I signed up for my next MBA course, Operations Management for Leaders. I got a nasty shock when the receptionist told me that the college will no longer allow defered payments.

See, my workplace will reimburse me for my education, as long as I get at least an A-. This means that they don’t pay until your grades come back, which is usually several weeks after the class has ended. The college used to allow students to defer payment until their company reimbursement checks came back, so this worked out very well for me.

Now it seems they don’t do that anymore. Fortunately, my credit card company must have sensed this disturbance in the force, and just last month they proactively doubled my credit limit. This still sucks, because I’ll have to carry that debt for about 4 months, and the company does not reimburse me for interest accrued, but at least I am able to pay for the class, rather than wait until I have the money (which would be. . .oh. . we’ll say. . . NEVER).

Modern Mechanix is one of the very rare original and fun blogs. But its a shame to call it a “blog” in the sense that the author does not post random blatherings, or pictures of his pet turtle. Instead he posts scanned images of old science and technology magazines. This website is a lot of fun, and proves the Pogo Axiom: “The future ain’t what it used to be.”

Below, I’ve reproduced a chemistry article from Popular Science published in 1942. Click on the image to view it full size

Friday night, we celebrated Aaron’s birthday party. He turned 14 on July 28, but he was in Las Vegas with his bio-dad at the time, so we had a party here in Keene this weekend, just a week after he got back. We went swimming at Surry Dam, had a barbecue at the house, did a “make-your-own-sundae” and then had a sleepout/sleepover outside in the yard in tents.

Saturday, I was supposed to go to a friend’s big summer party in Alstead. I left late, since we were having dinner guests. I drove all up and down route 10 and I couldn’t find the road that my friend had drawn on the map. After burning up about 10 dollars worth of gas, and being unable to call my friend because I couldn’t get a cell signal, I headed home in some frustration.

Cindy had a “procedure” on Thursday, and she was a bit sore all weekend. They took some biopsies just to be safe, and the results came back the very next day (everything looked fine – Hooray! ). So, although she was sore, her spirits were high, and we had a good weekend overall.

My neice just had a 16th birthday party. This first one was for family, and she’s having another big bash for her friends on her actual birthday, which isn’t until Wednesday. It was good seeing the whole family together, and we had fun for the brief time we stayed.

From Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon:

The room contains a few dozen living human bodies, each one a big sack of guts and fluids so highly compressed that it will squirt for a few yards when pierced. Each one is built around an armature of 206 bones connected to each other by notoriously fault-prone joints that are given to obnoxious creaking, grinding, and popping noises when they are in other than pristine condition. This structure is draped with throbbing steak, inflated with clenching air sacks, and pierced by a Gordian sewer filled with burbling acid and compressed gas and asquirt with vile enzymes and solvents produced by the many dark, gamy nuggets of genetically programmed meat strung along its length. Slugs of dissolving food are forced down this sloppy labyrinth by serialized convulsions, decaying into gas, liquid, and solid matter which must all be regularly vented to the outside world lest the owner go toxic and drop dead. Spherical, gel-packed cameras swivel in mucus-greased ball joints. Infinite phalanxes of cilia beat back invading particles, encapsulate them in goo for later disposal. In each body a centrally located muscle flails away at an eternal, circulating torrent of pressurized gravy. And yet, despite all of this, not one of these bodies makes a single sound at any time during the Sultan’s speech.

If you check out my “featured” box in my sidebar, you’ll see a promotion for I Talk to Much‘s Raffle for autism. I felt this was apropos, since my godson is autistic, and Cindy and I have two friends whose sons have been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, which is related to autism.

Please take a moment to check this promotion out, and if you’ve got a buck or two, go ahead and sign up for the raffle! Cheers!

[IP] On the implausibility of the explosives plot.

I found the above article while hunting the web. Like anything you read, you should take it with a grain of salt. However, as a chemist, I feel marginally qualified to comment.

If you read the above lengthy article, you will stumble across a lot of chemical talk. Its easy to fake science by throwing out terms and concepts that most people won’t bother to look up. I can say that what the author is saying is actually quite correct. The only flaw in his excellent discussion is his starting assumptions.

In fairness, he points out in the beginning that he makes certain assumptions, based on the information that was released. Its a great article, and despite the speculative nature of the initial assumptions, is worth a read.