The images taken under microscope are amazing.

Microscope insects

Duke football beats Virginia Tech!

Absolutely ecstatic that Duke beat Virginia Tech today, its first win against a ranked opponent since 1994. I've been watching and suffering with Duke football since 1998, and I've never felt the kind of excitement about the program that I do now.

The game was ugly to watch. Virginia Tech has an outstanding defense, and Duke's offense couldn't get the ball to Jameson Crowder, its best playmaker, in the second half. But what was really encouraging was that the defense held up. I've been used to good offenses shredding the defense with big plays, but tonight Virgina Tech was held to just one. The combination of an explosive offense with a decent defense that limits big plays means Duke could be going to bowl games for the near future.

Kudos to Brandon Connette. I still can't believe he stayed on his feet after getting hit twice on the 4th and 1 in the 4th quarter. That play clinched the game. Connette has proven he's clutch for much of this season, and that play was a microcosm of his play this whole season.

Lots of games left this season. But most, except for possibly the Miami game, are winnable. Time to make plans for going to bowl game this year!

Duke beats VA Tech

Rack and Stack

Every company I've ever worked for has used stack ranking for performance appraisals. Each company had their own method, but there was always a bell curve and you were fit into it somehow. Although I never saw anyone fired because of poor rankings, a poor ranking generally meant you should start looking for another job.

This article makes a good point that what might have worked for GE in a given time doesn't mean it will work for every other company. It's really hard to objectively measure performance if there are no metrics to be measured by. Sure, utilization is a useful metric, but so much of your utilization is out of your control: at a lower level, you can't totally control the projects you're staffed on and the work you're assigned. The last thing you want to do is create more unnecessary internal politicking in an organization, and ranking employees against each other promotes exactly that.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2012/07/13/why-stack-ranking-worked-better-at-ge-than-microsoft/

Government Contracting at Year-End

The end of the fiscal year is always a busy time for proposals. But like this article states, it's usually the big companies that are most able to take advantage. Big companies are better able to pull together a proposal team quickly and respond with quality. However, 8(a)s and other special small business have a great opportunity to attach as sub-contractors to companies that need them to comply with contracting requirements.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-21/its-christmastime-for-big-government-contractors-dot-for-small-firms-not-so-much

I always seem to look forward to Shark Tank on NBC. There's something intriguing about a set of uber-investors vying to invest in regular people with great ideas. I think one great aspect of the show is that it gives potential and current entrepreneurs without business educations a view into how businesses are assessed and valued.

I had some background in valuation going into my private equity project in Afghanistan because it was covered in my MBA curriculum. But it always surprised me how traditional valuation translated to emerging (or rather, war-zone) markets, and the super high discount rates they required! It was generally my responsibility to explain this to Afghan entrepreneurs who had virtually no idea what I was talking about. But that was the fun, right?

Passed the PMP Exam

I passed the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam last Saturday. It was extremely long (200 questions) and took me the full four hours to complete. I studied for it for about 4 months during the evenings, which included the 35 hours of mandatory education that PMI requires. I crammed the content in rapidly during the last two weeks as I realized that the content of the exam included information that was not in the PMBOK. I used the PM Prepcast which featured the effusive Cornelius Fichtner as the narrator. It was a very thorough way to study for it, and I highly recommend it.

What I really liked about the exam was that I was able to go back to review questions. So if I was unsure of an answer in the initial part of the exam, but more sure of an answer to a similar concept in a later part of the exam, I could go back and change the previous answer I would say I probably changed 5-6 answers in this way. I was also able to go back and figure out some of the network diagram questions that confused me initially, until I was able to figure out the concept they were testing later in the exam.

Anyway, I'm happy the PMP exam is over and vert pleased that I passed. I feel very comfortable now with project management concepts. Now I just need to put this certification to good use.

Created a new website for myself. Learning PHP and brushing up on my HTML. The template files I downloaded were in PHP format, and I tried to use Dreamweaver to edit them, but I couldn't figure out how to set up a testing server. So I had to upload to my live hosting site every time I made a change...so frustrating! Now I'm having problems with compatibility in Chrome and Firefox, and I have no idea what the issue is. I don't know why, but the scrollbars and images aren't appearing in some instances, and sizing is off sometimes. Probably could have had a professional do it, but it was fun nonetheless...

www.ramizheman.com