Raise your hand if you think I can get into a Master's program with no recommendations (not required, but "recommended"), no GRE scores (same as letters) and an application turned in on the last possible day.

What I've got going for me:

1. a killer personal statement
2. a great professional resume
3. a repectable undergraduate transcript

Amazon.com Marketing VP in a meeting about buying research from NPD: Is there a reason we should be talking to you?

Isaac: You mean, aside from the fact that I'm your seventy four thousandth most popular reviewer?

Useless Fact of the Day

Every 60 seconds in 2005, a woman in the U.S. bought a Prince CD.

On Alito

Hey Democrats - give it up. You had a chance early on to control the message, to focus on Alito's lockstep support of what is now acknowledged by a majority of the public as an overreaching-yet-neglectful executive branch. You could have driven home his corporatist leanings and what that meant to the average citizen. You could have assumed the high road in your rhetoric, keeping your statements calm, concerned and consistent. But, you didn't. Instead, you were combatitive, disjointed, and focused on issues like Alito's marginal association with CAP (about which the public didn't care), and abortion (which is too complex an issue for the public to fully grasp).

Now, every time you open your mouth in opposition to Alito, you chip away at the momentum we had going into the mid-terms.

Bush was always going to pack the courts with conservatives. Accept it. Move on, and focus on taking back the Senate or White House (preferably both) in time to manage Justice Stevens' replacement. That's the really big one, and it's coming soon. The man's 85 years old. Ginsburg - at 72 - is no spring chicken either. My guess is that our next President is going to pick two Supreme Court justices, and it's going to be a doozy of a battle.

Does anyone know if Scalia's family is known for their longevity? He's 70 this year...

Child of the Eighties

HR just forwarded a resume to me. The candidate's name is Blaine, and all I can think of is:

That's not a name, it's a major appliance.

I lost an employee on Friday.

It wasn't any surprise; I'd known for some time that this person was on the way out. But with my department already three bodies short, it presents quite a challenge. Now, I've got to hire FOUR people like, right friggin' now.

Anyone know anyone who wants a job?

New York Shorts

The doorman to my office building in Manhattan is a 31-year-old Puerto Rican guy named Angel who lives with his mother downtown, because his wife left him three months ago. He says that she chose her career as a manager at a CVS drugstore over him and his daughter. Angel has been terrified of airplanes ever since he saw the second one hit the World Trade Center when he was working down near there in 2001. It's really sad, because he doesn't see how he'll ever be able to visit his family in Puerto Rico again. Angel makes $40,000/year, which he says is not enough to cover rent, child support, food, and other expenses.

Angel always hits on the cash register girl at the deli on the corner. She's blond, busty and Russian, and alternately petulant and sultry. Her sister has a child Asher's age, and they live in Brighton Beach. She always tells me about the kid-friendly restaurants I should take Asher to down there. The cash register girl(who won't divulge her name and shall be henceforth known as TCRG) told me with a conspiratorial whisper this morning that she's taking prerequisite courses so that she can go back to school for a career in show business. TCRG told me not to tell anyone, but I don't think she'd mind me sharing her secret with you.

My son has an obsession with the Beatles Rubber Soul.

Visitors to Yahoo's music site are twice as likely to buy digital music as are visitors to AOL's music site.

I have a business meeting in an hour. I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Considering running out to Banana Republic. Does anyone else do this sort of thing?

I'm a happy guy right now. Two reasons:

1) I caught an early flight back from Minneapolis, which got me home at 5:30pm instead of midnight.

2) I had a dream last night that I lived across the street from the long-dead legendary Chicago rock club Lounge Ax. In my dream, it was alive and kicking with a secret Wilco show. There were only about 30 people in the audience, more locals than hard-core Wilco fans, all drinking bourbon and bud light. I grabbed a seat at the end of the bar (near the photo booth) and watched a killer version of "Muzzle of Bees." It may not have happened in real life, but it was such a vivid dream that the residual thrill is still there.

Checking in From Minneapolis

Some people would kill for this location.

I'm steps from Mall of America, which houses an indoor roller coaster and more chain restaurants than there probably are in the rest of the state put together. Sadly, I don't get to enjoy this rubber stamp leisure, since I'm nestled (comfortably, I might add) inside the Marriott, cramming for an 11am meeting with the Best Buy music folks.


Others would kill for this opportunity

On the hotel shuttle last night, I met two early twentysomething girls from Iowa who work for Target in the HR department, and were up here for an HR conference. They were wide-eyed and friendly in that rural midwestern sort of way. One was blond, the other brunette. I'll let you guess which one gave me the, "Wow, you live in New York City!? Have you ever been to Broadway?!" line. Yep, folks, stereotypes fulfilled while you wait.

They overheard me talking to Sarah who was using the headset while driving through Manhattan. I cautioned her to be careful. When I got off the phone, the (blond or brunette - guess!) said to me, "I didn't know that they let people drive in Manhattan. I thought it was just cabs and buses and stuff."

Yippie!!!!

Today, I have three things to cheer about:

1. Sarah came home last night!

2. There's a new Flaming Lips single on Rhapsody! It's a mindless, fuzzy, freaky, happysong.

3. The caffeine has kicked in!

Wow, what a long day.

I worked before Asher woke up, while he napped, and after he went to bed. It's 9:30pm now, and I am sooo done.

Half of the adult companionship panned out. Asher and I met Josh, Susie and Giles for brunch, and Micah came over between the afternoon nap and bedtime.

Susie and Giles are getting married after dating for something like ten years. Josh is single again after four years and recently back from a trip to Vietnam. They talked about all of that while I fed bits of scrambled egg to an infant. Funny how once-close friends are so spread out across different life stages.

Sarah just called from the airport. She'll be home in an hour.

Tomorrow, it's off to Minneapolis, then possibly Los Angeles on Wednesday. Hooray.

Asher's in bed, talking to his stuffed animal, and I'm about to embark on an evening of spreadsheets for a re-forecasting effort at work. Live from New York, it's Saturday night!

I picked Asher up around 11am from Sarah's parents where he spent the night. We came back here, had some lunch, went for a walk, returned and played on the building stairs, and went inside where I put him down for his afternoon nap. When he woke up, we headed off to the library, where both of us browsed the stacks. Asher's browsing, of course, came in the form of yanking as many books off the shelves as he could.

Once in a while, it's a good thing to have no adult company. And it was certainly great to spend quality time with my son. Still...

Tomorrow, I have vague commitments to hang out from Micah, Amy, Sara and Josh. I imagine one or two of 'em will pan out (one or two of YOU, since I think you guys all read this thing), and I won't have another day of discussion solely with an eleven-month-old, his rubber fish and his stuffed tiger.

From the department of inscrutable emails:


From: XXXX
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 1:23 PM
To: XXX
Cc: Isaac Josephson
Subject: RE: burning and ripping report

Thansk!

----------------------------------------------

From: XXX
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 12:51 PM
To: XXX
Cc: Isaac Josephson
Subject: RE: burning and ripping report

the reaming % is d/k. Left this out to try and keep the grid simpler...

The heat went off in our apartment a little early this morning, and Sarah gobbled up all the hot water in the shower before I got to it. Maybe, that's why I've had the opening strains of Bloc Party's "Like Eating Glass" in my head all morning ("It's so cooold in this house").

Sarah and Asher are at her parents' house now. She leaves for Palm Springs on an 11:45am flight, and Asher's going to be hanging out with Grandma for the next couple of days while I'm at work. I'll go over there in the evening to give him his bath and bedtime story, but otherwise, tonight and tomorrow night are dedicated to presentations, budget files, and prepping for a business trip to Minneapolis next Monday.

No idea what I'm going to do with Asher this weekend. Adult company's going to be a challenge to come by, since most of my friends around here don't exactly jump at the chance to spend extended periods of time with a baby.

This blog's been a little short on pithy posts since the insomia took over my life. Hopefully, all will be back to normal soon. But until then, some brief highlights:

- I listened to David Lee Roth in his new morning host gig the other day. He's taking over for Howard Stern on one of the local rock stations. Wow, what a bizarre feeling to listen to Diamond Dave toss out pathetic "I was cool once" asides in between jokes about getting laid for the first time.

- Sarah's going to Palm Springs this weekend to spend some time with a college friend. I'm in charge of Asher.

- The band Belly has really aged well.

"What, no 2 a.m. post?"

Nope. The ambien worked like a dream (thanks, Dan). I slept from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. - a whole seven hours!!

Now, let's leave this sleep topic behind, hopefully for good, and move on to more entertaining things... like work!

The company that currently employs me has an interesting culture. First, people are pretty sensitive - especially relative to my previous jobs. Second, if they feel you've slighted them in any way, the accepted response is to tell on you to your boss.

Now, as you can imagine, this has presented a challenge to me in particular. In the past three months, I've made it a priority to be all kinds of nice to everyone in every meeting, all the time. Y'all wouldn't recognize me.

Today, it was suggested that I was still being a little rough with people in email. The recommendation? Emoticons! That's right folks, apparently smiley faces, frown faces, and so on are encouraged in this here workplace.

Yay :) :) :) !!!! :)

:(

No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn?

I went to the doctor this morning. And after an hour wait, he ushered me in and prescribed some ambien. Hopefully, that will knock me out tonight.

After the doctor, I couldn't quite muster the energy to go into work (partially because I'm seeing things out of the corners of my eyes, and can't string three words together for reliable verbal communication). Instead, I opted for the Tea Lounge's trusty free wireless, and settled down there with my laptop for the day.

The best thing about working from the Tea Lounge is that my commute is about a hundred yards. I shut down (physically and my computer) at around 5:30pm, came home, played with Asher for a half hour, then gave him a bath and put him to bed.

Well, so much for sleep. Without those aforementioned drugs, I'm back to square one. Last night was especially bad - zero sleep until 6am, and then a 45 minute "nap."

Back from Boston

Our trip north was a pleasant one, for the most part. I eventually slept, aided by some powerful prescription drugs. Asher was in heaven, playing with all the toys and the bigger kids. On Saturday afternoon, we met another old college friend and his wife for lunch. It was nice to introduce them to Asher and Sarah. The New Year's Eve dinner party was fun, if uneventful. As predicted, we wound down the evening at barely five minutes past midnight.

Last night, we went to Sarah's parents for a Chanukah dinner. Fifteen family members showed up - a modest affair for the Kaufmans. We finally made it home around 8pm, threw all the bags and gifts down in the hallway, put Asher to bed, and conked out ourselves.

Around 3am, Asher started throwing up. Poor kid's never had that happen before. We're fairly certain its a stomach virus that he picked up from Dana's kids, two of whom puked while we were there.