Wagenborg and Cormorants

Today’s DEFCON level is Burnt Siena. You better wear a sweater.

Today, I got a writing assignment. This term paper must be fifteen pages in length, not fourteen nor sixteen, but fifteen. Oh, and it’s not due for months. I had been assigned this work before I went to Seattle, but what with the trip and then post-processing of my results, I’ve been putting it off. That changed today and I ended up spending most of the afternoon being a wordsmith. You see, the paper is pretty much written; it just needs a little more polishing. I had lots of help. I was one of five guys who spent all afternoon on it, deciding by committee matters of grammar, syntax and content. We took numerous votes on instances of all of these aspects of writing and we didn’t even make it through what we had planned on getting done. It’s going to be a long hot summer.