Some interesting things I read today...
I am one of the fortunate people at Microsoft who actually live in Seattle and work in Redmond, and can take mass transit to work with basically no hassle. This gives me about 2 hours/day to read, sleep, catch up on e-mail, etc.
I keep current on a wide variety of topics, which is a great thing, but it sometimes precludes me from picking up a book and reading it when I have time. I seem to get caught up in keeping current and with the advent of blogs, RSS readers and technology in general, it is getting tougher and tougher. I am testing out a new tool in beta from Microsoft called Windows Live Writer. If you are writing a blog, try it out and give us feedback.
That being said, I wanted to share some of the better articles I have read over the past couple of days. Probably one of the funnier ones was from this morning's WSJ talking about the new focus on the Jewish holiday, Sukkot. My favorite statement is about the Home Depot sponsoring a Sukkah building workshop for its customers in Oklahoma. No, that is not a typo.
Another one that made me smile was a tribute to R.J. Apple, Jr, a longtime correspondant with the New York Times. He loved food, he loved wine, he loved travel and he loved what he did for a living. Some people are good about sharing their tips, some not so much. While Mr. Apple was generous with his knowledge, the author of this article managed to come up with a creative way of tapping into Mr. Apple's rolodex without actually having to bother him.
Another interesting story that I came across was about a couple of inner city girls participating in the World Chess Championships in the Republic of Georgia (former Soviet Union) next week. The focus of it happens to be they not are just girls (a minority amongst kids who play chess), but also African American. I personally did not grow up playing chess, but I can see that it does a lot of good in the development of strategic thinking for kids. Best of luck to them!
I would be remiss if I did not mention the horrific plane crash in New York yesterday. No, the plane crash was not horrific because one of the people killed was on my beloved New York Yankees. Until the news came out that the pilot of the plane was Cory Lidle, I'm sure many NY'ers were concerned that 9/11 was happening again. And since there was lots of conflicting info coming out, it was hard to get at what the truth was which can be pretty unnerving after what happened 5+ years ago. Anyway thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of the 2 men who were killed yesterday.
To end on a positive note, my sister and her husband found out that they are having a baby boy in late April/early May. Another Gators/NY Giants fan in the making at the Behar house - I can feel it. Lisa, see what you can do about the Yankees making it in there - would you? :-)