Unless you’re Thurston Howell III — with acres of spare rooms and 27 in help — houseguests are the pits. ~ Philip Galanes This bit of advice from The New York Times Social Q's column made me sad.

I opened my local newspaper this morning to find faculty opining that any cuts to their salaries should be reflected as reduced time spent in the classroom. For example, the article quotes Professor Keith Watenpaugh of the University of California, Davis religious studies department:

So are there really more men experts in the computing field or does it just seem that way? That question is part of an ongoing and raging debate about women in technology. From women missing as top speakers at technology conferences to little girls shunning computers for something less boring is male dominance in the field a reality or an illusion?

If there’s one thing that Katie Orenstein is passionate about, it’s helping women’s voices penetrate the largely male-dominated (by 85%) Op-Eds (for those not familiar with journalism lingo, that’s an opinion piece historically published in newspapers opposite the editorial page, but which has now translated to online forums, as well). Katie is founder of The OpEd Project, a day-long seminar created to help women find their voices and engage in these public debates. She is bringing a portion of her seminar to BlogHer ’09, leading two sessions in our Leadership track: “Owning Your Expertise” and “Writing Your Op-Ed.”

What if your biggest stumbling block is...you? Say you have an idea. A crazy, wonderful, huge idea. So you call on your courage, uproot your life, move a thousand or more miles, and arrive on the scene to...wait a little more. Have you failed? Or are you just getting started?

Contests and volunteering seem to be a couple of hot topics these past few months.   The We Do Good Contest was launched on Monday by WE TV to celebrate their Volunteer Initiative, a three year initiative to empower women and the people in their lives to volunteer for one day to causes and organizations they care about.

I’ve been through two periods of unemployment since I was 18 years old. The first was right after I graduated from college at age 25; I quit the job I’d had for seven years and moved to California. I was unemployed for six months before I found something that was a mutual fit (in other words, a place where I wanted to work and someone who was willing to hire me). The second period of unemployment was after I moved back to the east coast the following year; I was unemployed for three months before I took a job that brought me to where I am now, in northern Virginia.

When my daughter Berit was around 10-years-old she started keeping a running list of all the jobs she didn't want when she grew you. She either decided the traditional game of " When I Grow Up I Want To Be" was boring,or she simply misunderstood the rules. I'm not sure which. I just know that by the time she was 13,Berit's list of unacceptable jobs had become very long,with Berit eliminating just about every career known to womankind except one - writing.

I was introduced to Jamie Dyer Dordek after her death by Huffington Post blogger, Eli Davidson who also learned of Jaimie's vibrant life after she died. Eli Davidson shared lessons she learned from Jamie who, by all accounts, lived an incredibly full life.

Any job can be complicated by pregnancy or motherhood, but scientific careers may be in their own special category. Depending on the field, you've got exposure to toxic chemicals, radiation, or all manner of microorganisms in the lab; the multitudinous dangers of field work; and the odd and sometimes exceptionally hours required of some experiments or observations in the lab and field.

I wanted to like NBC's new show, The Philanthropist, but I didn't.

When I first heard about the new e-commerce site, Alice.com, I scoffed. Fresh Direct in the New York City area is once again growing after suffering some setbacks. And Peapod and Amazon show some signs of success and growth in their grocery delivery business. But Alice.com is being pitched as the hottest new delivery site and service, in part because it is both Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), i.e., stuff you buy at the grocery store, manufacturer friendly and consumer friendly.