The Great Email Purge of 04

I've got a few hundred emails in my work inbox, and that needs to change. For about a year now, its been out of control. To many issues that weren't important enough to be dealt with when they first popped up, left by the wayside, but still in need of resolution. Well, the resolution came in the form of a promotion. Now that I'm in a new area, all those little waysiders just kind of faded away. I sent a few of the more important ones to my potential replacement, the trainee in the area, for her information, but for the most part, I'm deleting emails en mass. I'd like to get it down to one screen of Very Important Emails so that I can start all over again in the new area. I figure since I now have about 90 vendors instead of 10, it should only be just under ten times as big a problem as it used to be.

Cluttered in with the minions of pesky emails are some personal bits I've been needing to get back on track with...email to sis, check...make note to buy that book, check...paste that comment to the reflections doc, check...and then some bits to be blogged on.

We commence.

Oldie but goodie, MUG's guide to walking in NY.

The word-of-the-day from my daily emailer on Sept. 8th, 2004 was as follows:

skulduggery, also skullduggery \skul-DUG-uh-ree\, noun:
Devious, dishonest, or unscrupulous behavior or activity;
also: an instance thereof.

And then the inquests, and the coroner's reports, and the
hints of diplomatic cover-ups, and skulduggery in high
places.
--Hilary Mantel, [1]Eight Months on Ghazzah Street

Laptop theft was the third most common electronic
skulduggery, behind viruses (84 percent) and unauthorized
employee use of computers and software (78 percent),
according to the survey by the Computer Security Institute
in San Francisco.
--Michael Cooper, "Low Tech Joins the Fight Against
High-Tech Theft," [2]New York Times, April 23, 1998

For instance, the Federal Trade Commission already goes
after some kinds of Internet skulduggery, like selling
products that promise more than they deliver.
--David Stout, "New Internet Anti-Fraud Center Announced by
Attorney General," [3]New York Times, May 8, 2000
_________________________________________________________

The origin of skulduggery is unknown.

References

1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805052038/ref%3Dnosim/lexico
2. http://www.nytimes.com/
3. http://www.nytimes.com/

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=skulduggery

I personally prefer the latter spelling. I was introduced to this term by Nate "Papa Giorgio" - a buddy from youth work at my church in Pittsburgh. I haven't talked to him in a long time but I need to give him a call, so I'm gonna look him up. Anyway, when I left for New York, one of my most cherished departing gifts was a CD given to me by Papa G, an album by the artist himself (the first album, 3rd Ward Stepper). Apparently the gift was meant to encourage me to promulgate the term wherever I went. Papa G used to use the term in casual conversation (he also had a tendency to refer to everyone, and I mean everyone, as "Bobby"), and insisted that it was closely related to tomfoollery. I always knew he would go down in history for this. The origin of skullduggery is no longer unknown.

A while back one of the prof's from the Alma Mater published this article re: the DaVinci Code (archive list for other articles is found here). I chatted w/ him via email and he recommended this book, which I've added to my "to-be-obtained" reading list. Should be interesting.

New goodies for the ipod nation - Gizmodo continually updates on developments and I continually am strong in my resistance to buy one of the evil white assimilation boxes (I see that they are trying to use U2 to convince me that buying it in black would be OK. PFF.).

Plenty more to come as the GEP of '04 continues. Hopefully we can conclude it by Friday.