The Week is Over

And so is my sanity.

This has been the worst half-month of my life. First was last week, followed by my (lack of) weekend to prepare for this week, and then the beast finally came. Mind you, given all the preparation I put in place for it, it's scary that it still managed to eat me. Let's see:

• I started out completely disoriented from losing an entire weekend. So I've been off by a day all week long.
• On Monday, even though I had no class, I still managed to somehow get behind. A combo of .82, the .400 case study presentation, and the .400 project that took longer than expected had me up until 4am.
• I woke up on Tuesday (running on four hours) of sleep, realizing that our presentation still wasn't complete. That, and I had some things to finish for the .82 PDR. I had to miss 17.263 to solve these problems. The rest of the day was pretty much spent on PDR preparation. Oh, and I did some .622 to be ready for our team meeting planning.
• Wednesday was only an hour of class, but, upon discovering a bug in our code, our .622 meeting went much longer than expected (try, 2 hours longer). I went home for an hour only to leave again to work on .82...for about an hour longer than expected as well. At the end of the day I had to do both reading for .263 and .400 and write up the case study summary.
• Today was supposed to be the end of it. But of course, I wouldn't be let off lightly. The PDR in .82 was going fine until someone pointed out that I used 500 ft, as opposed to the stated 1000 ft, in my lap completion analysis. AHHH. How did I make such a blatant mistake and not catch it? It was incredibly embarrassing. That was when I decided that I needed a break from all this...

Luckily, despite the rough road getting there, there were some payoffs. For one, I somehow managed to finish my statement of objectives, got it proofread, and was finally able to send it out to those who are writing me recommendations. Also, the .400 presentation went really well and .622 is going smoothly. But most importantly, ta da! We kicked ass on the .82 PDR despite my ugly error. I suppose it did all work out at the end.

However, it doesn't mean I'm going to keep trucking along. I am on my way back to Schenectady, NY tomorrow in order to get a much deserved rest. *faints*

(Oh, and also, apparently the family got...a new dog?! This I'll have to see for myself.)

Although I've been hosed, the rest of the world has been moving on. Now I can finally talk about all the fun baseball-related things that have happened as of late:

1. Joe Girardi was crowed as new Yankees manager today. I'm completely confident that this was the right decision. Girardi's entire fiery, all-business style is exactly what this team needs at this point in its life. He handled the press conference brilliantly with solid answers and by working his way out of trick questions. Bravo, Joe.
   
   
2. Also comforting is that the new Joe decided to bring Kevin Long and Tony Pena back for the coaching staff. Hopefully, this will give Jorge, Mo, and Pettitte more reason to return.
   
   
3. Speaking of Dynasty vets, the Yankees organization is currently in the process of working out a contract with closer Mariano Rivera. From the rumor mill, Rivera may be close to taking a 3-year, $4M deal. Jorge's situation will be handled next. As for Andy Pettitte? He said on a Houston station yesterday:
   
   
   "The New York Yankees committed an awful lot of money to me and put it in my hands, gave me a player option and trusted me with that option," Pettitte told KRIV-TV. "It probably wouldn't be real honorable for me not to do anything other than if I shut it down, shut it down or go back and play for the New York Yankees."
   
   
   That's team loyalty, right there. Give the man a cookie.
   
   
4. Around the majors, another rumor mill is churning out the story that Arod regrets his decision. Looks like the "HA!" is on you now, Alex. Cashman and the rest have made themselves clear--it's over. That is, unless you say that the whole situation is Boras' fault and then fire him to prove it. But honestly, I don't think he's independent enough to do that. Regardless, if no one signs Arod (which, believe it or not, seems somewhat likely with the way the media and other teams have been talking about him), the Yanks can offer him arbitration. Now that could be interesting.
   
   
5. The great Joe Torre accepted a 3-year offer from the Dodgers today. This is ironic on two levels. Not only did he jump from New York team to (former) New York rival, but he replaced Grady Little as manager. Remember Little? "Keep Pedro in" Little? Haha. Well, I wish Joe luck with his new adventure. I also hope Scott Proctor doesn't have a heart attack at the news.
   
   
6. And finally, Barry Bonds says that he'll protest the Hall of Fame if his record ball with the asterisk is admitted (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3090631). Well that's great! Things will be a lot easier if he resists Cooperstown on his own!

I'd like to close with a little politics. Did you see how the other democratic candidates ripped Hillary a new one during the debate the other day? If I were the Democratic Party leaders I'd suddenly begin to question whether we should throw her up for the general election candidate. She's quite a politician (a.k.a. masters the doublespeak) and is incredibly polarizing. Remember what I said about her secret to success next November? At this rate, that's not happening. Quoting Sam Raymond: "If it's Hillary v. Rudy I'll vote for Donald Duck or worse." What a sad state of affairs.

(On that note, Sen. Joe Biden is awesome:

"Rudy Giuliani is probably the most underqualified man since George Bush to seek the presidency. Rudy Giuliani! Think about it. Rudy Giuliani: there are only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11! I mean, there's nothing else! And I mean it sincerely! He is genuinely not qualified to be president!"

Haha! Zing!)