What a world we live in (part 63,992)...

What a world we live in (part 63,992)...  For the past few months, I've been playing Scrabble with a new partner, a friend of my sister whom I've never actually met.  She's a computer science and math professor, and we play our Scrabble games over the Internet.  Her name is Jo, and we've played well over 100 games at this point.  I'm ahead in our little competition, but I am in awe of her.  Why?  Well, for starters, English is not her first language.  Jo is Polish.  She grew up in the Soviet Union, lived through its collapse, and somewhere along the line picked enough English to be a respectable Scrabble competitor.  If you know the game, then you know that's pretty amazing!  Then there's Jo's sheer determination -- she keeps right on playing even after getting whipped badly several times in a row.

Yup.  I am in awe...

Update: Jo has corrected me – she did not grow up in the Soviet Union, but rather in Poland.  While we in the West didn't differentiate very much between the actual Soviet Union and its satellite countries, in fact they actually were different questions.  To the citizens of those countries, that's a big distinction!

The “Jersey Way”...

The “Jersey Way”...  Via my pistol-packing, proud New Jerseyan mom:

The Jersey Way

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House in D.C. – one from New Jersey, another from Tennessee and the third from Florida. They go with a White House official to examine the fence.

How it works:

The Florida contractor, Jonathan, takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. "Well", he says, "I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me."

Cletus, the Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do the job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me.

Vito from Jersey doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700".

The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?"

The New Jersey contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence."

"Done!" replies the government official.

The Jersey Way, indeed. The bad news is that contractors from the other 49 states have also figured this out...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Chicken and dumpling soup is a good thing :)  So is chocolate cake!  It's a tea-and-chocolate-cake kind of morning, too.  Although after the political results yesterday, something a little stronger (like 100% ethanol) might be in order...

We ended up getting about 2" of snow, and now we've got another 1 to 3" in the forecast for tomorrow (Monday).  Sigh.

Oh, well.  It's a chance to get some more work done on my blog software, and perhaps to watch a movie with my honey...