IT Insights Blog — TestOut Continuing Education

It's that time of year when things both speed up and slow down. It seems like there is almost always a fat rush to cram in activities, visits, shopping, socializing, office parties, and everything else that comes along with the last few weeks before Christmas (and, after that, New Year's Day). Yet, at the same time, everyone is running out the clock at the office, tying up whatever loose ends haven't already been secured and basically waiting for the big end-of-year break to kick in.

It's December and we here at the IT Insights Blog are deep in the heart of the holiday season. Except that there is an emergency afoot and very little time in which to avert a crisis of Biblical proportions. Literally Biblical, that it. We were riding a commuter train into the guts of the local metropolitan area when a sign alerted us to some truly desperate circumstances. Christmas is missing, and we don't even have 25 days left to find it!

Show of hands, who remembers the episode of The Simpsons where the Springfield mall gets a Mapple store that offers products for sale that reflect the boundless creative genius of Steve Mobs? After discovering that she will most likely never in her natural life have enough money to purchase a Mapple product, Lisa lucks into a MiPod that Krusty the Klown has disdainfully discarded. All is well until she gets her first bill ... for $1,200.

Don't look now, but NASA just landed a spacecraft on Mars. Somehow, news of the landing broke Monday and Tuesday with (more or less) zero fanfare. Which is odd, considering that we just completed a successful process that involves flinging a spacecraft way up into the exosphere, piloting it across hundreds of millions of miles of deep space, and safely getting it down to surface, intact ...

Hey, everybody! Who had a fantastic Thanksgiving Day dinner with lots of turkey, potatoes, pie, and stuffing? We can tell you who didn't: Colin O'Brady and Capt. Louis Rudd. One guy (Colin) is an American extreme sports athlete. One guy (Louis) is a battle-hardened British soldier. Both have an insatiable appetite for adventure. And right now, both men are probably bitterly cold, hungry, and likely not planning to feast any time soon.