Whole Lotta Remodelin' Goin' On

There are some changes going on in the neighborhood, Last week I noticed that the Burger King on West Market at Muirs Chapel Rd. was closed for remodeling.

Today I went by and saw what kind of remodeling they had in mind.

It looks like a pretty complete remodel doesn't it? By this measure, there is some more remodeling nearby. Here in the foreground is the remodeled ABC store on Muirs Chapel.

Here's the remodeled Shell station that was at the corner of West Market and Muirs Chapel. Another through job.

Not all remodeling in the neighborhood is so complete. The old Rearn Thai restaurant further out West Market is becoming an O'Reilly Auto Parts store in a less drastic remodel.

It's hard to tell, but I think they just built a metal facade round the old building. I haven't been by there in a couple of weeks to see any progress.

Things are changing along Market Street.

Is Trooper Gate Good for Palin?

Friday evening Ed Cone posted about Palin-Troopergate. Ed only cited several other opinions of the subject, without adding his own, but as of this morning there are 79-and-counting comments from many of the usual suspects telling what they think. More interestingly, Roch Smith evokes the Wray fray, and I think he means to insinuate that Palin played the Mitch role. There is some superficial similarity in that the terminee in both cases resigned under pressure rather than being actually fired, but other than that I don't see much similarity.

I started to write a post on this subject yesterday, evoking Mike Dukakis's response to Bernard Shaw's rape question in the 1988 Presidential debate. Conservative pundits have observed that this was a significant gaffe that labeled Dukakis as a timid intellectual unwilling to react strongly rather than a passionate take-charge leader who could handle difficult situations. It's not a huge leap to equate this let-the-law-take its-course approach to seeing the War On Terrorism as a law enforcement problem ratter than a military one. I believe this is the basic error people on the left make in dealing with today's world issues.

Consider Palin's case. A state trooper made a threat toward her family, including a threat to kill her father. She attempted to have the trooper fired, which resulted in one of her cabinet members resigning. This morning Scott Ott, who usually writes satire at Scrappleface.com, has a serious critique of troopergate here. Ott makes a lot of sense. He writes, "Republicans should embrace it as a way of telling the story of why government must be reformed. It is the perfect picture of how government bureaucracies shield the incompetent and immoral among them, and waste taxpayer dollars trying to nail concerned citizens who cry 'foul'." Read the whole thing.

Whether entirely appropriate or not, at worst Palin made an error of action over inaction. I think that is a good thing. I was reminded of Harry Truman's response to the bad review his daughter Margaret received from a Washington Post music critic. Truman sent a threatening letter defending his daughter. Stephen Green tells the story and observes "Truman's aides told him the letter was a mistake; it could only damage his image. "Wait till the mail comes in," Truman said. "I'll make you a bet that 80 percent of it is on my side of the argument." It was"

Is Troopergate good for Palin? History will tell. Personally I prefer errors of action over errors of inaction.

The Truman-Obama Election

I wonder how long it will be before we start hearing more about the 1948 Presidential election.

The upset win of Harry Truman over Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 election came after leading publications had confidently predicted Dewey's victory (e.g. New York Times headline: 'Thomas E. Dewey’s Election as President is a Foregone Conclusion.'; Life Magazine: cover with Dewey's picture and caption reading, "The Next President of the United States"). Even on election night, the media still had difficulty accepting the fact that Truman could win.

Dr. Joe has a post lamenting Obama's pending election, and other folks seem to be conceding the election already as well. There is some talk about a Wilder/Bradley effect and how a McCain victory would be racist and illegitimate. I don't believe many folks think that about the Truman/Dewey result, so let's not forget 1948 if Obama loses.

End of the World?

Dow down 700.
Wake Forest 12, Clemson 7

Ok, so it isn't the end of the world, but as Adlai Stevenson (or Abraham Lincoln) said,"I'm too old to cry, but it hurts too much to laugh."

(Interestingly, in Googling to find more about the Lincoln/Stevenson quote, I found this reference to Louis Rukeyser's using the quote in his 10/23/87 monologue. See my earlier post.

Words, Words,Words, I'm so Sick of Words

So says Eliza Doolittle, and I agree. Local blogger Ken B. uses the Worst Word in the World here and another forbidden one here. Recently, the Language Log had an essay on just these two words. They observe:

"What's crazy is this," he writes. "I was blown away by the outright racism, but these folks are f***ing undecided. They would call him a n—-r and mention how they don't know what to do because of the economy."

The notable feature here is the use of two different avoidance characters: asterisks in "f***ing", hyphens in "n—-r". I don't recall having seen this sort of typographical differentiation before.

Interestingly, Ken asterisks one but spells the other out fully.

I kind of like dirty words. If you don't, you can ignore this post.

And Now For Something Completely Different . . .

I'm thinking of changing to this new layout from the previous one. I think it's cleaner and easier to read. What do you think?

UPDATE:

Here is the old one:



Here is the new one:

MyKey: A Good Idea?

Ford is introducing a new key technology that will let parents keep closer tabs on their teen-age drivers. Maybe this is a good idea, maybe it isn't. In part it depends on at what cost?

Last year when my old Mercedes died at 300,000 mi., I bought a used 2003 Acura TL. It came with two ignition keys and remotes. The Mercedes used only a key. Locking the driver's door locked the entire car: all the doors, the trunk, and the gas filler door. It was very convenient. The car was either locked or unlocked. When unlocked, I could open the gas door or the trunk without a key.

With the Acura, things are different. I use the remote to lock the car, which is very convenient, but unlocking is more complicated. One push on the remote unlocks the driver's door, but if I have a passenger or need to put something in the back seat, I invariably have to take the remote out of my pocket to press the unlock button again to unlock those doors. If I need to put something in the trunk or fill with gas, again I must retrieve the remote and unlock those. Inconvenient.

This past week I've lost contact with my keys and am using the spare set, but I'm thinking I need to get a another set just in case .... I called the dealership to check on getting another set, and it's no problem. Just bring by proof I own the car and they can fix me right up. The only downside is that the ignition key is $25 or so, and the service department charges $40 to program it. Oh, and if I want the remote, it's only $101 more. Looks like the days when I could go over to Daryl Chambers hardware store and get a duplicate key for a buck or two are long gone.

I know this new key technology is a theft deterrent, but is it progress?

Maybe OJ Didn't Do It

I may be the only retired white guy in town who believes O. J. may be innocent of murder. In a recent post the Logisitician expresses some doubt, but can you believe a guy who, when asked about his favorite movies, lists 38 of 'um.

A couple of months after the murders, a friend proposed the possibility that O.J.'s son had committed the crimes. His theory made a lot of sense to me. I am continually amazed how few people have heard of it. Over the past many years, when I've mentioned this possibility to friends it has been met with responses ranging from skepticism to derision. There has been a book about the theory, but I haven't invested the $27 bucks in it yet. I haven't seen much on-line (i.e. free). Google lists 822 hits for "Jason Simpson" guilty, one of which is a YouTube video here, an almost unwatchable recitation that appears to be reading from some document, Dear's book perhaps.

The biggest stumbling block to this theory could be Jason's alibi. The police seem to believe his story that he was at work at the time of the murders, but is some question about that. See the above referenced you-tube clip about 4:50 in.

More than Jason's actual guilt/innocence, I am amazed how few people have even heard of this possibility. Everyone is so sure of O.J.'s guilt they don't want to consider the possibility he could be innocent. If I could find iron-clad proof that Jason was at work cooking at 9:45 that evening, I'd feel a lot surer about O. J.'s guilt.

Worst Joke of the Day

Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from her front porch. Actually it was an optical Aleutian.

Where Have The Smart Guys Gone?

Back in the Good Old Days, I was an active stock market investor/trader. I was also a fan of Louis Rukyser's Wall Street Week on PBS. On Friday, October 23, 1987, after the Crash the previous Monday, he had a lot of sage advice. You can see it here, beginning about the 1:45 mark. The next minute or so is particularly germane. Remember that the market had dropped the previous week about the same relative amount that the current market has dropped in the last year.

Compare Rukyser with Jim Cramer's advice here ( beginning about a minute in). Cramer is wrong, particularly in light of the fact that all stock market investors should already have a year's reserve outside the market. If you do, you don't need to panic today at all. You have a whole year to worry before you need to panic. Time will tell whether selling now is good advice.

Studebakers

As I wrote earlier, I am a fan of Car Lust blog. A couple of weeks ago they had a post about a 1974 Volkswagon TV commercial. About 20 sec. in there was a picture and mention of a 1950 Studebaker convertible. This brought back fond memories. My mother's uncles owned the Studebaker dealership in Greensboro, Lowman Motor Co., so we always owned Studebakers.

Uncle Pat was an avid gardener, and in early 1952 my father took some pictures of his handiwork at LMC on East Market St. Note particularly the city license plate on the purple convertible.

There were no new cars produced during the war years and production didn't really get started again until the1947 model year. My father bought a new 1947 Studebaker in late 1946, our first family car. Over the next several years, almost everyone in my maternal grandmother's extended family bought a new Studebaker. We had a family reunion in early 1952 at Ocean Drive beach, where another uncle owned Lowman's Red & White supermarket. This photo shows all the Studebakers lined up on the beach, along with a bunch of Lowman aunts, uncles, and cousins. My mother and sisters are shown around the dark blue car near the middle of the photo. My father took the picture and I don't know where I was.

Greensboro Can Help Sarah Palin

I have been critical of Sarah Palin's performance at the VP debate Thursday night, particularly of her delivery and manner of speaking. Others have echoed some of the same sentiments (pardon me for not linking). I believe there is something we can all do to help her: she needs some g's. It is obvious when she says "gonna", or "doin", or "hearin", or other such words. We have lots of g's in Greensboro, even though most of them are G's. I think we can all spare a few.

Now, I realize that if we get the name changed to Blogsboro we'll need some of those g's, so Billy Jones might not support this plan, but until then, I think we need to be generous and donate some to Sarah.

For further discussion on this matter, see the Language Log entry here. (Warning: this is one of the few times you will see the mf-word used in an academic environment.)

More thoughts on the VP Debate

I didn't really want to watch the VP debate last night. I don't believe that any traits necessary to be president (or VP for that matter) are demonstrated in the debate format, and I didn't want to see a Palin train-wreck on the order of her interview with Katie Couric. Maybe it was the train-wreck possibility that made me turn on the debate anyway.

I thought Palin looked weak in the first half of the debate, stammering answers and avoiding many questions inelegantly. After about half the debate, I got fed-up with Biden's smarmy answers and unanswerable attacks, on regulation/de-regulation, for example. I turned the channel to something more important: the Pitt/USF football game and the NLDS baseball game.

There was an interesting post and comment thread on Volokh yesterday about the legal goings-on in Sen. Ted Stevens corruption trial in Washington. It seems the prosecutor has failed to give the defense some exculpatory evidence that seriously undermined the prosecution. (The prosecution used a version of the "I Forgot!" defense.) The trial judge was taking the subject under advisement and would decide later what the penalty should be. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems he has three choices: (a) he could sanction/punish the prosecutors and let the trial proceed. (b) he could declare a mistrial. or (c) he could dismiss the charges completely.

I gather from the comments in the VC post that his decision will be made partly on how much damage he thinks has been done to the defendant's case. Some commenters thought there had not been much damage since the affected witness was still on the stand and could still be cross-examined. Others thought the damage was significant since it affected the entire defense case, from the opening statement on. I don't think any of them called for outright dismissal.

I was reminded of this today as I thought more about Joe Biden's performance last night. He made a number of inaccurate statements (see here, here, and my earlier post here). Gwen Ifill didn't correct him on any of these, so either Palin had to know enough to know how wrong Biden was in each instance, or she had to react to bogus, inaccurate assertions from Biden. It is understandable that she might be hesitant in responding/replying.

Should Biden be sanctioned or penalized for his errors and misstatements? Certainly Palin made some inaccurate statements, but Biden isn't being judged on the smoothness of his answers.
I'm thinking that maybe the appropriate response is to realize how unimportant Palin's hesitance and uncertainty in answering were. I think I'd rather have a hesitant VP than a smooth, stupid one.

On Punting

A week or so ago Todd Zwicki at the Volokh Conspiracy pointed to this article from ESPN about football teams punting on 4th-and-short. The article cites a scientific study done several years ago which shows pretty conclusively that pro football teams would be better off going for first down (or a TD) on most 4th-and-short situations. Instead, they overwhelmingly kick. "Teams' actual choices are dramatically more conservative than the choices
recommended by the dynamic-programming analysis. On the 1604 fourth downs in the sample where the analysis implies that teams are on average better off kicking, they went for it only 9 times. But on the 1068 fourth downs where the analysis implies that teams are on average better off going for it, they kicked 959 times."

The reason for this is quite understandable: the team and the coach have different objectives. The team may want to win the game, but the coach is much more concerned about keeping his job. If the coach chooses to kick, the players get the blame/credit when the team loses/wins. If the coach chooses to go for it, when the team wins the players still get the credit, but when they lose, it's the coach (and his bad call) that gets the blame.

When watching a game on TV, note how often commentators will say, when a team is stopped with on 4th-and-1 at mid-field, "Well, now they must kick." No they mussant. If they want to win the game and don't really care who coaches the team, they will go for it!

I am reminded of this in thinking about the financial rescue/bailout bill before Congress. It is easy to understand what is going on in Washington when you realize that congressmen don't really have the citizen's interests at heart. Their overriding interest is getting re-elected, despite what that might mean for the country's citizens.

What to do about this? I don't know. If I did, I'd probably be coaching football somewhere. But at least I understand a little better what's going on in Washington.

And Tommy, don't punt so much.

Sarah Palin Makes Huge Mistake in Debate

I watched the VP debate last night expecting Sarah Palin to make some huge foreign policy mistake. Sure enough, about 20-min in, she said this: "When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said, 'Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.' Now what’s happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.” [Emphasis added.]

What on Earth is she talking about? The United States and France may have kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon in an alternate universe, but nothing even remotely like that ever happened in this one.

Nobody – nobody – has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Not the United States. Nor France. Not Israel. And not the Lebanese. Nobody.

Sarah Palin has literally no idea what she’s talking about.

UPDATE: Oops. It was Joe Biden that said that. Sorry, Never mind.

(From Instapundit and Michael Totten.

Physics for Future Presidents

The NYTimes TierneyLab had an interesting article on what everyone, including future presidents, should know about physics. One of the questions was:

1. How does the amount of energy per gram of TNT compare with the energy per gram of a chocolate chip cookie?

(a) The TNT contains about twice as much as much energy.
(b) The TNT contains nearly 10 times more energy.
(c) The TNT contains about 1000 times more energy.
(d) The cookie contains nearly 10 times as much energy.
(e) They contain roughly equal amounts of energy

Since Google and calculators were permitted, I found this site. It refers to this text (pdf) which gives the correct answer (d) on page four. If you don't believe the answer, see the discussion on page 5.

With technology issues becoming more important in our daily lives, shouldn't we all wnt to know more about the basic science behindf our everyday lives? Prof. Mueller's course sounds fascinating. I think I'll watch some of his web-casts.

For Antiques Lovers

Are you interested in high-end antique furniture? Maybe not so much now.

The cost, Mr. Buggins said, was about $55,000. The asking price was 365,000 pounds ($736,000 at the time), a retail markup of more than 1,000 percent, although Mr. Smith managed to pay $450,000.

Different Minds, Same Result

My sister and I have very different political perspectives. Though registered as Unaffiliated, she's quite left-of-center. I'm strongly Republican. She chose to vote in today's Democrat primary. Oddly, we both voted for the same option on the ballot: No Preference.

I'd bet a lot of folks made the same choices today for the same reasons.

Don't Sing Happy Birthday

In a convergance of two blogsites, the Blogfather points out a birthday, and the Volokh Conspiracy explains why you might not want to sing your greetings.

Good Sports, Bad Sports

Tonight the NBC Nightly News had a heartwarming story of good sportsmanship. I couldn't find the NBC story on-line, but here is an ESPN account of the game. In a critical league softball game between Western Oregon University and Central Washington University, Sara Tucholsky, a Western Oregon player (who had been hitting .088) hit a home run with two runners on base in the top of the second inning. As she rounded first base, she stumbled, tore ligaments in her knee and collapsed in pain, unable to continue. By the time anyone realized something was wrong, the two runners had crossed the plate and Sara was the only WOU player still on the field of play. Umpires ruled (incorrectly as it turned out) that if Sara could make it back to first base the team could substitute for her and she would be credited with a two-run single, but if a WOU coach, trainer or player touched her before she got to the base, she would be called out.

As WOU coach Pam Knox was preparing to make the substitution that would wipe out the home run but save the two runs, Mallory Holtman, one of the CWU players and a star of the team, asked if she could help Sara. Umpires agreed she could, so Mallory and other CWU players carried Sara around to touch all the bases and complete her home run.

How was Mallory rewarded for her good sportsmanship--did her team come back to win? Read the ESPN account to find out how the game turned out.

This contrasts to a game that took place much closer to here. Read the account of a different approach to sportsmanship here.

Some people seem to believe that any actions are justified in order to win a game, and some people don't. Mallory Holtman has her idea of sportsmanship and Duke Coach Sean McNally has his.

Worst Case Scenario

Here is another case for the Worst Case Scenario folks. Who'da thunk you could send an innocent text message to your wife and you end up a suicide in jail.

"She showed the message to her father, who angrily called Ramazan and accused him of calling his daughter a prostitute. Ramazan went to his wife’s home to apologize, only to be attacked by his wife, her father, and two sisters. He was stabbed in the chest but succeeded in grabbing a knife, stabbing his wife, and getting away. Emine died of her wounds; Ramazan killed himself in jail.

Texting can be dangerous.

A Different Vantage Point

The movie Vantage Point is about an assassination plot on the President of the United States told from the viewpoint of a number of different characters. The action takes place in Salamanca, Spain. I visited Salamanca 25 years ago and spent several hours visiting the old university town and its magnificent Plaza Mayor.

My travelling companion and I stopped and enjoyed a "cold one" at one of the may cafes around the plaza and took several photos of the picturesque site.

What makes this a different "vantage point" is that these pictures show how I remember the Plaza mayor--as a very large open space. This last picture was taken with a very wide-angle lens (21-mm) and thus distorting relative sizes. This is quite evident when you see the actual plaza in the movie. It wasn't nearly as large in the movie as I remember it. I guess it is a matter of vantage point.

March Madness

Tennessee over Wisconsin, UCLA over Texas, then UCLA over Tennessee. You can't win the pool being safe.

Clemson Wins ACC Championship!

There is no reason to play the ACC championship game this afternoon. Clemson should be declared the champion. After all, in the first meeting between the two teams (the primary) Clemson was ahead 50.3% to 49.6% with one second left in the game. In the second meeting (the caucus) Clemson was ahead 55% to 45% with seven minutes left in the game. Why play a third game? We should forget about all this internecine squabbling, declare Clemson champion, and get on to the Big Dance.

Stamey's Gets Some Blog Attention

Al Dente blog liked it. I agree that Stamey's is very good, the second best in town. (from the blogfather)

Nightmare Headline!

Could it get worse?

More Global Warming Doubts

Rand Simberg points to more fodder for Global Warming skeptics.

Miklós Zágoni isn't just a physicist and environmental researcher. He is also a global warming activist and Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol. Or was.

That was until he learned the details of a new theory of the greenhouse effect, one that not only gave far more accurate climate predictions here on Earth, but Mars too. The theory was developed by another Hungarian scientist, Ferenc Miskolczi, an atmospheric physicist with 30 years of experience and a former researcher with NASA's Langley Research Center.

He also points out good reasons to be skeptical of this and similar stories as well.

Rove's Humor

Thanks to a post from Sue Polinsky about a speech Karl Rove gave at the U of Iowa, we see Karl's sense of humor:

Radio Iowa also reports one audience member told Rove that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named him the "worst person ever."

"Ever?" Rove joked. "Yea, worse than Hitler, worse than Stalin, worse than Mao and worse than the person who introduced aluminum baseball bats.

You got to love that.

Car Lust

I enjoy the Car Lust blog so nuch I put it on my check-every-day list. With their call for open entries on favorite cars, I hereby propose my favorite. I'll eschew my Corvettes and go with my most fondly-remembered car.

When I was finishing college, My mother promised me a new car for a graduation present. I lusted for a Corvair Monza Spyder. My mother's uncles owned the Studebaker dealership in town so we had always had Studebakers. She was at the dealership one day and mentioned to one or the salesmen that I wanted a Monza. He told her he was taking a year-old Studebaker GT Hawk in on trade for a new Avanti and I might be interested in that car. I went by to see it when it came in, and it was love at first sight.

(Side note: The dealership also handled Mercedes-Benz. When I went to see the Hawk, they had a 1955 SL300 gullwing Mercedes on the floor as well. The Monza would have cost $2,500 or so, and the Hawk was about the same. The Mercedes was, as I recall, $5,500 but it might as well have been a million since it was way out of our budget. Some years later gullwing coupes were worth $500,000 or more. Another lost opportunity.)

I drove the Hawk for four years. Things began to go bad on it that were difficult to get fixed since Studebaker had left the car business in 1966. The last summer I owned the car, 1967, the windshield wipers didn't work, and it was only because that was the driest summer in years in Maryland that not having wipers wasn't a critical problem.

In late summer of '67 I bought a new Plymouth Belvedere and sold the Hawk to another lieutenant at Aberdeen Proving Ground, for $500. He was moving to Colorado, and a week or so after he left I got a letter from him. I was expecting the worst, but he was a happy camper. He had taken the car in for service when he got to CO and had been offered $1,200 for it on the spot. He was thrilled, and I was happy to have had my Hawk "fix".

The above photo was taken at Rehobeth Beach DE and includes my first wife Ann, our friends the Bianchi's, and Punkin the dachshund.

I've owned a number of interesting cars: two Corvettes, A BMW, a Lotus, a Jaguar, and several Mercedes, but the Hawk is my all-time favorite.

Scary News

I don't usually write about politics, so classify this as a "management" post. The News & Record had a very scary line hidden in this article this morning:

"But on Thursday, Matheny said a motion might not be necessary. City Manager Mitchell Johnson was moving faster than expected on finding Miles' replacement, he said."

Why scary?, because the intimation that the search for a city attorney was being conducted entirely by the City Manager, without input from other sources.

One of the things I learned early in my management career was the power that groups have to make better decisions than individuals make. In an executive development program, I was exposed to the "Crash in the Desert" exercise in decision making. This article outlines my experience perfectly. They write: (emphasis added)

"We played the "Desert Survival" game where the challenge was to decide how to best survive an airplane crash in the desert. Each person had to rank 10 items in order of their importance to survival and decide whether to stay with the plane or try to walk for help. After each person made his or her decisions, we were put into small groups to make the same decisions as a group." "What amazed me was the outcome ... ALL of the groups scored higher than the highest scoring individual.

My boss was an ex-military guy who was quite confident about his survival skills. Even he did not do as well as the groups.

Mitchell Johnson is undoubtedly a smart person, but that doesn't mean he will make the best decision in this case. I think the city has suffered from other decisions that were made by one or two people without input from a broader point of view. (I'm thinking of David Wray's dismissal.) I hope the City Council and Mitch Johnson will realize that a group of people will almost always make a better decision than one individual will and will convene a group to help with the selection of a new city attorney.

National Championship Team?

Youngstown State, Akron, Northwestern, Washington, Minnesota, Purdue, Kent State, Michigan State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan. These are the teams Ohio State's football team beat this season. Only one (Purdue at #20) was ranked in the top 20 polls when they played OSU. Is this really the schedule of a potential National Champion? I don't think so.

The Greatest Car Commercial

The Blogfather has recently made several references to car commercials (here and here). As to car commercials, I'd nominate this one as the greatest of all times. OK, its not your run-of-the-mill ad. It was an LP record (you remember those, the round flat things with the groove on each side.)

I remember listening to this in a fraternity brother's dorm room at Clemson 1962, and from that point on, I lusted for a Corvette. I subsequently owned two, a '73 and an '84 and loved both of them. I wish I had a new one now! So I don't know about from an artistic standpoint, but from the point of commercial success, this ad did pretty well.

There is more about Arkus-Duntov, the Father of the Corvette, here.

Bored?

Need a little excitement in your life? You might want to try this job.

(Particularly check out about the 2-minute mark.) "There's only three things I've ever been afraid of: electricity, heights, and women, . . ."

Thanks, City

My driveway goes into Henderson Road, which is not curb-and-guttered along my yard. About every ten years or so, the junction of the driveway and the street gets washed out and a ledge of several inches develops at the street pavement. I thought I'd see if the city could do anything to help the situation, so I called to inquire. I got out the trusty Blue Pages in the phone book and under the city listing was a number for Shoulder Maintenance, which sounded like it might be the right place to start.

I called, and after listening thru several minutes of recorded messages, I got to talk to a live person. After explaining my problem, the lady said she'd have a supervisor come by and look at the situation to see what could be done. She said the supervisor would call me with a report.

Within an hour, a gentleman called to say he'd looked at the driveway, and he could authorize a truck to come by and put some gravel in the low spots, filling-in a couple of feet from the street, if that would be satisfactory. He said if I wanted concrete apron or curb/gutter work, that was above his authority. The gravel was just fine I said, and I thanked him for his quick response.

Before long, there was a dump truck in my driveway dumping gravel and a crew smoothing it out. They did a very nice job and quietly left.

It took less than two hours from first phone call to completion. Thanks for a job done promptly and well.

Here is what the repair looks like.

Remembering Friends Lost

Ed Cone remembers the 25th Anniversary of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington. Some time ago I came across the web-site for the Virtual Wall which has a lot of info about men who were killed in Vietnam.

I often recall two friends who were killed there. Tommy Rose was from Greensboro and we were friends from church and scouting. That's Tommy on the left.

Robert Walden was a friend and fellow menber of the Pershing Rifles drill team at Clemson.

I think of them both often, and we should honor their sacrifice for our country.

Second Chances

I believe in second chances. I am personally glad that people get them. Yesterday, while following some links on the Beauchamp/TNR story I came across a phrase, "flat ass rules", that was new to me: I googled it and found this document which contains the lines:

3. Leadership
Understand the difference between a mistake and a breakdown in discipline. Identify, correct, and lead through mistakes. Utilize every ounce of your leadership to stamp out discipline lapses. I neither expect nor demand unending perfection. Perfection is attainable, but only for select periods. I do demand consistent
excellence and a dedicated commitment to improving the readiness of our Squadron.

I like that line "Identify, correct, and lead through mistakes." I don't fully understand the phrase "breakdown of discipline", but if I translate it to mean failure to follow proper procedures, this makes a lot of sense.

Today Michael Yon has posted a great essay on second chances.

All this reminded me of our current city management/police department situation. I've come to believe that Mitch Johnson needs to go as city manager, but maybe council candidate Bill Knight has a better idea. Bill has suggested finding some other spot in city government for Johnson, and I first thought this was just a way to avoid firing him.

On second thought, maybe it is the best way. Mitch has many supporters who believe he is a talented and valuable manager. He made a serious mistake in the way he handled the Wray situation, but perhaps he deserves a second chance. I could support giving him a choice of moving to some other open job with the city and letting him earn a second chance.

We need to find a solution to this mess, and I think Bill's suggestion has some merit.

Come on Guys, You Can Do Better

Ann Althouse linked to this article. It is a fascinating story, but I was struck by the following, "Ms. Gibson will receive the promised $15,000 reward from the seller, as well as a smaller finder’s fee from Sotheby’s, which the auction house declined to disclose." Let's see, doesn't the auction house get a 20% commission. That's $200,000 if the painting in fact sells for a million dollars. Surely Sotheby's can pony up more than a piddling couple of thou. In this case, I think they should split the commission more nearly 50:50.

ConvergeSouth

I attended the ConvergeSouth conference this past week-end and really enjoyed it. Though I don't blog much, as you can see, I wanted to learn more about blogging, and the registration fee was right. I did learn a lot, saw some old friends, and met several bloggers whose work I read and admire. You all know who you are.

I've been critical of the political slant of the conference (here, here, and here among others) but otherwise I thought the organizers did a great job of putting on the event. As volunteers, they have my appreciation, and I'll do what I can to help in the future.

This morning, I stumbled on the ConvergeSouth Flickr site and was reminded of one of the best pieces of photographic advice I've ever gotten: If you want to improve your photography, don't show all your pictures. I just couldn't look thru 500 photos to find any that interested me.

A Modest Proposal

I didn't get to the Wyndham Championship (nee: GGO) this year, but the News & Record says it was a success ("Sunday's gripping final round transformed it into an artistic success"). If this is so, I have a modest proposal to improve the tournament next year: cut the purse from $5,000,000 to $1,000.000. Will fewer golfers enter? No, the field will still be full. Will the field be weaker? I don't think so. Where else are they going to play that week, a half-million dollar Nationwide Tour event? They will still enter for the chance to win a tour exemption and money on the overall prize list. And we can put $4 million back into the community!

OK, just so we won't appear selfish and short-sighted, I propose we add to the total purse if we attract a better field: say increase the total purse by$1 million if Tiger enters, add $100,000 for each entrant from 2-10 on the World Golf rankings, and maybe $20,000 more for golfers 11-50 on the world list. This year we had one top-50 golfer in the field.

I think this way we'd either have a lot stronger field at next years's event or we'd have a lot more money to do some good things around the city.

What Drought?

Some folks don't have to worry about watering restrictions, at least for now.

What If Elvis Had Never Been Born?

The Blogfather cites this interesting article about Elvis on the 30th anniversary of Elvis's death.

"Today Elvis is an industry. For 35,000 Elvis impersonators around the world he's a livelihood, to the city of Memphis he's a huge tourist attraction - his home, Graceland, being the second most visited house in America after the White House. And to others, he's a semi-mythical creature at the head of some weird devotional Elvis religion."

As they say, "Read the whole thing."

Joke of the Day

James Lileks recognized today as National Tell-a-Joke-Day and asked his readers to submit their favorites. A number of folks did, with varying degrees of humor. One, however was good enough to make my Joke of the day.

A young farm lad goes off to college, but about 1/3 of the way through the semester, he has foolishly squandered away all of the money his parents gave him.
Then he gets an idea. He calls his daddy. "Dad," he says, "you won't believe the wonders that modern education is coming up with! Why, they actually have a program here at Auburn that will teach our dog Ole Blue how to talk!"
"That's absolutely amazing," his father says. "How do I get him in that program?" "Just send him down here with $1,000" the boy says. "I'll get him into the course." So, his father sends the dog and the $1,000.
About 2/3 way through the semester, the money runs out. The boy calls his father again.
"So how's Ole Blue doing, son," his father asks."Awesome, Dad, he's talking up a storm," he says, "but you just won't believe this--they've had such good results with this program that they've implemented a new one to teach the animals how to READ!"
"READ," says his father, "No kidding! What do I have to do to get him in that program?"
Just send $2,500, I'll get him in the class." His father sends the money.
The boy now has a problem. At the end of the year, his father will find out that the dog can neither talk, nor read. So he shoots the dog.
When he gets home at the end of the semester, his father is all excited. "Where's Ole Blue? I just can't wait to see him talk and read something!"
"Dad," the boy says, "I have some grim news. Yesterday morning, just before we left to drive home, Ole Blue was in the living room kicked back in the recliner, reading the Wall Street Journal, like he usually does. Then he turned to me and asked, 'So, is your daddy still messin' around with that little redhead who lives in town?'
The father says, "I hope you SHOT that son of a bitch before he talks to your Mother!"
"I sure did, Dad!"
"That's my boy!"

Who knew?

Zombies?

Justice?

Let's see. Two young men, each prominent in his community, are involved in traffic accidents involving alcohol and resulting in the death of another young person. One gets two years in the pokey, the other gets, what, . . . I forget. This week-end's exercise is to compare and contrast the cases of Tolly Carr and Ted Kennedy.

That's Captain Poirier to you!

I wrote about the Wake Forest Law School student who won a recent case before the US Court of Appeals. The National Law Journal has more on the story.

"Meghan Poirier, 28, a West Point graduate and now a captain in the U.S. Army who is about to begin training in the Judge Advocate General corps, handled the appeal of John D. Mooney as part of an appellate clinic at Wake Forest University School of Law. She argued the appeal just two days after graduation in May, according to John Korzen, law professor in appellate writing who directed the clinic at Wake Forest, which is in Winston-Salem, N.C. [Case details snipped.]

Korzen said of Poirier, "She did it all. She did the research and drafting of the briefs. We had three or four practice rounds of oral argument."

Poirier called the 4th Circuit argument an "opportunity that comes along once in a lifetime."

Poirier spent three years serving in the military police in Germany before returning to law school at Wake Forest on an Army scholarship. She said she finished her bar exam last week and will know in a few months if she passed.

Meanwhile, she begins three years with the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell this month."

You go girl!

65 Years!

I celebrated my 65th birthday last week, and I posted some pictures showing how I've aged. I really don't think there has been much change, do you? All the photos are here, with only a few years missing.

Who was the Lawyer?

A post on the Volokh Conspiracy led to the court decision on an interesting case before the Fourth Circuit US Court of Appeals, argued (and won) by a third-year Wake Forest Law School student.

Best I can figure, the facts are as follows: A felon disarms his drunk wife (who had threatened to shoot him) and takes the gun directly to his work place, intending to turn it over to the police. When he gets there, the police are waiting and arrest him for having the gun in his possession. He pleads guilty after his lawyer tells him there is no "justification defense" and is sentenced to 15 years in the pokey. (OK, this is a very brief summary of the case.)

After reading some of the decision and the comments on the original blog posts, I wonder why the original prosecutor felt it necessary to prosecute this case in the first place. It seems such a travesty of justice. The poor guy did four years for trying to do the right thing, primarily because he got rotten legal advice. The prosecutor gets off the hook but also so does the defense attorney. Shouldn't at least his name be published to protect other citizens?

Call Homeland Security

After the sink-hole event on Wendover this week, I'm prepared to agree with James Lileks on the source of these things. "I still think these are the result of the Mole People probing our defenses."

More Law Enforcement Trouble

According to a link from James Lileks wonderful Buzz.mn blog (scroll down a little to the Scott Joplin entry if necessary), it looks like Greensboro isn't the only law enforcemeny organization with questionable members needing investigation. I wonder how long the chief/sheriff will last there?

More Photoshop Magic

Michelle Malkin posted this photo of the slums of Baghdad:



It would have been greatly improved by a quick trip to Photoshop and the application of the Highlight Shadow Adjustment:

Follow-up on Photoshop

Powerline did get a corrected version of the Kerry mess hall photo. Theirs was even better than mine, but then I'm not much of a color corrector. I have had a lot of experience in trying to improve these "available darkness " shots like this one, though.
Theirs:


















Mine:

Gerald Ford

On the passing of former president Ford, I offer this photo. Just six years out of office, he came to Durham to participate in the 1982 Duke Childrens Classic. Pictured here with some other golfer and one of Perry Como's show business friends, I remember being struck then by the unobtrusive security around th ex-president--just a few guys in casual dress with "hearing aids".

Ain't Photoshop Something

Powerline used this photo of John Kerry to make a point.

They could have applied a little fundamental color correction in Photoshop and made the point much better.



One of the remarkable things about digital photos is how much detail is hidden in the shadows.
You can find my favorite color correction text here.

Waiting for Santa

Other blogs have posted old Christmas photos, so I thought I'd join in.

One of my Favorite Night-Before-Christmas's was in 1969. Our dachshund "Punkin" had just had a litter of puppies, so we included them in the wait for Santa.

Here is a picture of my first wife with some of the puppies:

Nachos

This is a little early, but next Saturday is the International Day of the Nacho, so looking at the origin of the word is appropriate.

The Worst Word in the English Language

I was actually going to write the word "******" for the title of this post, but I couldn't do it. I guess that makes "******" the worst word in the English lanaguage. I don''t believe that word should be used as an epithet, but I do think it has other uses and shouldn't be absolutely banned.

Language Log

I bookmarked Language Log some time ago, but I haven't checked it often. After yesterday's entry, I think I'll look in more often. It is the most interesting commentary I've seen on the Mel Gibson affair.

The Fourth of July

If you haven't sung the National Anthem today, sing along with this one.

Words of the Day

With Dictionaries.com, it is now easy to translate what Peggy Noonan meant when she used "termagant" and "phenomenological" to describe Hillery Clinton. That makes these the Words of the Day.

Amazing Street Painter

I've always liked the work of street artists. Here are photos of one in Barcelona and others in San Diego.



For a truly amazing street painter, look at this!

Today's Sports Quiz

Who are DeSagana Diop, Udonis Haslem, Antoine Walker, Adrian Griffin, and Jason Terry?

A. Reserves for the Edmonton Oilers Stanley Cup hockey team.
B. Members of the USA World Cup Soccer team.
C. Starters in the NBA finals.

I would guess "B" and be wrong. The correct answer here.

Favorite Irish Joke

In recognition of St. Patrick's Day, here is my favorite Irish joke. Some twenty-five years ago it was named one of the Ten Best Clean Jokes of that year.

The CIA has lost contact with one of its operatives in Ireland, so it sends another spy to try to locate the man. All the new guy knows is that the operative's name is Murphy and the password phrase is "It's a beautiful day today" and the response is "and it will be a beautiful day tomorrow".

The new man flies to Shannon airport, rents a car, and heads out hunting for Murphy. He stops at the first village he comes to, goes into a pub, and tells the pubkeeper he's looking for a man named Murphy. The pubkeeper tells him, "Well, there's Murphy the pharmacist, there's Murphy the plumber, even I myself am a Murphy." The CIA guy thanks him, and as he is leaving says, "It's a beautiful day today."

The Pubkeeper replies, "Oh, it's Murphy the spy you'll be looking for then."

Interesting New Tool

This is a couple of weeks early, but I saw this tool on the internet and thought others might like to get one. It is certainly versatile.

Nychthemeron

The word of the day is "Nychthemeron". I've never heard of it before.

Old Family Photos

If you want to see some old family photos, check out these, and here, too. They are among the oldest color photos in the world--only a hundred or so years old.

Smile of the day

An Expert Slips

The right side of Blogostan has been atwitter this week about a photo in the New York Times that mis-identified a piece of ordnance in Pakistan. Powerline cited it, and the American Thinker has gotten in a pissing contest with the Times I over it. They report:

"Ned Barnett is an expert on military technology, and frequently serves as a contributor to The History Channel on mil-tech issues. He has plenty of experience researching military ordnance.

"He told me: “Based on my extensive experience in researching military technology, I can verify that this is a 152mm or 155mm artillery shell – unfired – and by the looks of it, fairly old. It also looks like it has a fuse in it, suggesting that the guys in the photo are either ditch-water dumb or have a death-wish."

He has missed the boat on the "unfired" part. The shell has obviously been fired. Note the grooves on the rotating band near the base of the shell The rotating band engages the rifiling grooves in the gun barrel and cause the shell to rotate during flight. If unfired, there would be no grooves on the shell's rotating band.

Does This Make Sense to You?

Michael Feldman's What Do You Know quiz referenced this USA Today Survey that makes absolutely no sense to me. In case the link doesn't work, the survey says "More than nine in 10 investors say they would chose a financial services company with strong ethics; only 5% prefer higher returns." Surely something is missing somewhere.

I am reminded of a comment on Wall Street Week many years ago. Someone had inquired about a "socially conscious mutual fund that would return 20% annually". One of the regular panelists (Eddie Brown, I think) observed with a wry smile that he'd deal with the Devil for a 20% return. I can't imagine 1% of investors being primarily concerned about Ethics, much less 92%

Scott McBride

I haven't written much about my (former) step-son Scott McBride. But on his recent return from a year-long business trip in Baghdad, I thought I'd give him some pixels on SawdustForBrains.


Scott & Brenda in 1989

When Brenda and I got married in 1990. I hardly knew Scott. He had lived with his father when Brenda's first marriage broke up, so I had only seen him only on rare occasions when her family got together. Scott graduated from Elon in 1990 and couldn't find a job he really wanted. In early 1991 he enlisted in the Army because it would give him a leg-up on the state wildlife service job he really wanted.

Scott at Induction


Scott went into the infantry, and Brenda and I (and Scott's sister Heather) went to Ft. Benning to his basic training graduation, as much as any other reason, I admit, so I could revisit my ROTC Summer Camp experience from thirty years earlier. It was eye-opening to see the Army of the 90's compared to the army of the 60's that I knew. There were two big differences: 1.) Scott's basic training company was mostly white— only a couple of "brothers" out of 150 soldiers, and 2.) Everyone wanted to be there. All the time I was in the army between starting basic ROTC in 1960 until I mustered out as a lieutenant in 1968, if they had said I could go home, I'd be gone. But Scott's fellow soldiers all wanted to be there and looked forward to their army service.

Scott was assigned to the 10th (Mountain) Infantry Division (this was Audie Murphy's and Bob Dole's unit in WW2) and moved to Fort Drum outside Watertown, NY. In October, 1991, his unit (2nd Btn, 22nd Infantry regiment ("the Triple Deuce") was sent to Somalia to replace another10th Mountain unit that had been in the middle of the middle of the Battle of Mogadishu that was the subject of the book (and movie) Blackhawk Down.

Scott spent 6 months in Somalia but has never talked much about his experiences there. He also had a short stay in Haiti in 1994 when the 10th Mtn was sent there. In 1995 he moved from the infantry to Armored Cavalry and he and his family moved to Ft. Carson CO. There, he realized what he really wanted to do in the army was fly helicopters. At first he wasn't selected for Warrant Officer Candidate School, a pre-requisite for helicopter school, and was sent to Germany for a short assignment, but in early 1995 went to Ft. Rucker in Alabama, first for Warrant Officer School and then for two years of helicopter school.


Warrant Officer McBride

He almost didn't make it out of WO school, when he was discovered to have "contraband" in his locker (a tin of snuff), but an NCO on the school staff stood up for Scott when he was honest and admitted his error, and scott was only held back one class rather than being dismissed from the school.


Pilot McBride
After a year of basic flight school, Scott chose to fly AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and spent another year at Ft. Rucker learning Apaches. He then spent a year in Korea, after which he was assigned to the 229th Attack Helicoptor Regiment at Ft. Bragg, and we got to see a lot more of him. After about six months in Fayetteville, his unit was sent to Afghanistan



He spent six months there in the fall of 2001 and returned to the US just before Christmas. His unit was transferred to the Third Infantry Division and he went to Iraq with that unit in late 2004.

He has just returned to Ft. Bragg from Iraq and he will be there with his new wife Heather ("the other Heather") until summer when he will probably be moving to Ft. Gordon (Savannah, GA) and rejoin the rest of the 3rdID.

I haven't seen much of Scott since Brenda decided she didn't want to be married in 2003, but I'm proud of him, as we should all be of the dedicated folks who protect us from "the bad guys", and it's good to have him back in the western hemisphere.

Not Guilty again

As previously reported, I had nothing to do with this.
I don't know nothing about this either.

Today's "Easy" Question

What is Rudyard Kipling's first name?

OK, it's not up there with "Who is buried in Grant's Tomb", but if you subscribed to the Writer's Almanac, you'd know.

The word of the day is Steganography

I didn't know about this. It is very interesting. It sort of came up in this article. See this quote from today's WSJ Best of the web:

Does Zarqawi Take Shorthand? "Here's an amusing goof from the Associated Press: "Terrorists also have made only infrequent use of stenography, the practice of hiding a text message in another kind of file, typically a picture."Actually, stenography, also known as shorthand, is a method of taking notes. The AP meant "Steganography"

The Big Game

In today's Wall Street Journal there is an article about big football rivalries around the country, but they completely miss the biggest (at least in South Carolina): the South Carolina/Clemson game.

Folks not in SC find it hard to imagine how everyone in the Palmetto state must chose one or the other of these two schools--there is no waffling. Regardless of what team one may normally root for, everyone in the state must choose the Tigers or the Gamecocks for this game.

My personal experience with The Game goes back to 1960, the first year The Game began its home-and-home run between Clemson and Columbia after being played on Thursday of State Fair Week for years. I was a freshman at Clemson that year.





It had been traditional at Clemson for all freshman men ("Rats") to have their heads shaved and be required to wear a beanie ("rat hat") until the Big Thursday Game and on until Thanksgiving if Clemson lost to Carolina. There was some controversy that fall since the game had ben moved from mid October to the end of November but since Clemson won that day, it aas the end of rat hats that year.

Another interesting custom was that on the Friday night before the Big Game, all Rats painted their faces and went out to "guard" the campus, protecting it from USC vandals. Here is a typical group.


My second Clemson/USC game, my sophmore year, had several interesting highlights. I was in the Clemson precision drill team, the Pershing Rifles, and we pereformed on the field just prior to the game.



As we were waiting to begin our performance, a USC fraternity came out on the field and did a warm-up routine making considerable fun of the folks from the cow college.



We got in our fun as well. As the drill team was marching into the stadium, one of our members, Bill Miller, the Rear Guide (and shortest man on the team) picked up a dead rooster from a Clemson fan and tied it to his side during the performance. For our Finale, we formed in two facing lines and fired a salute, and just as the salute was fired, Bill tossed the rooster high between the two lines, and it loooked for all the world like that that chicken had been plugged by32 M-1 rounds!

I don't know how reliable the linked account is, butI clearly recall that the game ended with Clemson inside the USC 10 and threatening to score the winning touchdown but losing 21-14. This was followed by a number of fights both on the field and in the stands, and I was happy we still had our drill rifles with us.

Just Wondering . . .

James Taranto, in his Best of the Web column today, links to this article in the NYTimes. I don't know much about the NY mayoral election and I care even less, but I wonder whether the NY Times reporter didn't know about the David Kaczynski connection, or whether he/she thought it wasn't relevent to their story. The first seems inept and the second misleading. At least no one asked what the Unabomber and Miss West Virginia have in common.

The Death of Photography

OK, maybe it isn't the end of photography as we know it, but we are getting closer to the end of old family photos. Instapundit cited some old family pictures last week. This made me glad my father had been a photographer, and particularly glad he had "splurged" on taking color slides instead of black & white prints. Here are some pre-WWII photos he took that look almost as good today as they did when they were taken more than 60 years ago.

This is one of the earliest photos he took (well, I guess someone else took it since there was no self-timer on his Kodak Retina camera). I think it was made in 1939 at a beach in the Florida panhandle. The slide is so sharp that you can almost read the grafitti on the post next to them.


This 1940 photo is of my mother, pregnant with my older sister (who is now my younger sister).

My father's camera would be laughable today--a 35-mm folding model sort of like a current point-and-shoot camera, except no auto-focus, no auto-exposure, no auto-loading, even no flash. Indoor photos were time exposures (and with an f/3.5 lens and ASA 10 Kodachrome, they must have been pretty long exposures). Here are two Christmas morning scenes, after Santa came but before the kids got up. The first is 1947 and the second is 1949. The third photo shows what that room looked like in 2004.


So, you ask, what does this have to do with the Death of Old Pictures? It's just that the current boom in photography is all in digital photos. These are easy to take and easy to distribute via e-mail or sharing on the web, but they are very "fragile" as far as keeping for years and years is concerned. Sure, the CD's or DVD's on which they are archived may still exist, but what are the chances that machines will exist to read them. Digital photos from 25-years ago were stored on magnetic tape. Most have been lost because tape-readers no longer exist.

I hope if you take digital family photos, you will take seriously the issue keeping them alive so folks can enjoy them in 50 years.

Today's Pop Quiz

What percentage of US Army troops are presently deployed in Iraq?
A. 5% B. 10% C. 25% D. 40%

I'd have missed it.