Friday, September 25, 2015

Weekend Reading: The Really Rather Eclectic Edition

Another week gone, another chance to write more than one post in a week missed.... I won't even pretend that things are likely to be better next week, because Petunia's birthday is next Friday and we're going to Disneyland. I'll be a bit busy getting ready for that. In fact, that is part of what ate up my potential blogging time this week: I was clicking through to the menu for every single restaurant in Disneyland and California Adventure, identifying potential dining options that would work for my kids. It took a lot of time, but I hope it pays off in a happier visit to the happiest place on earth...

Anyway, I do have some links. First, though, since I keep forgetting to include my blatant self-promotion links in these posts, some blatant self-promotion. I have two things to tell you about:

1. I am now enrolling for the October session of my "introduction to project management for non-project managers" class. This is the same class I gave in June, with a new name to avoid a namespace collision with an unrelated book. I've raised the price a little bit (I gotta keep the kids in trips to Disneyland, you know...) but it is still a really good deal compared to similar classes. And actually, I don't know of any truly similar classes. Most project management classes focus on a single "flavor" and tend towards a heavy process that is probably not appropriate for most of the readers of this blog.

The students in the first class included professors, graduate students and postdocs, people in other academic roles, and people in industry jobs. I got nice feedback from many of the students, some of which I have quoted on the class page. And, as before, I offer a money back guarantee. If you take the class and think it sucked, I'll give you your money back.

Early bird registration runs through October 9, but if you sign up earlier you get good karma points for making me worry less about my sign up rate.

2. The next release from Annorlunda Books is now available for pre-order. Details and links to all the lovely pre-order options are on the book's web page.

The book is called Okay, So Look, and is a novella-length humorous retelling of the Book of Genesis. Author Micah Edwards is a professional comedian who has an obvious deep knowledge of and real affection for his source material. Every single person I've given this book to so far has said they really enjoyed reading it. I did, too, which is why I'm publishing it.

It will be out in paperback as well as ebook, and on a few more retail sites once it is actually released on October 14. Not all of the sites let a little publisher like me set up a pre-order. If you volunteered to be an advance reader, I'll send you your review copy next week. (If you wish you'd known I was looking for advance readers, consider signing up for my Annorlunda Enterprises mailing list.)

OK, that's enough blatant self promotion. On to the links!

This story about telling a little girl she has HIV is devastating and heart-warming and really, really good.

One of my Facebook friends shared this post about really being pro-life. I read it and thought "this is someone with whom I could find common ground" which is rare when I read anything by someone who is pro-life.

I am firmly in favor of a woman's right to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. I think abortions should be legal, safe, and far more readily available than they are. I also would like to work towards a world where they are rare. I had a tiny little pregnancy scare recently, and even while I was contemplating how another pregnancy would turn my life inside out, and how it would make my current work situation really, really difficult, I knew that if it turned out to be a pregnancy and not a scare, I would go ahead with the pregnancy.

Since having kids, my feelings on abortion are a real jumbled mess. Before I had kids, I think I would have considered an abortion if I was pregnant at a bad time. Now, I never want to have one. I would only consider an abortion if my life was at risk. I understand and respect the decisions of the women who have had them, no matter their reasons, but I don't want one.

What I really want is better birth control options. Even before the aforementioned scare, I was seriously considering having my tubes tied. (For reasons I will not discuss here, any surgical options will need to be on me, not my husband.) I'm getting a bit old to still be on the pill, although at least I have found a formulation that doesn't give me visual migraines. I didn't like the Mirena. I guess we could just use condoms but I'd rather not.

We really do need better options.

Anyhow, moving on...

Still talking about my uterus, but only in a peripheral sense: What My Uterus Can Teach You about Being a Tech Leader is a great title, and it is a really good piece, too.

I love this idea of feeding online trolls science. I rarely get trolled, but if I ever do, I'm going to try this.

Now that we're all done laughing about David Cameron and the pig, read this really good post about the problem with initiation rituals and power.

Weirdly, still talking about pigs... I really liked this cartoon with advice on creative work. Hat tip to A Gai Shan Life for that one. She also had a recent post on internet shopping and reading it made me realize I've graduated from the "buy everything I possibly can online" phase of parenthood to the "hey, a trip to Target is a treat!" phase. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or not.

I love this tweet:




And that's all I have this week. Have a good weekend, everyone!

5 comments:

  1. We are heading to Disneyland for the first time in December an the research is making me extremely unproductive.

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  2. Calee5:21 AM

    I saw that article about being pro-life on Facebook too and it really does represent a common opinion among, at least the people I know-- if one is going to claim to be "pro-life" then we have to embrace the children (and the mothers) after those children are born.

    I thought you might be interested in this post: http://blog.secularprolife.org/2015/09/abortion-is-symptom-not-solution.html

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! I'll check it out. Most of the pro-life people I know in real life are more like the article I posted than the screaming protesters, too. Maybe the issue is that if you're going to accept the grief that comes from writing about abortion on a large platform, you're probably not in the mushy middle on the issue.

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  3. If I'm a complete newbie to the idea of what project management even is, but feel I need a better way of thinking about getting moderately complicated things done -- mostly in the realm of fundraising and communications for small organizations -- will I like your class?

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    Replies
    1. I think so! You certainly don't have to know anything about project management going in, and really I'm just introducing the tools and methods of project management as a way to get more done.

      But if you take it and don't like it, I'll give you your money back- I have a money back guarantee.

      Delete

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