I’m ready to go. I have a visa, tickets, matching new luggage and a bag of presents.

But you won’t be there for me to meet. Instead I’ll learn about you from stories, from pictures, from memories drawn from the minds for those that loved you.

I promise to try and help them share. I promise to not stop and wonder why you couldn’t wait for me to meet you, and to not allow them to do the same. I promise to smile, and to cry, to celebrate, and to grieve.

I promise to take care of him.

Let them have christmas!

I am known around town as someone who is politically correct, I'm Canadian and often use longwinded terms to describe people and things so not to offend anyone. This Holiday season I feel that it is all going too far. I think we should give Christmas back to Christians.

I’m one of the groups that they trying not to offend and it doesn’t bother me. What would offend me is if I was asked to change the word for Diwali or Navratri to Holiday.

I say, let Christians have Christmas! Let others have Hanukah & Kwanza. And Chinese New Years and Diwali and Easter and Holi and Eid. Let’s not force or even politely ask people to say Holiday instead. Acceptance and tolerance has to go all ways.

So if you see me this holiday season feel free to wish me a happy “insert holiday here”. I promise not to be offended and respond in kind and I’ll do the same to you in March and October. You’ll see that celebrating and acknowledging these differences will only make our friendships stronger.

That is my call to action.

ISBN: 1-84542-382-8

It is more that just a ISBN number, its MY first ISBN number.

Last month I woke up to an exciting email on my blackberry -
...You may be surprised to find out.... you did some years ago has finally made it into print ... chapter 2 in the Pioneers of Financial Economics (Cheltenham, UK:Edward Elgar, 2006) -- edited by yours truly. As a listed author you are entitled to a copy...

His class was one of my favorites - BUS 492, Security Analysis. We had a project to do - halfway through the semester I walked into his office hours looking for some help, I couldn't find a topic that fit, I was planning on doing a paper on a derivative truth, some crazy mathmatical complexity that was far over my head and completely useless.

The resulting coversation led to the translation and interpretation of this paper on "Issac Le Maire and the Early Trading in Dutch East India Company Shares" which not only served as my class project but developed into my official Honours project as well.

I can't wait to get the book!!

Official Listing:
Geoffrey Poitras (ed.), Pioneers of Financial Economics: Contributions Prior to Irving Fisher , (vol.1), Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2006 (274 pages, ISBN: 1-84542-382-8)

Check out the publishers site, you'll see that I'm for real (its actually in the table of contents!!) - http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/Bookentry_Main.lasso?id=3822

Like Sands Through The Hourglass...

Can you believe its already been a year?

Me neither.

The unnecessary existence of Acronym-Initialism Hybrids

Our office is neither hot nor cold. Its boiling or freezing. At the same time. Today during this inside winter storm I stood in the kitchen an discussed, among other things, the english language and what exactly is an 'acronym'.

My friend wikipedia had this to say-

Of the words, acronym is the much more frequently used and known; and many use it to describe any abbreviation formed from initial letters. This is a contentious point, however, and other sources differentiate between the two terms, restricting acronym to pronounceable words formed from the letters of each of the constituent words, and using initialism or alphabetism for abbreviations pronounced as the names of the individual letters.

In the latter usage, examples of proper acronyms would be NATO, and RAM, while examples of mere initialisms would include FBI and HTML.

(this is the best part)
There is no agreement as to what to call abbreviations that contain single letters, but can otherwise be pronounced as a word, such as JPEG (jay-peg) or MS-DOS (em-ess-doss). These abbreviations are sometimes referred to as acronym-initialism hybrids, although they are grouped by most under the broad meaning of acronym.

So which camp do you belong to - is JPEG a real acronym or just a fraud?

;)