A Balanced View of Technology

I was just reading an interesting blog post at NBRI called 5 Factors That Affect Your Employee’s Productivity.  The 4th item on the list, entitled “It’s the Tech Tools, Stupid,” starts off by stating: “All the feel-good, psychological methods of improving employee productivity are great, but they’re useless without the right tools. And the right tools mean the right technology.”  As a techie guy myself, I couldn’t agree more.  Technology is advancing so rapidly nowadays that it has become a challenge not to fall behind, and I think good management understands this.

As always though, it’s a question of balance.  Obviously management cannot simply give a perpetual blank check to the I.T. dept., but at the same time it must constantly make sure their competitors are not outpacing them due to their own outdated technology.  This can become a problem where management presonnel must rely on the I.T. personnel to keep them apprised of current technology needs vs. wants and where the I.T. personnel have a hard time making that distinction.  Just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s better.  (As I write this it occurs to me that I’m typing on a laptop computer I bought in 2000 and that is running Windows 98; it serves its purpose well in that for which I use it.)

Anyway, it is food for thought, and that blog post was an interesting read.

ImClone (IMCL) Sharply Higher

Shares of ImClone (IMCL) traded sharply higher in extended hours trading yesterday.  Here's the reason:

“Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) today announced that it has discontinued Vectibix(TM) (panitumumab) treatment in the PACCE trial evaluating the addition of Vectibix to standard chemotherapy and Avastin® (bevacizumab) for the treatment of first-line metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).  [. . .] ‘ We had hoped that adding Vectibix to the current U.S. standard-of-care for patients newly-diagnosed with mCRC would improve outcomes without excessive added toxicity.  Unfortunately, it appears that adding Vectibix to Avastin, when used in combination with oxaliplatin- or irinotecan-based chemotherapy, increased toxicity, without improving efficacy,’ said Roger M. Perlmutter, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president of Research and Development at Amgen.”—Business Wire

Vectibix is seen to be Erbitux's chief rival in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer.  Having followed closely its development, I have always been of the opinion that the level of optimism for Vectibix's success has been poorly-founded.

ImClone (IMCL) closed at $33.88 yesterday before the above news broke at around 5:30.  In after-hours trading it sold as high as $39.32 (+16.06%) and finished at $37.61 (+11.01%).  The extended-hours volume for IMCL was 592,230 or 36.5% of its 3-month average volume for the regular trading session.

Here's a snapshot of the intraday chart from yesterday, which I made at 6:28 p.m.:

CNBC’s “Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge”

I'm an investor, and I love to play the stock market. I may (read: “probably will”) share some of my ideas about certain stocks on this blog in the coming days, weeks, months, etc.

Perhaps you’ve seen where CNBC is running a twelve-week contest called the “Million Dollar Portfolio Challange.” Entrants are given an imaginary portfolio of $1 million to invest in stocks. In each of the first ten weeks of this contest, the player whose portfolio gains the greatest percentage in value wins $10,000 in real money and becomes a finalist to compete in the final two weeks. Ten more finalists are determined by the top 10 portfolio gainers overall for the whole ten-week span. Those twenty individuals then start anew with a $1 million portfolio and compete for the final two weeks. At the end of those two weeks the player whose portfolio has the highest value wins a grand prize of a real one million dollars.

Well, I love a challenge, so I thought I’d have a go at it. Yesterday was the third day of the third week in the contest, and here is my standing so far:

Number 1,996 may not appear to be wonderful, but when you consider that there are at least a quarter million contestants, it’s not too shabby either: (1,996/250,000 = 0.8%). I’ve managed to do well I believe, but I’m obviously going to have to do much better if I expect to win anything. My high water mark (in terms of rank) so far was after the end of trading on Monday this week, when my score looked like this:

Anybody else like the stock market?

Graffiti

Someone is defacing our community.

While driving past the corner of Albemarle Ave. & 4th St. in SE Roanoke this afternoon, I noticed this:

... and I don't think it was there yesterday.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if a disincentive could be created that is actually strong enough to prevent such vandalism? Such as, for example, a reward fund made up of voluntary contributions, for anyone who could anonymously provide information leading to the apprehension of the perpetrators? I know I would donate to it.

Excitement on the Parkway

Today I was driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway southbound between the Mill Mountain Spur and Route 220. The time was probably about 11:45 a.m., give or take a few minutes. As I approached the turn-off to take 220 north, I noticed a number of vehicles parked on the shoulder of the Parkway on the northbound side. As I got closer I could see that four of the vehicles were Sheriffs' cars, and the fifth one was a blue SUV.

I rubber-necked a little bit, but I could not see what was happening. It must be something serious, I thought, to have four police vehicles responding. I mean, how often do you see that?

Does anyone reading this have any idea what was happening out there?

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Still Seeking Employment

If you read my profile then you already know I'm a summa cum laude graduate of a two-year I.T. program at Virginia Western Community College. I'm proud of that 4.0 GPA I earned, because some of those courses were quite challenging, and I worked hard to maintain that rating.

Nevertheless, I'm now in my third month of seeking employment in the Roanoke/Salem/Vinton area in Virginia. I'm finding that I.T. is a tough field to break into. The problem is, I think, that there are only so many companies large enough to even have an I.T. department, and of those, practically all of them have a small, core group of individuals that fulfill the company's needs. And when the rare opening does materialize, likely it goes to someone with some sort of connection; at least it surely seems that way.

Anyway, an old workmate of mine called me today and asked if I would be interested in a small job, replacing a kitchen counter top in a rental house that he owns. I told him I am.

Isn't that rather ironic? After all the expense and effort I put into my college-level I.T. studies, and graduating with a flawless academic record, here I am going back to my old carpentry bailiwick. So tomorrow I will go with him to look at the job and give him a price I hope he can live with.

Here I am, Carilion! Here I am, Norfolk Southern! Here I am, State Farm! Here I am, G.E.! Here I am, Appalachian Power! Here I am, Roanoke City and Roanoke County! Here I am, all you other concerns in the valley who need I.T. people! My resume is out there, and many of you have already been given one directly by me! I can do what you need done, yet here I am pricing counter top replacements and steel-wooling the rust off my saw blades! I'm just waiting for one of you to give me the opportunity to put my computer skills to work! Let's go!

A Curious Scriptural Passage

I was reading in the Bible today an account about Jesus’ healing of a certain blind man, and it struck me as unusual. Here is the passage, Mark 8:22-25, as it appears in the New American Standard Bible:

And they came to Bethsaida And they brought a blind man to Jesus and implored Him to touch him. Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around.” Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly.

Isn’t is strange that after the first attempt at healing him, the man was only partially healed? I recall reading other accounts where people were healed completely and instantaneously of all sorts of maladies, and some of these just by their touching the fringe of Jesus’ garment in the midst of a crowd.

In still other cases it is related that Jesus healed people without ever even seeing them. For example in Luke 7:1-10 Jesus healed a centurion’s slave, who was about to die, without even entering the house where the slave was.

So why was the healing of the blind man done gradually, in two steps? Since accounts such as these usually give only few details and no explanation as to why something is done this way or that way, we are left to our own speculation. Perhaps Jesus did it this way purposely to make it easier on the man, allowing him time to adjust, rather than thrusting him from total darkness into the bright light of day in a fraction of a second. Who knows?

Hewick

If you love Virginia history, as I do, and are looking for a place to stay in the eastern part of the commonwealth, there is a wonderful Bed & Breakfast I visited just north of the town of Urbanna in Middlesex County. This house, known as Hewick, was built originally in 1678 by Christopher Robinson. That's right, folks, when the Declaration of Independence was signed, this house was already 98 years old!

That's me standing in front of the place on the morning of Feb. 11, 2001. As you can tell by the long, sprawling shadows, the sun was pretty low in the sky. You can deduce that this beautiful old house, this surviving witness to colonial Virginia, has a sunny, southern exposure. Its exterior walls are constructed of Flemish bond brick and are 18 inches thick on the first floor. (No wonder it's still standing!) The house is alleged to be haunted by a spirit known as the "Pink Lady," but I never heard or saw anything out of the ordinary while I was there—nor did I want to.

Welcome to Rob's Window

I was going to use this first post to introduce myself, but that's basically covered in my profile, so let me just use the occasion to say hello, and welcome to my blog.

I will post my random thoughts here as they occur to me and try to keep them interesting enough for you to enjoy reading. Many unrelated subjects are likely to be addressed, so I will attempt to categorize them in a meaningful way. Feel free to post your comments—in fact please do so—as long as you keep them suitable for public consumption and maintain an air of civility.

I call this blog Rob's Window, because basically it's a window into my fecund mind; also because some other genius already took the name Rob's Place. This "window," however, is not 100% transparent, because I do have some thoughts I would prefer not to broadcast to the world.