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.