Update - One Month and a Half... | Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 9:09AM
It's been a long time since I have updated, and now about a month and a half until the wedding I figured I'd give a quick updated.
It's been busy getting the little details for the wedding in order -- all the big stuff has been done for a few months (vendors, date, place, etc...) of course -- and we have a ways to go. Invitations had some delays, but they should go out next week (at least we sent Save the Dates out a few months ago). We are going to start having more specific vendor meetings, going over actual elements and timelines and things like that in the run-up to the wedding. Honeymoon is all booked, and we are looking forward to that!
The wedding planning process has been long, but honestly hasn't been too unlike a number of other project plans... other than the face this is personal stuff and not business stuff, there are the same factors at play. Budgets, timelines, scope creep, vendors, partners, lots of spreadsheets and contracts, etc... sometimes I actually wish it was as easy to agree / compromise on work stuff with some people as it has been on the wedding stuff (and even the house construction stuff before that). Luckily Jill and I tend to agree on a lot of things which helps.
Anyway, planning is going well... can't believe how soon the wedding is. Time to get back to work now... :)
Interesting Email Today... | Sunday, April 12th, 2009 at 8:18AM
From: "Jeff Wilhelm" (jeffwilhelm@live.com)
To: "Jeff Wilhelm" (jeff@jeffwilhelm.com)
Date: 4/12/2009 8:09a EST
Dear Mr Wilhelm,
I am emailing you to enquire about the possibility of myself purchasing the www.jeffwilhelm.com domain name from yourself.
Currently my business is in the process of developing content management systems and digital rights management systems for pornographic videos and images. I would like to purchase the www.jeffwilhelm.com domain for use in conducting my business affairs.
Please be aware that the website would include links to the websites of our clients, which are pornographic in nature.
If you think you might be interested in transferring ownership of the www.jeffwilhelm.com domain name to business for a fee, please let me know and we can discuss this further. If you feel uneasy about your domain name being associated with pornography, please advise and we can see whether we can reach a mutual agreement regarding the amount of pornograhpic materials that can appear on the site.
I look forward to hearing from your in regards to this matter.
Regards,
Jeff
SmartMoney Magazine Ranks URI 15th in Nation for ROI | Thursday, December 18th, 2008 at 4:49PM
The January 2009 issue of SmartMoney magazine ranks the University of Rhode Island 15th in a nationwide study of public and private colleges, examining the relationship between tuition costs and graduates' earning power. In what it called a "twist on traditional college rankings," the magazine assessed schools on their ability to deliver the best return on investment and sought to quantify the long-term value of a college education.
The monthly magazine, published by The Wall Street Journal, specifically cites URI as a far better value than all the private institutions included in the survey. At 15, URI is the highest ranked institution in New England, followed by the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) at 18, the University of New Hampshire at 23, and the University of Vermont at 42. Harvard is ranked 25, Princeton at 20 and Dartmouth at 21.
In his January article, "Why the Ivies Aren't Worth it," Neil Parmar writes, "Indeed those unheralded public universities turn out to be a far better deal than virtually all the privates we surveyed. The Ivies in general? They deliver nowhere near the payback on tuition that most parents staring at a six-figure bill over four years might expect."
Working with consultant PayScale.com, the survey looked at what graduates from 50 of the most expensive four-year colleges earn in their early and midcareers. Then they factored in their up-front tuition and fees. The University of Georgia was No. 1 and would deliver a payback nearly three times that of Harvard, noted the article, while the "state universities of Delaware and Rhode Island would beat out every Ivy in the ranking."
URI Dean of Admission Cynthia Bonn said, "We've known all along that our students receive an outstanding education for a tremendous value. It's great that SmartMoney did the research that showed how well our graduates are doing, and that they are not burdened by the amount of debt that graduates of pricier schools are incurring.
"This validation by a respected national publication comes at a time when families are asking important questions about where their children will receive the best education for the most reasonable price."
Parmar writes that elite private schools do boast of lower student-to-faculty ratios, large endowments, and name recognition and extensive alumni networks.
"But if long-term career and salary are what matters -- and what else should, especially in today's economy-then a growing chorus of private school critics point out that the public-school scenario may actually deliver a far greater bang for your buck," the article says.
A portion of the article is posted online at
http://www.smartmoney.com/Personal-Finance/College-Planning/The-Best-Colleges-For-Making-Money
Baby Pictures! | Sunday, October 5th, 2008 at 10:02AM
Zadie recently spent time scanning in hundreds of pictures and slides from the last 30 years. I grabbed a couple of the earlier pictures of me, and put them up into a few pages of album... really great having these to look at! :)
http://www.jeffwilhelm.com/?p=pictures&loadyear=Pre-1998&page=8
.: homepage of jeff wilhelm :. 
