Living for stuff

Sometimes it feels like I'm just living for stuff. Filed taxes today--had to pay $8000 because I sold a house last year. I owe C the amount of her refund, too. Fortunately, I'm getting enough back from not having filed in 2001-2 to pay for it all. But this morning: an half-hour in traffic. An hour in the bank to cash one check and get two bloody cashier's checks. Half hour in the car. Another hour looking for the Post Office at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda. (Damn hard to find.) Half hour in the post office. Errands, errands, errands. Dealing with stuff. What happened to living?Work was good when I finally got there. The new technical lead position is invigorating. I haven't been this excited about work since I got my first co-op job. But I don't know how to lead yet, exactly. Well, maybe I know some things. Like be clear about when I do and don't know something. Listen to the client. Listen to the people in my group. Persuade with good humor. Requests, complaints, and obstructive behavior have underlying reasons (though not always the apparent ones). Most of those reasons are about things I don't understand yet, and so I need to learn to understand them. Other times, I think I do understand them. If my understanding doesn't help me deal more effectively with the situation, then probably I'm wrong about what I think I know.Found an interesting Web site today: http://www.smartmarriages.com. Has a creepy "registered" symbol after the "smart marriages" name. But sounds like it's based on good research, based on a spot on This American Life (http://www.thislife.org). Social scientists have been quantifying communication styles, and now some claim they can predict which marriages will and will not make it. And teach people, in fairly short order (~10 hours of classes), how to communicate to improve their marriages. They claim a 50% decrease in divorce for their training. Of course, there's a selection effect there. I'm not too sure what the statistics are or mean. But these people clearly get that relationship is about relating, and want to teach people to relate. Looks like good work to me.Tonight C and I watched a great NOVA show, Life's Greatest Miracle, which you can actually watch on line if you missed it. I couldn't help wondering what happened to the zygotes and fetuses we were seeing on the show--or were they computer graphics? Some were clearly electron photomicrographs. I'd be interested to know what properties they use to do the false color (or do they just color them "by hand"?) But the Web site says "extraordinary microimagery", so I think we were seeing the real think. I said C and I watched the show--actually, I watched it, and C talked to her nanny, who doesn't look like she's going to come to help with the baby. She was on the phone for over half an hour, and came back just in time to see the delivery. Ouch. She's already having little "oh, no" moments about that, I think. Now it looks like the UTI's back. Thank God for doctors and strong antibiotics. Where will we be if those become ineffective?Iraq is scarier than ever. Junior was on the tube tonight, his third-ever prime-time press conference, after lounging in Crawford while the war he started goes to shit. I deliberately watched something else--what's the point in watching him stand there and lie?Heard a great comment on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me last week. One of the panel said they wished they could hear the 9/11 chief executive closed testimony, just so he could see the part where Junior talks while Cheney drinks a glass of water.