Bose'n to a SIGIR

For the past few days, I've been spending my time writing up stuff for SIGIR. How exciting does that sound? And what the hell is SIGIR, anyway? Well, SIGIR is the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. It's charged with snooping around into all the reconstruction projects in Iraq to make sure there's no fraud, waste, or abuse. And with over $50B in reconstruction authorized so far, you can bet there's some kinda fraud/waste/abuse out there. So SIGIR is always looking at something. When they do, they contact the offices involved and ask for lots of information. I had three different requests land on my desk just the other day and have been spending a lotta time trying to collect the answers and draft an accurate and politically correct response.

While they can be a pain in the butt to me, to you as the American taxpayer, they're a Good Thing. You can go to their web site and find out just about anything you'd ever want to know about the good, the bad, and the ugly of Iraq reconstruction efforts. All their reports are online. I keep a hard-copy of their current one on my desk all the time to (a) learn something and (b) serve as a coaster for my coffee cup. I don't recommend you print it out on your home printer as it's about 260 pages long. But if you want to learn something about Iraq reconstruction, go to the SIGIR web site. I'll post it to the links section of my blog as well.

Janis just sent me a wonderful anniversary present. We've been married 15 years now ... sure doesn't seem like it, but it's true. Even though the actual date is next week, she had me open the present last night while we were video chatting. (Janis is completely incapable of leaving a present in its wrapping. Even though she can wrap a present better than anybody I've ever seen, once it's in her hands (or mine, for that matter), the wrappings have to come off ... NOW!) Anyway, she got me a set of Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Sweet! Sound quality is phenomenal. Her timing was perfect, too, as my old ear buds for my iPod had just quit. So here I was at my desk today, trying to write a response to a SIGIR question while rockin' out with my new headphones. I hope I didn't inadvertently include some of the lyrics in my report.
SIGIR: "Provide cost figures for the Sadr City contract."
ANSWER: "Rock me baby, rock me baby, all night long!!"

Your tax dollars at work.