LOL well, as a US federal employee I thought I lived in the Land of Bureaucracy.

Much to my chagrin, amazement, and half-vast relief (!) there are people who have to deal with the FDA, -- another US federal agency -- that envy the laid-back-ness of CDC.

My mini hats are off to all those who have to trim their toenails before they toe the line drawn on parchment with a fine-tip pen by the FDA.

glad I'm not there, uniforms only on Wednesday are quite enough for me.

I really enjoyed this conference and was quite pleased to attach a good number of SAS-L faces to SAS-L signatures.

I attended one paper where the author described how a company who wishes to remain anonymous vainly attempted to corral their programmers who wished to write macros:

* float an idea to The Committee * write the macro * find someone to read it (bench review) and test it (bothersome review) ** testor ought not to be: your cell mate nor anyone on your hall nor on your floor, nor in your building ** how about someone in another time zone?!? ** better yet on the opposite coast!*! * back to The Committee for feedback

I was going to explain Doing The Dorfman: * come to The Committee meeting called to Study the Problem five minutes late with the solution in hand.

but I was a New Guy on the block and didn't want to seem tooo awfully pushy.

and here's Good News: "PhasmaSUG Underestimates Attendee Interest" it was a Sold-Out crowd: they had to stop on-site registration because the hotel didn't have enough ovens to bake chocolate-chip cookies for more than 570 people in one afternoon.

Ron Fehd the hand-in-the-cookie-jar maven CDC Atlanta GA USA RJF2@cdc.gov