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I woke at 3:15 am to the sound of Galina running around, getting ready to go to Houston. She'd gone to sleep around 10 pm or so (at least she was sound asleep when I tiptoed into the bedroom last night).
She's been gone for about an hour, disappearing down the road with a star-speckled canopy overhead, so the weather ought to be okay for her trip - at least locally. I've been fighting incipient depression associated with her departure by going back into the spreadsheet I wrote yesterday to make a few major tweaks.
The animal should now be able to figure out rates for most situations (e.g., sending stuff to Tulsa, Oklahoma). There are all sorts of rules for places that are outside the contiguous 48 states (e.g., Alaska, Hawaii, Virgin Islands), but for now, I figure staff can look those up. The more I worked the spreadsheet, the more acutely I became aware of just how deficient the old one is (not to mention, out of date...which is entirely my fault).
The next major step will involve testing this thing to make sure it Does The Right Thing. I figure the test will be successful if I take a recent day's traffic and run it through the new spreadsheet and compare my results against the printed rates.
Segue.
The LLC Galina and I are starting for our translation-interpretation-programming-web design-marketing-propaganda business (dontcha know, we're calling it Galexi Wordsmiths, LLC) is just one step away from being able to open a bank account and - more important - deposit and (most important) write checks.
That step is getting a Federal Tax ID number. We'd faxed in an application to get it early last week, but forgot to include a personal SSN, so the form was faxed back to us for the info, after which we resubmitted the form by fax. Now we feel like those unfortunates in Casablanca who have nothing to do but...wait, and wait.
I should not complain, though. The ability to get an answer from any government agency within a few days by fax is nothing short of miraculous; the alternative (e.g., snail mail) would doubtless entail a wait of weeks instead of days.
The eastern horizon is lightening. Now is probably the ideal time to go looking for satellites that are passing overhead, in sunlight, while we groundlings sit in the dark. I have no current Keplerian elements for any particular satellites, though, so the enterprise will be somewhat hit-or-miss. Who knows? Maybe ISS will whiz past this morning.
Cheers...
She's been gone for about an hour, disappearing down the road with a star-speckled canopy overhead, so the weather ought to be okay for her trip - at least locally. I've been fighting incipient depression associated with her departure by going back into the spreadsheet I wrote yesterday to make a few major tweaks.
The animal should now be able to figure out rates for most situations (e.g., sending stuff to Tulsa, Oklahoma). There are all sorts of rules for places that are outside the contiguous 48 states (e.g., Alaska, Hawaii, Virgin Islands), but for now, I figure staff can look those up. The more I worked the spreadsheet, the more acutely I became aware of just how deficient the old one is (not to mention, out of date...which is entirely my fault).
The next major step will involve testing this thing to make sure it Does The Right Thing. I figure the test will be successful if I take a recent day's traffic and run it through the new spreadsheet and compare my results against the printed rates.
Segue.
The LLC Galina and I are starting for our translation-interpretation-programming-web design-marketing-propaganda business (dontcha know, we're calling it Galexi Wordsmiths, LLC) is just one step away from being able to open a bank account and - more important - deposit and (most important) write checks.
That step is getting a Federal Tax ID number. We'd faxed in an application to get it early last week, but forgot to include a personal SSN, so the form was faxed back to us for the info, after which we resubmitted the form by fax. Now we feel like those unfortunates in Casablanca who have nothing to do but...wait, and wait.
I should not complain, though. The ability to get an answer from any government agency within a few days by fax is nothing short of miraculous; the alternative (e.g., snail mail) would doubtless entail a wait of weeks instead of days.
The eastern horizon is lightening. Now is probably the ideal time to go looking for satellites that are passing overhead, in sunlight, while we groundlings sit in the dark. I have no current Keplerian elements for any particular satellites, though, so the enterprise will be somewhat hit-or-miss. Who knows? Maybe ISS will whiz past this morning.
Cheers...
