Stuffed with turkey? Avoiding conversations about politics with your family? Trying to build your data skills even though it's a holiday weekend? Well then you are in luck as the GovEx team has options for you. Listen as Sophia Dengo, Sheila Dugan, and Matt Pazoles from the GovEx team join Sharon and Eric to discuss their favorite places to find cool data (and fun) resources.

The team also included a few of their favorite resources below for your holiday reading pleasure. Check them out and let us know if you have additional resources you think others should look into.

And of course, a Happy Thanksgiving from the GovEx team!

Sophia

* GovEx resource - govex.jhu.edu - General blogs, podcasts, and more with fresh updates from our awesome team.
* Other work resource - stackoverflow.com -- Google will usually lead you here when you start searching for solutions to programming problems, and for good reason. Many if not most answers can be found here!
* For fun - Get some sleep! But I’ve been devouring biographies lately -- Anna Kendrick’s Scrappy Little Nobody was a fun silly read, and I love Lynn Sherr’s biography of Sally Ride so much I’ve read it three times.

Matt

* GovEx resource - Cultivating talent guide - Setting up an analytics team can feel like a daunting task, but this guide helps get you started with suggestions of who to look for, where to look, and how to gather your team.
* Other work resource - OpenStreetMap - Finding the right base maps or shapefiles for city boundaries isn’t always easy, but OpenStreetMap’s community of developers has the US pretty well covered.
* For fun - Data is Beautiful - Uncurated collection of data visualizations on everything from the distribution of skittle flavors in a party-sized bag to population growth in rust belt cities.

Eric

* GovEx resource - Talking about performance video - Great summary of semantics and performance management for our Analytics Director Carter Hewgley.
* Other work resource - PolicyViz - Jon Schwabish is a data visualization guru and I really like his breadth of materials that are available for free.
* For fun - Michael Bolton’s Winning Softball: Hit Harder Play Smarter - Yes folks this is real, an instructional video about slow pitch softball featuring non other than Michael Bolton. You’re welcome.

Sharon

Bourbon Pecan Pie

* 1.5 tbs butter
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 3/4 cup light corn syrup
* 2 tbs vanilla extract
* 3 tbs bourbon
* 3 eggs, beaten
* 1 cup pecans
* 8-inch pie crust, unbaked

Combine the first three ingredients in a saucepan (cooking over low heat and stirring constantly) until the sugar dissolves. Cool slightly and add the eggs vanilla and bourbon. Pour sugar mixture into pie shell and top with pecans. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Enjoy!