Yesterday, every person I encountered was nice to me, the first time in memory this has happened.
From an 8:45 am meeting with my Mentor TechWorks Mashpee High School freshman to a late dinner at Cosi in Wareham Crossing, everyone was cheerful and kind.
Maybe it was the weather: sunny and fairly mild. Whatever the reason, it was an exceptional day, made even more so by the recent rancorous online exchanges over the so-called health care reform bill.

Emme and I cleaned up winter debris in the front yard at Edgewater yesterday. We almost filled the truck, and the yard looked really nice when we were done.
Saw worms in the compost bin today!!

Drove to Hyannis tonight; miserable, rainy trip back.

Stanford University and the Anita Borg Institute, which funds research on the role of women at high-tech firms, released a report this week that shows a bias against hiring women where poor management and a “fly by the seat of your pants” work style prevails.
When you consider that work/life imbalance is frequently cited as the reason women aren’t welcome in many dev shops, this makes a lot of sense: because of mismanagement, projects get out of control, resulting in last-minute all-nighters that are difficult or impossible for people (men and women) who have family responsibilities.
This could also be the reason for the bias against older workers in IT shops and why unmarried IT professionals rarely advance to senior levels.
The Borg Institute also found that high-achieving women in tech consider themselves to be “assertive, collaborators, hard workers who work long hours, are unafraid to question, risk-takers and analytical in nature.”
These are attributes which tend to be valued in urban areas but not in exurban/rural areas, like Cape Cod. Thus, firms that need intellectual capital to survive have to locate in high-cost urban areas where risk-taking and assertiveness are consistent with the region’s cultural norms.
There seems to be consensus in the industry that mixed-gender teams produce software of higher quality.
Further, employers on Cape Cod have told me that they have trouble recruiting competent IT workers, and no doubt this is true of Southeastern Mass. and parts of Rhode Island as well. Whether for better or worse, this likely has less to do with salaries than with organizational values, priorities and management competence. It’s going to take a lot of effort to change these, but in the long run, for the health of our regional economy, that effort will be well worth it.

Put the gazing ball back on its pedestal. Fingers crossed that most of last year’s planting have survived.

Meeting later for postponed birthday brunch!

Some see an old glass door; I see the top of a cold frame which now has radish and lettuce seedlings.
Bought some very inexpensive trellises and planted the four packs of Sweet Peas today.

Having raised the earth boxes onto cement blocks the other day, I planted tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, nasturtiums, cukes, radishes and herbs today.
The soil smelled fantastic, and there was a nice cloud of humidity on the top surface of the cold frame.
Oh, yeah.

I’ve avoided local female professional organization get-togethers because the announcements give me the willies.
Some are a turn-off because they are so hideously bridal-shower chatty, so “just us girls”, so clubby, exclusive and manipulative.
Others are preachy and directive, clubbing you over the head with their over-competitive “join us or else you and your business (and your children and your pets) will die” dog-eat-dog hard sell.
In other words, the announcements are everything that’s hideous about the American notion of a woman deserving of success, whether it be a good marriage or a fulfilling career.
Compare and contrast with a UK organization called “Women in Technology”. I’m sorry to be an ocean away, because the invites are respectful, guileless, non-manipulative, intelligent and, well, helpful.
Here’s an example of an event I’d love to attend.
Here’s a testosterone-fueled one that might appeal to Amazonian triathlete multi-national CEOs but not I suspect to the average woman.

Today is Emme’s 13th! Mike’s baby girl is just over 24 hours old, she was born yesterday on Kathy’s birthday.
I attended judges’ training for Odyssey of the Mind in Malden yesterday and was amazed, delighted to see Carolyn’s good friend, Sarah Penvel, and her boyfriend Josh, who’d come up from Wareham.
On the way back, I stopped at Grossman’s outlet for a second indoor/outdoor rug for the basement, the local Ace Hardware store for the 20% off sale and closer to home, Stop & Shop and Job Lot in Buzzards Bay. It was great to get everything done in one trip.
This morning, Robert and I are meeting Khamla at a tea shop on Jarves Street in Cambridge.