Tonight before the program, we were about to pray and we were all introducing each other--I just said my name was Miles Travis--and then we prayed. After the prayer, one of the girls asked, "That's funny--have you ever heard of the Miles Travis Suite?" There was an awkward moment before I said, "I'm that Miles Travis." She looked confused, then surprised, and finally excited. "My brother lived there! Did you know him?" I did not. But apparently people don't associate the suite with an actual person any more. Maybe she thought it was named after an old rich guy? 

I'm sharing briefly about the MTS tonight at UNC IV. Brian forwarded me these pictures. Fun stuff.

My family and I were so sick/busy this past weekend, I missed a rare opportunity to catch Burly in Durham. When I realized that, I felt sick again. So, I dug up some old pictures. Enjoy....

By the way, the guy at the far right of this picture is my friend Wes, who recently returned from a deployment to Afghanistan (sp?). It's really good to have him back safe. We haven't kept up real well over the years, but we thought about him often while he was away.

I've been telling various people that Brooklynne is going out to visit her brother Ben, so I thought my readers would like to meet him. I stumbled across this picture today. Nice tie dude.

For a more up-to-date picture, click the continue reading link below.

Brooklynne and Halleigh are safely off to Utah, and I am all alone for the next 2 weeks. The departure was not entirely smooth--Brooke had to fly without an ID so after presenting a social security card, birth certificate (one for Halleigh also), and old school photo ID, and a marriage certificate, they gave her a full-body pat-down and let her board. Also, the airline apparently changed their baggage rules since we bought our tickets, so you are no longer allowed an extra item for an infant-in-arms. Thus they wanted to charge us $25 for Brooke to take the stroller, which we declined.

But they did get off, so I plan to lock myself in the house and get as much school work done as possible before they get back. Wish me luck.

Now I have some one to vote for.

Now on a serious note--I saw Ralph speak at Carolina my senior year and he was intelligent, but hardly relevant. I think Obama is mostly Nader-proof, but in a general election, Hillary would have to really watch out not to be Naderd like Gore in 2000.

From Elizabeth:

 

I just noticed that Eat at Joe's includes a link to this City of Durham webpage announcing free municipal wifi in the five points area. I have no idea of how long this has been available, but it seems like the service has been flying under the radar for some time. I think this is more evidence of the city's good efforts to be progressive and forward thinking, as well as the problems with publicity that the city continues to struggle with. I've never lived in a place that has so many good things, but many of which I only know about long after the fact.

I wonder if the city plans to add more hot spots in the future?

The UN has asked for 25 million in aid for Tajikistan. I'm always curious if money really spells relief for the average person in these crisis situations. Better than nothing I suppose, but I hope it actually makes a difference. 25 million seems like such a drop in the bucket.

Possum got me thinking about sping training and how much fun it would be to swing down for one last hurrah at Dodgertown before my team makes their move to the blasted desert that is called Arizona. Oh, Arizona! Robber of all things pure and good! Why can't you keep your greedy hands off! Another reason not to vote for McCain. But I digress.

I even looked into flights down for the March 30th finale. $403.00 for two tickets in case anyone is wondering (not including tickets to the game, hotel room, car rental, and all the other associated expenses). That's a month of groceries. So I will bid the Boys in Blue farewell from afar. Maybe some day NC can steal the grand canyon and park it in Sampson County. That'll teach 'em.

The folks over at UNC are planning a design overhaul for their main page, and they are accepting feedback on what it should look like. I have always appreciated how good the old design was, although I admit that it was a little dated. You can go here to leave your input, so if you don't want the website to suffer the same embarassing downgrade that our obligatory game-time TV spot experienced, here's your chance to help out. Here is my top 10 suggestions:

1. No scrolling tickers.
2. No Comic Sans fonts.
3. No dancing character home refinance or google ads (how about just no ads period).
4. Keep the light background and clean look.
5. Simple = Elegant.
6. Busy = Ugly.
7. While this is not true of all sites, for a University site, the front page should contain minimal content--just enough to draw you deeper into the site, or serve information efficiently.
8. Equally represent all three missions of the University: education, research, and service.
9. Make me feel like the website is an extension of campus.
10. No deep royal blue or bright red.

Open Library, a favorite project of mine, got some ink this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The article will be available at this link for the next week before it's lost forever to read-at-the-library or pay-for-access status only, so read it online while you can. The piece puts some emphasis on the "rivalry" between the Open Library and OCLC (AKA: The Devil), to which some folks on the project listserve object, but I say rightfully so. While it is true that both tools can be useful, ultimately the two projects are philosophically different in my opinion. WorldCat is unneccessarily expensive and hard to use (beyond casual searching). But Open Library, and eventually the Zotero Commons, promises a new model of information discovery.

I've said this before, but the problem is that most librarians have been trained to think of optimizing access to resources by classifying them--putting them into categories. All you need to know is the right category, and you can find anything. But when historians (for example) are doing their best, most creative work, they break sources out of their typical categories and use them in fresh, new ways. Thus, ideally, information should not be put into smaller more specific categories, but it should be freed from the categories that entangle it.

In the old days, categories were neccessary because a book could only be in one place at a time, so you had to make a judgement about which shelf it would sit on. WorldCat is good for that. But in the digital age, where records can be served dynamically with minimal additional infrastructure, it's time to abandon the constraints of the shelf. Open Library will take us closer to that goal.

I just hope Open Library does not become a mere "market adjustment" like Intel is trying to make out of the XO.

TWJ has been in the doldrums for the past week or so due to several factors including a plague that has hit this household. I think it's the flu, but I'm not real sure. I was the only one who got a flu shot this year, and even though I have been sick too, I've had a milder case. So would it be good science to guess that my case was affected by my shot?

Anyway, Brooklynne has been out for the count the past few days, and now Halleigh seems to have it. Halleigh is so sweet and cuddly when she's sick, but I know she doesn't feel good, so it's hard to enjoy how lovey she is.

In other news, Mary made me and Brooke a friendship music mix that we have been enjoying. Yea for that lost art!

And one more thing: Kate and Matt will be here later tonight, so the fun continues, whether we're 100% or not.   

Eat at Joe's linked to an interesting article today about how food habits can affect how we relate to our partners. The most glaring incompatibilities between Brooklynne and I are that she likes "yams" and I like sweet potatoes. Sometimes I like plain vanilla ice cream and she always likes stuff in hers. I love the Rat, and she won't eat there without a suppressed cringe. I like collards and she doesn't. But for the most part, we are food compatible. Not only that, but some of our favorite, most relaxing nights are spent cooking together. I usually chop/prep, and she usually minds the food on the stove. Then we eat and talk about how to make it better, or what esle we could do with that recipe, or what we would like to try next.

I would love to hear about your food stories. Do you have any really good or bad food compatibility stories to share?

Also, you know that I love to look at Time Magazine's online photo essays. There are some really beautiful images and you can usually find a gallery about almost any current news item. Here are some interesting links that I may have posted before, but they relate to the food topic.

What the World Eats part 1

What the World Eats part 2

What the World Eats part 3

One more thing... while poking around for an image to put on this entry, I ran across this letter dated December 14, 2007. Does anyone know any thing about this?

As it has been pointed out on BCR, Google Streetview has come to Durham and now you can view street-level images of the city by searching for an address. The actual addresses are not really that accurate--my house is not shown at the correct street number--but the feature is pretty cool, and as many people have noted, just a little creepy. Both Brooklynne's car and mine are in the driveway, so we were probably home when the googlographer came by, but we didn't notice. What do you guys think...great use of technology to unleash helpful information, or dangerous invasion of privacy? 

Jenny's comment on my Dook game post, along with Karyn's recent comment, reminded me that I shouldn't only report bad news... Brooklynne and I were at the Clemson Game last night and it was a classic Tar Heel experience. Not classic in that we got beat in every aspect of the game for 35 minutes, but classic in the sense that we left the Dean Dome happy and tired from jumping and screaming. We had tickets in the upper deck, but I spied out some unoccupied lower-level seats directly beside the student section, and shortly after half time, we moved down. Brooklynne has experienced a couple ACC games now, including last year's bloody win against Dook, and she has been in the risers for a game against UNCW, but she had never been in the lower level for a true ACC battle royale, and it was awesome to share that experience with her. We were also glad we made the decision to leave Halleigh at home. We took her to four games last year, but I think she has grown out of sitting still in my lap for 2+ hours. Maybe we'll try her again when she gets to be the age of Marshall's daughters.

Speaking of kids at games, at about the 3 minute mark, I watched an old guy leave with his 12-year-old-ish grandson (?). Later, when we were really coming on strong and when the game was at its climax, I thought about that kid again.

Don't get me wrong--I don't always hate the people who leave early. I understand that not everyone is like us, and usually the people who care most about the game are not the people who can bankroll the team. If UNC wanted older-than-average, often status-hungry, only-marginally-basketball-devoted people to pay tens of thousands of dollars to come from hours away AND stay to the end, they would build better roads and parking, and schedule games earlier.

But my heart broke for that kid who missed the end of the game because gramps didn't want to fight traffic. That kid had been robbed of a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He probably went to school today assuming the Heels had lost, only to be heckled by his classmates for being at the game and not knowing it had been one of the greatest finishes in recent memory. If you are going home, go home, but if you brought a kid, don't rob him of that moment!

Now in other news...

1. Obama won another Grammy. Good for him.
2. I read the other day that even though we spend a lower percentage of our GDP on defense than many other nations, we spend more actual dollars on defense than all of the other nations in the world combined. Can that possibly be true?
3. I have been sick for the past week. My head still feels like it weighs 30 lbs. and might explode at any second. Unfortunately, I only recently found out that my new job gives me no sick leave. What the ....!!!? I never thought to ask, since I consider that to be one of the most basic and universal forms of compensation. Guess not.
4. I am making Lost predictions each week, which I won't publish, but if you are a fan, ask me. I'm writing them down.
5. My cousin, Cory is now living in town and we had one of the most relaxing nights hanging out with her this weekend. Let's just say a movie and apple pie with ice cream. Can it get any better than that? It is going to be great having her around.

Apparently, we were not the only ones who saw a need for laptops in Haiti. A nonprofit group called Waveplace is sending computers to teachers in Port-Au-Prince (although they are experienceing some difficulty). David Wienberger blogged about it, and I recently got a hit from the Virgin Islands using the search terms "XO to Haiti." So, if you missed helping with our effort this Christmas, here's another chance to take part, though you won't be giving directly to the Lucien family. I think Haiti is a natural country for Americans to donate/invest their gifts because of our entangled history there, and the magnitude of the need. I hope this trend catches on, and perhaps I will spearhead another effort to send some more machines to the Luciens at the beginning of summer. More on this later....

The good news is that we didn't loose because we didn't have Ty Lawson.

The bad news is that we lost because Wayne never got his feet set before he shot, Danny can't hit a 5ft shot in the lane, we didn't defend the 3, and Roy told them to foul when we still had time to play defense. Hopefully we'll work out the other kinks and not put ourselves in that position next time.

Moving on....

 

Have you every wondered what the rest of the world thinks of the US election. Check out this site.

Today is Fat Tuesday, a traditional day of gluttony and throwing moderation to the wind. So I was surprised and delighted to find a "Saturday Morning Special" sandwich in my bag this morning.

When we were little, we would get up early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons, and usually that meant that we would inevitably wake up my parents. So, my dad--in kindness to my mom I'm sure--would get up and fix us breakfast so she wouldn't have to deal with us. I don't know where he got this idea, but he started a tradition of making something that in our family came to be called "saturday morning special." Here's how you make it:

1. Combine in a bowl equal parts peanut butter (smooth) and your favorite pancake syrup. Use two large spoons of peanut butter for every person. Stir until the syrup is completely absorbed.
2. Spread liberally on toast.

Viola! You're finished!

I never get Saturday Morning Special on non-saturdays, so this was a wonderful indulgence on the eve of Lent.

I usually eat mine open-faced, but for the purposes of transporting it, my wife made a closed-face sandwich. She is so great. She wins the Fat Tuesday MVS (most valuable spouse) award!

My first semester in college, I had a poli sci class with an adjunct professor who told us not to vote. It was the 1996 presidential election between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, and he said that no matter what we did, our vote would not change the result of the election. There is never an election that is determined by just one vote, or 30 for that matter (the size of our class), he said. So, by his reasoning, we would be doing more harm than good by burning the gas to drive to the polls to cast a meaning less vote.

I thought he was joking, but he was not.

Years went by, and in the summer of 2000, I ran into the same guy in the pit and we struct up a conversation. He had dropped out of the doctoral program at UNC and had wandered through Asia and hiked the AT before returning to school refreshed and ready to complete his degree. But more interesting than those stories though, was his claim that he had changed his mind about voting.

A year after my class with him, as a joke, another student had written him in on a ballot for a graduate representative for the UNC student government. It turns out that the only other person to vote in the election was the only guy who was running, who voted for himself. The 1 to 1 tie in votes forced a run-off that spurred a huge underground effort to elect my prof. He won by a landslide without even participating in the election.

Unfortunately, the student government meetings conflicted with his bowling league, so he declined the election. However, the experience changed him in some small way, and he told me he planned to vote in the 2000 presidential cycle--the election that was eventually won on the basis of a cuople hundred disputed hanging chads.

I'm sure there is a moral to that story, but basically it's just a funny tale for election day. Happy voting!!!!

There's a social politics organizing group in Durham that is throwing a party tomorrow billed as Super Fat Tuesday. Awesome concept for a day when the political and cultural stars align.

Thinking about that, I realized that by this time on Wednesday, America might have all but decided our political candidates for this election cycle, so if I want to have a say, I better say it now. With that in mind, TWJ is announcing its endorsements for the primary season.

And the winners are...

For Democrat: Barack Obama; and for Republican: John McCain.

Now if you are a diehard conservative/Republican and you will have trouble being friends with a left-of-center Democrat, stop reading here and DO NOT click on the continue reading link below.