Huzzah for liberty!

"The upshot is that Congress cannot use the Commerce Clause to force you to eat broccoli, but it can tax you into doing so. Huzzah for liberty!"

That's one of the many bits that caught my eye while reading Jonah Goldberg's take on yesterday's ruling over at National Review (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/304363/roberts-s-ruling-took-guts-jonah-goldberg).

Elsewhere, George Will is spinning madly that Roberts' majority opinion was a good thing because it set limits on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. George, I refer you to the quote at the beginning. Great, there are limits to the Commerce Clause for the purpose of Federal overreach; but look, we still have ObamaCare,  which was argued on the basis of the Commerce Clause and saved from such argument by Roberts' arguing that the Individual Mandate is actually a tax.

So, George, what is it again that we won?

WHAT THE FRAK!!!!!

Chief Justice Roberts sold us out! He sided with the libs to uphold Obamacare! The vote was 5-4 for Obamacare, so you could say that Roberts was the deciding vote.

I'm going to be ill...no, I am ill!

Wowzer!

No, it's too soon to react to the Obummercare ruling. It's my reaction to the feedback I'm getting for the two guides I completed this week. It's rare in my business to get such glowing AND immediate feedback. It feels pretty good.

I got emails from three of the people participating in the presentation with a Towers Watson client, but this one captures the general consensus:

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Wanted to share broadly that we had a very successful meeting today.  Happy led the discussion using both the new Client Configurable Guide and the test site.  The guide is a clean, sharp, concise and easy-to-use document; the highlighting, screenshots and callouts really look nice.  The test site worked perfect (as far as I could tell anyway!).  The clients loved it!

Thanks to everyone who has been working so hard on ESS redesign!  It looks great!!

One small suggestion is to summarize or add a section with the terminology definitions in one place:

Intercept

Accordion

Modal

Modal Popup

Mega drop down

Flyout

Alerts

Worksheet page/tile page

(I wrote the words down as I heard them, as it continues to help me learn the new lingo for my sales demos.)

Thanks again – and please pass this on to all the others that have helped make this happen!

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I included the list of terms because it was something that I had included in my earlier drafts, but reviewers had asked that I remove them because it doesn't fit with their standards. I defended it by saying that I had put them in for my benefit with the idea that, if it helps my understanding, it will help the audience's as well. But it's their manual in the end, so I removed the definitions.

Two Down

Ponce de Leon planted the first orange and lemon trees in Florida in 1513. Just another Fun Fact from my calendar. Yesterday's Fun Fact was that Curious George was originally named Fifi, but the publishers thought the name was too feminine for the male monkey.

The two that are down are the two guides that I was writing for Towers Watson. The Business Analyst is using them today in a presentation with a client. Happy seems to be very happy with the guides. When Happy is happy, everybody's happy. Conversely, when Happy ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

I have already met with another Business Analyst to discuss the next guide, which should take me into September. There are other guides to be written, and some of them go into next year, but I don't want to jinx things by saying that they are definitely my projects.

Fun Fact

We've got our family soirees coming up the next two weekends. I don't know which is which, only that MJ drummed into my head that I am to block out time during the last weekend of June and the first weekend of July.

No, that was not the fun fact.

I could not remember how to spell "soiree"...well, it turns out that I did, but I wasn't sure...so I tried out a new dictionary app on my phone which accepts voice input. I spoke "swah-rey" and it displayed "soiree."

No, that was not the fun fact either, though it was interesting.

Did you know that Kelsey Grammer was the original voice of the Geico Gecko? Neither did I until I saw it on my Fun Facts calendar that I received for Christmas.

No Pain, No Loss

Attention: No friends, family, distant relatives, or acquaintances were abused in the writing of this post...aside from me, of course, since it is about my renewed weight-loss regimen.

I am nearing the end of my first week, and I've lost the obligatory 5 lbs. that everybody loses at the outset of any diet. I should settle into a 2 lbs./week weight loss starting next week. I'm following the standard calorie-counting routine and walking up to the 14th floor (the 13th for the non-superstitious) at least once a day. I walk down at least twice for lunch and to go home.

I'm tracking my calories with Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong app for my phone...I was hoping for a supply of complimentary steroids. The Droid version works much better than the one I had on my BlackBerry. The LiveStrong app has a very extensive online food database. I have yet to eat something that I couldn't find for my food log.

I'm surprised that I'm not eating much less than what I was eating before; though I am trying to move more, so I do have those extra calories to eat.

What gives?

What happened to the "Poor Judgment" post from a couple days ago? It's the one with a brief recap of me and Mary Jo at Chumpps on Father's Day, and a link to Robert Samuelson's article about Obamacare.

Why is this man whining?

Obama really is serious about pursuing this lie that he is fiscally conservative and that it was Bush who ran up the spending so much that it is now self-sustaining despite Obama's best efforts so tamp it down. Granted, I've been a serious critic of how little Bush did to squash spending, particularly after the Dems took over Congress in 2006, but what he did pales in comparison to what Obama and Congress did during his first two years. As this article says, Bush refused to sign-off on some of the spending that Obama is blaming him for. In fact, it was Obama himself who signed off on it.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/06/why-is-this-man-whining.php

P.S. Don't forget to visit the blog site that Jon set up for us.

Welcome to Margaret's Events and Greg's Musings

I watched Sherly Holmes: Game of Shadows last night. Chad was asking me a few weeks ago when the DVD came out, and it is out now. I don't have the DVD, but Comcast OnDemand shows new movies on the same day the DVDs are released.

The movie was fun, but I'll need to watch the first one again to determine which one I prefer. The poor bulldog is still being used by Holmes as a guinea pig.

I plan on watching the second Ghost Rider movie tonight. It, too, was released on DVD/OnDemand yesterday. I know that Nicholas Cage gets a bad rap, some of it well-deserved, but I have to admit that I generally like his movies.

The Snake and the St. Croix

Dave and I were back at the cabin this past weekend.  We were happy to watch the flood waters recede to normal levels.  We also did our share of work.  Dave amused himself on Thursday night and Friday morning, cleaning up from the flooding that happened on the yard (clearing debris that floated up and stayed, raking, burning, etc.).  I worked on the landscaping, putting in a wood chip path/border all along the back part of the yard/cabin.  By Friday evening our work was done and we were able to hit the pontoon for a bit.

On Saturday we took the kayaks to the canoe landing just east of the dam on the other side of Cross Lake (about 10 miles from the cabin), and embarked upon the Snake River.  The river flows into the St. Croix at a point that intersects with the St. Croix trip that Ian, Tess, Jon, Dave and I have taken.  The trip we took is probably about 10-12 miles long and features some pretty fun rapids!  Here are some pictures from the trip:

That is Dave, above, navigating the rapids!

I don't know if you can see, but the property above has a cool little tin man on the shore!  All of the pictures above are on the Snake River.  Below are some pictures from the St. Croix side:

It doesn't get much better than that!

We got back from kayaking on Sunday, mowed, put the dock back in and a few other putsy projects and headed back to Eagan.  It was a very nice weekend but I am dog tired today!



Movies Galore

It's been a good couple weeks for movies, both in the theatres and OnDemand. When I say "good" I don't necessarily mean quality, but that I'd been anticipating these movies.

The Avengers did not disappoint. Marvel's latest superhero installment continued with the characters from Iron Man, Thor, and The Hulk, and threw in Hawkeye for good measure.

John Carter of Mars was a disappointment.  I had hoped that the reviews were overly harsh, but seeing in OnDemand confirmed that they were not. It definitely helped that I had read the books, but the screen writers butchered what should have been a simple adaptation of the first book in the series. Why mess with a good story?

Prometheus was a mixed bag. To my surprise, I find that I am intrigued by the back story of the Aliens franchise, of which this is ostensibly a prequel of sorts, so it was fun to see how humans met the Aliens before they were they Aliens, and I'm looking forward to seeing further adventures with/against the Engineers, who had created the Aliens. Charlize Theron is definitely overrated.

Act of Valor was a surprisingly engaging action flick, with real soldiers portraying members of a Seal team. The acting may not have been the greatest, but it felt genuine.

The second Sherlock Holmes flick with Robert Downey, Jr is coming to OnDemand tomorrow. I can hardly wait. I enjoyed the first one, which was the film adaptation of a graphic novel that redefined the Holmes character. Not so much redefined, but emphasized certain characteristics that were merely implied or downplayed in the novels.

"The private sector is doing fine."

Woo-hoo! I feel so much better now that I can disregard my lying eyes and put my faith in Obama.

Walker Wins a Whopper in Wisconsin

As of 10pm with 73 percent of the votes in, Walker is declared the winner with 56 percent of the vote.

Clash of the Titans

I'm a little late getting to this, but I wanted to say that I had a good time visiting with the famn damily at Dave's on Sunday.

MJ and I cooled our heels in Dave's living room until hosts and guests arrived. After ransacking the place and wondering whether Dave had installed any hidden cameras that would incriminate us, we discussed the technological advances that both of us, especially MJ, have witnessed in our lives. It isn't even so much the times we live in, but where we live. There are so many things that the current generation of American kids take for granted, and so thoroughly understand, like Fantasy Baseball, for instance.

I don't know much about baseball, and even less about Fantasy Baseball, but it was interesting watching Dave and Caleb talking baseball and doing some horse trading with their fantasy lineups. Dave tried to pawn off one of his players, but Caleb said, with no little indignation, "He's on the DL!" I think I can speak for Dave when I say that Caleb knows what's what and who's who with baseball.

While I'm on Caleb, we coaxed him into doing some of his impersonations of family members. I can only hope that I'm not part of his repertoire.

Ellie sat in for a couple hands of 500 with Margaret (her partner), and Chad ("The Buzz Saw") and Noah ("The Eye of the Tiger"). She found better things to do, so I took over as Margeret's partner. It was a marathon match, with at least a dozen hands to complete a single game.

The 500 game ended just in time for The Clan to shuffle off to Mankato for Caleb's soccer game. Caleb playing soccer? Who'd a figured? Does Caleb know that soccer does not involve tackling?

One final comment before signing off, I guess Caleb had what I assume was his first schoolyard fight, and it was short and sweet. Apparently some underclassman, a kindergartner, said something to Caleb that he found offensive. Caleb immediately punched the kid in the face...I hear there was blood...and the issue was resolved. Well, not quite. Caleb then turned himself over to authorities and explained what transpired.