It finally got warmer, and then lots of rain hit the frozen ground and leaked into the storage area of the basement. Not as bad as it could be, although I did have to pull up carpeting in some of the adjoining areas and will have to get new backing for that. Of course, both the living areas affected had bookcases on them. (The "of course" isn't sarcastic. Most of the living areas in my house have bookcases on them.) So there are now books piled around all over as well as bits of artificial Christmas tree that are drying out and all the stuff that is normally in the storage area. It's going to have to stay that way until I can get the area fully dry, wash the carpet, and put down new carpet backing.

At least the rooms will be well turned out. I'm just considering it a head start on spring cleaning.

I've applied for a new passport and we have tickets to fly to London in April. M:TNG-1 will meet us there. She and Mr. M have two goals: to take the Monty Python walking tour and to see Chelsea v Bolton.

For once, work is caught up, but I'm trying to train someone to do my job while I'm gone. Since my job is to compensate for all the places the database is wonky, my coworker is approaching the process with considerable (and, I admit, justified) trepidation. Especially when I say, "Okay, this process used to work, but then one of the customers changed something and now it doesn't and we haven't figured out how to help them fix it, but I did figure out what this other customer is doing wrong, so now we can fix all this stuff over here. Now, this problem, it WAS fixed, but they broke it again in a new way..."

Kiva sent me a link to this video about a microlending group in Nepal. It's longish, but if you find the first half boring in spite of the music, check out Rita's story beginning at about 5:40. The woman strikes me as competence personified. I could easily visualize her running a board meeting, except she seems to have a lot more common sense than the CEOs who have been in the news lately.


Kiva in Nepal: A Field Visit from Chris Baker on Vimeo.

Source for more info about the microlending process. You don't earn interest back (although interest is charged borrowers to cover administrative costs), so it would be like giving to a charity, if you got your charitable donations back eventually and were able to make another donation with the same money. I checked into instances of fraud, and there have been a few but Kiva seems to resolve them quickly, and default rates are low. I've looked for similar sites that work in developed countries but haven't found any that I feel are stable and trustworthy.

{cross-posting to ontd_political}