My physical therapist has recommended swimming to help gently strengthen my left shoulder, and happily there is a public pool two blocks from my apartment. I couldn't find much information on the internet, so I went to scout it a few Saturdays ago. The whole complex, the Marie Reed Recreational Center, which is contiguous with or adjacent to or quite close to the Marie Reed Community Learning Center, is locked up on weekends, but I found this:

I spent some time accumulating critical accessories: goggles and a lock. Then one Tuesday morning I made it to the pool (after having to double back to get the money I'd forgotten, and then on the second walk I broke the goggles while trying to adjust the nose strap), and then at 6:45 am to find a group of people milling near the locked door.

"It was like this last week too."

"Have you been here since six?"?

"That woman that just left said it's been like this the last three weeks in a row."

So I gave up and went for breakfast. And I started mentally composing a story about how DC isn't quite a first-world place, and how everybody here is used to this kind of story and just rolls their eyes. My poor mood may have been slightly influenced by the hassle of the goggles: after scrounging for the receipt, I eventually went and replaced them. But the new pair is missing the different nose pieces, the attempt of which to change was the cause of breaking the first pair. So maybe that's just as well.

One silver lining of regularly heading to a Residence Inn in Macon, Georgia, is that it does have a pool, and you can have the pool completely to yourself. So I did manage to get in the water, do some floating, swim a few five-yard laps. But I needed some serious lap swimming. I checked my photo of the hours and compared it to the online hours. And Monday night, I tried again.

And again I had to double back to grab some money and an ID. But I finally made it around 7 pm on a Monday night, and the door was open. And I went in.

And I was completely blind as my glasses fogged. But slowly, I figured out that there wasn't an office, you just take off your street shoes and go to the locker, shower, and then jump into the pool. A perfectly nice, standard 25-yard heated indoor pool, lanes and all. A lifeguard on duty. Totally free, just go and start swimming. I did seventeen laps of various speeds and styles, including a length of butterfly and a few tedious laps with a kickboard. My first serious laps since high school swim team, and by the time I finished I could barely move my arms. But three days later they seem okay; maybe the left is a bit sore but that was the point, I think. And hey, totally free pool. Five evenings a week. Two blocks from my apartment. DC isn't so dystopic after all.

I was trying to figure out how best to listen to my music at work. I don't want to/shouldn't/can't put any music or software or anything on the work computer, so I need a portable music player. I've gone through a bunch of little MP3 players for walking/running/cycling (The iPod Shuffle, first and second generations; the Sansa Clip, twice; and currently the Creative Zen Stone). One or two of these I've dropped, but mostly they just die. I've also chewed through a few pairs of fancy in-ear headphones, because the wiring breaks. (Just today I got a new pair, now with a microphone so I can use them with the phone; more on these after I try them out.)

But. I have 120 gigabytes of music, and my Zen Stone has 2 Gb. In fact, the only portable music players with enough capacity are the iPod Classic (160 Gb, $250) and an Archos tablet thing. I'm sufficiently uncomfortable with Apple's dictatorial ethos that I'm not going to get another iPod, and with the Archos I'd be paying a lot for a big video screen that I don't need. So I did some research and discovered a whole new product category: multimedia hard drives. These are external hard drives with extra chips and circuits and plugs so that they can play movies and music without being plugged into computer. You plug them directly into your TV. Further research led me to one such device which has a standard headphone jack (aka 3.5mm stereo plug). This is the 10Moons SMQC037, hard drive sold separately. I paid $80, although I now see a bunch of other products that look like they should do the trick for $40. I had to buy and install a 250Gb SATA laptop hard drive (also $80).

The physical device is reasonably nice; it looks to have been made in the same kind of factory in the Pearl River Delta that iPods and other high-quality-finish consumer electronics are already made in. The industrial design is simpler than an iPod, but perfectly adequate. I bought it from LightInTheBox, which exports stuff clearly intended for the domestic Chinese market, and in consequence I didn't get an English-language manual. By trial and error and reading the few English words in the manual, I discovered that plugging the hard drive directly into the computer (by SATA cable, not USB) and formatting it FAT32 and copying my music and videos onto it, I could then install the drive in the 10Moons device and hook it up to VGA and headphones and it plays quite nicely. Limitations so far are the clunky UI (no obvious way to build playlists, hard to navigate through my hundreds of folders) and the large steps in the volume control. It's adequate to the task of playing all my music in the office, but with the lousy UI, not exactly a joy to use.

One fun little problem has been to translate the remote control. So far I have the second row translated. For example, the first button in the second row is diàn yǐng, movie. I have no idea what it actually does, since playing movies seems to be done by navigating the on-screen UI with the arrow buttons. But anyway, if you would like to translate one of the buttons for me, please send me an email or post a comment. I am also curious what the name of the company is in Chinese; I don't know much Chinese but I know that neither character is either 10 or moon. The first one is tian1, sky or heaven, but what's the second one?

I charted out the performance of the top 56 Major League baseball players in 2009, as ranked by WARP3, which is the "number of wins this player contributed, above what a replacement level hitter, fielder, and pitcher would have done," normalized for difficulty (era, park effects, league, etc). The chart shows National League players in blue and American League in red. Position players have solid bars; pitchers' bars fade at the bottom.

I marked the top three vote-getters for the Cy Young and MVP awards in each league. Each award has its own scoring system, based on number of first-place votes, second-place votes, etc, and I show the total score. You can see that three of the four awards were given to three of the four best players in baseball; the fourth was given to the fourth-best candidate but the top eight NL pitchers were all very close. You can see that, after the first-place awards, the down-ballot rankings tend to get idiosyncratic. You can also see that the MVP award has pretty much morphed into "most impressive position player, preferably on the Yankees." You can see that I had to show the top 56 players because the third-place NL MVP award went to the fifty-sixth best overall player, thirty-first best in his league. And you can see that Pujols is playing a different game than everybody else.

We went to back to the vet Saturday and they confirmed that she had broken both top front teeth, that the roots were exposed, and that they needed to be removed or they would get infected and possibly infect other teeth. It's hard to determine, I was told, exactly when they broke; it could have been a month ago. I brush her teeth more often than monthly, but I don't focus on the front teeth because they are almost always immaculate, so I could have missed it for a while. She hasn't given any sign that they bother her at all.

Tonight I got her back from the vet, a little woozy and with stitches in her gums. X-rays revealed infection in the roots of the adjacent teeth, which will be treated with anti-biotics, after which the roots may regenerate. It's impossible to say if some kind of infection weakened the teeth, or if she did something to break them and it went un-noticed so long that infection set in so long ago that she had time to lose tooth material to decay, or what. The total bill was several times what I paid to have one of my own wisdom teeth pulled, although mine was pretty easy and didn't require any general anaesthesia. There are of course the usual thoughts to be thought about how we spend money in the developed world, what it says about our values, etc etc. But mostly I'm alternating between thinking that, okay, this was a freak thing and I was doing a decent job of taking care of her and couldn't reasonably have prevented this or detected it more quickly, and on the other hand feeling like an awful owner.

Something quite amazing happened yesterday in Congress: the House Finance Committee -- in a truly bipartisan and even trans-ideological vote -- defied the banking industry, the Federal Reserve, the Democratic leadership, and mainstream Beltway opinion in order to pass an amendment, sponsored by GOP Rep. Ron Paul and Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, mandating a genuine and probing audit of the Fed.—Glenn Greenwald, Salon

One in six patients are cared for in 624 Catholic hospitals scattered throughout the U.S. in 2006, ... All told, $84.6 billion was spent on Catholic church-affiliated care.

[...]

Catholic institutions are uniquely bound by religious directives on care, effectively eliminating key reproductive health and end-of-life treatment that other institutions will provide to patients and bill to their insurance carriers.

Add those restrictions and compound it with two simple facts: 73 percent of the now uninsured are of reproductive age and the leading cause of death among people aged 15-44 is accidents.

In essence, the people most likely to benefit from the proposed public option and insurance exchange will undoubtedly be seeking the type of care Catholic hospitals refuse to provide as a matter of religious principle. ...

Analyzing the bishops' lobbying efforts from a cold, calculating green eyeshade perspective adds a very different dimension to their motives that may help spur secular business interests to protect both a woman's right to choose and their own bottom line.

Here is the story of how I changed insurance companies as part of changing jobs, and how that affected my ongoing quest for medical car for my broken clavicle, and what it is like to get health care from Kaiser Mid-Atlantic.

As an independent contractor in California, I didn't have very many choices for health insurance; I went with Anthem Blue Cross high-deductible and paid about $100/month including dental. This is for coverage with a $3500 deductible, meaning that I pay the first $3,500 in medical expenses per year. There's a strong economic argument that you shouldn't get insurance for anything where the worst-case scenario wouldn't bankrupt you, because the insurance companies, like the casinos, know the odds much better than you do, and over the course of your lifetime you'll come out behind paying monthly premiums instead of a few multi-thousand-dollar payments. Like most economic arguments, it gets very complicated in health care.

I followed that logic to get the high-deductible plan that essentially only protects me from getting bankrupted if I'm in a major medical emergency. But even if you could afford to pay a million out of pocket, you should still have health insurance, because it gets you access to the negotiated rate, which is often half of the list price. Not that you can find the list price for anything medical before you buy, but that's another digression.

After six months they increased my premium from about $90 to about $160 per month, and I think also upped the dental rates. I called to ask why they increased my rates, and the lady said that my six-month introductory period was over and they were allowed to raise the rate.

"Okay, you're allowed to raise the rate, but why did you?"

"Your introductory period was over."

"I understand that you were no longer prevented from raising the rate, but why ... did I age into a new bracket, or otherwise change categories, or become a bigger risk?"

"No, nothing changed, but your introductory period was over."

Two things I regret failing to ask: was there a law preventing them from raising rates in the first six months, or was it just a trick to get new customers? And was there anything preventing them from raising my new rate right away, and if not, why hadn't they raised it to, say, $300 or $1000?

Anyway. In the end I got the last laugh because I paid less than a year of premiums and got tens of thousands of dollars of care, thanks to getting hit by a car, but I'm going to write about the medical/financial side of that incident separately. Today I want to talk about Kaiser.

Oh, and the other piece of background you should know is that, by the last visit with my surgeon, I was pretty sure I wanted to get some physical therapy because my shoulder, while much improved compared to "broken", was not quite right yet. This is no doubt to be expected with a surgically repaired clavicle, but I wanted to see what I could do, with help, to get those last few percent of function back. But the wait to see a therapist was several weeks, and my moving date to DC was several weeks in the future, so I put it off.

Federal employees get a choice of health insurance provider, from a list of maybe as many as ten. Blue Cross is on the list; I decided to go with Kaiser. I've always had a PPO before, not an HMO, so I thought it would be interesting to see the difference. Kaiser on the West Coast is generally well-regarded and is often cited as a model for how to both contain costs and provide good service. I heard less flattering things about Kaiser Mid-Atlantic, but figured what the heck, I can change it later.

I filled out my health insurance form during my first pay period, since I was told that it wouldn't be effective until partway into the first pay period after the one in which I submitted the form, carefully walking it over to the person on the second floor who actually processes the forms. Then nothing happened for almost a month. Then I got email telling me my login information for eOPF, the electronic access to my personal personnel file. One of the recent documents in that file said something about Kaiser, so I called Kaiser directly. They said I had been covered since my third week, and had had a Kaiser account since my fifth week, and would be getting something in my mail, and yes, they could give me my Kaiser account number over the phone so I could start booking appointments.

So I made an appointment to see my Primary Care Physician (PCP), conveniently located almost directly on a line between work and office, and 39 days after starting my new job, saw a doctor. He agreed that I should see a physical therapist, so I got a referral and then made an appointment for that. Two weeks later, 53 days after starting my new job and ten weeks after being cleared by my surgeon for resuming general activities, I finally saw a physical therapist.

Who told me that the only thing my PCP had written was "joint pain", and that she couldn't take my word for what my surgeon had said, and that without a note in the system from the PCP saying that I was okay for therapy and what the limits where, she couldn't do anything other than a preliminary evaluation; she couldn't do any therapy with me or recommend any exercises. We spent about an hour going, not in circles, but in perhaps a spiral, and she did ultimately listen to my description of what had happened and what the surgeon had said, and suggested that I try swimming as probably the best possible immediately therapy for the shoulder.

I also have been having some problems with my finger, the left index finger. At first I thought it had to do with the knuckle, which along with several others was scraped bloody—always wear gloves that cover the complete hand, not cool, comfortable ones that leave the last joint uncovered, that's another lesson I've learned from this— but was the only one to permanently scar. The scar hurts if I bend the joint all the way, but it turns out that the muscles or ligaments anchoring the finger are also damaged in their own right. I found this out when I tried to open the door of a 1993 Miata. The door handle of this model is a canonical style of the triumph of style over function; the modern term for this is FAIL.

The opening (affordance, in usability lingo) is so small that you have to pull it open with one finger. But the force required is the same as for any car door, and do you make a habit of opening your car door with one finger? I made the mistake of opening this door with my left index finger, and it briefly felt like I'd torn the finger off. This is when I learned that all was not right with that finger. The door, by the way, can be safely opened with one finger if you are slow and careful and use a healthy finger. But Miata eventually figured out that "barely possible to do without injury" is not the same as "fun", and this is the newer Miata door handle:

So I raised the issue of the finger, along with a few other aches and pains that seemed related to the crash, and the therapist said that each appointment could only deal with one body area.

So. Now what? She suggested I transfer my records from Stanford Hospital into Kaiser, and also that I see an orthopedic surgeon within the Kaiser network. So I did all of that—of course, I couldn't just make an appointment with the surgeon, and she couldn't give me a referral, she could just suggest to my primary care physician that he give me a referral. A mere ten days later (six working days, and let me just mention that most Kaiser services are only available during regular nine to five hours, which means I was taking time off work for each and every visit) the doctor agreed and provided the referral, and two days later, I was seeing the orthopedist. Which was a very cursory visit during which I learned nothing, but did get the x-rays taken which you see in this post. My clavicle looks the same as in August, which I guess is good since in August it looked joined.

Once the bone grows together, there is still a multi-month process of recalcification or crystalization or one kind of bone replacing another etc etc, so it's not done, but it's basically together and fully, if gingerly, weight-bearing. And it's still at an angle compared to the normal side, sticking up a bit and stretching the skin at the top of my shoulder. But the best news was that I could go see the physical therapist again and get some actual therapy. (I did try to go to the public pool near my apartment; more on that later.)

Long story short, I had a very productive first real visit with the physical therapist. A different one, since mine is vacationing in Thailand. We did a number of exercises that amount to strengthening and stretching the shoulder muscles, and I got some giant blue and red rubber bands to use, and a recommendation to find a gym with a hand-cycle.

So, all done, just had to stop by the medical records department to pick up the inch-thick stack of Stanford paperwork I'd dropped off the previous week, and then to Radiology to get copies of those new X-rays, about which I'd heard nothing and therefore assumed, and as of this writing continue to assume, indicate no special problems.

Those records I'd dropped off the week before, when the woman at the counter had looked at me like a crazy person when I said I wanted the papers back, and then I said, okay, fine, I'll go make copies, and she said, no, it's okay, leave them here and you can pick them up tomorrow, and I said, okay? Today's lady behind the counter said they were all at central processing and I couldn't have them back.

"So are they going to be destroyed?"

"They're at central processing. They'll be added to your records."

"I understand that. What will happen to that inch-thick stack of paper once it's added to my records?"

"Oh, I guess it'll be destroyed. But it'll be in our records."

... So I can then either fill out your form and get your printouts of your scans of my copies of my lawyer's copies, or I can get fresh copies from my lawyer, or I can fill out Stanford's form and get those copies again. Whatever.

So off to Radiology.

"Yes, we have your X-rays in our system."

"Great, so can you burn me a cd or something?"

"We have them in the system. You don't need a CD because your doctor is in the system and he can see them."

"Great, but I would like a copy for myself."

"Are you going out of system? We can make you a copy if you are going to see a doctor out of system, but you can't just have copies for your *personal use*." (said disdainfully)

At this point the locus of the conversation shifts from the lady behind the counter to the somewhat more smiley guy who's been listening in behind her.

"So if you were going to Georgetown University hospital you could get a copy," he says, helpfully.

"So if I tell you right now that I'm going to go to Georgetown, you'll give me a copy, but not if I say that I just want a copy myself."

"That's right."

"I'm going to Georgetown tomorrow. Could I please have a copy?"

"Sure. It'll just take a minute; have a seat."

He and I are grinning at each other; the lady has a disgusted expression. And that's how I got the pictures that you see in this post.

So, from the time I thought I might want physical therapy to the time I had my first real appointment was about three months, because I was moving and changing jobs, and because of delays built into the HMO system, and because of capacity limitations. I moved all of my records between systems myself, in some cases physically carrying copies of papers to the records desks; it's possible I could have done the same thing by mailing some forms around, but the last time I waited for Stanford to respond to requests for records it took about four weeks. I had to lie to get copies of my own medical images. And I had a $30 co-pay for each and every visit, so I had to pay for the three pointless meetings whose only purpose was to prevent me from stealing physical therapy services that I might not have actually needed (and prevent me from suing Kaiser for prescribing therapy that I wasn't physically ready for). In other words I paid an extra $90 in addition to my regular payments and my employer's contributions to do things that were only in Kaiser's interest, not my own.

Explain to me again how having the government run health care will result in a burdensome system with rationing of care and some bureaucrats coming between me and my doctor? 'Cause I'm afraid that particular scare isn't very powerful any more.

We have an "Open Season" in a few weeks, when we can change our insurance. I am of course leaning strongly towards leaving Kaiser, held back only by the headaches involved in starting over and interrupting what might turn into useful physical therapy, and by a sense of duty to you, my dear readers, that if I go to a better system, I might have fewer stories to tell you.

Kona and I made another youtube.

Beating ploughshares into swords

To me, this is a profound indictment of the jingoistist, somebody's-eye-and-I-don't-care-too-much-whose-for-an-eye mentality that has caused the US reaction to the 9/11 attacks to trigger far more damage worldwide than the original attacks. But a few days later when I googled to find where I'd actually read that comment, I found that others saw the same words in a different light:

When others beat our ploughshares into swords, no one should be surprised that Americans will find a use for them, least of all Americans. —Huffington Post commenter Noble

... I do not consider it a killing machine. IMHO, peace through strength is more than a slogan, it’s a reality we sorely need in this hostile world. The USS New York may very well be a 21st century example of turning ploughshares into swords. I’m proud of it and the country it serves in protecting us.—WORLDmag commenter Nana

Plowshares beaten into swords? ***** YEAH!
—Digg commenter fragMasterFlash

Isaiah 2: "......they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;....", but, in the meantime since there are nations who wish to make war against us and kill our people, we're going to have to take some of those plows and hooks and turn them into the USS New York. —Free Republic commenter muawiyah

>Wouldn't it be..like bad luck to have it built of the steel from the
> towers considering..you know what happened?
> I mean like...if your last house crumbled in an earthquake...would you
> reuse the steel or concrete in your new house?
>
> I'm just thinking...

It wasn't unlucky, it was an attack. Taking the steel from a (peacfully, civilian) building that was brought down in an attack, and turning it not only into a military ship, but an _offensive_ attack ship, sends a very specific message. Kind of turning plowshares into swords. And if there is any reality to ghosts (other than in our hearts and minds), the fact that the front of that ship (the bow) is "guarded" by those ghosts is powerful juju.

—House of Fusion

Much like the World Trade Center, the steel once again endured tremendous tragedy in Louisiana. In August 2005, the ship was slammed by Hurricane Katrina. The steel and the ship survived, a glowing tribute in itself to keep persevering for the American people.

"It’s already got two battle stars now, the first being 9/11," said Koen. "It’s like the phrase on the monument outside the United Nations. We will beat this sword into a ploughshare and the ploughshare into a sword. We did just that with this."

—USS New York

So I'm a fed now.

I work in the Automated Systems Management Group (ASMG) of the Center for Talent Services (CTS) in the Human Resources Products and Services (HRPS) division of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which is an independent agency in the Executive Branch of the US government; our Director reports to President Obama, although I have the impression that he has to be very nice to Peter Orszag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). I started on August 31, 2009, after coming through the Presidential Management Fellowship selection process. I talked to many agencies during the job fair and followup process, and ASMG seemed to present the best chance to do what I wanted to do in government: find some little corner of the machine in which I could make things better and have fun doing so.

The Automated Systems Management Group manages one automated system, USA Staffing. USA Staffing is an automated hiring system that other agencies in the Federal government (and some state and local) pay for to help them post job vacancies, receive applications, administer online questionnaires, and make selections. It has roughly a quarter share of its market, competing with companies such as Monster Government Solutions and Avue, among others. USAS, or any of its competitors, provides half of an automated hiring system. The other half is USAJOBS, which is a website with almost all of the civilian job postings for the Federal government. USAJOBS was the other Automated System in ASMG's name, I think, but it got outsourced to Monster a few years ago.

So ASMG, together with its partner group Technical Services Group in Macon, Georgia, is essentially a small software company within the government. Because it sells its services to the rest of the government (a form of transfer pricing) via a "revolving fund", it has more budgetary flexibility than other agencies or other parts of OPM. And so that's where I've landed: an unexpected little corner of the Office of Personnel Management, which I doubt I'd ever heard of before starting my Fellowship application. (The OPM administers the PMF; in fact, ASMG shares an office with the people who run PMF.)

And, two months in, I have to say I'm pretty happy. I found exactly what I was looking for and what I was led to expect. I like my co-workers, and things are functioning well enough that I'm part of a success, but not so well that I can't help make things better. Within our own group, we have plenty of expertise in federal hiring but not much in professional software development and product management. And in OPM and the federal government hiring process, things are not all roses.

Some thinly researched institutional History

OPM used to be the Civil Service Commission. The Civil Service Commission in turn draws its roots from the 1881 assassination of President Garfield by disgruntled job-seeker Charles J. Guiteau. In consequence, the entire federal hiring process was reformed, replacing the spoils system with merit hiring.

For most of its history (I think; I don't really know how it worked in the early 20th century), the Civil Service Commission performed the essential HR functions of the federal government. In the '80s and '90s, most of the hiring was delegated to the various agencies, but without funding, knowledge, or institutional support to do hiring well. OPM, which shrank roughly in half from its peak size, now serves primarily to support the rest of the government in doing hiring, rather than to actually do the hiring. There are a lot of problems with the current federal hiring process; here are two reports:

MSPB Report: What's wrong with federal hiring?

• The hiring process is too long and complicated (average 102 days between making request to fill a position and filling it)
• The assessment methods used are poor predictors of performance.
• There are too many bad exceptions to the merit-based system.
• Background investigations block hiring and take forever

• get better qualification standards: multiple hurdle approach (use progressively more expensive tests to shrink the applicant pool)
• spend more time and money on better assessment tools
• several recommendations that amount to "do better"
• train HR staff better
• simplify the laws and rules

Factoid:

[I]n 2002, 1.8 million people applied for 55,000 screener positions at the Transportation Security Administration. Only about 340,000 met the minimum qualifications for the position and only 100,000 were rated as fully qualified.

Most jobs have a one-year probationary period during which it's much easier to fire people. Less than 2% of probationary employees are fired in their first year.

[A] study found that selecting officials often feel they know who would be the best person for an internal job promotion before they announce the vacancy. And they select that person 80 percent of the time.... The cost of applying this competitive process—when selecting officials already have a good idea of whom they will promote—was about $102 million in 2000, just in supervisory expenditures. This does not include the costs of administrative tasks performed by the HR staff.

PACE: good predictor, ruled illegally discriminatory in 1979 by Luevano judgement. Written ACWA test: introduced in 1990 as replacement for PACE. Pretty good, and better than the post-Luevano hacks. But the Form C, derived from ACWA, leaves out too much and is not good. Other authorities created so address Luevano, including Outstanding Scholar and Bilingual/Bicultural Hiring Authorities, are lousy at predictive performance and lousy at increasing dirversity.

Many agencies have used technology to automate poorly designed processes, so that they are slightly faster and cheaper at hiring bad candidates.

MSPB Report: A Review of Federal Vacancy Announcements

The conclusion is that federal vacancy announcements are not very good. Too long, written to fulfill requirements and rules rather than to attract and inform applicants. Why? The HR staff writing them aren't sufficiently trained, experienced, supported, or competent. Every job application has to have two pages of explanation of veterans preference and other narrowly targeted programs. And USAJOBS has similar problems, in that it's not designed for the user.

I was born in Los Angeles, grew up in Alaska, and spent most of my adult life either on the West Coast or in other countries. I don't have much experience with the South. My understanding is that some parts are very nice. I saw an extremely lovely Gorge in Tennessee.

I've had occasion to spend some time in Macon, Georgia, lately, because it hosts the technical counterpart to my office here in DC. I think that has some historical roots in the nearby Air Force Base, Warner Robbins. Which, in turn, might have something to do with this:

Or not. In any event, while many parts of the south may be extremely charming, I regret that the parts of Macon that I have been exposed to have not fully demonstrated said charm.

Although, even this human landscape has its moments:

I'm going to Macon roughly once a month for the foreseeable future; that currently comprises a trip to Reagan airport, a flight to Atlanta, a rental car, and a bit of a drive. One of these days I might rent a car here in DC and take Kona with me, stopping once or twice along the way to see something beautiful, maybe on the coast. Meanwhile, if you have recommendations for Macon or its surroundings, please share.

So. How do I feel being a tiny cog in a giant machine? Prior to this gig I only once worked in a company bigger than a few hundred people. I was a contractor, but I would still get company-wide email, and some of it was pretty soul-killing, like the CEO arguing shrewishly—to his own employees—that the Gartner Group assessment of the company was unfair but not to worry, they'd get into the good quadrant next year. And yes, we get plenty of spam at OPM; I described some of it earlier. But some of the dictates from on high at least come from fairly high. This showed up in my inbox one day:

The White House yesterday released an Executive Order signed by President Barack Obama that states, in part:

"Federal employees shall not engage in text messaging (a) when driving GOV (Government-owned, leased, or rented vehicle), or when driving POV (privately-owned vehicle) while on official Government business, or (b) when using electronic equipment supplied by the Government while driving."

This Executive Order is effective immediately for all OPM employees and OPM contractors.

So 101 K Street NW would be on K between First Street and Second Street. And the street signs at those intersections would say, under K Street, "100" and "200". But what street is one block to the East? That turns out to be North Capitol Street (in NW and NE). And does it say "000" on the street sign. No, it does not. See for yourself:

SOFTBALL: Now is the time for organizing the 2004 IDRA D.C. Softball League. All who desire to field a team and those wishing to play should contact AMBROSE HARRIS, III
IDRA Fitness Director on 202-208-5756 as soon as possible.

Annual OPM Toy Drive
Green Gov Challenge
Take the GreenGov Challenge
REMINDER: Save Awards
Hispanic Heritage Month 2009
National Preparedness Month
CFC Chili Cook-Off Update
OPM Walking Challenge
CFC Bingo!!!
GOLF NOTICE - 4 DAYS TO GO!!!
Constitution Day, 2009

"If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."

Contrary to folklore, President Truman never made that statement. But it is not bad advice. To celebrate your friend, furry or otherwise, HRPS is sponsoring a first time OPM CFC event, the Cute Pet Contest. You can enter your dog, frog, cat, rat, parrot, or ferret. Photos will be on display at TRB December 1 - 3, 2009 (a notice will be sent for the location). OPM staff can vote – preferably by using a voluntary dollar bill – for the cutest pets. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place photos will be honored with posting on THEO. All monies raised will go to CFC undesignated funds.

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I happen to believe I have the most cutest, kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful dog in Washington. But that makes it hard for me to pick which specific picture is cutest. Please tell me which picture is going to win her the Cute Pet Contest:

It said to bring your dog in for a treat, so I did, and she got a treat. I think that if Kona had banking needs, she would probably open an account here.

I got an alert the other day from the cyclist advocacy group that I joined at a street fair. After going home to walk and feed Kona, I rode down Massachusetts in a light drizzle to the public meeting, which was at the Carnegie library on Vernon Square, in front of the convention center.

The public meeting concerned the K Street project. No, not that one, but a project to rebuild the physical street. The event was staffed by city employees plus the architects and engineers—since everything is outsourced these days, these are exclusive sets. Apparently this started five or six years ago with the notion of repaving K street, and has spiraled into a general plan to reconstruct all of K Street and add an exclusive bus lane to the middle, a little bit like the Orange Line in LA, but only a few miles long. Only one of the three alternatives includes any accommodation for bicycles, and that only painted bicycle lanes. If you've ever cycled in a city, you know that cars and trucks and buses that wouldn't imagine stopping in the middle of the street are totally happy to block a bike lane; a street with bike lines is only marginally better than no accommodation at all. And even the plan with bicycle lanes had them overlapping with truck delivery areas. Our instructions from WABA, which I wholly agree with, were to show up and ask for a bicycle lane separated by a curb. They do this in Copenhagen, and it works very well:

I've written before about the importance of understanding that, in government, the goal of efficiency should usually rank below the goal of fairness. You can see from this slide, showing a straight line to the FONSI and not even showing the EIS as an option, how these planners view that tradeoff.

This has been a very gray and wet Halloween weekend, but during a dry spell Saturday afternoon I headed out to Northern Virginia to visit Joni and family. I intended to ride on surface streets the whole way, with stops as necessary to check GPS. But I ended up on a dedicated bike trail shortly after reaching Virginia. This turned out to be the Custis trail. As a reasonably capable road cyclist, I generally avoid dedicated bicycle trails because they aren't very safe, at least not at cruising speed. You are dodging pedestrians, who can dart in any direction, and other bicycles, and there are hairpins turns and other features incompatible with going above 10 miles per hour. On the other hand, I haven't done many long (where long > 2 miles) rides since getting hit, and I had a cold and didn't do hardly anything strenuous in the last few weeks, and I felt completely un-conditioned, so I resigned myself to the trail with a certain amount of grim relief. Here are snapshots from my new tailcam:

Eventually the Custis trail terminates, and although there is another, much longer trail that goes almost exactly to my destination, the transition between the two isn't very well marked. Here's GPS footage of my attempts:

That's no less than four doublings back and two missed turns. I can't say if there were missed signs, because I missed them. I finally did get on the Washington & Old Dominion trail, but quit it almost immediately after going over a teeth-rattling timber bridge. I then set out for Route 29, embodied mostly by the Lee Highway, which would be fairly awful even if it weren't under construction.

The Lee Highway is dirty and heavily trafficked, and has no shoulder. Construction to either side is one-story retail, cheaply constructed and generally un-landscaped. Think of the many long stretches of Los Angeles streets that look like crap, and then subtract the charm and the sunshine. I wouldn't make a habit of riding on it, and I was very happy to reach my turn and zip up to Vienna. Altogether, 16.76 miles, average speed 10.01 mpg, average moving speed 11.87 mph. Pffft.

After a lovely visit and many slices of homemade bread with butter and fancy honey, I had to head home. Feeling fairly wiped, I just rode the two miles to the Metro stop and settled in for an easy cruise home. Although my last two trips out to Vienna on the Metro had been delayed half an hour or so by track maintenance, none was scheduled. What actually happened, of course, was that we stopped between stations for the operator to go puzzle at something between the cars (as with most trains in the US, there is little to no provision for bicycles, so I had my bicycle wedged in a way that blocked the operator's door so I got to keep moving it around for him), and then when we pulled into Ballston he announced the train was out of service, opened the doors, and turned off the lights.

So I got fed up and decided to cycle home. I took the elevators out of the station and found myself at the end of Fairfax. The bit of Northern Virginia closest to DC has been refurbished on the surface and boasts five or six metro stops in four or five miles. It's quite corporate and soulless; it's a failed attempt to create an interesting, walkable, livable city. But at least it's an attempt. The rest of NoVa follows the more typical design pattern for America: developers buy land and put up something awful, end of story. So, buoyed by bicycle lines and a sense of place, I hopped on the road and made it over a mile before realizing I was going in the wrong direction. As I retraced my tracks as it started to sprinkle. I hopped into a fake 50's diner in search of cheesesticks and/or a nice juicy burger (with veggie patty), but settle instead of black bean patty pineapple sliders, which were unexpectedly good on dark, dense buns. Back on the bicycle and home through Arlington and Georgetown in the wet falling dusk.