Bill, meet Ingvar

News story: Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of knuckle-barking (and Pavement inspiring) furniture store IKEA, has passed Bill Gates as the world’s richest man, at $53 billion vs. Bill’s estimated $47 billion, according to Swedish business weekly Veckans Affarer and Swedish television.

Note 1: The main culprit in Kamprad’s ascendancy was the dollar’s slide in value against other currencies. See Oliver Willis’s comments here.

Note 2: The company denies the claim, noting that Ingvar does not actually own the company: he donated it to a foundation 22 years ago.

Note 3: Scoble points out that writing about IKEA and Bill Gates brings lots of traffic. Heh.

Weekend

I had a long weekend, pretty exhausting. It started out well, with a good lunch with Tom Harpel. He covered our discussion pretty well (clarification: my site is run on Manila, but I use NetNewsWire as my primary posting tool). If it’s any consolation, Tom, I get lost at RedWest all the time. In addition to Tom’s commentary, we discussed his experience as an “embedded” ops guy on a product team.

The concert went well. UPC organist Joanne Stremmler proved that Bach is still the master with her organ rendition of “Come, Sweet Death,” which set up the Brahms perfectly.

From time to time, I forget how emotionally and physically taxing singing can be, particularly the “warhorse” masterworks. The Brahms is particularly insidious in this way, because while the music is not especially complicated (the fugues, while tricky, are nothing compared to the nightmares in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis), it’s emotionally so powerful that I was drained after three movements and totally exhausted after the seventh and last.

Saturday the dinner party went well—our new stove did meatballs, meat sauce, lasagna, eggplant sandwiches, and sugar syrup for lemon granita without breaking a sweat. We, on the other hand, sweated.

Today I had three services this morning, performing the Robert Shaw/Alice Parker arrangement of “Ride On, King Jesus.” Then home to collapse for a while before I went out to get a nail puncture in my tire patched. It turns out I waited too long to do it—I had driven on the underinflated tire (though I diligently kept it topped up with air) too far, and had damaged the sidewall. Plus the rear tires were too worn to go too much further. So I’m now hundreds of dollars poorer but with four new tires.

You know, I think the week actually might be more restful than the weekend was.

Day of Brahms

Tonight at University Presbyterian Church my choir and I sing the Brahms Requiem. Should be a really good show.

The dress rehearsal last night went quite well, I thought, though our director clearly has a preference for minimizing vocal strain rather than polishing every last rough edge during dress rehearsal. Considering the directors I’ve had who have erred way too far in the other direction, I rather appreciated his restraint.

Killer Outlook tips from horse’s mouth

Another Microsoft blogger that I should have known about before: K.C. Lemson, a Program Manager on Exchange, who has been blogging since September 2003 about Exchange, Outlook, and other parts of the Office System.

Among her valuable posts for end users:

…and those are just on her front page. Among the rest of the posts: insights into life at Microsoft, being a PM, being married to a fellow Microsoftie, etc., all really personable and highly readable. Subscribed.

April Fools?

A round up of odd April Fools’ gags across the Net:

Cathy Woolard and her blog-savvy campaign staff

Looking for an Internet candidate in this election year? Cathy Woolard has just declared for the US House of Representatives in the Fourth Congressional District in Georgia. (Cathy, who will be Georgia’s first openly gay congressional candidate, is an outspoken opponent of state bans on gay marriage who has been active in local politics for a long time.) Greg Greene, who has done work for her over the years and who blogs at Blog For Democracy and the Political State Report as well as at the Green[e]house, wants to know whether the campaign should hop on the Internet bandwagon with blogging, online fundraising, and all the rest.

Me? I think in these days of limited soft money contributions, getting micropayments online from progressive, tech-savvy bloggers and blog readers is probably one of the surest bets. And picking up the Dean modus operandi on behalf of a real live candidate, and taking all the way through a win in November, is the surest way I can think of to get national press.

Get out there and pound some doors, online and off, Greg.

Work, uninterrupted

I finally got the side yard overseeded and fertilized again yesterday, taking advantage of our bizarre 80° heat and sunshine to do a little yard work. Just in time: it’s fifty and raining today, so at least I don’t have to water the new grass.

And in more excitement, our dogwalker starts today. I actually get to put in a full day at the office without driving home to let our bichons out. I think they knew that something special was happening this morning; they woke us at 4 am and never quite calmed down for the next two hours until our alarm went off.

Other busyness: the UPC production of the Brahms Requiem is Friday night. My voice has, I think, finally recovered from the nastiest cold of the year, which had me under the weather for almost ten days.

Faster than a speeding bullet

The hypersonic test flight of the X-43A, NASA’s scramjet test plane, had special significance for our family. My dad was working on the program that produced the engine while he was in research at NASA. His part was subtle but important: how do you figure out if your engine is running hot (or cold, or just how it’s running at all), when normal operating temperature is so hot that most probes would melt?

Cool stuff…

Incidentally, the title of this post is correct. Mach 7 = 7,815 feet per second. According to this article, the fastest projectile (not propelled by railgun) tops out at about 6,000 fps.

Learning to pray again

I wrote earlier that I joined a church choir after years in semipro vocal groups because I wanted to explore my faith more. I didn’t realize that I would get an opportunity from a completely different direction.

My dad had a minor heart attack (now there’s an oxymoron) last Sunday. He spent the past few days in the hospital while they first verified that it was, in fact, a heart attack and not a stomach condition; then tried unsuccessfully to clear the build-up in the minor arteries where the attack took place. He’s home now and relatively comfortable, thank God, but I think we were all pretty scared for a few days.

And I’ve been seriously praying again. Not bargaining, as I prayed when I was younger (you know: “God, if you’ll only get me through this test I promise I’ll be good”). Not raging, as I might have done in my angry teens and early 20s. Just talking to God about how I’m feeling, my hopes and fears for my dad and my mom, and asking for strength.

The blogosphere has helped too, between AKMA and Real Live Preacher. But the biggest help has been being with other people every day who don’t shy away from talking about faith and about their challenges and fears and joys and dreams. Hey, who says Presbyterians are the frozen chosen?

What’s been up

It’s been a busy week. I think it’s a good sign on a number of fronts that work has been a blur of productivity as I work on a very important deliverable. I’ve actually been eager to get out of bed in the morning, and that hasn’t been true for a long time.

On the house front, we’re finally upgrading our stove to a gas model. Tough decision between two Maytags, this model and the Gemini. The cheaper one has five burners, unusual on a standard 30 inch range, but the Gemini’s safer control knobs (mounted on the top, away from potential little hands), higher BTUs, and of course dual ovens make us think seriously about spending the extra couple hundred bucks.

It also appears we’ve finally resolved the tree dilemma which has nagged us since before closing the deal on this house. Rather than outright removing the big trees in front, we’re going to limb them up about ten feet and remove some of the smaller pines that have grown up in between them. Should greatly improve light and air circulation in the front of the house. And reduce the pine needle problem: one of the trees sheds so many needles that they can’t all fall to the ground. They just build up on the lower branches like dandruff. Fire hazard, anyone? I’ll try to post some before and after pictures once the arborists are done next week.

Tired: wardriving. Wired: power rustling

People are getting arrested for using power outlets in public locations like train stations and businesses to charge their laptops. The Register calls it power rustling. Next up: for-pay electrical outlets in airports? I think it’s already being done but I can’t find the reference on my blog.

Wait! I know! What we need is an elaborate system of chalking based on hobo signs that could be used to indicate the presence of open, unmonitored electrical outlets.