Cats!

I realized that it's been a long time since I've posted pictures of the REAL bosses around here... so here are some updated photos! (You can see Cali has really adapted well to living in Chicago!)

Sanity!

In a victory for sanity, intelligence, and critical thought, a Pennsylvania district court judge has ruled that the Dover School Board can't impose its religious beliefs - in the form of so-called "intelligent design" theory - on public school students.

The opinion is masterfully written, and an excellent summary of both the state of the law and the slimy tactics resorted to by those who would shove their religious beliefs down everyone's throat. That said, this is probably the finest paragraph in the opinion.

"Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."

Go check it out:
Opinion

Thank you, Judge Jones.

Lesson learned

Thou shall not mock the gods, I have learned this week. :-) Of course, as soon as I think (and say) I'm easing into a regular schedule with work - not one, but two of my cases blow up in a deadline-intensive way! It made for a crazy, long week (that's not over yet).

I'd say that things should return to normal after Monday, but I've learned my lesson and ain't. :-)

Snew!

It never ceases to amaze me how well this City deals with snow! Thursday - starting at evening rush hour - we started getting snow. (I've never been so happy to take the El home.) All in all, we got somewhere between six and nine inches in about nine hours (depending on where in the City you are).

Other than a plane skidding off a runway at Midway (and I'm not sure why they were trying to land), and long travel times home Thursday night, the only real effect of the snow was to make everything white and pretty. Apparently we're in for a more "traditional" Chicago winter than we've experienced so far - more snow, more cold, more everything. I got a new down coat - I'm ready for it!

Or not so much...

So I survived Doomsday (as did all my new colleagues - though there's one that didn't pass the bar that might be nervous). It's amazing how the level of work - both the amount and the quality (since I'm technically in my third year) - picked up once it "counted."

Thanks to everyone who sent good wishes!

Now - my next goal - getting my workout schedule back to normal now that I have a vague idea of what my worklife will be like (most days, anyways). It starts tomorrow night - lifting night! :-)