The LA Times is running a really good story about Marine Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller (the Marlboro Marine) and Luis Sinco who took the photo in Fallouja.
It is a fascinating story about how war really can tear at the mind.
Hat tip: reddit
Random Rants
107 runners tonight. I ended up making it to the final table and ended up 6th. A pretty good night for me. Very few suckouts given out by me. Luckily.
Work is going to be painful tomorrow, I got a huge amount of work to do.
Goodnight all.
My buddy and I just booked our airfare, hotel, and car for Vegas in December.
We will be arriving on December 8th and leaving on the 11th. I should get in early enough to make the blogger tournament Saturday afternoon.
The hotel ended up being Sahara. I stayed there two trips ago and it is a nice enough place. Then again, I’ll I really want is a bed for 6 or 8 hours a day.
Golf on Monday is a possibility. I’ll know more as we get closer to the trip.
This trip is costing me *less* than my airfare to Atlanta for Thanksgiving.
Now I just need to tell my boss that I need a day or two off. 🙂
My buddy Jason and I are looking to go to Vegas in December. As it turns out it is the Blogger Weekend. If we were to do the trip we would arrive on December 8th and stay until the 10th.
Vegas with Jason is always a trip. He did grad school at UNLV and worked at Binnion’s so he knows his way around.
If I make it into town, I am going to try and play the blogger event Saturday and might hang out with the gang a bit that night.
I’ll post more if I know more. I should know more this weekend because we really need to book our airfare.
It finally happened. The WBC was hit with a $2.9 million compensatory damages award today for protesting a soldier’s funeral in Maryland last year. [Story Here]
These are the same people who threatened to protest the funerals of the Virginia Tech shootings last April. Luckily (and scarily) they were offered free air-time on a national radio show and they canceled their protest.
Although I respect their right to free speech and free protest; hate speech and hate protest deserve no such respect. This is especially true at the funerals of soldiers and the innocent students and professors killed on April 16th of this year.
Hopefully this is the first judgment of many and they will recede into history books and wikipedia as a dark footnote.
I am making an effort this year to be more charitable. But I am generally a cynic, so I have to vet the charities I am considering donating to.
Here is a short list of who I contributed to (so far). Feel free to comment with thoughts or suggestions.
* KUT Radio, Austin’s local NPR affiliate
* Goodwill Austin
* BP MS 150 Bike Tour for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society
* ALS TDI
* Not On Our Watch: Darfur
* V Foundation for Cancer Research
* The Conservation Fund (hat tip: The Five Cent Nickel)
There are some thoughts that donations should not be spread out this way, but I prefer donating to multiple causes with good goals and hopefully quality operations. Sometimes it can be hard to tell. Two lookup methods are The Charity Navigator and The American Institute of Philanthropy.
This is a pretty cool idea. An electric motorcycle capable of 50 mile round trips and a top speed of about 50 miles per hour. It is called the Enertia Bike. It is about perfect for a non-highway commute. Read an MSN article about it that has some pretty cool photos.
Brammo is the same company bring the very cool Ariel Atom to the US. That is another very cool vehicle I am looking at.
The price point on both seems a bit high, but maybe in the next year or two they will get more reasonable. Or there is always the lotto.
I ran across this blog article explaining how the Do Not Call List will expire for the very first people who signed up. When you sign up, it is good for 5 years. I checked mine and am good through June 2008.
You might want to go ahead and check your registration to make sure there is not a lapse. Telemarketers have to check the list every 30 days.
I also setup a Google Calendar event just before mine is about to expire so I can recheck and make sure I am on the list for another 5 years. FYI: I have both my house phone and my cell phone on the list. This is just to make sure I don’t get any un-expected calls if I can avoid it.
Watch the two guys in the background behind the golfer…
http://view.break.com/371832 – Watch more free videos
Props to the The Big Lead.
T. G. I. F.
Time for some beer. And some football. And some Pecan Street Festival. And some very interesting playoff potentials in Major League Baseball.
It isn’t even two weeks after ACL Fest 2007 is in the books that I get the chance to buy $50 tickets for next year. I say chance, because my two entries failed. Oh well. I picked up one ticket for $135 for next year. That is about what I paid this year, but is considered the “early bird” price. I figure I can sell this ticket if I can’t make it for whatever reason. The dates for next year are September 26th to September 28th which is a bit later. Hopefully we will get a bit of the weather we are having right now, basically upper 80s and cool at night. Love me some fall.