Attack of the killer kitty

I must say that Mosby impressed me last night. I was reading on the deck while he was playing around outside. He started chasing a chipmunk and ended up making it run under the deck. I didn't think he had a chance, but somehow he managed to get it out of there and catch it.

He didn't have any claws so all he could do was bite it and sit on it. Luckily for him, he's sporting some extra pounds to help out with that. He was just playing around with it. At one point he had the chipmunk by the tip of the tail while it was trying to run away with only its front paws touching the ground. That was pretty funny looking.

Eventually, the chipmunk ran into the flowers and I grabbed kitty before he trashed the place. I've got to say though, that was either the dumbest chipmunk in the world or kitty has some skills I wasn't aware of. Well done, fat cat.

Trip to Washington, D.C.

I think I had mentioned earlier that I would be travelling to Washington, D.C. to our North-American headquarters. I had to present a feasibility study and business case for a particular project I've been working on.

Well, the trip happened yesterday and everything went well. I did find it somewhat strange to fly to D.C., give a presentation, and make it back to Indianapolis by 4:30 in the afternoon. It's pretty tiring to be stuffed into a plane that much.

The presentation went well. I was a little nervous at first, but I loosened up pretty quickly. In my experience, it's better to be a little bit nervous because it sharpens your thoughts a bit. If it wasn't for those darn Caswell shakes I don't think you'd be able to tell at all when I'm nervous. :^)

Anyway, I'm back in Indy now. We have a few tweaks to make to our business case and implemenation plan. I think I'm going to continue working on this next year somewhat. I had fun on the project so I'd like to continue.

House payments

Jen and I have really been struck recently by just how profitable it is to pay off your mortgage early. We've paid somewhere around $18000 off of the principle in addition to our regular payments over the last year or so. We just realized that this has put us 12 years ahead on our payment schedule and saved us around $27000 in interest.

$27000, can you believe it! That's like a 150% immediate return on our investment. Apparently it really pays to put some extra money into the ol' homestead.

Update on my secondment

Well, forgetting about the two weeks I'll be missing from my secondment in the UK, things are looking pretty darn good right now. As it turns out, international secondees get a couple of monetary bonuses for their "dedication" to the company.

First off, I'll get a 10% bonus on my pay when I return to the U.S. Granted, this only applies to the 10 weeks I will be there, but 10% is nothing to scoff at. I'm envisioning that money quickly being turned into a new road-bicycle perhaps...

As if this wasn't enough, I'm also getting a daily bonus of 22.50 pounds (about $40.00) per day for living expenses. Over the course of 10 weeks that almost $3000! Basically that only goes toward food & gas because all of my rent & utilities will be paid for already. I can't imagine that I'll be spending $3000 on food, so it will be going toward travel expenses.

What can I say? Things are looking good.

Crisis (somewhat) averted

Well, it looks like I'm still going to the UK this fall. I will, however, have to wait two more weeks before I can leave. What a pain.

Trouble with my secondment

Well, I felt like beating the living crap out of a file-cabinet or something this morning. As it turns out, my boss has been sitting on an email for a couple weeks about a work permit that I need to work in the UK. It was a simple form to fill out, it just needed to be emailed back to the UK. After that it takes about 3 weeks to get me the work permit.

As you might note, my plane leaves in just over two weeks. That would mean that my work permit would arrive a week after I leave. Oh, and did I mention that I can't get through immigration without a work permit? That's right, I can't even go to the UK until I get this permit. A bit of a problem since I have already bought plane tickets, booked a hotel & rental car, & set up a time to view my apartment possibilities.

I don't know at this point what will happen. I imagine that I'll have to delay my trip by a couple weeks. Of course, 2 weeks out of 12 is a pretty significant thing. My first instinct would be to delay my secondment to January, but that's not much of an option because Jen was planning on coming over for two weeks in November. She won't get to do that next year. She specifically planned on coming in the fall since that's when I would be there.

Terre Haute

I went back to Terre Haute on Saturday to see one of my college friends. Dave Fisher was in my pledge class at Rose-Hulman and was also at Stanford when I was there. We lived right next to each other & hung out all the time. Dave stayed for his PhD when I left and recently finished that up.

Dave has just started a tenure track position as a professor at Rose-Hulman. He's teaching three sections of Graphical Communications this fall. That's a class where you learn how to draw parts on the computer using a CAD (Computer Aided Drafting) package. I always considered it to be quite an easy class & Dave agrees. Let's just say he's not exactly being challenged for time right now.

Dave has purchased a house and is now in the somewhat slow process of fixing it up. It's an older place, but it has a decent layout & nice rooms. He's currently in the process of painting the entire inside of the house. I helped him get his bedroom finished up. We also put together his pool table.

It was a good time and it was good to see Dave again. We stopped by the old fraternity house briefly. They have completely renovated the place and added a few rooms at the same time. It's something we had been trying to do for years so I'm really happy for them that it finally got finished.

Indianapolis Star Article

I mentioned that I'd been briefly interviewed this past weekend for an Indianapolis Star article on the new Colts stadium. Well, the article was in Sunday's paper. Here's a link & here's my quote:

"I find it fairly silly," said Mark Caswell, a 26-year-old engineer who lives on the Northwestside. "I'd rather have my taxpayer money go to schools or roads. And it ticks me off when I have to pay an extra percent on restaurant bills."

Funny, huh? I don't come off sounding like a genius, but then I don't sound like an idiot either. Perhaps if I get into politics like the old man this will be my first quote that can be used against me in the election. I can see it now, "Caswell resisted paying his fair share of taxes! News at eleven." Well, maybe not.

Where I'm stationed the next 3 months.

I thought I should probably throw up a couple maps to let everyone know where I'll be from October through December. I'll be stationed in Bristol, UK. If you look at the map below you can see that it's on the west coast of England, about 2 hours west of London.

I'm getting really excited to go. I can travel around Europe on the weekends for next to nothing. Tickets to Paris from Bristol for $50, to Rome for $75, Germany for $75, etc. I can fly just as cheaply as I can get a hotel. Weird, huh?

Jen is coming over for two weeks in November. We'll be traveling to Italy & Paris. We found out this weekend that we'll have friends in Paris that first week, so we're going to try and meet up with them. It will be nice to have some friends around.


The entire island.


A zoomed in view.

The New Colts Stadium

I had an interesting thing happen to me yesterday. I got a call from an Indianapolis Star reporter who wanted to interview me about the new Colts stadium. I had written a letter to the editor a few weeks ago and he wanted to get some quotes from me for his article. I thought that was kind of neat.

To sum up my thoughts on the matter, I find it pretty silly that our tax money is going to support what is essentially an entertainment activity. One can make the argument that the city makes money off of the Colts, but many studies have shown that paying for the new stadium is a losing fiscal situation. The taxpayers are getting their taxes raised to pay for a stadium that will help some owners & players make a whole bunch of money. That doesn't seem right to me.

Here's a brilliant thought, how about using my taxes for the PUBLIC good. You know, things like roads, schools, parks, police, etc. Even better, how about lowering my taxes. Yeah right.

Indianapolis Air Show

Jen and I went to the Indianapolis Air Show last Sunday. We had a good time, although it was really hot. I mean really, really hot. Surface of the sun hot. Okay, not quite that bad.

The highlight of the day was the blue angels. I got some great pics of them I thought I would share.

The Blue Angels


The Blue Angels