Idling while Lance Races.

Pink Floyd is playing in my head.

"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day...fritter and waste the hours in an offhand waaaaay"

Ever feel like you are just idling? Biding time? If this were a movie, I'd be hoping for a blurry fade out or montage or some other device that would fast forward time and move stuff along.

But then, what is life if not to be lived? And appreciated? Even these quiet moments. Even these pensive moments - these little lulls that seem pretty great when the shit is hitting the fan. Enjoy the silence.

So let's see - what's going on...

Vacation was good. Clarisa's brother flew in to spend the week with us and help out with our place. While the contractors really took care of the bigger repairs, it was great to have him around to swiftly handle a few honey-do's that have been on my list. Plus he's just a great guy and I like having him around. Aside from house renovations we managed to see a Yankee game (the one last Friday where Wang pitched in the rain and gotten taken deep by phenom Grady Sizemore on the very first pitch of the game), take a trip to Brooklyn to see Auntie Joan and take a trip up to Poughkeepsie and Hyde Park to hang out with friends and family. All in all a good vacation.

Still, next time I go on vacation I really want an R&R vacation somewhere fun. Friends and family are welcome to come along - I just want to be out of NY when it happens. Some hotel off of Horseshoe Bay in Bermuda might be nice.

Work is on the upswing. I have a new immediate boss whom I have a good relationship with. He gets what I want to do and wants to help me do it. In turn, I really want to help turn the department around and get a few good quantifiable projects done. For one thing, I want to run a few usability studies. I also want to get my hands on some of the Mercury testing tools. Ultimately, I would like to get a usability department started at iVillage - with me heading it up of course. We'll see where it goes. I have some people that have my back on it. It's just that it's tough to overcome organizational inertia. If we manage to complete and act on a study and we get great results like increased traffic and longer video views, more article views etc -- it will be a lot easier to argue for an increased role for usability. Like anything - the first break is the hardest to get. I hope to impress if I get the chance.

Naturally, me being me, I spent some time this weekend researching Usability Engineering / HCI (Human Computer Interaction) MS programs. It turns out that all of the heavy hitter major tech universities have it - Stamford, MIT, RPI etc. but they are far away and there is this whole thing about me living and working here in the NYC metro area that kind of gets in the way of that. Plus, lets face it, getting into Stamford, MIT or RPI is not exactly a guarantee, even if I lived around the corner. Still, no local schools have it. Not NYU, Columbia, Fordham, Pratt, Pace, Parsons, Cooper Union - nada. The closest programs are ones at NJIT and at RPI.

One interesting thing I did find was a ton of QA jobs in Atlanta. Lots of usability jobs too. Housing is very affordable down there. And... Georgia Tech offers an M.S. in HCI and is ass cheap if you are a resident. Long term, that might be a plan - get a job and place in Hotlanta, go to Georgia Tech for my MS in HCI and work in a burgeoning field that I'm interested in and even matches up decently with my personality and interest inventory tests. I'd love to sell our place and be able to take that money and actually purchase a house house and down there, you still can.

One last thing - it's 2am here and that means Lance Armstrong is probably up and eating breakfast and getting ready for his Sunday Ride in the Pyrenees.

Sunday's stage from Lézat-sur-Lèze to Saint-Lary Soulan, is 205 kilometers (127.4 miles) and will cover six mountaintops. Portet d'Aspet, the first climb, is considered a second-category climb in terms of length, steepness and difficulty. The peaks that follow, Menté, Portillon, Peyresourde and Val Louron-Azet, are all ranked first category. The stage ends with a climb to Pla d'Adet, which is above the town of Saint-Lary Soulan. Pla d'Adet is the backbreaker, especially after the first five. It is a climb of 10.7 kilometers (6.6 miles) at a grade of 7.6 percent. It is beyond a category rating.

"Tomorrow's no cakewalk," Armstrong said. "It's the queen stage, the hardest day in the Tour."

I'm thinking, it may be the queen stage, but Lance is King of the mountains and is going to make the Peloton his bitch for the day. Bring the pain Lance. We're rooting for you!