I call it Brat Wellington.  We had some brats left over from my birthday, and some really good bacon from a few days earlier.  Today I wrapped a brat in the bacon.  Yum!

It occurred to me on the way home from work today that with prices so high we spend more for gas each month to drive my car than we do on the loan payment. :(

And that's getting 36mpg.

I'm reading Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October again.  For those not familiar with the plot (c'mon: it was a major motion picture, too), Soviet submarine Captain Ramius and his officers attempt to defect to the United States, bringing their extra special ballistic missile sub with them.  Early in the story our hero, Jack Ryan, gets wind of the plot and embarks on a mission to aid Ramius in making it safely across the Atlantic.  Of course the Russians will have none of this and do everything in their power to stop Ramius.

A key plot device throughout the book is that Ryan is operating under the assumption that the best he can hope for is to get Captain Ramius and his officers alive, but that they will have to give the submarine back.  If he's lucky, the US might get to do a "saftey inspection" first.  After all, you can't hold the 100 person crew against their will; they didn't know what was going on and are mostly just conscripts.  And once you let them go home the Soviets will know about the sub and want it back.  At this point it's more expedient politically to return it than not.  Much of the suspense of the story hinges on what an intelligence coup it would be to get the sub without the Soviet Union knowing.

I'm reminded of a line from the movie "Dr Strangelove": Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*!  Nuclear submarines are no different.  They are the kind of weapon you hope never to use: a deterrent, not a real option.  As a deterrent, the more you know of the weapon's capabilities, the more you fear it and the more effective it becomes.

With that in mind, it seems to me that given this scenario the best course for the Soviet Union is to negotiate with the American side to allow Captian Ramius to defect, but take instant possession of the missile sub the moment it docks.  In this way, they would ensure the Americans get to see just enough of the boat to be aware of the threat, without learning any new secrets of the implementation.  They would lose Captain Ramius but they've lost him anyway, and by negotiating with the Americans up front they could create terms by which they are unable to debrief him.

But then there'd be no book ;)

Since starting at SVA they added a Programming Manager.  Essentially, they added a layer of management and my boss is now my boss's boss.  This is actually a good thing, as my original boss was overworked, and wasn't able to manage us properly.  On the one hand it was nice because we had a relatively open schedule, but on the other hand the programming environment was suffering.  Things like our clout with the IT department and the state of our workstations weren't they would be with a more focused manager, so in spite of the extra layer I really think we're better off now. 

I bring this up because over the weekend my original boss' wife had a baby girl.  Also, another member of the system's team is due any time in the next couple of weeks.  So with both of them gone for a little and the team playing short-handed it could be a fun few weeks.

This story is interesting.  A US soldier in Afghanistan is able to call his parents with his cell phone.  The interesting part isn't that he actually gets service out there.  It's that he calls them with the phone in his pocket by accidentally pushing buttons... in the middle of a fire-fight.  His parents were not home, but their answering machine recorded some rather interesting sounds, reportedly ending the a neighboring soldier yelling, "Incoming RPG!"  That would have to be very disturbing for a parent.

We have two student loans still remaining, both with Sallie Mae.  There's a big one, which is the brunt of my loans plus Melody's consolidated together.  And there's a small one, which is a signature loan I took one lean semester that's separate from the normal student loan program (but still subject to many of the same regulations).  As of this month, the small loan is no more.  The balance was small enough that we put about an extra hundred dollars to it and paid it off.  That's $50/month back in our pockets.  Next up is some credit card debt that we've had almost since we were married.  Hopefully that will go away in the next year as well.

I got some good news yesterday.  There was a 'Benefits Update Meeting' in the morning, and they announced that they were updating the vacation time for all employees.  Instead of 2 weeks as a base, everyone now starts with three.  Additionally, instead of gaining another week every 5 years you will gain a day every 1 year.  They also added a paid holiday and changed the way time off accrues so you have access to all your vacation right away every year.  The new rules take effect September 1, which will also be used as the annual roll-over date for when vacation time resets.

This means I should get an extra seven days per year vacation if you count the paid holiday, which is pretty neat.  Looking at the spread sheet it's showing that I will actually have an extra 8 days, but I expect that's probably a typo.  One other nice thing about this is that since things reset on September 1st I can take nearly all my vacation right away when the baby comes, because I know I'll have 3 weeks available to me right away after that.