TBWAIN - AKA Jeff Svare's Blog

On October 26th, one week before the mid-term elections, in a radio interview with Rev. Al Sharpton, the President said, "Anybody who is concerned about the direction of the country has to understand that this election is as important as 2008." Here's the part of the interview I really like: "At another point, Sharpton asked the president: 'So even though your name isn't on the ballot, this is about your agenda and about the progress we've seen you begin to make over the past 20-odd months?' 'Absolutely,' Obama said." So Barry's point is that this election is all about his agenda and the "progress" he's made. Evidently the American voters aren't all that crazy about his agenda and his "progress" thus far. After the elections, Barry said that frustrated voters dictated the Republican takeover. "As president I take responsibility." "I think people started looking at all this, and it felt as i...

In a radio interview with Eddie Sotelo, as reported on MSNBC , President Obama provided us with this BGO™ (Big Glimpse of the Obvious): "If the Latino community decides to sit out this election, there will be fewer votes." Duh, Barry. You could say the same thing if Americans with German ancestry didn't vote in this election. Which, according to Wikipedia , is about 51 million people. Yup, that would make for fewer votes.

But are we surprised? Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, said, "If we are going to get anything done, Republican cooperation, which has been all but non-existent recently, will be necessary." Really Harry? Why is that? You didn't need Republican cooperation to push the health-care reform and economic stimulus through. You just want a scapegoat in case this doesn't scheme work. Future headline: "Harry Reid Blames Republicans For Bad Economy" AP said that President Obama says "Republicans have opposed everything he has done to strengthen the economy." Yep, fer shure. It's the Republicans fault that unemployment continues to rise (remember how his plan was going to prevent the loss of jobs?), the housing market is still in the toilet, and consumer prices continue to rise. I'm not an economist, nor do I play one on tv, but my personal economic situation is the worst it's ever been. None of this administrations policie...

Dumb things that have happened to me on this trip. The flight from SLC was delayed because the plane had mechanical problems in Baltimore. The flight from Atlanta was delayed because the air conditioning wasn't working. When I printed my boarding passes it also printed out an emergency contact form for me to complete. In Salt Lake they told me they would take it when I boarded in Atlanta. In Atlanta they said they didn't know what it was and didn't want it. When I asked about an upgrade at the gate to Business class, I was told I needed to do it on line 48 hours in advance. So they lost the sale of at least one of the three open seats they had. It was OK thought, there was no one in the seat next to me, so I had plenty of room. When I checked in on line for my flight from Copenhagen to Stockholm, I couldn't have access to a printer for my boarding pass, The website said I could print it at the airport. When I got to the airport I found I couldn't print my boa...

Today it was 93 degrees Fahrenheit (34 Celsius) in Salt Lake City. And they were starting to put the Christmas lights up on the trees. I see it happen every year, and every year I think it can't be happening yet. But it is. "And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath." Acts 2:19

From the Associated Press - "Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says it would be 'deeply irresponsible' for the Obama administration to support a wholesale extension of the Bush era tax cuts, including breaks for the wealthy." When was the last time you heard a politican say that it would be "deeply irresponsible" to raise the national debt to over 13 trillion dollars? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Sounds cool, doesn't it? Who couldn't imagine themselves wailing away with David Gilmour on Comfortably Numb ? You could make it a reality. You can vote for Pink Floyd, Queen, Led Zeppelin, or U2 at this site set up by Harmonix. Vote now! Vote often! Vote Pink Floyd! Oh, yeah, I'd buy this.

I could start this with a lame Star Trek fanboy lead-in, "Jean-Luc Picard gets a Knighthood!" But I won't, 'cuz it would be lame. The 2010 Honours List is out, and the classically-trained (and just bloody amazing) actor, Patrick Stewart is on it . He has been made an OBE for services to drama. He will now be properly addressed as Sir Patrick, but Trek fans across the world will still call him, "Jean-Luc!" Make it so.

Owing to the many news reports circulating regarding the end of the first decade of the 21st century, let me say this: This isn't it. The current millennium began 1 January 2001. The first decade of this millennium will end on 31 December 2010. That's 364 days from now. Take a look here for more information on when this millennium began.

Don't hold me to any of these. In an attempt to get "member non-enthusiasts" stoked to use new.Familysearch.org developers will create a Wii interface that will go online in Q2. "Just 500 more points and you can add another ancestor!" A major player in the online genealogy community will try to open up a new market by reserving a new domain, then fill it with US census records, passenger lists, and city directories, stating, "It's new content tailored for people in (insert country name here)." There may be more.

I think Dickens said it well: "Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him." Merry Christmas.

A few years back, I would get together with a bunch of friends during lunch and play strategy games. I've been waxing nostalgic for those get-togethers and have even scripted some new scenarios that we could use. The dice, sheet protectors and grease pencils made for some great fun, but I've thought about what could be done to make it a little more high tech. I was momentarily bored today, so I figured out how to create a function that would allow you to use an Excel function in place of dice. The function RAND will generate a random number between 0 and 1. =RAND() If you want to specify a min-max range, for example if you were using a twelve-sided die, multiply the result times the largest possible number less the smallest and add 1. =RAND()*(12-1)+1 If you want to round up the number so you don’t get any decimal places, add the ROUND function and specify zero decimals. =ROUND((RAND()*(12-1)+1),0) If you wanted to, you could put this function into multiple cells, specifying a ...

It's time to confess something. I've been trying to avoid it, but I can't. Everyone's talking about it, and I've been thinking about it. So I'm going to do something about it. I'm gonna talk. All the uproar about changing the health care system has just been divisive. I don't honestly think that I can trust any solution the government puts forward. Really, what is the government's track record on making things better? Let me be clear: no one should loose their homes to pay their medical bills. Costs are outrageous, and many people don't have access to care they need. Making people "realize" the costs of healthcare by making their insurance payments doesn't make them less likely to need medical care. Hello, does anyone else realize this? Who wants to contract a major illness that disrupts their life and plunges them into debt? No one elects illness. Instead of this major overhaul, let's start with something smaller. Let...

Yes, indeed it is. Last Thursday we got fifteen copies of How the Grinch Stole Christmas in. And this wasn't our first receipt of Christmas books, either. And on Monday they started putting red lights on the Lebanese Cedar on Temple Square. Today's high in Salt Lake City--a balmy 96 degrees Farenheit. Ho, Ho, Ho.

Yep, this is another disgruntled post about baseball. This is the first Saturday afternoon I've gotten home before the MLB Game of the Week is scheduled to start. The possible matchups: Cardinals vs. Phillies, White Sox vs. Tigers, and the Twins vs. Angels. If you look over to the column at the left, you will see that I live in Utah, just 20 minutes north of Salt Lake City. We have a AAA baseball team here that is affiliated with the Angels, the Salt Lake Bees . You'd think some programmer would make note of that. Wrong . What do we get to see? St. Louis @ Philadelphia. Yeah, Salt Lake is such a National League town. I wonder if the decision was made by our local Fox station ? I hope not, because this way I can attribute it to some nameless suit in a boardroom somewhere, and not someone who's supposed to know about sports locally. It's interesting to note that we are in the Colorado Rockies broadcasting area. But we don't get any of their games on radio or te...

Within days of releasing pictures of the newest regeneration of the Doctor , the fashion police are critiquing his wardrobe. Read about it in BBC News Magazine . Interesting how comments on changes to the Tardis have been rather quiet.

I was glued to the television in our apartment on the south side of Fargo watching Neil Armstrong take that "one small step." NASA's Apollo 11 40th Anniversary site. NASA's Apollo 11 multimedia library . Just one more of those "where were you when" moments.

Anthony DiComo, MLB.com's beat writer for the Yankees said it concisely: For the first time since 2003, the Yanks swept the Twins in a season series. You can read all about it at this link . At least the Twins won't have to play the Yankees again this season. So there is a silver lining on this dark cloud. And I hate having to say something nice about the Yankees.

There's a report out from the University of California Davis that states Native Americans are descendants of one ancestral Asian population, rather than the product of multiple migrations. "Our work provides strong evidence that, in general, Native Americans are more closely related to each other than to any other existing Asian populations, except those that live at the very edge of the Bering Strait. While earlier studies have already supported this conclusion, what’s different about our work is that it provides the first solid data that simply cannot be reconciled with multiple ancestral populations." The results of the study show there is a genetic marker called the "9-repeat allele" that was found in 41 populations tested from Alaska to Chile. Their conclusion is "that the most straightforward explanation for the distribution of the 9-repeat allele was that all modern Native Americans, Greenlanders and western Beringians descend from a common founding ...

Treat your staff like they are stupid. Whenever you want to get get feedback from "the best in the business" — don't ask anyone on your staff for their input. This proves you are superior to them as you don't suffer from the same preconceptions (understanding the scope of the project), prejudices (experience), or lack of vision (ideas on how to make things better).