Stuff - editted

It's New Year's Day, 2011.  My babies are 15.  Time is racing by and I am rambling.  Sarah called me and told me she was beat after just spending the day installing a new floor in her house.  I'm so pleased that she has the courage to tackle things like that, but worried a bit about her using power tools she is inexperienced with.  If I had this school thing under control, I would have been over there helping her out today.  Here is a photo of my lovely Sarah (she is wearing the flowered dress), and performing with Karly Dawn Higgins.  I think that is Jesse Wells on the fiddle.  I'm not sure who the man is on the bass.  I'm sure they were awesome!  Sarah usually plays the banjo - she is amazing with any thingie that makes music, including her voice.

 Two days left to decide  on a topic.  I made those words big to remind me it's time to quit screwing around, get down to business, and PICK A TOPIC.  Today I read about incident investigation: the systems approach to investigation vs. the chain-of-events approach.  The systems approach is preferable in occupational safety, according to the researcher, because the goal of the chain-of-events is to find somebody or something to blame.  Once something or someone is found, the investigation ends.  Finding all the factors is important for preventing future accidents, and the systems approach causes the investigator to look from a broader perspective at all the things that contributed to the incident. 

So, this blogging is a break from what I'm reading now - how to integrate information systems using an audit approach.  I have to believe this is an excellent idea.  Integrated systems are problematic, particular when things aren't stable.  If somebody is accessing my database and I know it, I notify them when I'm getting ready to change something.  Likewise, in the ideal world, I would be given plenty of notice if something is going to change that effects my stuff.  If systems were designed to capture integration information, these notifications could occur automatically.  Systems could intelligently communicate to each other and notify their maintainers.  

Time is tight - enough for tonight.