A space to post my thoughts and musings about anything. This includes but is not limited to community, politics, current events, relationships, LGBTQ+ issues, favorite things, and stuff that would make your dead relatives blush. I am not afraid to go there, as some can attest.

March 25, 2009

Progress

My paper is nearly finished, I just have to write one last section, the conclusion, and then my first draft is done.  It is due to my bosses next Tuesday so I will have plenty of time to review and edit it before sending it to them.  I want to polish it up as much as possible because I know they are going to review and make changes as well, but I hope it is polished enough that they won't have to spend a lot of time editing.

Once my paper is edited and polished I will start writing up my presentation for the conference.  There will be lots of practicing because essentially it will be timed and I have to make sure I can keep it to 15 minutes.  It may not sound like much, but I have to make sure to hit that right time.  One practice will be at our monthly staff meeting, which will help because some of them will ask questions and it will give me an idea of what to be ready for at the conference.  I have this fear that I am going to present and I'll be asked some really difficult question or be critiqued by an audience member on some of the methodology presented.  Once I write the presentation and present the paper in a few practice runs, I'll get over it.  TB might have to suffer with at least one practice run at home.

I got a packet the other day from the Baltimore Ravens.  I am now number 2928 on the waiting list to become a permanent season ticket holder (AKA PSL's).  It is a start, considering the list is limited to 3000 and was full last year.  This is one place where the crappy economy could work in my favor because if people decide to give up their PSL's, then people at the top of the list will be offered PSL's, and if they decline them or even take themselves off the waiting list because they can't afford PSL's in the future, then it just means I get to move up faster than I would in years past.  Here's hoping I become a holder in the future.

While we're on the subject, my new Ravens license plates arrived, so I'll be sporting those as soon as I can get to the MVA to drop off the old ones.  It figures that they arrive the week I already had my AWS day, so it will be about two weeks before I can do it.  Oh well, that's how life goes.

As for my car, I love it when a simple act of maintenance turns out to be more than I expected.  I went in for an oil change and tune-up the other day and decided to get the fuel system cleaned out since I don't think it had ever really been done by a mechanic except maybe during one of the major servicing intervals.  Well that thing brought out an underlying issue that I had a misfiring spark plug, so there went some extra cash to get those replaced as well.  I just have to remember to look at it as preventative maintenance and pushing back the day that I need a new car.  Besides, with the misfiring spark plug I would have failed my emissions test a few months from now when they plugged into my car's computer to check it, then I would be in the shop getting it fixed anyway.

I noticed the other day that the Midas I used to go to is gone now, I wonder what's up with that.  Did they end up driving away a bunch of customers or what?  I know after how much cash I dropped at that place I didn't feel like going back there.  I'm just hoping this new place works out better.

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