Duffy

Peace and Love

2009-12-24T21:22:10Z

I'd like to wish peace and love to everyone this Christmas. It's been a rough year for a lot of us, but with some help we'll all see better times ahead.

Now I need to find my Colbert Christmas Special.

God bless us every one.

I'll be the one in the black trench coat.

2009-11-25T00:08:32Z

Boondock Saints II, All Saints Day at 10:05PM at Fairfax Corner.

I'll be the one in a Boondock Saints t-shirt and black trench coat.

There is only room for one tricorn wearing mascot in this town.

2009-11-23T23:10:04Z

Would anyone be interested in going to the GMU vs. GW basketball game on Wednesday, December 2nd? The GW student publications have apparently been talking some smack, and I would be very interested in seeing the Pats deliver a righteous beat down to the Colons in person.

7:00PM tip. Ticketmaster charging between $15.50 and $21.50 a ticket, depending on the section, and I would be willing to front the money.

Be it ever so humble...

2009-08-30T18:26:00Z

Happy to be back in Arlington, after an epic cross country journey. Flew out to Seattle by way of Atlanta, where torrential rain in Washington turned what should have been a two hour lay over into an eleven hour layover. Fortunately made the standby flight to Seattle, where Monday morning set out for parts east. Had a wonderful day in Yellowstone, and another wonderful day in Badlands, before starting a cannonball run from South Dakota through MN, WI, IL, IN, OH, PA, MD & DC back to Virginia.

This morning was a prime example of what I had missed about Arlington. While enjoying my coffee at the local farmer's market, the next woman in line is asking for samples of the different coffees. She asks if there are any politicians about to bother, and baranoouji helpfully points out the Arlington County Democratic Party booth. She says that she is a Democrat, but if they are the only folks about, she will bother them on principle. When I express my approval of her bothering the local Democrats, she incredulously asks if I am a Republican. I admit to her that I am, and in fact am one of the last three in the county. She expresses surprise that Chris Deeds is down in the polls to Bob McDonnell. I point out that she has just illustrated why Creigh Deeds is down in the polls as no one in Northern VA knows anything about him. After I make a few more points about the political geography of the state her jaw drops lower and lower. She had apparently been under the impression that Republicans were as a rule incapable of intelligent discussion. I finally admit that there were actually four of us at the last Republican meeting, but one was actually a Libertarian, and beat a hasty retreat, coffee in hand.

I've solved it!

2009-02-05T04:08:13Z

If President Obama just nominates 72,000,000 more former Senators with tax problems, we'll be able to retire the national debt.

Happy Lee-Jackson Day

2009-01-17T03:07:46Z

I was driving back to work from a site visit out in Sterling when I passed the Tyson's DMV, parking lot empty. A couple of years ago Virginia's state government finally got with the times and Split Lee-Jackson Day off from Martin Luther King Day. What an embarrassment Lee-Jackson-King day was. One of these things is not like the other.

This afternoon I got to tell a network guy that not only would Verizon not be able to get a fiber optic cable into his building in three weeks, we might not be able to make three months. Then I had lunch at Wegmans.

Wave of the future...

2008-12-18T22:26:43Z

I've meant to post about a number of things over the past couple of months, but haven't for one reason or another (laziness, mostly). Yesterday I went out and got a digital TV tuner. I had been watching over the air analog broadcast. The digital tuner doesn't pull in the Baltimore stations, but I think the multicast more than makes up for it. I now get 4 channels from WETA 26. One of them is dedicated to the cooking shows I like so much on Sunday afternoons.

We are also getting two Prius hybrids for our vehicle pool at work. So tomorrow afternoon I'll get to drive out to Sterling in an ecologically friendly sort of way.

jduffy1535 @ 2008-11-05T23:11:00

2008-11-06T04:31:09Z

What could possibly sooth my weary soul after John McCain's defeat last night? Perhaps a new computer. So I am now in the middle of setting up my new quad core desktop. It will probably take me a little time to get used to the six gigs of RAM and the 600 gig hard drive. I think I am already used to the 22" widescreen monitor.

Consider this my contribution to helping our new president-elect Barack Obama fix the economy.

jduffy1535 @ 2008-10-30T22:50:00

2008-10-31T03:11:10Z

For the past couple of weeks, rumors have been flying around work about impending layoffs. Between 10% and 30% in each organization. During the quarterly update Monday, the CEO mentioned that there would be 2700 people RIFed/downsized. This morning my boss was fired. She will be on the payroll through the end of November, but that is a hell of a Christmas bonus. Makes me glad I haven't been promoted into management over the last couple of years. As many bad things as there are with a union job, at least you have a little job security.

In other news, Verizon will be buying Alltel for 28.1 billion dollars.

Tagged for explicit adult content!

2008-09-30T04:08:23Z

I am morbidly curious as to how low my 401k will be tomorrow.

It seems everyone is trying to fix blame on why the bailout didn't pass. The answer is as simple as it is uncommon. The congress did the will of the people. The American people have apparently been burning up the phone lines of their respective congresspeople for the last week against this bill by a 100:1 ratio.

America has been whipped into a populist frenzy. I, for one, am ready to start crucifying CEO's down Broadway. Paulson came to Congress with a plan that gives him unprecedented authority and has the potential to cost America hundred of billions, maybe a even a trillion dollars. But we can't put conditions on the executive compensation of the companies that participate, because that would be a disincentive for them to participate and we need broad participation for this plan to work. As it turns out, the American public is also disinclined to participate in the bailout.

The Congressional leadership cobbles together a plan that has most of what Paulson wanted, and John McCain jumps out in front. Everyone is trying to make sure their side gets the credit and the other side gets the blame. After the bill failed the Republican minority leader John Boehner blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi had given a speech just before the vote blaming Bush's policies for the economic situation. Maybe they did have the votes lined up before the speech, but what does it say about the bill if a matter of personal pique will cause a dozen congressmen to abandon it. And maybe the next time Speaker Pelosi needs a number of people who don't like her very much to eat shit and vote for a bill their constituents hate, she'll be a little more careful about blaming them for the situation that the bill is supposed to fix. Somehow I doubt it.

Wall Street's campaign money flows to the powerful. So it is not surprising that the Senate voted for the bailout. It is also not surprising that the House leadership of both parties did their corporate master's bidding and twisted every arm they could to try and pass this bill. The surprise is that there were enough free market Republicans and progressive Democrats who listened to their constituents to throw a wrench into the system and hold up this bill, at least for a little while.

I am optimistic that America will be better off. If it was up to me I would have the banks and brokerages going through bankruptcy court. I say that with the assurance of someone who works for a 90 billion dollar company (that used to be a hundred billion dollar company) and can't be downsized until August 2011. I don't like being dictated to by Wall Street. The conditions of the rescue plan reminded me of Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles, holding the gun to his own head. Let the banks fail. The hedge funds doubly so. Let home values fall back to market rates. Institutional investors will suffer. Pension funds and college endowments will need to raise more money. We will all have to live with the fact that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Absolutely.

2008-09-24T01:13:36Z

Does anyone have $700,000,000,000.00 I could borrow?

No?

Are you absolutely sure about that?

Not on strike!

2008-08-03T05:03:59Z

Verizon and the CWA/IBEW have stopped the clock, meaning that they will continue to negotiate and that I will go to work as normal on Monday under the existing contract.

I was ready to strike. In fact, I was almost looking forward to a strike.

However, I sure do like getting paid.

Live from the other Washington...

2008-07-21T19:01:42Z

Touched down safely at 12:01AM Saturday. In the last two days baranoouji has taken me to the company picnic (bigger than the Arlington Co. Fair) and up a freaking mountain. The park ranger claims that snow-bound hiking trails are unusual for July, but I'm not sure I believe him.

How Meta...

2008-07-16T21:02:36Z

Washington Post article about an online spat about an espresso over ice at Murky Coffee in Clarendon. The incident was posted on a blog and then picked up by a couple of web sites. When I saw it posted on Metafilter on Monday there were already close to 200 comments.

Kinda neat to see someplace I've been known to drink a latte in the news, but shouldn't the Washington Post should have something better to write about.

Happy Juneteenth

2008-06-20T02:16:51Z

Today is the 143rd anniversary of Union troops entering Galveston Texas and announcing the emancipation of the slaves and the end of the Confederacy. In honor of this I present you Marching Through Georgia.

Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee!
Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea
While we were marching through Georgia.

jduffy1535 @ 2008-06-10T17:42:00

2008-06-10T22:07:21Z

Back from voting. An exercise in futility in this district, as congressman-for-life Jim Moran will continue to represent me until he grows tired of it or I move. We have established that he can innappropriately touch an 8 year old boy, get a sweet-heart loan from a company with pending legislation and even tick off the Jewish community and still keep his seat. You just have to hope he might do all three at once in front of a camera one day.

God bless America.

Free time...

2008-06-01T20:07:07Z

So now that I am done with school and baranoouij is off to the Pacific Northwest, I have some time on my hands. So far this weekend I have been out to the Four Provinces in Falls Church to listen to folk music and drink Guinness.

I went for a walk this afternoon down to the Air Force Memorial and tried out my new camera. It's an Olympus FE-310, not particularly powerful, but it seems to be about my speed. I've never been a big picture taker, so a lot of my experiences have gone undocumented. Maybe I can change that now. Now I just have to figure out how to upload the pictures. And remember to comb my hair before I have someone take my picture.

It's official...

2008-05-12T23:53:02Z

I have passed all my classes for this semester. That means on Saturday I will be graduating with a M.S. in Telecommunications. Given my experiences as an undergrad, I think I can be forgiven for not not taking anything for granted until I actually saw the grades posted on my transcript. I am really looking forward to having free time. For the last couple of months (...years?) my free time has been the kind where I was just blowing off studying or writing papers. So what am I going to do with myself now?

jduffy1535 @ 2008-03-06T19:52:00

2008-03-07T01:00:31Z

Done with midterms for the week. Just going to work tomorrow will be almost a vacation.

I came up 50-50 on the definitions part of the test. I missed nadir totally but was able to pull superheterodyne from somewhere. We'll see if got the rest of the test right (or even used the right equations) in a couple of weeks.

jduffy1535 @ 2008-03-05T21:39:00

2008-03-06T02:57:54Z

One down, one to go. Midterms are the devil.

I think I did ok. I guess I'll find out in a week or two. Now just one more exam to cram for. This week, anyway.

in local news...

2008-02-14T03:13:02Z

Gene Nichol resigned today as President of the College of William and Mary. The Board of Visitors decided not to renew Nichol's contract for another term, thus Nichol decided to resign immediately.

A quiet morning.

2007-12-25T14:44:10Z

Woke up early this morning (relatively speaking) after midnight mass last night. I hope every one enjoys a peaceful, blessed Christmas.

Because if everyone else jumped off a bridge I would too.

2007-12-13T22:58:29Z

97%ALCOHOLIC

jduffy1535 @ 2007-11-05T19:28:00

2007-11-06T00:33:28Z

Took the day off work and got my paper done with an hour to spare. I am sadly out of practice at writing. After about 4 pages I had an original thought and things went much more quickly after that. I'm off to class to throw myself on the mercy of the curve.

P.S.
God bless Guy Fawks.

All souls day

2007-11-02T20:57:34Z

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.