10-bagger
Definition, from the Venture Cyclist:
When a VC talks about a big hit you might hear them calling it a 10-bagger (a phrase apparently coined by Peter Lynch, of Fidelity Maggellan fame). A 10-bagger means that for every $1 of investment made, the VC fund receives $10 back when they sell their stake (either selling the company to someone else, or after an IPO).
Evidently, 10-baggers are “pretty rare” and 50-baggers are “mythical”.

I’ve been crabbing at Microsoft that their recent obsession with UI isn’t of much interest to developers.
Here’s the result of an informal poll on the msdn site:
Of the following topics, which one packs the most punch for you?
LINQ 16%
Visual Studio 2008 51%
WCF 10%
Silverlight 20%
Windows Live Services 4%
The features in VS2008 outpolled everything else, but you’d never know that from Microsoft’s road shows.
So, THERE.

Recruiter (referring to rude and disrespectful behavior): “If the client did that, they wouldn’t be a client.”
And I am Marie of Roumania.

She’s long-winded. She’s for the Iraq war. She believes in adoption. She’s endorsed by the American Federation of Teachers.
Hillary Clinton is not my idea of a great Presidential candidate. But I may vote for her anyway because I want to see one of us get elected to the most powerful job on earth. And until the Republicans put a decent female candidate in place – which given their Taliban-like outlook on these things, will not happen during my lifetime – Senator Clinton is our best shot for a long time to come.

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at the Multnomah Post Office

So, Dice-K will be the starter in tonight’s ALCS game seven, giving the Japanese wunderkind an opportunity to justify his $100 million contract.
Consistent with the theme, “The Pursuit of Happyness”, the semi-fictionalized account of a year in the life of now-wealthy stockbroker Chris Gardner, was shown on cable last night.
Americans love hard-luck stories with happy endings, but the lead characters in both of these tales of the city are about as far from the mainstream as you can get: a mega-talented Asian ballplayer and an extraordinarily gifted African-American who got some equally extraordinary breaks.
They probably represent about 1/10 of 1% of the population in terms of their natural talent and abilities. And, did you notice, both are male. No bombing and killing of their supporters by misogynistic crackpots such as we saw in Pakistan earlier this week following the return of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and no trashing of their work history and character such as we hear daily from the jealous anti-Hillary Clinton lunatics on talk radio.

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I also don’t care to look at gigantic rear ends or grotesque male sexual organs (maybe it’s a pork loin), save on printer ink, sell my timeshare, mail order counterfeit pharmaceuticals or communicate with anyone who writes in pigeon English (“I am nice girl”).
Lordy, I do hate spam.

The hosting company for A Blog for All Seasons phoned this morning to apologize for its being offline for the last couple of days, something about problems with a legacy server. So, this post is a catch-up.
Yesterday, I was able to set up the infrastructure for a user group meeting within two hours. It reminded me of the lyric from “West Side Story”:
When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way
From your first cigarette to your last dyin’ day!
When you’re a Jet, let ’em do what they can
You’ve got brothers around, you’re a family man!

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As a general rule of thumb, during weekdays, if you plan to travel from the Upper Cape to Boston, you need to allocate at least two hours and sometimes closer to three.
This has not been alleviated by the multi billion dollar Big Dig, and it’s not due to the notorious bridges that connect the Cape to the mainland.
Part of the reason for this is the ridiculous lack of cooperation between the public transit authority and common carriers.
A major part is the selfishness of individuals who insist on commuting by private car, especially those with not even a single passenger.
This certainly explains the psychological isolation of being on or from the Cape, the “ews” when you tell people in “Town” where you live.
There has _got_ to be a pony somewhere in this bag of you-know-what, whether it’s rail or even boat service.

James slept over on Saturday night, and we had a nice, low-key visit, ending with a short trip to the Christmas Tree Shop and a stop at the new playground in Falmouth.
I put up Halloween decorations, did laundry and other weekend chores, then a transfer station run with Peter.
Wound up the day at a friend’s house watching the Patriots beat the Cowboys, who embarrassed their talented young quarterback with a lot of dirty play, resulting in penalties totaling 98 yards: a disappointing performance, we expected better from Dallas.