If text messages help remind people to vote, maybe blog posts do as well! So, go vote! Polls close at 7pm in Virginia and 8pm in New Jersey.
My predictions
Yesterday I came home from Kol Nidre (Yom Kippur) services, and found Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture” entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” It’s similar to Tuesdays with Maurie except with a computer science professor. Martian mentioned this lecture on her blog the other day, and as she is a former student of his, she has much more insightful things to say about Prof. Pausch. I can only simply recommend the lecture as a great way to finish up a day of reflection.
Also, today was the first Yom Kippur ever (I think) in which I didn’t take a nap in the afternoon. Instead, I worked on a math problem while watching the women’s world cup (TiVo’d) and Shaun of the Dead. The math problem is this: imagine you have a grid of 2×2 squares. You drop a 2-inch needle on the grid. What is the probability that the needle does not cross a line of your grid? Good luck! I think I have the solution (a computer simulation resulted in the same probability), but I haven’t been able to verify it.
20 minutes left — almost time to eat!
Shana Tovah to all my Jewish friends! I just got back from Princeton services, where I met the new crop of Jewish grad students. I’m now officially “President” of the Princeton Jewish grad students org (whatever that entails), so I attempted to be as welcoming as possible. We’ll see how many come back!
In other news, the text messaging project that Dale and I conducted in 2006 is getting some press. The final results indicate that text message reminders help drive newly-registered voters to the polls. The Tribune’s Swamp and the Times’ Caucus Blog both devoted a post to the project.
After a joint birthday party with Kevin last night, I received some unexpected birthday presents today. First, Gonzales resigned! As others have noted, I guess he was just waiting for the Daily Show to go on vacation. In other news that I’m sure TDS is kicking themselves for not being on the air to cover, Sen. Craig (who voted for DOMA and a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage) was caught soliciting an undercover cop for sex in a men’s airport bathroom. So that’s another open seat in 2008.
On the tech front, Kinoma updated their software, and I can now listen to streaming radio on my treo. This feature would have come in handy on my road trip last weekend, as I lost the signal to Wait Wait about halfway through Maryland. Thankfully I found another station after a few minutes, but from now on I can listen to any NPR station whereever. Radio streaming will also be extremely helpful for listening to DC United games away from the computer!
And lastly, Camp Wigwam was featured on the CBS evening news for the post-regular-season “Camp to Belong” program that my uncle runs. In this program, foster siblings from Maine who are separated get to spent some time together. CBS focused more on the founder of the program (a 19-year-old former foster kid) rather than Wigwam, but it was still cool. I TiVo’d it and will try to put the video up on the blog.
So lots of cool stuff happened today, not the least of which was me turning 27!
Today the DNC punished Florida for moving up their primary past the agreed upon date (from Feb 5th to Jan. 29th) by stripping Florida of all of their delegates. I wholeheartedly agree with this move, especially the 30-day grace period. If, as Sen. Nelson ironically stated yesterday, “cooler heads prevail” within the next month and Florida moves their primary back to Feb. 5, then all will be forgiven/forgotten.
I have further two suggestions for the DNC. First, it’s my understanding that it will cost FL Dems a pretty penny to hold a primary or caucus on a different date than the Republicans (who might keep the earlier date). The DNC should chip in for the costs, perhaps lending a helping hand in a discrete way that does not create an “open season” on DNC funds. Second, if Florida remains obstinate, then the DNC should grant Florida exactly one delegate. If push does come to shove, and come August 2008 Florida still has not reached accord with the national party, then at least Florida will be represented and the cameras can show at least one Floridian. But more interestingly, I would love to see the internal battle over the one delegate slot. Who would get it? The Chairman of the FL Dems? Sen. Nelson? That infighting would be sweet justice for a bunch of whining rule-breakers.
When was the last time I went two weeks between blogs? Sorry about that. My excuses are that I’m actually being productive on my dissertation and Facebook Scrabble. (I was totally addicted to that game last week, but the fun is starting to wear off.)
The big news is that I visited Camp Wigwam (pics), my old summer home (which my Uncle Bob actually owns), a few weeks ago. I arrived just in time for the end of Color War, which is when they split the camp into teams of about 60 (plus ~7 coaches) for four-days of intense competition. Hard rains had delayed the tug of war until the afternoon, which meant that I actually caught the end of that event. Grey, head-coached by my cousin and my friend Colin, came into the tug leading by about 30 points. But Red took 4 of 5 tugs (each worth 5 points) to make up half the margin. That result meant hat Red would have to also go 4-1 in the final afternoon of sports competition to go into to Song and Cheer night (the final gathering) with a slim lead.
But, before I reveal the result, an aside about the head coach selection. My cousin Jesse and Colin have about 20 years of Wigwam Color War experience between them. They were facing, over on the Red team, a first-time counselor and first-time coach…in essence, zero Color War experience for the head coaches of Red. Considering that when I was the head coach of Grey I had the coaching situation stacked against me (perhaps rightly so, as I did have a lot of Wigwam coaching experience), I thought this matchup was quite ridiculous. However, I was impressed that although Grey had led this year’s competition throughout, Red was in striking distance come the afternoon.
I referred the Group 1 (i.e., youngest campers) soccer match in the afternoon. This contest was another mismatch, as Red had about 4 really good soccer players (impressive for nine-year-olds) and Grey only had one player that could actually somewhat control where the ball went. It was utter domination: 8-1 in favor of Red — 5 point Red, no points Grey.
So, Red had some momentum, but the other groups did not come through for the novice team. Grey won basketball and tennis, and a win in street hockey would ensure that Grey would win Color War comfortable. I saw first-hand Jesse’s skill at getting his players to attack with ferocity while not losing control, as Grey showed much more heart than Red on the street hockey court.
In case you missed it, and unless you both subscribe to Fox Soccer Channel and are a women’s soccer fan*, you did, the Washington Freedom (previously of the WUSA) won North America’s premier soccer women’s competition yesterday. They defeated the Atlanta Silverbacks 3-1 in Rochester, NY. In an interesting coincidence, Washington v Atlanta was also the match-up of the last WUSA (the now-defunct professional soccer league) championship in 2003, in which Washington was also victorious.
There is talk of resurrecting the WUSA in 2008. I don’t know that it’s going to happen next spring, but with the continued expansion of soccer specific stadiums (thanks to MLS’s reasonable success), it will definitely happen eventually. When the league does relaunch, I just hope that I’m in/near a city with a team :-). This summer, I was lucky enough to live near a W-league team (NJ Wildcats), and I did attend one of their few home games.
*Alas, I am only the latter.
The softball season ended on Tuesday, with a loss to History (a.k.a., the Revolting Masses). The playoffs were double elimination and we lost the first game since we didn’t have our full compliment of players. With the team back at full strength Monday, we shutout the Commissioner’s team, 7-0. That setup a doubleheader Tuesday. We edged out a win in the first game by a few runs, but three games in two days proved too much for us. (The Masses, who started in the winner’s bracket only had to play one game Tuesday.) I was certainly one of several people on our team who ran out of steam: I posted my first sub-.500 batting performance in the game against the Masses. Oh well, there’s always next year: B’shana Haba’ah!
With respect to people who get paid to play sports, DC United lost another 1-0 game on the road, this time in Superliga action. But, thanks to some luck, they still move through to the semi-finals. They take on the LA Galaxy in a couple weeks. That game won’t be at RFK, but here are some one’s that will be:
Let me know if you want to attend any of those games :)
Update: For you Princeton folk, the annual Eastern Women’s Baseball Tournament is September 3rd in Philly. I went last year and it’s a great time; plus, it’s free!
Despite being in the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania, Ben and I managed to find a B&N that had a midnight celebration, only to find ourselves at the end of an hour-long line! Well, 24 hours later, I had consumed the last installment of Harry Potter. A full-fledged review comes later; below is my initial take and prediction results.
Alright, time for some predictions. I didn’t so so badly last time, let’s see how I do with the final installment. Few of these ideas are my own, I’m just endorsing the one’s I think are correct.
Soon it will be all over. Que triste. What a great run. Of course HP will “only be gone when none are loyal to” the series. Thankfully, and this is one prediction I’m sure of, that will never happen. :-)
They should have had Jewel roast Trump ("These hands are small I know...") https://t.co/IoebdS88nJ Don't worry Delaney, Carrigan, and Bree, @POTUS has your back: https://t.co/R5uxSiNrZL
