Happy Thursday

Is Thursday the day of the week where natural deadlines seem to fall? When I worked for the telephone company, it was almost a tradition in my department to aim for getting everything done by thursday and then taking friday afternoon off.

Ideally, today is going to evolve as a simple, orderly progression of publishing 3 years of research in its final form after having been read-through, corrected, updated, and refined to the extent that nothing will snag the process. I'm supposed to file a final invention statement, a final status report and a research report.

Then, hilariously, I'm supposed to generate a complete phase II proposal in two days. It took me four months last time.

In my world, there are deadlines, and there are deadlines - and then there are deadlines. Which reminds me, someone is getting into the office at 8:30a and I need to beat them to it... I will send a fax I'm supposed to send, grab some breakfast and then settle down into publishing the paper.

The paper is a big deal for me. I want it to be stronger, the research to be grounded - but the bottom line for this project is that a product is supposed to come out of it and frankly , now, everyone can see the product and understand what its supposed to do. So I guess I've done my job. Phase II is where the rubber really hits the road.

Marcus Aurelius writes.. "Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life".

It is a meditation of a man who was almost permanently at war, had seven kids, and still kept enough of his own soul to be able to blog about it all. I hope here at least, anyone who visits this place can do as he and in any of what I am sending find room to Learn, Grow, and Play.

I have yet to find anything Marcus Aurelius wrote about Thursday, but I do know that War used to be a matter in which the opposing armies would call it a day, after all is said and done. There are even stories of men from the North and South crossing lines after Civil War battle fought - to play cards with each other. Only after World War I and II do we consider it to be mechanized destruction.

Which is another reason why I'd like to get done today. This sunday we're going to send care packages overseas to the troops in Afghanistan. Happy Thursday!