View From the Bushes

Well, we got great news yesterday: our #1 (birth-order, not importance) daughter was accepted into the gifted magnet school in our school district. They only take the top 1% of all second graders, so the odds were definitely against us. I didn't realize that it was so exclusive when she was invited to take the qualifying test. I figured if she'd been invited to take the test, then her odds were pretty good, but the top 15% are invited to take the test, which means even if someone is invited to take the test, their odds are only ~7% (6 and 2/3 %, if you want to be anal). So as you can imagine, I was pretty worried, but she pulled it off. I've been telling everyone, and the most common response is, "Oh she must get that from her mother's side."

Today is, of course, Cinco de Mayo, which celebrates the Mexican defeat of the invading French Army of Napoleon III. In commemoration, the three people in the IT department of Mexican descent are all going to gang up on my French boss and beat him up. Though if you read the link, if they beat up six Frenchmen it would be more historically accurate.

I also finally took the time this morning to comb the deepest recesses of the internet and found out how many submissions the Wizards of the Coast Novel open call received, and I was way off. I had predicted 1000, but it turned out to be only 400. This is good and bad (and surprising): it's good, because the raw odds are a lot better. It's bad, because it will take them less time to sort through the submissions which means the time I have available to polish my own book is probably less than I thought. Finally, as part of our continuing coverage, a link to a page on how lightsabers work.

Carpe Diem Quam minimum Credula Postero
Ross