Sotomayor II

There's been concern expressed that a Justice Sotomayor would be inclined to side with discrimination claimants. (I think the concern stems from the wise-Latina statement, but I may be missing something more about it.) I've seen the statistical analysis by Tom Goldstein writing at SCOTUS blog about Judge Sotomayor's votes in discrimination cases. He finds the following:

Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claim of discrimination roughly 78 times and agreed with the claim of discrimination 10 times; the remaining 8 involved other kinds of claims or dispositions. Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous. (Many, by the way, were procedural victories rather than judgments that discrimination had occurred.) Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge. In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent’s point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case. So Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1.

[Jump]

In sum, in an eleven-year career on the Second Circuit, Judge Sotomayor has participated in roughly 100 panel decisions involving questions of race and has disagreed with her colleagues in those cases (a fair measure of whether she is an outlier) a total of 4 times.

Goldstein's analysis is open to criticism: "Now, this doesn't tell us much. Each case should be examined individually, on the merits, because what really matters is not whether she rejected discrimination claims but whether she was right to reject them." Michael Stickings at The Reaction (H/T Legal Insurrection)

But, as Stickings concludes: "Still, Goldstein's findings do effectively refute the (discriminatory) claims of Sotomayor's critics on the right -- and there are many of them -- that she is racist, and that she allows her own identity as an Hispanic woman to shape her legal opinions."

She's smart. She's qualified. She doesn't remind me at all of Harriet Myers.

She's a baseball fan. (What? That's not relevant? Keeps coming up in the hearings, so I was thrown off.)

She'll be fine.

Sotomayor

I can't say I've followed closely the back-and-forth about Judge Sotomayor's qualifications and philosophy. I have of course heard the brou-ha-ha about her "wise Latina" woman line in some speeches and the implication that she'll decide cases from her heart, rather than intellect, because of her ethnic roots. I haven't heard much of the confirmation hearings, but all of the Republican questioning I've heard has focused on this topic. I understand a couple things about that "wise Latina" line: 1) it was a rhetorical riff on something Justice O'Connor had said; and 2) Rethugs didn't get their undies in a bunch during Justice Alito's confirmation hearings when he said:

When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account. When I have a case involving someone who's been subjected to discrimination because of disability, I have to think of people who I've known and admire very greatly who've had disabilities, and I've watched them struggle to overcome the barriers that society puts up often just because it doesn't think of what it's doing -- the barriers that it puts up to them.

Here (h/t Glenn Greenwald).

First drafts of movie lines: moves out of Twitter

Someone else got interested in the first-drafts-of-movie-lines meme and put some energy into blogging about the phenom with stats and graphs and a day-by-day accounting of it. This person also set up a web site to capture lines and allow voting (which seems like the next necessary step).

Minneapolis Somali men

The NYTimes blog Room-for-Debate has an ongoing series of posts about the missing Somali men from Minneapolis and related issues.

Sarah watch

Sarah Palin shows us what she's going to be doing until she runs in 2012. As Ezra puts it:

You could no more argue with this op-ed than you could drive a car made out of candy. Though it looks like one thing, it's actually another. And that other is a declaration of political intent: Palin is going to spend the next couple of years trying to act as leader of the opposition. She'll start with what she knows: Drill, baby, drill. And she'll start where she knows. In the media.

She's going to be everywhere, all the time, spewing stuff that is one cell deep, until she's got her patter down on the big national issues.

K's Grandma at Burr Oak

We have no information so far about whether K's grandmother's grave site was affected by the desecration. She was buried in 2004, so we hope her grave is too new to have been disturbed.

Here's a photo from her burial:
This photo was taken after she'd been lowered into the ground. (Her grave site is not where the family group is standing, but back and to the right where the astroturf is and where the two workers are standing. The group is dealing with flower transportion.) We had the impression that this was a "new" section of the cemetery. I notice in this picture that the turf is torn up in this big corner area of the cemetery, and now I'm wondering why. Shouldn't there either have been a) naturally-occurring weeds or b) lovely-tended sod? Here's hoping the turf was merely being prepared to receive sod.

Our adopted home in Wisconsin makes the news!

A friend of ours alerted us to this story - I can't believe a flag protest would happen in Crivitz. I hope this guy gets to open his supper club - I'll be a regular just because.

Best of first drafts

Folks are starting to generate lists of the best of the first drafts of movie lines. Here are a couple such lists:

Top 25 compiled by Ryan Fox, who, by the way, is Rebelscum who shows up as author of some of the ones I posted earlier.
Top 50 compiled by Movie Moron

Destination of the mystery trip was.......

Telluride, CO. My cousin, who lives in Boulder, has friends that live in Telluride (year-round residents) and has being trying to get us to come visit for a couple of years now. I've been to Telluride to visit with my cousin and her friends once before, but C has never been. Even if it had been a disaster, just getting away from the the over 100 degree weather in Dallas would have made it worth the trip. But we had a great time. Warmer than expected weather, rained just once, altitude didn't really effect us and really enjoyed the 4th (which is a HUGE deal in Telluride). The only negative was that I was promised a TomKat sighting, but from what I understand, they either weren't there or even if they were, they don't venture out from their 100 acre compound all that much. A few of the highlights:

• 2 bighorn sheep standing just off a road, frozen like statues.

• numerous deer sightings when C and I would walk in the mornings.

• birthday dinner we cooked and ate overlooking the golf-course with the mountains in the background, windows open, sun setting, great wine and even better birthday cake.
  

• driving a float in the 4th of July parade.

• sitting as close as we could to the fireworks that night, soot falling on us and feeling the concussions of the fireworks that didn't quite make it high enough.
  

• riding a motorcycle that had been modified to all electric - max speed supposed to be 18mph, but was (per the owner) " a bit more than that".
  

• hiking up a trail above town (elevation change of 1,000 ft) to a waterfall and in the course of 10 minutes, having bright sunshine, rain and hail, then sunshine again.
  

• the free gondola that goes from the Mountain Village above Telluride (where we stayed) into town that runs year round, from 6am to midnight. Even carries bikes. Awesome view and the easiest way to go back and forth.
  

We want to go back, C especially to ski. We just need to find a way to make getting there easier and quicker (much easier said than done). I want to go back for the 4th again, but this time I want to be on the float, not driving it!

Here are some pictures:


The view from the 2nd floor deck of the house we were staying in





The float I was driving, the Liki Tiki. It won funniest float. Last year they won Best in Parade.





"Men without Rhythm", doing a Blues Brother routine during the parade.





Me, driving the float, pointing to C and my cousin, telling the little kid to shoot them with his squirt gun.





Me, drinking from my fake Rum bottle. The real stuff was being enjoyed by the adults on the float during the parade.





"Irrational Exuberance", the group that won Best of Parade. Their theme was "Party like it's 2006" and they were sooooo funny. My favorite sign was "In Madoff we Trust". The ladies were wearing VERY skimpy, madri gras type outfits. It was difficult for me driving, as I was getting distracted and my co-pilot kept telling me stuff like..."don't look at that little blonde over there, wearing white and just coconuts".





Looking back from the 13th green. The house in the background was were I stayed on my first trip to Telluride back in the late 90's.







Many references in the parade to the failing economy. While Telluride is in some ways very conservative and traditional, it is also very liberal. Not many GWB fans that I ran across.





The town only has 2,500 residents, but George Clinton was going to appear at their Civics Center in a couple of weeks. The tax rate here is unreal.

Autotune news

I suspect I'm late to the auto-tune-the-news party, but just in case you haven't seen this:

More first drafts

of movie lines:

There was no a**-gazing

No, Pres. Obama was not staring at the 16 year old's a**. Video here.

Twitter as frivolous entertainment

In my continuing saga of evaluating Twitter, I report that there is fun to be had with public word play.  Here's one where people imagine the first draft of famous movie lines (random batch presented here):
Another was to replace a word or part of a word in a common title or phrase with "tran" or "tranny". Examples

• Tranny Get Your Gun
  
• Tranny Hall
• Tranmerican in Paris
  
• I Left My Heart in Tran Francisco
  
• Trancakes, with maple syrup

These are both games that pre-date Twitter, I do believe, but they suit Twitter pretty well.  Feel free to play along with either/both.

Update:  Here are some more (better) movie lines (4th one down for M):

Burr Oak Cemetery

K's grandmother is buried here. Or was.

Columbine

I can still remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard about the events at Columbine High School. I was driving up the Alaska Highway in British Columbia listening to CBC radio when they broke in. Then, for several days, the CBC offered all type of analysis on why this phenomenon always happened in the States, but not in Canada (and why it would never happen in Canada. But, a few days later, it did). And while the "facts" at the time seemed to stand up months and even years later, what you think you know about the what and why is probably wrong. This book has been compared to In Cold Blood and I think that is a disservice to Truman Capote. Dave Cullen is not a storyteller (at least to the degree that Capote was), but he is enough of one to make this novel very compelling. I wish he had been able to speak to the parents of Harris and Klebold, because their seemingly total ignorance of what their kids were not only thinking, but doing, is almost incomprehensible. I know that my parents didn't know everything I did, but I don't think I could have amassed an arsenal of guns and bombs that I kept in my room, basement (if I had one), and garage without them finding something. The author had access to surveillance tapes, diaries, friends, teachers, police - everyone. While the events of that day were and have been labeled as a "shooting", it wasn't and it neither was it planned to be. And to think that no one had a clue or inkling that these 2 boys were heading in the direction they were is also false. Cullen also tries to explain the motivations behind why many of the misconceptions about what happened that day continue to be fostered by everyone from the police to the survivors and the families of the victims. This is a tough read, yet I found myself not wanting to put it down.

Gone Tomorrow

I have to give credit where credit is due. Our former SSJ brother turned me on to Lee Child and the Jack Reacher series. There are 3 series that I read religiously: this one, the John Sanford Prey series, and any Tom Clancy that features Jack Ryan. Sadly, it's my understanding that due to some legal issues, there won't be any future Jack Ryan novels from Clancy, so I'm left with just 2 series. But that's OK, because they are both good enough and published often enough to satisfy me. While Child's descriptions of how guns or silencers work, or how long it takes certain caliber bullets to reach their target can get a bit tedious, I can overlook that. I love Reacher and while I know that no one person can get into this many dangerous and bizarre situations, I can also overlook that fact. Just as I overlook that Minneapolis/St. Paul can't have that many serial killers and freaks as described in the Prey series. I really enjoyed the opening of this novel - a decision that has to be made in seconds is described over numerous pages based upon a checklist created by the expertise of terrorism experts. And that decision unleashes a chain-of-events that takes Reacher from a late-night subway ride back to the 1980's and a secret that not only individuals want kept quiet, but governments and terrorists as well. The plot sounds complicated, but Child does a great job of moving the story and keeping you guessing. My only complaint was that I thought the "secret" wasn't that big of a deal, for any of the parties trying to keep it hidden. I think most people realise that yesterdays friend could be tomorrow's enemy (or visa versa) and especially over the period of 20-30 years. But, the journey and the story certainly made up for that small complaint. I can't say that I dislike any of the Reacher series - but I can say that Gone Tomorrow is certainly one of my favorites.

A Reliable Wife

This is another of the Parade magazine recommendations that I was enticed to check out. The 3 or 4 sentence blurb in Parade mentioned Wisconsin, trickery and betrayal, a gothic tale of romance and seduction. I admit - I was hooked. Then I started reading it and to say it was slow would be an understatement. And the love scenes were straight out of the Bronte mold. Think Wuthering Heights, but set in northern Wisconsin. Thankfully, it wasn't as long the Bronte classics, but it seemed like it was. The only thing that keep me going was the "trickery and betrayal" angle, but that went away about half-way thru. This might be more of a "chick book", but my Mom even said it was "strange" and "a bit slow". If you are into the Bronte-style novel and lengthy descriptions of snow or rooms or houses or "gothic seduction", then this is the book for you. If you aren't, then I would say keep away and definitely be wary of Parade magazine.

Do I just not understand?

This short little gem in the DMN caught my eye today. Am I the only person who thinks that if a toll road is losing drivers, you might want to lower the tolls, not raise them? The tolls were raised not too long ago and gee, guess what, less drivers. So the answer that the toll authority comes up with now is to raise tolls again. And in about 4-6 months, when they do another survey and see that driver ship has gone down again, I wonder what they will do?

In the not-too-distant future, most of the major and mid-major roads in the DFW area are going to be be either totally toll roads or some combination of mostly toll lanes and some free lanes. 635 (the main loop around Dallas) will have "smart toll" lanes that will price-adjust during peak hours and/or high volume in the free lanes. Perhaps the ultimate answer for low driver ship on toll roads is to make every road a toll road. Then the "nervous" bond holders will not have to worry so much.

Missing Somali men

Here's the latest on the investigation into the missing Somali men:

In late 2007, when the first of about a dozen Somali men from Minnesota began to travel to their homeland to fight in a bloody civil war, a tempest was building in the Twin Cities Somali community. Many Somali-Americans were upset about Ethiopian troops that invaded their homeland.

A Twin Cities group called the United Somali Diaspora organized and videotaped the rally, in November of 2007, at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The main purpose was to raise awareness of the Ethiopian invasion.

But one keynote speaker, a middle-aged man in a cream-colored suit, seemed to cross the line.

Zakariya Abdi, who was bent on pushing the Ethiopians out and taking down Somalia's transitional government, encouraged Somalis in Minnesota to fight.

"Enlist yourselves. Come to see us in Asmara," Abdi said to the crowd. "Let us get to know each other. We will offer training. Then whoever wants to fight for two months, like the Eritreans used to do, can then go back to school."

Minneapolis airport terminal signage

In follow-up to my earlier post about the names of the airport terminals in Minneapolis, here's the resolution of the issue:

A Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) committee voted Wednesday to support spending about $2.2 million on signs that would re-brand Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport's Lindbergh Terminal as “terminal 1” and the Humphrey Terminal as “terminal 2."

What is more helpful is that they'll list the airlines on the signs in affiliation with their respective terminals. If they'd just do that, they could keep the Lindbergh/Humphrey names on the signs.

Unnecessary quotes

Here is a site devoted to pictures documenting the unnecessary use of quotation marks. (H/t Ezra's Twitter.)

Neopolitan pizza

is all the rage everywhere now apparently. Here's a plug for the best Neopolitan pizza in Minneapolis, owned by a friend of mine. He opened it about a decade ago, so he was several years ahead of his time.

Is anyone else wondering

if Michael Jackson's (and I use that apostrophe in the legal, not biological, sense) kids were spawned from Lisa Marie's eggs? I see Elvis in them. They have otherworldly bone structure. And when it comes to MJ, no hypothesis is too whacky.

I can't believe NOTHING about Sarah on SSJ

I'm gone for a few days and almost totally cut-off from the news of the world with one exception: Wimbledon. Thankfully, no MJ. And when I get back to a newspaper yesterday, I see where Palin has "resigned" (i.e. quit). And there is not one word on SSJ about that?????

I read a great piece in the paper I saw by Maureen Dowd on this - it was so right on. If I get motivated, I'll try to find it and link it.

Where is Scooter on this? Where is "Anonymous" who was the biggest SP cheerleader around?

UPDATE: link to Dowd op-ed.

Placebo touring US

Placebo will be in Dallas at the House of Blues on Sept. 26.

Back from the mystery trip

Can you guess where we went based upon these:

Free shaping III: Training dog to flip a light switch

Here's a two-part video on how to train a dog to flip a light switch using free shaping:

Free shaping - a boxer learns to bow

Here's a video example of free shaping wherein a boxer learns to bow:


Update: here's another. In this one, the trainer just uses a marker word "Yes", rather than the clicker.



Update II: Here's yet another. This one is good because it shows the dog getting completely off track. Also shows the use of "jackpot" treats.

My Radio Silence

Sorry about the lack of activity on my part especially with so much juicy stuff going on of late.

The reason: I'm moving to Athens, TX!

When my folks moved there the summer before my senior year (they graciously allowed me to move in with a friend and graduate from Skyline High in Dallas...provided I move in with them the next year and make up the time with the family by attending JuCo there, formerly Henderson County Junior College--Hick Jick--now Trinity Valley Junior College), I swore I'd never be a small town guy.

Thirty years later and I'm moving behind the Pine Curtain.

Free shaping

There are at least a couple different ways to teach a dog a new behavior. The most commonly used one is "lured" shaping, where you move a treat in front of a dog's nose, the dog follows the lure and does the behavior you want as a result. Then you reward the completed behavior. You gradually remove the lure and add a word or hand gesture to cue the behavior. For example, to teach a dog to sit, you hold a treat in front of the dog's nose and raise your hand upward and slightly behind his head, and he'll sit to be able to see the treat in your hand; when he sits, you give him the treat; then you add the command and voila the dog can sit on cue. Adding a marker like a clicker to let the dog know the instant he's done the right thing speeds progress. Lured shaping is an efficient method of training, but it is pretty dull and unimaginative for the dog.

"Free" shaping is done without any lure and is much more stimulating for the dog. You have a behavior in mind that you want to teach. You break it into tiny increments in your mind; when the dog offers the tiniest increment of its own free will without any prompting, you mark the behavior (e.g. with a clicker) and reward your dog. The dog figures out what behavior got the reward and will try it again. After a few rewards for the first increment, you then withhold the reward until your dog achieves the next increment. The dog "discovers" what the next increment is by trying things. For example, to teach a dog to back up, you might click/reward when the dog stands in front of you; once he's doing that, you might click/reward for staying standing; then you might click/reward when he moves any paw backwards; then you click/reward when he moves two paws backward; then you click/reward when he moves all paws backward; then you click/reward when he takes a couple full steps backward. In the midst of all this, the dog is offering all kinds of behaviors that you don't want, and you just ignore those. The dog keeps trying things to find out what works and keeps stringing the increments together to build on what worked in the previous increments.

The very first free-shaping training is very slow going. The dog just doesn't understand what the whole process is about. He stares at you wanting some direction and can't figure out what to do to get a treat. But I've seen this demonstrated with service dogs who were accustomed to being trained with free-shaping and it was astonishing how fast they would figure out really complicated behaviors. I saw a dog learn to flip a light switch in about 10 minutes. And the kind of exploration and problem-solving that dogs must do in free-shaping is ideal for service dogs who need to think and act, not merely respond, to do their jobs.

Karma and I tried free-shaping for the first time this past week as part of her agility training. I was supposed to teach her to back up. We accomplished that, but somehow I've trained her to walk in a circle around me before backing up. At first she sat and stared at me for long spells. It took her a long time to figure out that trying things was the only route to doing the right thing and getting the treat. But once she got the idea of that, it was fun to watch her mind work to come up with what she thought she was supposed to do. "I'll try lying down; I'll try rolling over; I'll try getting on the wobbly board; I'll try getting one piece of mail off the mail stack and taking it to the crazy lady; I'll try barking; I'll try sitting down with more determination; I'll try getting my food dish". Next up, teaching her to back up onto an inclined plank. I think it'll be easy now that she's got the idea.

Happy birthday to LJ

Today? or tomorrow? (LJ's FB says today, but it looks like SSJ has celebrated on July 2 in the past.)

Gangsters in Minnesota

In honor of Johnny Depp's upcoming movie about John Dillinger, the Strib published this article about the month that Dillinger spent in the Twin Cities in 1934.

Dillinger cut a brief but intense swath through St. Paul in early 1934, an era when St. Paul was the safest place in America for gangsters, thanks to the "O'Connor system." Police Chief John O'Connor had made a deal with crooks: They would receive police protection if they checked in upon arrival, paid a small bribe and promised to commit no crimes in St. Paul. . .The ironic upshot of the "system" was that St. Paul's citizens lived in a safe environment, despite occasionally recognizing the face at the next restaurant table from the post office walls.

One can tour gangster hotspots in St. Paul on Saturdays. Caves in the sandstone bluffs along the Mississippi were used by gangsters for storing alcohol and for clubs.

Outdoor college Big Ten football, a lovely fall day, a cold beer...

Nope. No cold beer. There will be no alcohol served in the TCF Bank Stadium, the new home for the University of Minnesota's football team.

I hadn't realized that the Big Ten had previously banned sales of alcohol to students at Big Ten sporting events, so even that old-news part of this story is news to me. College football without beer (or hot chocolate with peppermint Schnapps for cold days). Does not compute.

Colbert on the census

Stephen Colbert tweets about the census:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon, was a book club pick that I had pitched on the basis of the enthusiastic recommendation from our former blog brother. It won the Pulitzer in 2001. I was initially reluctant to give it a try since Chabon's Wonder Boys is one of my all-time most despised books. (I just can't bear that whole self-indulgent trite sub-genre of novels BY middle-aged, writer/lit professors ABOUT a middle-aged writer/lit professor going through a midlife crisis involving cavorting with an 18-year old female student. Blech. I spend the whole book yelling at the author through the pages: "WRITE SOMETHING! You -- your id, your ego, your angst, your psyche -- are nowhere near as interesting as you think you are.")

But I loved Kavalier & Clay. It's richly imagined and brilliantly executed. You know it's not merely good, but great, in the chapter where the boys work out the backstory for The Escapist and you see them drawing from their life experiences (maybe consciously, maybe subconsciously, maybe both).

There's endless material to ponder metaphysical meaning in the themes of chains/suffocation, escapism and superheroes. I'm particularly tickled that each character is handed their "key" by another: Sammy's job offer to Rosa is her key to escape her boredom at suburban momhood; Sammy's key is a Congressional hearing at which he's involuntarily outed; Joe's key to reentering the lives of Sammy and Rosa is presented by events put into motion by Tommy. This mirrors the Houdini escape, described in detail, in which Houdini's wife supplies a key with a glass of water to undo a particularly tough lock. Obviously, too, superhero stories are all about people being saved from their plights by another. (Ayn Rand fans: this isn't a novel for you.)

Also delightful is the fact that the Golem, made of clay, seems to Joe to weigh more after it crumbles than it did in its original shape. Sammy and Rosa's house is on "Lovoisier" street. Lovoisier was a French scientist who recognized the principle of the conservation of mass. I don't know what I'm supposed to understand about the meaning, in the story or metaphysically, of the Golem gaining weight while disintegrating, but I'm mulling it over. Thoughts, anyone?

Concert vs Performance

I was reading this article on Michael Jackson in the Daily Mail yesterday and this particular portion struck me:

"It is worth noting that the O2 Arena has the most sophisticated lip synching technology in the world – a particular attraction for a singer who can no longer sing. Had, by some miracle, the concerts gone ahead, Jackson’s personal contribution could have been limited to just 13 minutes for each performance. The rest was to have been choreography and lights."


I've heard that the cheapest ticket for these series of concerts was going to be $81 - and that got me thinking, why would anyone pay that amount of money to see someone basically dance around and "sing" for only 13 minutes? In my mind, a concert is an event where all the participants are doing what they are supposed to do - musicians playing, singers singing. A performance, on the other hand, can be a combination of this - some musicians playing, some pre-recorded music. Some singers singing, some pretending to. If you go to see a band, say like U2 or Radiohead, you are going to a concert. If you go see Britney Spears or Madonna or Michael Jackson, you are going to see a performance. And I think it should be marketed as such.

I'm nor naive enough to know that even bands such as U2, Radiohead, The Who, etc. use some pre-recorded music, but does anyone really believe that Britney or Michael or Madonna can dance like they do AND sing AND never seem out-of-breath when singing? It's a sham and for me, I'd feel ripped off to pay high prices to basically watch a live music video. Then again, perhaps those who go see these performers know what they are seeing and don't care. They want dance moves and costume changes and video and the "songs" and "singing" is immaterial.

MJ and Jermaine

We've broken out our Jackson 5 this evening. I'm thinking the same thing I think every time we do so: Jermaine was underrated.

And Michael really was amazingly skilled.

[Exhibit A re Jermaine being underrated: I'll Be There]

This and that....

1) Of course the media is focusing on the sexual aspect of Gov. Sanford story. But for me, the most interesting aspect is the whole disappearance and cover-up. Did he REALLY think he could just vanish for 10 days and no one notice? That if he had, and stuck with the Appalachian Trail hiking story, that the media wouldn't have wondered why they couldn't find anyone who actually met him on the trail? Or that he didn't look like he got a tan? It's one thing for your estranged wife and staff not to know - but your security people? What a complete idiot!

2) I was driving around a few days before Sanford he got back from Argentina and was listening to Mike Gallagher, who of course was going out of his way to defend Sanford about "wanting to get away to recharge his batteries" by hiking. That he was a great, moral, Christian, conservative and that is why the "liberal"media was getting all over his case. I wish I could have listened to his show when the truth (and I don't believe that the WHOLE truth is out yet) came out. Wonder how that crow tasted?

3) I am so apathetic about the death of Michael Jackson. He was a freak, a train wreck - someone who makes Brittney Spears look normal. And even if he was found not guilty of sexual contact with a minor, his admitted behavior with young boys was sick. As sick as the parents of these kids allowing them to spend the night with Michael. I never believed that he would actually show up and perform in London, but I didn't think it would be because he died. And with his as freaky as he is sisters, I can only imagine what his funeral will be like.

4) Having our 3rd day of 100 degree days today. Summer is here I guess. At least I'm no longer in Houston (104 there yesterday). All my outdoor activities are now done before 9am and after 8pm. I feel like a shut-in.

UT baseball

A Twitterer's observation:

Big month coming up for me

Not that anyone probably cares, but July is going to be a big month for me. A trip in the early portion (won't say where now, but should have some good pictures and I've been promised "some type of interaction" with a MAJOR celebrity). I will say that the last time I was at this location (and it was at this time of year), I was at a party and was part of a conversation with (by then)ex-General Norman Schwartzcroft. He was an interesting guy - very soft spoken, very non-military looking. While I was part of the conversation, everyone wanted to talk about the Gulf War. All he wanted to talk about was bears and wolves. Not killing them, but capturing and relocating them.

In the middle part of the month, I will be attempting to get my Texas Concealed Handgun license. My father has been on me for a few years now, wondering why I haven't gotten it. He has one and does carry almost all the time. I don't plan on carrying, except when making long car trips. I can't even remember the last time I actually fired a handgun, so it has been suggested that I go to a range at least one time before. Aim wise I don't think I need to, but since I'll be using a semi-automatic for the test and have never fired one before, it's probably a good idea.

And finally, at the end of the month, I will be taking a basic motorcycle riding class. I've been wanting to do this for a many years and since I'm still in the midst of my mid-life crisis, now is the time. The successful completion of this will waive the riding portion of DPS motorcycle license test.The goal here is to get my motorcycle license so that when C and I are at our place in Wisconsin, I can ride up there. I'm not planning on getting one of those huge touring bikes, just something to tool around with (going to the post office, going into town, going to a lake/river, etc.). No long trips, no sidecars, nothing like that. And absolutely never riding down here in DFW.