Gotta blog!

(BTW who came up with "Gotta eat" as a slogan for Checker's Restaurant...not a hardsell to say the least. Its like saying why should I buy this house - cause you gotta live somewhere)

So just a heads up for all you dawdlers, tax day is around the corner. Roni and I are way ahead of the game this tim around - we've already done our taxes, spent our refund in total, and re-run up credit card bills to cover daycare until Roni's fellowship kicks in. Dollars don't linger in this household, chop chop!

So last weekend we went to a birthday party for Micah's classmate Jake at a duckpin bowling alley - here's a totally nerdy comment - it was like a dynamic system - order among total chaos. Balls we dumped down the alleys in rapid succession - I don't think I saw less than 3-4 balls in an alley at any given time. Kids don't care about hitting pins- so soon as a a ball is launched, the launchers immediately runs to get another. Gutter guards were in place so all balls ultimately made it to the pin area- the pins kept getting reset because the allure of the reset button was too hard to pass up. Nevertheless, there were no injuries that I know of (except me when emmet dropped a ball on my shoeless foot!) Two hours later, parents were exhausted, kids were hyped on sugar from cake, juice and soda, and the meltdowns started in waves.
All in all a great time was had by all though.

The next day Gigi and Grandad (my folks) cruised in for the afternoon - we had a fantastic time. Many highlights to speak of, but my fave was playing hide and seek with my father and Micah at the park. Micah has little patience for the suspense element of the game, so he promptly reveals his hiding place even before the seekers are done counting!

So today is my work on my thesis from home day - I only mention this because I want to notify my colleagues that I am running simulations in R - not Stata, not SPSS, but R. I'm the outlaw in the department (ironically) becasue I use a PC instead of a Mac and use Stata more often than R. So while this should give some stats-cred points, I imagine I'll only get clowned about my combination of corporate conformity and luddite like ways by those colleagues who read this.