dead men tell no tales...

So our internet connections died this morning. For like three hours I had no email, no web, etc... kinda hard to do email stuff at that point. Things got fixed eventually, and I had some work to do today, so that's good.

Rob took us out to Tiki Tom's for lunch, to celebrate Alex's 25th birthday (he's the baby of the agency... though just barely) so that was nice... free food and beer usually is! I'd never eaten there before, but the burger I had was good, and I liked the side of tropical fruit along with the fries.

My father called me last night to let me know that the company he works for (and, until May 27th, I also worked for), HomeGain, was just acquired by Classified Ventures, a conglomerate of the Washington Post Company, the Tribune Company, the Gannett Company, Knight-Ridder, and others. Press release (in word format) on the merger is available here. This is good news for my old pals at HG... there was always a "revenues up, costs down" mentality that bordered on psychosis there... obviously, they will have more breathing room as a wholly-owned subsidiary of a much larger corporation. And, CV is a private company, so they still have advantages of nondisclosure over competitors like HouseValues. For me, it means I will just get paid out for my vested options, at whatever the per-share buyout price ends up being (not disclosed, 'cause like I said, private company)... not sure how much that means exactly, but it will be a three-digit figure, no more.

Looking forward to the long weekend. Kind of hoping, since it is a holiday weekend, and because I don't have much work right now, I'll be out of here before 5:30... will have to wait and see.

So I guess Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring. I'm sure plenty of people out their are shitting themselves at the prospect of Bush appointing a SCOTUS Justice, but really, O'Connor was a moderate-conservative... certainly no liberal. Chances are, because an ultraconservative wouldn't be confirmed, Bushie will have no choice but to appoint another moderate-conservative. The interesting case, of course, is Roe v. Wade... the "liberals" on the court, Ginsberg, Souter, Breyer, and Stevens, can be counted on upholding. And, in the past, moderate-conservative Anthony Kennedy has voted to uphold Roe when it has come up. Therefore, even if Bush appoints a staunch pro-lifer, the right is still 1 vote shy of overturning what is easily the most controversial SCOTUS decision in history.

That's all for now.

posted by Steve  # 4:02 PM