jay | Back to work

As I'm already a half-hour late... time to be functional, again.

Last week, I went to Washington, DC to brief folks at NASA Headquarters about a proposed new research program in information management for air traffic control. Lots of upgraded communications (ground and to/from aircraft), middleware (to avoid hard-connecting everything to everything else, which is the current state, and intelligent agents to negotiate resources, monitor and maintain the geographically distributed databases, and other things (optimize performance, security, advise pilots and controllers, etc.) . Despite my illness last weekend, and that this was a brand-new program instead of a follow-on, I still had the second-most-detailed program plan, and arguably the best presentation of the five proposals. More than one will be funded. I don't think that I want to run this program, per se, but it can make a large difference in the ATC system in a decade if it goes forward.

Then Friday, I did the same thing, in front of a mixed crowd at the FAA. Their systems architecture guys were grinning and enthusiastic, but a couple of veteran former controllers were dubious (and one of then went on at length later as to how NASA geeks just didn't understand what controllers *really* needed).

Personally, I got to see

geekchick twice, once Wednesday night (Chinese take-out and videos with her and C) and the infamous wandering-though-snow-for-dinner episode Thursday night. And saw Nancy twice, both going and coming through Minneapolis en route.

Saturday, I met with the Little League president and we agreed to restore David to his team (as

patgreene described) and Pat and I went to Flames for a huge slice of German chocolate cake. And yesterday in church, James was a lector and performed an excellent reading, with clear diction, pauses, eye contact and projection. And fearlessness in front of 250 people, as a 12-year-old.

Yesterday I looked at certain charts (ouch!) had a long chat with

geekchick (rubs bruises) and spent 8 hours gathering last year's bank statements and doing my 2002 tax returns. By hand, since I refuse to pay for tax software when I can get the paper forms for free...