enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kind of proud of the fact that I am prepared for both of the xmas parties that I am due to attend this weekend.

It was nightmarishly cold in Ottawa today. I'm reminded that -25 feels worse when it is MOIST and WINDY. My friends from Winterpeg confirm this.

Apparently the temperature is rising at the moment, although -and someone explain this to me, please - the people at Env!ronment Canada always present forecasts that are OPTIMISTIC. This never ceases to amaze me. If you found out that you were consistently predicting the bad weather to end sooner than it does would you not reasonably think of recalibrating your model? I mean, if it were me, I'd publish forecasts of worse weather than I expected, on average. That way people couldn't complain about not being warned about driving conditions, and furthermore would be pleasantly surprised that the realized weather is better than your forecasts and would as a result be in a good mood -drive more slowly, honk less.

(Don't worry - I don't really believe myself, either. ;))That's me: always the economist. Someone accused me today - in these words - of worrying too much about maximizing collective utility.

What a pedant.

Can you tell that I still love my job?

Actually, I hate to confess this, but my job is growing on me. I'm still hopelessly lost in the modeling, but I took a serious stab this afternoon and learned a fraction of the model quite well and played with a new programming language. (Yes! That's part of the problem - I have to program in a different language than the one to which I am accustomed. Doh! And it's all done in weird macros, of course...UGH.)

But I've discovered that they do seem to appreciate a person who actually THINKS about the results and the ways in which the reasoning behind them can be flawed, imagine that (boss seemed to appreciate my catch yesterday - encouraged me to attend upcoming academic seminars in the department, even if they are in international macro, say, and totally unreleated to my work). Nice.

That's it. I bought the book gift certificate for the office party. I know it's not funny but I printed off pictures and notes about every cheesy book I could find about government finance (death and taxes; death, taxes and fly fishing; 10 reasons not to hate taxes; taxes for Canadian dummies; and my favourite: "For good and evil: The impact of taxes on the course of civilization"), and thought I'd assemble a little picture book with the title "suggested holiday reading" and hide the card inside.

Well speaking of work yet more, I have to tell you a funny story. You know the computer guy who was kind of annoying to me last week? Well, there's this nice habit of everyone in my unit of saying goodbye to everyone else before one leaves, so yesterday I did this to him. THe thing was that he didn't know that I was still there, I guess, as he'd left his door wide open and yet was looking at a nudie picture on his computer!

I had to laugh. I pretended not to see it and let him reach over and turn off the screen. He was very nice to me all day today, however, and so in a sense I have discovered the joys of blackmail! How long will it last, I wonder? (He doesn't know that I am one of the most discreet people around...)

HA. :)

So I should make that little picture book. I wish I had something funnier, but I don't know the people and don't want to go over the top. I should also assemble my appetizer for tomorrow, too, I suspect.

OK. Cheerio and bonne nuit!

9:50 p.m. - 2007-12-13

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next

other diaries:

stepfordtart
ohell
awittykitty
annanotbob
manfromvenus
smartypants
fifidellabon
hungryghost
hissandtell