spring and he loves it. Great exercise for everyone. I know I'm probably going to feel it tomorrow.

Brain Storm

I had an idea this week. I've been trying to develop a risk management strategy for my new company for our projects to use. There is a fairly common risk management strategy used by much of the IT community that measures the exposure of the project to risk. I've never been fully satisfied with the approach because the value of risk exposure still requires a lot of interpretation in order to provide meaning.

So I started exploring and I came up with a new strategy that involves techniques from engineering and operations research. I'm still developing it but I'm really excited about it. I have to finalize the strategy and implement it, then measure the results and see if they are better than the current strategy. So basically, this could lead to nothing but it could also lead to something big. As I was developing the idea, metrics started to form in my mind from the risk data I want to collect from our projects. I think the metrics may provide more value to the projects and the organization than what I've seen with other risk metrics.

The company has given me the go ahead to implement the strategy. This is exciting on many levels. I'm excited to be at a company that promotes innovation and is willing to try new ideas. I'm also excited on a personal level for what this could lead to. I've wanted to get into teaching in some capacity and this has potential to lead to speaking at conferences, etc. In the last two jobs I've had, innovation was not valued and I think that I started to limit my thinking because I knew the ideas wouldn't be embraced (or understood). I feel like I'm coming back out of my shell at my new company. It's great to be around other thinkers. I'm so excited. I haven't been this excited about a project in a really long time and it made me realize just how important it is to be at a company that you fit with intellectually. This has been a great week!

Rantings of a Statistician

I don't think I can make it through this semester. The professor is unbelievably bad and it gets worse every week. Tonight he did about 4 examples, every one of them wrong. At one point he did an entire board full of math and equations and I raised my hand to say "can't you just multiply 8/13 * 7/12?" Yeah, we wasted a whole board of math on something with that simple of an answer. That happened several times. He tries to make everything ten times harder than it is, confuses everyone, and comes out with the wrong answer.

On top of that, he graded our homework wrong. For one of the problems, the majority of the class had the same answer and it also matches the answer in the back of the book and yet he told us it was wrong. It's not. But I'm happy to have proof of his incompetence to show the department. I am writing a letter to the department; it's that bad. I've had bad professors before- but being a bad professor is different than being incompetent. This guy has no idea what he's doing and can't do any of the problems he assigns.

How does someone like this get through a PHD program? There should be no institution that would allow someone with this little knowledge to graduate and teach others. And it's not like he's just starting out- he's about 60. So this is someone that has been corrupting young minds for a very long time. I looked it up and he graduated from UNC- I'm surprised. Aren't they supposed to be good? I guess even good schools can accept and graduate unqualified people. I think schools should be more careful about who they accept into their programs. One person like this could keep me from attending a school that I previously respected; I would imagine I'm not the only person that feels this way.

What scares me now is we have to take a midterm written by this guy. I have a bad feeling about that.

Anyone want a brain teaser? Here's one of the many questions my professor can't do:
If 8 castles (rooks) are randomly placed on a chessboard, compute the probability that none of the rooks can capture any of the others. That is, compute the probability that no row or column contains more than one rook. (FYI- a chess board has 64 spaces, 8 x 8)
Anyone? Anyone?

Hotmail vs. Gmail

So I was just emailing my cousin and noticed she has a hotmail account. I used to have a hotmail account, until it was hacked into. Someone hacked into my account and changed my password so that they could use the account, pretending to be me. When I contacted hotmail, they told me there was nothing they could do, even though this was clearly a case of identity fraud. They said that the account had to remain inactive for over 30 days in order for it to be terminated. So as long as the hacker kept signing in, the account would remain open and the hacker could do whatever they wished. I actually knew who the hacker was and hotmail still wouldn't look into the situation. It was very upsetting.

I know it's a big deal to change your email address, but I urge all of you to drop hotmail if you still have it. I don't know how the other services are but I know with gmail you have an option to terminate your account at any time. And if someone tries to alter your account in any way, you get an email about the attempted change at a separate address where you can confirm or deny it. So there is extra security built in. Besides, the features in gmail run circles around hotmail. I'd be happy to send you invites for gmail if you need them. Just my two cents.

Goodnight Nobody

I finished "Goodnight Nobody" today, a book by Jennifer Weiner. She also wrote "Good in Bed", "In Her Shoes" which was also a movie, and "Little Earthquakes". This one was a murder mystery but it wasn't scary in any way (I hate murder mysteries.) It was a humorous look at a suburban housewife and her quest to determine who-done-it. It didn't change my world or make me think about the meaning of life or anything, but it was a good book. If you're looking for a good beach book this summer, I'd recommend this one or any of the others by Jennifer Weiner. They're a quick read with a lot of good humor for women.

School Daze

I haven't mentioned school yet on my blog and that's because school sucks this semester. I decided to just take one course this semester because last semester was really stressful and overwhelming with 2 classes. I realized I didn't have much of a life other than work and school and I'm not willing to give up everything else for school. Anyway, back to this semester.......... I'm taking a probability/statistics course and I'm really disappointed with the professor- we have to coach him through examples in class because he can't solve them himself. Seriously. It's fabulous. I'm glad I didn't take this class first or I would have dropped the program, writing Mason off as a terrible school. But my classes last semester were really good. So I guess I just have to suffer through this semester. Mostly it's just irritating because I feel like the school is wasting my time and money in this class. Poor Michael gets to hear me complain about it every Wednesday night. Ok maybe rant would be a better word than complain........... I can't wait until it's over.