Personal

I am a little depressed after checking out the Baby Name Wizard. No I am not having a kid, but this was too cool to not check out. It maps out the popularity of the most common names in the US for the past 100 years or so.

I was depressed to see that the name Scott peaked in the 60’s with a rank of 15th most popular boy name. In the 70’s it was ranked 17th. That was when my parents jumped on the band wagon and named me. After that the name started a major decline. Ranked #39 in the 80’s, 75th in the 90’s, and 208th last year. Come on people, it is a good name. Use it! Why does everyone need to go for those (as my brother in law calls them) shee shee fru fru names people use now a days?

Scott, from Old English. Meaning wanderer or from Scotland. There are other good meanings for the name that I couldn’t find in the 3 minutes I tried to do research for this entry. It is a good name, trust me.

On a positive note, I know of one new possible Scott out there. Don’t change your mind Sean!!!

Rant about nothing important is now over. Resume normal schedule!

I deal with disaster scenarios all the time.  I am paid to look at a system we have and figure out where it could fail.  then come up with a way to minimize that risk, either by a fully automated redundant system or some other backup plan.

So saying I was surprised when I read that the MTA had to turn off an entire train line and it won’t be back for nine months would be an understatement.  How can a major municipal corporate not have redundant systems for minor components like switch controls?  If you have a system that is worth billions of dollars, and millions of people use each day it sort of should be a given that you have backups for critical systems.  I guess the MTA can say oops.  This article explains what happened, or that the NYPD isn’t really sure yet.  They are still investigating.

Thankfully I am no affected by this issue, but because of what I do it got me to stop and think "redundancy, we really do need that"!  I am now not sure if big companies or small ones get the whole redundancy thing right?

One funny thing I noticed when I was out in the snow Saturday. The 4 & 5 trains were running local in manhattan. that meant the express track was not in use. They do construction on the weekends. This weekend during the snow storm they parked trains on the express track at every station that I stopped at. It looked like they were trying to keep trains out of the snow when they were not in use. I have seen them park a train or two before but there were allot Saturday. It is sort of comforting that the MTA is thinking a bit about things like this. Trains underground out of snow causes less problems! Now all they have to do is not raise the fares

Another interesting note is that Jay read that the city was taking anyone with a social security card and a drivers license and letting them work with or on snow plows for like $9 an hour. I guess they were really short handed.

I love the snow. I love watching it come down from the comfort of my warm apartment. I love standing on the street and watch fresh snow fall. I am no longer a big fan of playing in the snow, but I used to be. Snow is one of those things that looks cool, and doesn’t come along so much to become a bore!

Saturday when it was snowing I decided to go out for a while. If it was poring raining on a weekend I would probably stay in, but snow is a different story.

First of all I decided to go out for two reasons. I forgot something at work on Friday, and I really wanted/needed it this weekend. That is what I get for bringing in my own gear to the office. Second I needed something at Best Buy. At first I thought I was crazy for wanting to go out. Then I realized that I lived in a city with one of the largest underground transit systems in the world. And the train I needed is about 1 block from my house. So basically I had to walk a block, and then a few blocks once I got to my station by work. That was it. Best Buy is one store down from the train station. I thought piece of cake. Guess what, it was. I even spent some extra time out in the snow because it was so nice. Cold, yes but nice.

One misconception I need to discount in this entry. My mom has said repeatedly that Doc Martin’s are not good snow shoes. if it snows out they won’t be good. Well mom I used my Doc’s Saturday in the snow with no problem. Of course after 3-5 inches of snow I probably would have needed snow boots, but I wasn’t planning on going out after that much snow.

My cousin just IM’d me. She of course did play in the snow. The joy’s of being 9.

Saturday I went to Queens to go buy a suit with my dad for an engagement I was invited to. I have (had) 4 suites, but after trying them on I realized that I have in fact gained weight in the past 6 years, so it was time to go out and buy some (a) new one. I ended up with a nice black single breasted 2 button suite. It came with 2 pairs of paints, or in case I needed a less formal grey pair for some reason. I have to pick it up after alterations in a week or so. Men’s Warehouse is easy and I think I got a good deal!

After that I trekked back to Manhattan and went to Dan’s for the Jet’s game. It was a relatively small turn out so it was quiet. Of course any get together without Nelson is nice! Coop & Pierre got to play for the first time. They ran all around and it was very funny to watch them. BTW, Coop & Pierre are two dogs. Dan’s Cooper got big. I haven’t seen him in a while, and he is not the little puppy I remember. he is still funny.

The Jets lost. I didn’t really care since I don’t like football, but it was funny to watch everyone else get upset. I have to say the way they lost was not fun. They should have had that game. Oh well…

I was out of it yesterday. I left work early (3:30PM). I got a bad migraine. We finally fixed our application problem that plagued us all weekend. Miguel finally figured it out and we were at 100% by lunch time. The lack of sleep, the constant work, etc had caught up with me by then. I started feeling like crap around 11AM. The meds didn’t work even after double dosing on it. I should have left work earlier than I did, but I am stupid.

I took an express train (thought I would hurl on the local) and walked the 10 blocks home from the express stop. The cold air helped allot. I got home and crashed. I woke up at 9PM still in pain. I bairely survived the night to goto work late today. I felt out of it, but I survived. I decided to take tomorrow off. I am feeling better now, but I figured it would be nice to just rest! Hopefully tonight I will get a good night sleep. I may have slept for 16 hours yesterday, but it was not a restful sleep.

I have been fighting a cold for a few days. It is winning for now, so that is why I have not posted. I am writing up a few things and hope to post more soon. I am contemplating taking tomorrow off since I feel a bit sick. I am not so bad that I want to take off, but I am borderline so I feel if I do goto work I might make myself worse. I am going to sleep in tomorrow and see how I feel when I wake up. That is the joy of living 20 minutes from the office. I can jump down there whenever I want! Or that could be a bad thing…