Mishmash Musings

Are you into the whole March Madness thing? I’m not. Basketball is the only mainstream sport (well, along with soccer) that I absolutely cannot watch at all. I couldn’t even tune in when the Bulls were in the midst of their amazing dynasty in the ’90s because I just think it’s such a boring sport — until maybe the last 5 minutes of the game.

Anyway, if you’re interested in watching some games online, I recommend checking out JustinTV and MyP2P. Just go to the sites and search for the games you want. There’s usually at least one stream of every game going, and several streams for the bigger matchups.

Can’t wait until this tournament ends because that means baseball season will start soon!

I finished up my income tax return last night, so now I’ve got that whole thing out of the way. I owe the federal government $170, which is pretty much what I expected because I missed my fourth quarter estimated tax payment.

I wish I could just pay by credit card, but the government charges an extra $30 for this, which is unreasonable. They need to hook up with a company that can provide cheap credit card processing to bring that fee down to a more manageable number.

Oh, and as if that $170 wasn’t enough damage, I have to pay my first quarter estimated taxes for 2009 by April 15 as well. That’s probably going to be about $200, so I’m actually looking at shelling out $370. Again, I wish I could put this on my card and get all those reward points. Damn!

Have you heard about Natasha Richardson’s freak skiing accident? Natasha, daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave, wife of actor Liam Neeson, and a Tony-winning actress herself, was skiing in Montreal when she suffered a brain injury after a fall.

So skiing accidents aren’t all that uncommon, right? But the thing with Richardson was that she was on a beginner’s slope, and when she fell, the instructor said it didn’t look like anything was wrong. Richardson got up and was escorted back to her room, where staff encouraged her to see a doctor. At first she thought she was fine, but then reported having a headache and not feeling well. She was taken to the hospital at that point, and is apparently in a coma now.

Richardson was flown to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City yesterday, where family members, including her two sons, visited her. Now, columnist Liz Smith is reporting that Richardson has been taken off life support, which obviously means that the situation is irretrievable.

I simply can’t get over accidents like this. There was absolutely no sign of trauma when Richardson fell, no blood or anything like that, and the news reports didn’t say she hit a tree, rock, or other object. It was a beginner slope and she had an instructor right there. Wow, what a terrible shame.

Thoughts and prayers go out to Richardson’s family right now. This must be so hard for them to deal with.

Well, I’ve actually been making some progress on my grad school application statement. Over the weekend, I wrote 2.5 paragraphs (plus two sentences that I would like to fit in somewhere) and now have used 347 words to describe why I want to get a Master’s degree. The particular school I’m applying to didn’t specify a word-count guideline for the statement, so I’m aiming for 500-750 words. I’ll get that with no problems.

I’m currently letting the paragraphs stew for a couple of days, and will resume the writing/editing process on Wednesday or Thursday. My goal is to finish by Monday of next week, send it off to a few trusted friends for feedback, and revise the statement to its final form by the end of the month. Once I submit it, I can go about requesting official transcripts and reference letters, so obviously this is the biggest obstacle to my application right now.

I sometimes check Google Trends to see what the most popular searches are on any given day. Just now when I was examining the list, I saw that “meth recipe” was No. 75 on there. Are you kidding me? Are so many people interested in learning how to cook meth that it is on the Google Trends list? WTF is wrong here?

I’ve heard that sometimes spammers will unleash a bunch of automated searches so that their keywords or websites come up on Google Trends. This is especially obvious when you check the list at an odd time, like at 3am or something, because the spammers don’t have much competition from legitimate searches.

But this is early evening, so spammers shouldn’t be too much of an issue now, right? What a sad, sad state of affairs if meth recipe is a legitimate query….

At the beginning of the month, it seemed like I had tons of energy and was being highly productive every single day. I made up my mind to go to grad school, and immediately started working on putting together an application package. I also was ready to bounce back from not getting my dream job. I continued scouring various job boards and submitted resumes to anything that sounded appealing.

But for the past week, I haven’t done a heck of a lot. My grad school app has stalled because I have to think of something to write for my Purpose Statement. I’ve only had one nibble from all the resumes I sent out, but the interview won’t be until a couple weeks from now and the job wouldn’t actually start until late April/early May, which means even if I do get it, I’d have to wait quite a while before drawing a paycheck. It’s hard to get excited about something like that.

So I think I’m going to call it quits early this week and give myself a three-day weekend. I’m not getting much done anyway, so there’s no use in pretending. I’ve got a couple of DVDs to get through, including Beverly Hills Chihuahua (I know, I know) and Nights in Rodanthe, as well as a book that I’m trying to finish up (American Wife). How’s that for diverse subject matters? From a dognapped pooch lost in Mexico to a love affair in the Outer Banks to the White House in Washington, D.C. If only my real travel itinerary could be so interesting!

DVDs, books, and my favorite snacks… I couldn’t ask for a better weekend! Hopefully I’ll be back to regular form by Monday after decompressing for a few.

Whenever I travel, I take my laptop with me. It doesn’t matter if I’m boarding a plane to go on vacation halfway around the world or if I’m just spending the night at my parents’ house a few hours away. I usually have a lot of work to do, and deadlines to meet, so even when I’m supposed to be enjoying some time off, chances are there’s a big project hanging over my head.

Right now, I carry my laptop in one of those briefcase-like laptop bags that were pretty much the standard until a few years ago. This particular bag serves its purpose of protecting my computer, but it doesn’t have much else in the way of features and is so small that I can barely fit anything else in there. Even the AC adapter and mouse make the bag bulky and awkward, so I always need to carry another backpack for additional travel gear such as books, magazines, a change of clothes, toiletries, cell phone, etc. This can get kind of unwieldy as I’m trying to navigate airport security with a 6-year-old boy in tow!

That’s why I want to purchase this Pegasus SwissGear Computer Backpack that I saw while browsing through the Buy.com website today. This is a large, sturdy, and heavily padded backpack that can accommodate a laptop and a whole lot more. The backpack has several spacious compartments, as well as a seemingly endless array of pockets and zippered enclosures that can be used to stash everything I usually carry with me on my trips. This would allow me to ditch my current laptop case, and I’d only need to lug around one carry-on bag instead of two when I travel.

Based on a whopping 85 customer reviews, the Pegasus SwissGear Computer Backpack has an average rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 over at Buy.com. Nearly everyone who has bought this product absolutely loves it, and the few negative reviews I’ve read were from people who said the pack was just too big for their needs, which is hardly the fault of the manufacturer. These overwhelmingly positive reviews and the fact that the Pegasus SwissGear Computer Backpack is on sale for just $54.99 with free shipping have sealed the deal for me. I’m buying this just as soon as I can! It’ll be such a relief to ditch my old bag and be able to have both hands free while traveling!

I regularly support a couple of local non-profits. These places are not big by any means, and are just run by people with a passion for what they do. I respect that for sure, but at the same time, I can’t help but notice how mismanaged one of these places is when compared to a national organization.

For one thing, the organization is always short on funds. I know this is a problem that plagues many small non-profits, but it seems like this particular org doesn’t even make much of an effort to raise money. I mean, I’ve donated to them before, but have NEVER been contacted for more funds.

Think about it… they’re just wasting valuable resources right there. They ought to have a mailing list with contact info for all previous donors, and they should send out emails at least twice a year to solicit donations. But this place inexplicably hasn’t done that. Major organizations like St. Jude contact previous donors at least four or five times per year, so twice wouldn’t be an invasion or anything like that.

For another thing, this org has very few relationships with corporate sponsors. They should offer local businesses the chance to sponsor events and so forth, but they don’t even make an effort to reach out to these entities.

I feel bad that the organization is struggling, but it’s due to their own mismanagement more than anything else. The unfortunate part is that it’s an animal shelter and I just worry about what will happen to all the furry critters if (when) the place goes under.