Vocabulary Word of the Day for Sunday February 26, 2006 apothegm

apothegm \AP-uh-them\, noun:
A short, witty, and instructive saying.

Nineteen Eighty-four the most contemporary novel of this year and who knows of how many past and to come, is a great examination into and dramatization of Lord Acton's famous apothegm, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
-- Mark Schorer, "When Newspeak Was New," New York Times, October 6, 1996

The rare talent of compressing a mass of profound thought into an apophthegm.
-- Henry Hart Milman, The History of Latin Christianity

The admirable Hebrew apophthegm, Learn to say I do not know.
-- Frederic Farrar, Life of St. Paul

---

Apothegm comes from Greek apophthegma, from apophthengesthai, "to speak one's opinion plainly," from apo-, intensive prefix + phthengesthai, "to speak." The adjective form is apothegmatic.

Weather Rain at last

Rained all day Saturday, February 25 - the first serious rain in 6-8 months? The Trinity is actually over its banks!

Raytheon SETDP The Class Project Disk/ Kevin Marler Fiasco

Thursday, February 23: After saying to Larri that I would stand up to Kevin Marler, I didn't. Relented and gave him disk 16 so he would go away (drove up to Spring Creek) after expressing his concerns about how "afraid" security was about SETDP. See Larri at Spring Creek (she is covering for Paul on last day of session 5) and she is furious after seeing Kevin's ELCP advisory.

Friday, February 24: I write a response to Kevin. Read to Mark who helps me change some language. Get to work where Stephen is waiting for me to tell me how angry Larri is and that is already talked to Kevin. I send him the response; he advises sending it to Kevin and Wayne but NOT to Larri as this is an internal matter and Larri is a customer. Kevin continues to write, whining - stays at home because his nerves are so shattered. Larri calls after session 5 and is jovial and wonders if I have learned my lesson

Margo Pets Enalapril picked up February 25, 2006

38.00

Word of the Day for Monday February 20, 2006 titivate

titivate \TIT-uh-vayt\, transitive and intransitive verb:To smarten up; to spruce up.

• It's easy to laugh at a book in which the heroine's husband says to her, "You look beautiful," and then adds, "So stop titivating yourself."-- Joyce Cohen, "review of To Be the Best, by Barbara Taylor Bradford," New York Times, July 31, 1988
• In The Idle Class, when Chaplin is titivating in a hotel room, the cloth on his dressing table rides up and down, caught in the same furious gusts.-- Peter Conrad, Modern Times, Modern Places

Titivate is perhaps from tidy + the quasi-Latin ending -vate. When the word originally came into the language, it was written tidivate or tiddivate. The noun form is titivation.

Raytheon RTSC Meeting Minutes Sue Baumgarten

She is very impressive and clearly a leader and a decision-maker. Some highlights

• Math and biochem degree from UCLA
• MBA from UCLA
• 30 years - legacy Hughes
• RTSC is a services company: competes primarily on affordability
• Analysis of win/loss bids: didn't get involved soon enough, too expensive, great proposals
• Need for growth, growth signifies healthy company, growth pleases the street, etc.
• Plan for 2006: reposition for growth, little growth forecasted for this year while RTSC focuses on protection of current markets, strategic pursuit of adjacent markets, analysis of what to offer to untapped markets, and flawless execution
• Championing mission support throughout RTN
• RTN doesn't make platforms but makes them smart

Dave Letts:

• BMW: we are assessing their global training
• Defense Training Review for MOD-UK: will need to train 200 developers
• Midas: developed our own technician training that we are selling to Midas for a fee
• ASTD awards: we submitted GM's assessment program
• RTSC gives us access to military market
• Horizontal strategy - everything related to training (development, administration) - instead of vertical strategy - all development or all administration
• Growth in training administration

Q & A:

• My question, "Why is RTSC an Limited Liability Company?" was sloughed to Laura Miller and Greg Dykes: for tax purposes, for legal protection - no mention of lack of RTN support, different compensation/ benefits structure
• Maintain RPS brand? for time being BUT it is RAYTHEON that is the brand, not RPS
• Planted questions from Jeff and Ray: how to integrate with RTSC? - have been in our own "little corner of corporate"; now part of larger business - more discipline, more reporting, asked to do things that you were not asked to do before
• Called out Maria Taylor by name: worked on CFM initiative together
• Business model: level of service and affordability
• Her first reaction: need more integration, more oversight

Thoughts:

• We have been acquired and everything that that entails
• There are 700 RPS employees; there are 10000 RTSC employees. If she sticks to her timeline, she has less than one year to reposition RTSC with this new RPS baggage for growth. Not enough time to integrate us carefully so we either get sold OR we get cut back, diluted, and starved. ON THE OTHER HAND, we could become a handy excuse for not making projections in 2006.
• The incessant talk about affordability and monitoring - code words for consolidation and elimination of duplications

Other people:

• Greg Luckock: looks like a junior Sam Alito; working the development and technology space (what will Phil Schiedhauer do?)
• Frank Fedorovich: blond streaks - rainmaker I think
• Laura Miller: RTSC HR
• John Clemmons: African-American RTSC Communications

Raytheon Nancy Hartman Leading eLearning for SETDP

Larri Rooser met with Nancy Hartman and Stephen Milam today to appoint her the eLearning lead for SETDP. Then Nancy came by to explain what she would be doing next and that she had heard that I would be busy with SETDP threads.

Raytheon Not invited to blended learning meeting

I think Lori Bradley sent out the invitations. Cyndi asked if I were attending. Who did attend?

• Nancy Hartman
• Robin Swinton

LeaAnne was not there, and Dave W. was gone for the day.

....I was wrong: Dave is here and was in the meeting.

Margo Pets Vets Lasik Reordered

Reordered Lasik for Margo. Will pick up tomorrow $24.00

Monthly Readings February 2006

• December 14, 2005: PDF Zone Add Reader-Friendly Touches to PDFs Part 1
• December 16, 2005: PDF Zone Add Reader-Friendly Touches to PDFs Part 2
• January 23, 2006: PC Magazine Spyware Review Spyware Doctor
• February 2, 2006: PC Magazine Multimedia Desktops review
• February 3, 2006: PC Magazine High-Speed Cellular Networks
• February 6, 2006: Sunset Magazine Valentine shrub for late winter color
• February 7, 2006: Raytheon RTSC Meeting Minutes Sue Baumgarten
• February 7, 2006: Raytheon RTSC RTSC Today December 2005/ January 2006
• February 8, 2006: TNR Stanley Kauffmann Terence Malik The New World
• February 14, 2006: Salon - When Vice Presidents Shoot People
• February 15, 2006: Salon - Exclusive: Alexander Hamiliton Commits Suicide
• February 15, 2006: PC Mag Davis Janowski Mapping Goes Local Review Online Mapping Services
• February 15, 2006: PC Magazine - Better Ways to Label Your Discs
• February 21, 2006: Raytheon - Bill Swanson Leadership Forum
• February 22, 2006: PC Magazine - Flatbed Film Scanning from Epson
• February 25, 2006: Slate Magazine Death and Wal-Mart Dahlia Lithwick Pharmacists Conscience Morning After Pills
• February 27, 2006: Webmonkey - Ten Best Flickr Mashups

Monthly Readings January 2006

• February 2001: Mark Simonson Studio - The Scourge of Arial
• October 28, 2003: PC Magazine - 20 Great Google Secrets
• November 19, 2003: PC Magazine - 10 things to do with Old PCs
• March 02, 2004: PC Magazine - A Guide to Graphics File Formats
• May 04, 2004: PC Magazine - Cool Camera Projects
• May 28, 2004: New York Times. Yellow Brick Road Leads Show Tunes Down a New Path. Analysis, review, Broadway cast recordings Wicked, Avenue Q, Taboo, Caroline or Change Gypsy, Wonderful Town, Boy from Oz, Assassins, Bombay Dreams. Holden, Stephen.
• June 1, 2004: Dallas Morning News. Cliburn's Amateur Biennial Contest.
• June 6, 2004: New York Times. Vacation Reading.
• December 08, 2004: PC Magazine - Best of the the Year
• December 22, 2004: PC Magazine - Annual Awards for Technical Excellence
• February 02, 2005: PC Magazine - Screen Capture Software Captivate ViewletBuilder ViewletCam Camtasia Studio Windows Media Encoder
• March 04, 2005: PC Magazine - Review FolderShare
• March 15, 2005: Slate - Newsmashing iMarkup Web page annotation software
• March 16, 2005: NYT Review Leif Ove Andsnes Lang Lang Martha Argerich Krystian Zimerman
• April 01, 2005: PC Magazine - Review Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium Edition
• April 11, 2005: PC Magazine - Heading Off Spyware, Viruses, and Malware Book Excerpt
• May 12, 2005: PDF Zone. Converting a PDF Document to Microsoft Word.
• May 22, 2005: GMail Forum. Easiest Way to Transfer Yahoo Mail to GMail?
• May 25, 2005: CIO - Executive Coach The Soft Side of Persuasion Context of the Content
• June 15, 2005: Darwin - Better Project Management Matters
• June 22, 2005: PC Magazine - Optimizing PDF Files
• June 22, 2005: Publish - InDesign, Not Quark, is the Future of Desktop Publishing DTP David Blatner
• July 08, 2005: Publish - Flash 8 Player Beta
• July 19, 2005: Post-Gazette - Digital Entertainment Consumers Face Incompatability
• July 25, 2005: eWeek - Review Adobe Creative Suite 2
• August 03, 2005: PC Magazine - The Net's Next 10 Years
• August 17, 2005: PC Magazine - Continuous Backup Norton GoBack Memeo
• August 17, 2005: PC Magazine - Online Backup Services Connected DataProtector iBackup for Windows
• August 17, 2005: PC Magazine - Imaging Software Acronis True Image Norton Ghost
• August 17, 2005: PC Magazine - Backup or Else
• August 17, 2005: PC Magazine - Traditional Backup Argentum Backup BounceBack Professional Restrospect 7
• September 6, 2005: PC Mag - Digital Camera Basics - Mastering Color Controls
• September 14, 2005: PC Mag - Webcam Home Surveillance
• October 11, 2005: PDF Zone - 10 tips for better PDFs
• October 31, 2005: Publish - Will Riya Be the End of Flickr?
• November 2005: The Atlantic. The Greatest Stories Never Told
• November 08, 2005: PC Magazine - Backup and You
• December 1, 2005: NYT - Uplaod, Store, Play, and Share in a Few Clicks David Pogue Glide Effortless Personal Web Site
• December 4, 2005: NYT - Techno File James Fallows Mac Programs that Come with Their Thinking Caps On Devonthink Professional Tinderbox TheBrain MindManager NoteMap BrainStorm NoteTaker NoteBook Near-Time Current The Advanced Outliner (TAO)
• December 13, 2005: Publish - Year in Review: AJAX Desktops and Homepages Microsoft live. com Google Goowy Netvibes Protopage Eskobo Zoozio
• December 14, 2005: Publish - The highs and lows of Web design in 2005
• December 21, 2005: Publish - Year in review: CSS, Standards, Microformats, and Flash
• January 1, 2006: NYT - Techno Files James Fallows Working at the PC isn't So Lonely Anymore Final Column Collaborative Software NoteShare Jeff Hawkins Book On Intelligence The Brain dtSearch ebay Natural Monopoly
• January 1, 2006: NYT Israeli barrier wall Nicolai Ouroussoff
• January 11, 2006: PC Magazine - Ovation for PowerPoint Review
• January 16, 2006: Publish - AJAX is No Overnight Success Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
• January 13, 2006: National Geographic Map of Grand Canyon
• January 16, 2006: New Yorker Best Jazz Albums of 2005
• January 16, 2006: TNR Brokeback Mountain Review Stanley Kauffmann
• January 23, 2006: PC Mag Spyware Doctor 3.5 Review
• January 23 and 30, 2006: New Yorker Best Classical Albums of 2005
• The short story for Brokeback Mountain Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night Annie Proulx
• January 31, 2006: BBC Oscar Nominations 2006

Food House Make Chicken Kiev and Pan-Roasted Vegetables

Since I was at home yesterday to puppy-sit, I followed instructions in latest issue of Cooks Illustrated to make Chicken Kiev and Pan-Roasted Vegetables.

Chicken Kiev:

• If using bread crumbs in a can, don't toast them in oven.
• Freeze the chicken slightly so the butterflying is easier to do
• Carefully pound the chicken to flatten. Be sure to use the flat side of the mallet, not the top

Pan-Roasted Vegetables

• Broccoli and cauliflower was a good combination
• Using the herbed butter from the chicken kiev was okay but not as good as I had hoped. Probably should have had added more shallots/ onions or garlic to the mixture along with butter
• Forgot to add the lemon juice while cooking

The dicer tool from Mark's mom worked very well with the shallots. Consider having herbed butter on hand in the freezer?

Margo Channing Agnes Pets Bailey and Stormy visit; Channing's behavior

Yesterday, I went home in the afternoon to puppy sit. Michael's house on Appian Way was being inspected; so Jay brought the dogs to our house to keep them out of the way.

I was afraid that Margo may get overtaxed with all the activity. She did, but she managed to stay out of the way. Channing was awful, growling whenever Bailey got close. Bailey was very calm and wonderful, and Stormy stayed in the backyard for most of the time, electing not to cross Channing's path that often. Great fun to see both Stormy and Margo in back yard

Last night, I slept in library because Channing was whining for no apparent reason. Had to give her Mark's slipper to help calm her down. Everyone slept in different places.

Business Travel No Gold Status in 2006

Called AA yesterday. Not enough miles flown in 2005 to renew Gold status. Needed 25K in calendar year 2005

Performances Entertainment Academy Award nominations announced on January 31

No surprises really. Brokeback Mountain had nominations for Jake and Michelle Williams (who is engaged to Heath Ledger) as well. Supporting actress nomination for Junebug. Only three songs nominated; only three animations (Burton's Corpse Bride, Wallace and Gromit, and a Miyaki film)

Walk the Line was not a best picture nominee (Brokeback, Munich, Capote, Good Night, and Crash) but both actors were lauded. Reese Witherspoon vs Felicity Huffman; Joaquin Phoenix vs Phillip Seymour Hoffman vs Heath Ledger. He won't win but am still stunned by Ledger's portrayal.