The secretary of defense gave Vice President P her daily briefing.

He concluded by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"Oh No!" the she exclaimed. "That is terrible!"

Her staff was stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching
as the vice president sat, her head in her hands.

Finally, she looked up and asked, "Just how many men make up one brazillion?"

I have become addicted to facebook. You'll find more of what I have been doing there, but to catch up with some dear readers here.

Work is sailing along. Travel season started the end of January, and it will be mid-May before I have a quiet week and weekend at home.

Gerardo has been antsy about looking for a house with a view, so we have been house hunting. We made an offer on a house but someone else got it. It was pretty much what we wanted--all at $240/sq ft. Not exactly Bay Area prices.

Winter this year was pretty rough. We had snow maybe 9-10 times after Christmas. It was easier in that we now have two vehicles with 4wd, but it was still a lot of work to get the snow off the driveway.

We're very excited that my sister Jan has agreed to let her daughter stay with us on her way to Open House weekend for accepted students at Colorado College.

Gerardo has a sabbatical in the fall and spring, so he may be on the road a bit. Hopefully, I will have the chance to join him for a few weekends out of town.

My subscription to Windows Virus protection system expires in a about a week, so I was in the market for a new internet security/virus system. Consumer Reports recommended Trend Micro's suite, so I picked it up at Office Max.

After installing it on Friday, I booted my computer on Saturday and had zero connectivity. A couple of fumbles later and I decided reinstalling XP sp 2 was going to be the best strategy. I was right in that I solve my problem, but there was a complicating factor.

When you install XP, there are still a number of upgrades that need to be installed. 68 of them. Each one requiring a reboot of the system. Perhaps by the time I leave for Brussels (Thursday), I might have half of them done.

So the folks at Google have an advisory board on health, but it seems to be very MD centric.

See: Google Blog

It would seem that Nurses would not make good advisers on health. Neither would medical librarians, nor people in the insurance industry (who sell products related to health to customers). Pharma was also passed over on this one. Pharma accounts for a solid 15% of Healthcare spending, but I guess we do not make the cut.