myweekandwelcometoit

Friday, April 29, 2005

The Oldest Profession

Hello World,


Happy May Day! We also join with our Greek Orthodox brothers and sisters, for whom this Sunday will be Easter, at long last, and I don't mind saying, not a moment too soon. Because before the week is over, we'll be staring down both barrels of yet another ethnic festival, yes, the ever-popular Cinco de Mayo on Thursday. Mira, mi amigo, mas cuervos por todos!
I'm sure that everyone will be relieved to hear that our HIPAA guru at work returned to her post, and none the worse for wear, and called me back about that mystery question on the mandatory education lessons. It was a little unnerving when she said that the course already had an eleven per cent completion rate (which translates to over 160 people out of our total staff) and I was the only person who called to ask about it, since it was so obviously wrong. She said that people had consistently gotten the answer right, which only works if you read the question wrong to start with. She said she would fix it, so the answer that was already the right one would actually match up with the question being asked. And you know what I say, not a moment too soon.
Also at work, I found myself on the receiving end of a phone call from a colleague at the Greater New York Hospitals Association, with the unlikely name of Baboo Tatoori, which sounds to me like a planet from "Star Wars" where the Evil Empire is hiding their attack clones from the Jedi. He said he was calling me about the schedule of "e-source registration and training classes" for our buyers. (CAUTION: You must be a trained professional to utilize this degree of incomprehensible gibberish. Do NOT attempt this yourself at home.) When I told Bill about my new friend Baboo, he quipped, "I am surely in the guessing that Baboo in this country short distance has been, abling him to assembling such importad hospital teaching materials with great effectivity." I don't doubt it.
Of course, the big news for the week was on Wednesday, when the clerical world resounds with cheers for Administrative Professionals Day, and a good thing, too. People with long memories may remember this fondly as Secretary's Day, and wonder what the heck happened to it, but I'm sure all of us secretaries are happy to share our day with the rest of the administrative professionals out there, no matter what they want to call themselves. The tireless staff at our local Chamber of Commerce puts on a shindig every year for the local businesses to send their secretaries and managers, and this year was no different. Although the day started out inclement, I've noticed that it never rains on the secretaries, and sure enough, it had cleared up by the time we went to the luncheon. There are usually between 200-300 people, with the largest turnout being from the hospital, City Hall, the police and fire departments, the school system and the local banks. The event starts with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, before moving on to boring speeches by the Mayor, City Council members, County legislators, State senators and other community leaders. You would think it would be impossible for them to keep churning out these boring speeches, year after year after year, but apparently that is not the case. After that, they hand out plaques, and read proclamations, and award scholarships for deserving recipients from youth organizations, senior centers, or charitable groups, and they invariably come prepared with boring speeches of their own. Finally, the time comes for the important parts of the event, which are lunch and raffle prizes.
I'm sure that everyone is aware that I am a well-known jinx, and the luncheon organizers have to keep moving me to different tables from year to year, because my bad luck at winning raffle prizes is usually contagious and afflicts everyone else at whatever table I'm sitting. This year was a surprising departure, as the other lucky people at my table rubbed off on me, rather than vice versa, and for once, they caused me to win instead of me causing them to lose. I had filled out my raffle tickets in other people's names, and ended up winning three nice gifts for some of my co-workers. That was certainly a first, and most likely a last besides, I wouldn't doubt. I also announced when I sat down with my hapless table mates that I always seem to sit at the table that is served last throughout the day, at every course, from fruit cup and salad, right through to cake and coffee. Here again, we were in for a pleasant surprise, because the country club staff swarmed over the banquet hall like a plague of locusts, and seemingly managed to serve 300 people at 30 tables all at the same time. I've never seen that happen at one of these luncheons before, and the speed and efficiency of it was a thing to behold. A person might almost think that - gasp! - there were professionals running this thing.
Of course, one thing that never changes at the erstwhile Secretary's Day luncheon, from year to year, and no matter where it's held, the one thing that they can never seem to get a handle on is the sound system. There's a podium with a microphone, and the room has speakers in the ceiling, so you think this is going to work, but it never does. When people speak into the microphone, it doesn't pick up their voices. When they move closer to it, it gives off a loud buzzing noise. If they pick up the microphone in their hands, the speakers all hum. It's like this every year and at every place we go. Only the people right in front of the podium can understand what's being said, although in the case of boring speeches, I would have to say that's no great loss. When they announce the winners of the raffle prizes, it sort of ripples through the room by word of mouth from table to table, starting out as, say, "Janice Nelson from Sound Shore" at the podium, becoming "Paris Hilton from Downtown" by the middle tables, and finally "Elvis Presley from Hound Dog" at the back of the room. If Paris or Elvis ever show up at one of these clambakes, they could end up winning a lot of prizes.
One thing that happened recently at work is that they switched to a new HIPAA-compliant email provider for the hospital servers. Since then, I've noticed an alarming increase in the amount of virus warning dialog boxes that get tossed up on my computer screen throughout the day, alerting us that the virus protection software is doing its job of preventing suspicious email and infected attachments from reaching our terminals. I see this as a sure sign of the economy picking up, that the hackers and spammers are out there in full force, and tireless in their efforts to get our attention. This must be a good thing, and shows faith in the strength of the marketplace. After all, these people are professionals, and they ought to know.

Friday, April 15, 2005

What's Up, Doc?

Hello World,


Well, I don't mind telling you that the meteorologists and I are of different minds as far as the weather around here lately. In recent years, we've all gotten used to this new trend of going straight from winter, with its freezing temperatures and snow, directly into summer, with its sweltering heat and high humidity, with no spring in between, as in those halcyon days of yore that we all like to remember so fondly. But not this year, not by a long shot. We finally stopped having snow and freezing temperatures, but then it settled into this long siege-like spring of near-freezing temperatures, biting winds and desultory sunshine. Whenever the sun would come out, the weather forecasters on TV and radio would gush, "It's going to be a beautiful day, with a high of 60, so get out there and enjoy it!" And I'd be driving along on my way to work and thinking, "Hey, 60 is not really all that warm" and besides which, at the time in the morning they were saying that, the actual outdoor temperature was 42 degrees. Now, 42 is a lot closer to freezing than it is to warmer weather, so they can just not bother to tell me how nice it is.
Of course, I was feeling responsible for the terrible winter we had, because even though I bought a new birdbath heater, I never got the chance to put it in the birdbath, which was rock-solid frozen until just recently. And there was a time in March when it seemed like it was going to warm up and start getting pleasant, which we were all looking forward to after the long cold winter, and we started seeing those unmistakable signs of spring, like robins, early shoots and the first tiny buds. And I have no explanation for what happened next, I suppose I lost my head in all the excitement, but I not only took the flannel sheets off the bed, but also the heating blanket, figuring that we wouldn't be needing it any longer. How wrong I was, as everyone around here can tell you, since we we've had nothing but cold and nasty weather from that day forward. Spring, schming.
For the sports fans among us concerned about the Mets not winning any games, and coming home to the wrath of the home-town fans, I'm happy to report that they did actually win a game on the road before their home opener at Shea. In fact, they managed to come roaring back and reel off five wins in a row, bringing their record to just at the .500 mark, which would have seemed impossible the week before. So now when they show us their new slogan, which is "Next Year Is Now," we have more reason to believe them, at least with that kind of guarded optimism that fans of losing teams know so well. Ya gotta believe!
Apparently there's been a story in the media that included a list of songs that President Bush has on his iPod. Now, I don't mind saying that President Bush is not the sort of person that I expect to have an iPod in the first place, as he strikes me as more of a low-tech anti-geek that wouldn't go in for gadgets for the most part. But they're telling me this story on Q104.3, New York's Only Classic Rock Station, although as they have single-handedly resurrected the careers of Kansas and Boston, it's obvious to me that The Q and I have very different ideas of what constitutes "classic rock." But be that as it may, they noted that two of the songs on the presidential iPod were "Centerfield" by John Fogarty and "My Sharona" by The Knack. I said to Bill that this made me nervous, because I would also have those two songs on my iPod, if I had one, making me wonder if I've somehow turned into a closet Republican. I figure if it gets to the point that Donald Rumsfeld starts to make sense to me, then I'd better start worrying.
Speaking of worrying, here's a little vignette from work, that certainly didn't turn out the way I might have hoped in the first place. Because they don't let the staff at the hospital park anywhere near the campus, all of us leave our offices at the end of the day, and take our lives in our hands crossing the streets outside of the grounds to get to the parking lots. One of the intersections is so dangerous, that you literally need to have mutant alien eyes on stalks above your head that swivel in every direction, because the cars come flying at you from every side. This happens to be right outside of the Emergency Room entrance, where we figure the hospital is trying to drum up business by having the employees get run over. Earlier in the week, I was waiting patiently at the curb for a break in the traffic, and a young man came loping up beside me, and going in the same direction. This made me think that now was as good a time as any to make my move, since I had some cover as it were, and besides, the closest thing to us was a police car, which, as I pointed out to the young man, "...certainly can't hit us." I started out in a jaunty frame of mind across the street, until I heard his voice trailing off from the sidewalk, where he had stayed put, "That's what you like to think, is it?" I ran the rest of the way, and when I got to the other side, I turned around and shouted over to him, "Well, that's what I WAS thinking, when I thought you were going to cross along with me, because I said to myself, 'Well, the policeman might hit ME, but he's certainly not going to hit the DOCTOR'!" He laughed, but you know what I'm thinking, and that is, thanks for nothing, Doc. I guess he already knows about the hospital's plan to drum up more business, and doesn't think much of it.
And while we're on the topic of work, the time has rolled around, as it does every year, for us to start thinking about completing our mandatory e-learning courses, so we can get them over with early. These are lessons about Fire Safety, Infection Control, Emergency Preparedness and the like, that we used to attend in person at the auditorium, but now they have them on dedicated computers throughout the hospital, or you can use your own computer at home, if you prefer. This is a new system that they started in 2003, and so far, each year has been different, as they work the kinks out of it. This year, they revamped certain courses, eliminated some and added a few others, so it was just like starting all over again. One of the new courses they added was about HIPAA Compliance, and everyone knows that I am nothing if not jiggy with HIPAA, so I was surprised when I came to this question:
=====================================
Q. Which of the following is NOT a possible consequence of an electronic security failure?
1. Patient privacy is compromised.
2. Patient records can be altered or lost.
3. Your reputation is damaged.
4. All of the above.
====================================
I found out after I took the test (and got this answer wrong) that the correct answer is "4, All of the above." Okay, call me stupid, but how can all of these answers NOT be a possible consequence of electronic security failure??? Normally, I would think that the person making up the question got confused about whether the answer was supposed to be a positive or a negative ("all of the above" as opposed to "none of the above," for instance) except that they went to all the trouble to capitalize "NOT" in the question. I have a call in to our e-learning guru, who is out on vacation, or perhaps she got run over as part of the hospital's plan to drum up more business, and is recuperating quietly at home. In any event, she's going to have a lot of explaining to do, with all of us HIPAA mavens who certainly didn't care anything for that answer, and in spades.
Well, this has been another long and hard week at work, made even more so by the fact that the person I report to, our Vice President of Operations, is going on vacation all next week, and spent all of this week flying in and out of my office, tossing off chaos in every direction. Honestly, every time he shows up, it's just like a three-ring circus, only worse. I finally told him that he could stay, but the clowns and the elephants had to go. I mean, really. I expect it to be blissfully quiet while he's away, and I intend to accomplish great things. It's a sad state of affairs when removing the management equates to a corresponding rise in productivity for the rest of the staff, but at least in my case, I know that I certainly function a lot better without the acrobats in my office. And as for the Human Cannonball, I'm sure the less said about that, the better!

Friday, April 08, 2005

Speak Easy

Hello World,

Well, it doesn't seem possible that another week has flown by, and yet, here it is Friday again. Actually, this turned out to be a kind of a long week in many ways, and the less said about that, the better. Suffice to say that we're all glad to see the tail_end of it around here, and probably vice versa, and if I was running a talent agency where this week showed up with its resume and photos, I would tell it, "Don't call us, we'll call you." And then you can believe me when I say that I would NOT call it, and that's putting it mildly, thank you so not very much. I suppose there's some small consolation in the fact that everyone else had to have had a better week than we did, because the alternative would have been impossible.
Of course, for many people, opening day of the major league baseball season was all they needed for this to be a fantastic week, and I'm sure many teams played well and rewarded their hometown fans with wonderful victories to savor. Unluckily for us, we root for the Mets, about whom the same cannot be said, even with the loosest interpretation of the terms. Over the winter, the Mets management was entirely revamped, and the new regime wasted no time in making many splashy trades and deals for high_profile and expensive players, while letting go of under_performing veterans that had outlasted their welcome with the hapless franchise. This shake_up promised to usher in the new era of baseball in Queens, and even the media jumped on the bandwagon, declaring this the season of The New Mets, in contrast to the previous teams of recent memory. For the optimistic and desperate, Spring Training seemed to bear out this belief, and we looked forward to the season with enthusiasm, especially after a long winter with no hockey. Unfortunately, like a racehorse that spooks in the starting gate, The New Mets began the season looking suspiciously like the old Mets, by losing their first four games, and also looked bad doing it. This is a chilling setback for fans who were expecting better days ahead, I don't mind telling you. If they don't win some games before Opening Day at Shea Stadium, I can guarantee that The New Mets will be no match for The Old Fans at the park, and it will not be a pretty sight.
Anyway, it's still good to see baseball on television again, because after professional and college football finally wrap up, and there being no hockey, it was getting to be pretty slim pickings on the sports channels around the old TV dial for the last few months. The stations were reduced to showing old sports movies, cheerleading, volleyball, gymnastics, boxing, and of course, the new darling of the sports world, poker. I said to Bill that they were scraping the bottom of the barrel when they showed, I kid you not, The World Championship of Juggling. They were talking to this nice Russian fellow, who was so happy to be in this country, because in Russia, they only have juggling in the circus, not like here, where you can make a living in competitive juggling. If that's not a sobering thought, I don't know what is. I was about to say that it's the end of civilization as we know it, until I saw the listings last week, which had (and as Dave Barry always says, "I'm not making this up!") The World Series of Darts. I'm not kidding this time, it really is the end of the world.
Everyone knows that I am woefully out of touch, with things in general, and I would probably say in terms of organized crime, even more so. In fact, I may be the only person I know that hasn't seen a gangster movie since the days of "Mother of Mercy! Can this be the end of Rico?" But that changed, and not necessarily for the better, when the local media around here made a whole big hullabaloo about a federal trial at the end of last year involving the racketeering activities of known organized crime figures. A veritable parade of FBI agents, law enforcement officials and cooperating witnesses came to the witness stand and explained everything you could ever want to know, and a lot that you didn't, about the Mafia. Like any organization, the Mafia has its own jargon, and there was a lot of it in court, helpfully translated so people would understand. One term I learned from all this was "borgata" as a substitute for "family" or "association." You can imagine my surprise, then, when I started seeing billboards for a new hotel in Atlantic City, of all places, called The Borgata. I said to Bill, "Why would they name their hotel after a word that mobsters use to describe themselves and their criminal associates, especially in Atlantic City, where any hint of Mafia involvement in the casinos is vigorously denied?" Of course, Bill loves a research challenge, so he found the following for me __
====================================
Every profession has its buzz words, and the mob is no different. If you want to understand what the cugines, capos and consigliere in the borgata are talking about, this glossary will give you a good start.
A friend of ours: mob shorthand for introducing one made guy to another made guy. "A friend of mine" is just another jamook on the street.
Administration: the top_level "management" of an organized crime Family—the boss, underboss, and consigliere.
Anti_Trust Violations: what authorities call the mob practice of carving out exclusive territories. Wiseguys call them "mine."
Associate: one who works with mobsters, but hasn't been asked to take the vow of Omertá; an almost confirmed, or made guy.
Borgata: an organized crime Family.
Boss: the head of the Family who runs the show. He decides who gets made and who gets whacked. The boss also gets points from all Family business.
Buttlegging: bootlegging untaxed cigarettes.
Cafone: a peasant or lower_class.
Capo: the Family member who leads a crew; short for capodecina.
Clip: to murder; also whack, hit, pop, burn, put a contract out.
Code of silence: not ratting on your colleagues once you've been pinched—no longer a strong virtue in organized crime families. Also see Omertá.
Come heavy: to walk in carrying a loaded gun. You shouldn't have lunch with a Russian drug dealer unless you "come heavy."
Consigliere: a trusted Family advisor, who is always consulted before decisions are made. See Tom Hagen in The Godfather.
CW: FBI shorthand for Co_operating Witness.
Don: the head of the Family; see boss.
Family: an organized crime clan, like the Genoveses, the Gottis, or the Sopranos.
Golden Age: The days before RICO.
Goomah (sometimes pronounced "goomar"): a Mafia mistress; also comare.
Guests of the state or Guests of the government: going to prison, doing time.
Hit: to murder; also see whack.
In the wind: after you leave the Witness protection program you are "in the wind," meaning you're on your own somewhere out there.
Jamook: idiot, loser, lamebrained, you know, a jamook.
Juice: the interest paid to a loanshark for the loan; also see vig.
Lam: To lay low, go into hiding.
Large: a thousand, a grand, a G.
LCN: FBI talk for La Casa Nostra, or translated, "Our Thing."
Made guy: an indoctrinated member of the Family. Essentially, you pledge your allegiance to the boss and the family for life. To even qualify, both of your parents have to be Italian.
The Mob: a single organized crime family; OR all organized crime families together.
OC: FBI talk for Organized Crime.
Omertá: the much_vaulted Mafia vow of silence. In other words don't rat on your friends. Transgression is punishable by death.
Outfit: a clan, or family within the Mafia.
Paying tribute: giving the boss a cut of the deal.
Pinched: to get caught by the cops.
Predicates: an offense which the Justice Department can choose to "fold into" a RICO statute. As in, "This charge could be tough. It could have predicates."
The Program: The Witness Protection Program.
Rat: one who snitches or squeals after having been pinched.
RICO: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Passed in 1970 to aid the government in clamping down on organized crime activities.
Soldier: the bottom_level member of an organized crime Family, as in "foot soldiers."
This thing of ours: a mob family, or the entire mob.
Underboss: the second in command to the boss.
Vig: the interest paid to a loanshark for the loan. Abbreviation of vigorish; also see juice. Usually two points or 2%.
Waste management business: euphemism for organized crime.
Whack: to murder; also clip, hit, pop, burn, put a contract out.
Wiseguy: a made guy.
====================================
I think that "jamook" is my probably favorite new word of all time, I just love that. And now we all know some terms to steer clear of, unless we want them to be confused with other connotations that might be very unwelcome. If only the folks in charge of The Borgata hotel had learned the same lesson!

Friday, April 01, 2005

O, Christmas Tree

Hello World,


Happy April! It seems hard to believe that Easter could already be behind us, but you can believe me when I say that the Easter Bunny has come and gone, and went hopping off down the old bunny trail for another year. (Except for our friendly neighborhood Greeks, where apparently the calendar makers really screwed up this year, and Greek Orthodox Easter isn't until May 1st for some reason.) The Easter Bunny came to our house right on schedule, and to no one's surprise, brought us goodies to munch on, to watch, to read and to enjoy in the garden. I can't think of anything better than that, but it did get even better, when we went to Mom's and had a wonderful lunch at the diner, and a beautiful day it was, too. All of the cold and rain that they had been predicting held off until Monday, so we could enjoy our holiday in fine style, and it goes without saying, in our Easter finery as well.
Lest we give anyone the impression that the Greek Orthodox calendar makers are the only ones screwing things up these days, we mustn't forget the NHL, which just canceled its amateur draft for new players, due to the ongoing labor dispute between players and owners. I know it doesn't seem possible that they could still be fighting over the same things that they have been fighting over since last May, but this stalemate has given new meaning to the phrase "no end in sight." So now they have managed to not only destroy what may have been the final year of many older players' careers without any season this year, but also what might have been the rookie seasons of any players who would have been drafted for the upcoming season as well. That's actually a neat trick to pull off, the old double-whammy, and typical of what we've come to expect from the negotiators so far. Now, if they could just make themselves disappear, that would be the best trick of all.
Periodically, our local newspaper (their motto: "We've Lowered Our Standards, So You Don't Have To") has a separate section called Wheels Extra about new cars. Everyone knows how I like to keep up with current trends in the automotive industry, so whenever I see it, I look at the front page to see what's hot, or rather, cool. Usually, it's some massive and clunky SUV that they're raving about, or something that they refer to as a "sports coupe" that to me, looks for all the world like a doorstop. And of course, there's plenty of my personal favorite (NOT!) the four-door sedan with spoiler, which I have always felt is just the most ridiculous thing on wheels. Now, I have nothing against four-door sedans, in fact, my Mom has a Cutlass Ciera that I think is absolutely the bee's knees. But there's no point in putting a spoiler on the back of these things, and trying to convince anyone that it's a sports car, because no amount of decorative paraphernalia is going to turn a doorstop into a race car, and that's all there is to it. Anyway, the car they were raving about on the front of the section last week was so ugly that I had to look at the picture twice, and you can't imagine how surprised I was to find out that it's apparently a new Jaguar, and a Jaguar station wagon, at that. Honestly, they haven't made station wagons in 25 years, since they invented SUVs and minivans, and here, Jaguar of all people decided to come along with a new one, and set a whole new standard of ugliness while they were at it. No one would believe that a lame-brained idea like a Jaguar station wagon would ever see the light of day, but there it was, in all its stupefying uglificence. I said to Bill that it's obviously the end of the world.
Speaking of newspapers, Bill loves this story from the previous month and wants to share it with everyone --
==================================
PRINCETON, NJ - February 9, 2005 Flaming Christmas tree burns professor A Princeton University economics professor and former presidential adviser was in critical condition yesterday after being burned while carrying a blazing Christmas tree from his home. David F. Bradford, who was a top economic adviser to former President George H. W. Bush, suffered third-degree burns over half his body early Tuesday morning, police said. Bradford, 66, was being treated at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. The fire was caused by one of about 10 lit candles on the tree, which had been in the house since December, police told The Times of Trenton. A professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, Bradford also has positions with the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass., the American Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, and the New York University School of Law.
*****
Now, how STUPID do you have to be to A) have REAL candles on your REAL Christmas tree and 2) LIGHT them when the tree has been sitting in your living room for two months?!!! And then to top it off, how about trying to drag the tree outside?! No wonder our economic system is so loused up if these are the guys advising the government on it!
===================================
Well, I admit that I don't know of any way to improve upon that, try as I might. And while we're on the topic of government and economics, I may be the last person to find out about the new nickels. No, this is not an April Fool's joke. After tampering with all of the paper money, dollar coins and even quarters, the government has finally set their sights on the lowly nickel, and decided to give it a make-over. The first I heard of it was when there was a big to-do about the new version of the "buffalo" nickel, which had been retired from circulation in 1938 and replaced with the current nickel, featuring Thomas Jefferson's home of Monticello on the reverse. So here was all of this excitement about the new and improved buffalo nickel, and I thought it was pretty interesting, although I was surprised that they would opt for such a nostalgic design from decades ago. Au contraire! (That's French for "You call that a Jaguar?!") Apparently, like the new State quarters, there's a whole series of new nickels, five of them in all, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Lewis & Clark expedition, which took place during Jefferson's presidency. It turns out that the buffalo nickel is the third on the series, so somehow or other, the first two must not have been newsworthy enough to attract much attention. The first design has two hands copied from the "friendly hand-clasp" medallions that the explorers gave out along the way to assure the Natives of their good intentions. The second is a depiction of a keelboat used on the rivers, followed by the ubiquitous buffalo, and then the Pacific Ocean. The last design is taken from William Clark's journal that says "O the joy!" when they first spotted the ocean at the end of their long and difficult journey. So there you have it. If you thought we were finished with Monopoly money when they came out with the State quarters, welcome to the new wooden nickels.
I had taken Monday after Easter off from work, and had grandiose plans for yard work to be accomplished while I was home. Mother Nature did not cooperate (you just can't get good help these days!) so I was outdoors in the garden during all of the torrential downpour that we had throughout the entire day. Thank you not very much! I had wanted to clear out a corner of our backyard that had become so over-grown and impenetrable, that I was expecting to be approached by the producers of the "Survivor" TV series for an upcoming season. The weeds in the ground had gotten so tall, and the bushes along the rock wall had fallen over so far, that the two had met in the middle to create one large dense clump of vegetation that then continued to sprawl in every direction, including right through the neighbor's fence behind it. When I finally chopped my way in there with my clippers, everything was such a tangle of wild rosebushes, hedge, honeysuckle vines, phlox, false asters, ivy, maple saplings, pachysandra and worse, that I thought I would never fight my way through to the other side. I know the Justice Department was relieved when I told them that I didn't uncover either Judge Crater or Jimmy Hoffa, so we can put those rumors to rest right now. And speaking of rest, this would be a good time for one, and remember Daylight Savings this weekend, when we Spring Ahead and lose an hour, so if we're going to rest, we have to do it faster.