Friday

Well, this week kinda got away from me. 

Let us first recognize the 70th anniversary of D-Day.  Thousands of US soldiers did not survive this invasion.  The survivors who joined today in the remembrance gathering on the shores of Omaha Beach are now in their late 70's and 80's. How surreal it must be for them to be standing on the sands that were covered with their fellow-soldiers blood that day in their youth.  I've never adopted Brokaw's terminology of "The Greatest Generation", but these men were special.  Here, here.

2 gets Daughter of the Day designation.  She is now committed to a move over to the University of Iowa beginning July 7th.  This pic is a shot from dinner one night last September in Sicily.  Her adventures continue.  Good luck, Kiddo!

In the "For What Its Worth" department, 2 has been a little worried about another career move less than two years since her last change over to Augie from the Figge.  Looking at my own history, going back to our move from C-town in 1980, when I would have been 31 years old, I left the company I joined in Davenport in August 1980 by the end of 1982 to start my own firm.  And the hits just keep on coming from that move.  And that was a move that included no certain revenue from my new venture...and two kids at home. 

We had a network-wide virus hit the office earlier this week.  Another one of those cases where someone must have opened an official-looking email that was in fact a worm.  We were lucky that we caught it when we did as the lost data was nominal.  It illustrates the challenge of all businesses going forward with their electronic files.  Hackers from all over the world are looking to find an entry to steal information and money.  Who needs guns or explosives if a keyboard works just as well?  Bruce Willis would have had a tough time making his classic shoot-'em-up character in those Die Hard movies as a programmer.  Not so much glamor.

The election results in Iowa on Tuesday produced a Republican woman candidate (Joni Ernst) for the US Senate seat now held by the retiring Tom Harkin, a prairie populist Democrat.  The general election could be interesting.  The anointed Democratic candidate is Bruce Braley, a 3-4 term Congressman from eastern Iowa.  Braley is essentially a Harkin clone.  There is a distinct left-right choice in this one.  Let the mud-slinging begin.

The bike ride tomorrow is going to be a challenge.  While I have logged in decent miles over the last couple of weeks, my totals are down from where they should be for this difficult of a ride.  We leave at 0630 from Maplecrest, and hope to be in Galena between 2 and 3 in the afternoon.

I really can't remember how many times that I've done this event.  Its been 5-6 times that I have now done only the Saturday portion to Galena (85 miles).  Its not a ride for the casual rider, so we'll see how my pal Cal does.  He'll be fine, but he hasn't done this long of a ride for maybe ever.  Look for tweets from the road.

Hope it is a good weekend in your neighborhood.

BCOT