Jim Orlin–Checking in.

I haven’t written a post to my own blog in a VERY long time. But Shirley Mohr from INFORMS asked me if I wanted to write some posts for the upcoming conference. She said that people really enjoyed reading the posts that I have written in the past. I felt pleased about the compliment and said yes.

Later, it occurred to me that I would flatter someone if I wanted them to blog for the conference. This realization did take a little away from my pleasure at the previous compliment, even though the previous compliment was undoubtedly sincere.

For those of you who have looked at my other blog (jimorlin.wordpress.com), you will know that I have a tendency to write posts when I am annoyed (especially at Republicans), and many of them are on the critical side. This would be totally inappropriate for an INFORMS blog, and I intend to avoid such negativity. Also, if and when I do write something critical and negative, I intend to alert the reader by writing “Warning: negative comments follow.” Then any reader who believes like I do that negative, critical comments are inappropriate can skip over the offending comments.

This INFORMS meeting will have a different feeling for me. First, I forgot to submit a talk. Really. (It’s not as bad as Rick Perry forgetting what federal department he wants to eliminate, but that is no excuse.) Second, I will be attending mostly plenary talks and tutorials. In my younger days, I viewed such sessions as “fluffy”. But now that I have matured (that is, gotten much older), I view them very positively. The truth is that I enjoy these sessions more than the technical sessions, and I usually learn more as well.

So, I’m ready to blog for the conference. I plan to be uniformly positive and enthusiastic, starting with my next post.

– Jim Orlin