The Surge is a success?

John McCain talks about The Surge in an interview with time:

You were a very enthusiastic supporter of the invasion of Iraq and, in the early stages, of the Bush Administration's handling of the war. Are those judgments you'd like to revisit?
Well, my record is clear. I believe that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. I believe it's clear that he had every intention to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction. I can only imagine what Saddam Hussein would be doing with the wealth he would acquire with oil at $110 and $120 a barrel. I was one of the first to point out the failure of strategy in Iraq under [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld. I was criticized for being disloyal to the Republicans and the President. I was the first to say I would lose a campaign rather than lose a war. I supported the surge. No observer over the last two years would say the surge hasn't succeeded. I believe we did the right thing.

Italics mine. Last time I checked The Surge was the name given to the tactic of increasing troop strength and increasing police/security activity in the short term for the strategic purpose of reducing violence so that the Iraqi Government could build it's own security and take over administration of the country allowing us to leave.

On a tactical level, the surge has been a success. But it has not achieved the goal, which is to allow the Iraqi government to build it's own security, take over administration and allow us to leave. This seems to be implicitily acknowledged by even those that claim it a success since they talk about it as a more or less permanent approach.

And not every observer thinks it's a success. Yglesias for one doesn't and explains the above much better than I just did.

Hating on Microsoft

I just spent 30 minutes trying to open 1 f*in' email. I *hate* vista. It is the slowest piece of crap. And I understand why it's slow. Hey Microsoft, it's not because the hardware hasn't caught up to it's awesomeness. It's cause you made a product that doesn't work on the hardware available to us.

Makes me want to give Apple another shot.

The VP

Since each post doesn't have a permalink you may have to scroll down to the August 20th post. It is, however, completely awesome and I support it as a bold move by Obama.

I'm from California now

Now that I reside in San Francisco I guess I am obligated to let all my (former) friends know that California racing rules and you guys suck. Just ask Old But Cheerful about his road experience. Dropped. Snap!!!!

Now he might note some questionable things like a distinct lack of center-lines, official cars, officials or the general ability to work as a group. But I say: Shut up! Why? Well... shut up that's why!

Washington Cup

The WSBA has the current Washington Cup standings. In case you cared.

New Commute

First, I guess I should confirm that I am in San Francisco. Apparently my previous post was too snarky for people to figure out. Which confuses me cause you guys have no problem figuring out which riders I am calling soft and lame regardless of how indirect the comments are.

Anyhoo I am gone. I guess you all should have showed up to my Wednesday night "race" in the park when you had the chance!

But are you really rid of me? Not yet! I will be flying back and forth for a few weeks cause I forgot to bring Mrs. PDog and Pkiddies with me. Stoked is putting together a big surprise bash for me at the Piper, but don't tell me. It's a secret and I am not supposed to know. Man will I be surprised.

And for the 100th time, bring pie. That's all i ask.

Pie Blogging

I need to make this very clear. The PruDog loves pie. And while I enjoy a good Banana Cream pie now and again. And every so often I will have a cherry pie. At the end of the day, there are only 2 pies for me.

Dutch Apple Pie or Apple Pie. With Vanilla Ice Cream.

That's all.

The winner is...

-4. Would have been -5 but the wife had to go break her collarbone so I haven't ridden since Tuesday.

Also, I have not had any pie in 4 weeks and that makes me cranky!

We're back!

Hide the pie!

PruDog & PruDog Expidition, Day 3

The expedition has run into trouble. After Mrs. PruDog fought that vicious rock a few days ago we began our journey West again. The agony of Mrs. PruDog spurred us forward. In fact, we were delayed when we realized that PPuppy had not put Mr. Von Chestnut in the car as promised. We were able to find Mr. Von Chestnut.

However, I fear that we are being stalked by some vicious animal. While mostly silent, we can occasionally here the loud cries of "my water bottle" and "movie!". We sleep in fear. This morning I awoke with scratch marks on my face. Perhaps the monster is telling us that it can attack us at will?

Pray for us as our return is uncertain.

Going for that last bit of air

Mrs. Pdog and I went out for a mountainbike ride up spring creek. As the picture shows, things did not work out well for Mrs. PDog. I will say that I would not have been able to walk 1 mile out a trail with a broken collarbone.

Because pleasing your man is so freakin' hard!

'Cosmopolitan' Institute Completes Decades-Long Study On How To Please Your Man

Red-flags in Project Management

Now that I am again gainfully employed I can make my (unrequested) suggestions to Seattle area employers without caring if I piss them off.

A trend I have noticed, as have other true Agile & Scrum PMs I've talked to, is a lack of real Agile or Scrum positions. It seems that a lot of companies have caught on that Agile & Scrum are the future, and advertise for these positions but when push comes to shove are running Waterfall projects. Here's a tip for these companies: if you require a PMP or use MS Project, you are running a Waterfall project.

Waterfall and Agile don't play nice together. You cannot run a Agile or Scrum project in MS Project. It is designed specifically for Waterfall and the core methodology is completely different.

Further, you are discouraging real Agile and SCRUM professionals from applying because they generally want to work on *Agile* and *Scrum* projects.

Just saying.

2000ft

I can't help but notice that every single ride here in Steamboat Springs has 2000 feet of climbing. Every single f*in' one.

On the otherhand I am now down 4lbs. Sadly I may never unleash the results of my "Mountain Training Camp" on the fatty sprinters of Seattle.

Pruitt Comes Clean Again

Local Seattle Blogger and cyclist has admitted to testing positive for employment. This is sure to send shockwaves through the community as PruDog had gained a reputation as being pretty damn near unemployable.

PruDog will punished by moving to San Francisco. In a statement he said he doubted the move would affect the quality of the blog, which is pretty low to begin with.

PS Fuck Edwards.

What am I going to blog about?

So I have made a promise to myself. No more reading political websites or thinking about politics until after the election. I am too fragile and sensitive to handle the truth about Barack that only McCain can reveal to me in trite ads featuring Paris Hilton.

And since I don't run a team anymore I don't know what's going on in the cycling world.

In fact, the only thing I have left is the blog! Oh the humanity.

Pruitt's Legs: an update

Did I mention that the Tuesday Night Worlds is 33 miles with 2000 total feet of climbing? The only great part was that about 7 miles was unpaved. The bad news is most of that was uphill.

Anyhoo... Pruitt finished in the group after a furious chase back on after major climb #2. Barely. And I think the group stopped to wait because the felt bad for me. Seriously.

Why don't you guys ever do that for me?

And I am at -2 for the trip.

Crashing Out!

Tonight is the Tuesday Night Worlds here in Steamboat. I am a bit confused, because I didn't know the World Championships were held in August anymore but whatever. I am going to go kick local ass. And if I get my own ass kicked, well, how would you know? You are not here so I can make up any story I want and buy myself a cool Mapei WC replica jersey (do I go with Museuw or Camenzind? Maybe Olano? So many to choose from...) get a job as a spin instructor and start training for the Olympics.

The only bug in my soup is the devastating injury I suffered on the Mountain Slide yesterday when PPuppy and I over-cooked a corner and I had to use my elbow to get us upright.

Ouch.

Hiring Practice Observation

As many of you know, PDog has been looking for a full time gig. And he's been very very picky and has only found 3 positions he actually wants.

What he has noticed is an interesting difference in the way large companies and small companies seem to treat interviewing. I've noticed every company has an interview that revolves around trying to scare the interviewee away. The purpose, I think, is to make sure the prospective hire is committed to the job if it is offered.

The small business invariably base this interview around how hard/challenging/mundane the work really is. Basically, the message is this isn't glamorous, it's hard both in terms of being difficult to do and also in terms of how routine it can be. This seems to me like a smart approach.

The large business invariably base the interview on being difficult to work with. This is often framed as a technical interview, but the point seems mostly to try to fluster the interviewee and see how he reacts.

While I can see the value in trying to find out how someone reacts under stress I wonder if this might have something to do with the 10% success rate large companies report in hiring.

It seems to me that interview style 1, while not perfect, will weed out people who really don't want to do the work. Interview style 2, on the otherhand, seems like it would weed out people who don't like being treated like jerks (or aren't desperate enough to put up with it.. give PDog a month he may be there!).

Just sayin'

Harold & Kumar

Since I didn't actually like the first one, why did I rent the second? Oh yeah, for Neil Patrick Harris.

Holy Funny Batman

This rocks. I am not sure what it proves, other than we should have made Adam West President instead.



h/t to November Blog

Update: Screw my blog. November Blog does my schtick better than I do and with 1/4 the calories. Go make his traffic runneth over.

Critical Mass

I haven't commented on the Critical Mass incident because I don't have any way of knowing who's version of the story is true. In fact, I find it believable that both groups actually perceived things the way they described. For example, it does seem that both versions seem to include the critical mass riders basically sitting on the drivers car and surrounding the drivers car. The key difference is the Critical Mass riders seem to see that as some non-threatening act of defense to prevent cars from running over other riders. I would argue that is a pretty jacked up view and that it is reasonable for the driver to have felt threatened. If this does in fact happen regularly I am surprised that there haven't been more incidents like this and a CM rider hasn't been killed.

Here's a mental exercise. How would you react if you were riding on the Burke and all of a sudden a big group of walkers surrounded you, grabbed your bike and prevented you from leaving while a massive anti-cycling protest rolled through screaming at you. My guess is most of us would react rather poorly to this.

In general, I am very skeptical of the value of these type of protest groups. I understand that the stated goal is to raise visibility of cyclists rights but I don't really see how creating a hostile environment for people who are no anti-cyclist but drive cars is going to do that. Just because someone drives a car doesn't mean they are the enemy. In fact, we need those people in the cars to support our rights as cyclists. Alienating them seems counter productive to me.

I also question whether the real intent is to promote change or whether Critical Mass isn't just a social group for young people want to belong to the messenger sub-culture.