Yesterday, I was searching around for the results from the BBQ competition last weekend when I happened across this article about Tennessee students:

http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/education/article/0,2673,MCA_22897_5547147,00.html

I was surprised and dismayed that my newly adopted state performed so poorly with regard to education (not that Oklahoma was particularly great). I thought “at least they are being honest about it.” A local paper actually covering such news is important.

Well, today, I’m searching around for other local news to find out where a rather scary “random” park shooting was, and I came across this article:

http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local/article/0,2845,MCA_25340_5549461,00.html

I thought that those articles were somewhat contradictory.  It’s certainly possible for, say, the best school in the nation to be located in the worst district in the nation, it’s just not likely.  So, I decided to find out a big more about the study mentioned in the article and I found the results posted here:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/challengeindex/

It was good to see exactly what the study was supposed to show.  Well, for one, it’s a “challenge” index and they state pretty clearly that they don’t include magnet schools, or charter schools with high (I’m paraphrasing here) composite ACT and/or SAT scores.  I have plenty authority on the matter to tell you that magnet schools can certainly challenge their pupils.  The mini Commercial Appeal article doesn’t mention this.  They also include a nice disclaimer at the end, so maybe they expect more astute readers to catch them, but I’m sure the schools they mentioned will be touting this as “proof” of the quality education they provide, just as the article implies.

Well, I decided to take a look at the list a bit and see who is where, etc.  Didn’t I just read that they leave out magnet and charter schools?  Then why is the #1 school on the list named Talented and Gifted?  Why is the #2 school named Science/Engineering Magnet?  I start scrolling down the list and find a school I’m a bit more familiar with — Classen School of Advanced Studies.  I know that’s a magnet/charter school.  There are a bunch more just like that.  Something seems a bit fishy to me.  At the minimum, there needs to be some clarification, but I’m wondering if there was some funny business going on here to make somebody look good.

Something really needs to be done about the medical system.  It is simply insane.  A few weeks ago I got sick.  This one really got me.  Late one night I decided I better go to the emergency room.  I was there about 13 hours.  I got 4 liters of IV fluid, lots of needles, a chest x-ray, and a CT scan.  I really was in bad shape.  I haven’t felt that bad in a long time.  Anyway, the bill finally came.  Well, it came in 2 parts, but the total so far is just over $11,000.  I say so far because it seems these things tend to be sent in multiple parts.  Maybe this is it, I just don’t know.  We’ll see how good our health insurance is.

I found this article a couple days after it happened and I just hadn’t gotten around to posting it (buried in a a few hundred open Firefox tabs).  It just goes to show one needs to be prepared anywhere.  This happened literally at one of the intersections that defines the border of our “campus” at work.  I haven’t heard it mentioned by anyone either.  We’re in a “safe” area, but that’s simply a misnomer in a place like this.  The latest statistics I’ve seen say that the murder count for Memphis for 2007 up to March 14 was 30 (up 7.1% for the same period in 2006).  Hopefully that’s just a statistical anomaly.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local/article/0,2845,MCA_25340_5402238,00.html

Okay, sarcasm mode off. I just saw this on the news.

http://www.wmctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5569718

Didn’t the bad guy know that schools are gun free zones. Or maybe he knew that made for a place law abiding citizens wouldn’t be able to protect themselves.

I saw one of those KFC protesters this weekend.  It surprised me.  I knew they existed, but never imagined I’d see one in “my” part of the country.  It’s not like I live in California or New England.  Anyway, it was just a brief glance while driving by at 40mph.  I didn’t even notice him until he was literally right next to me.  It’s sad people have the time to do such things with a passion and don’t really do anything constructive about it.

The activists are doing it, they are advancing their cause to impose their values on us.  I came across this article today and it just makes my blood boil.  I’ve never even tried foie gras, but I know where it comes from and if someone else wants to eat it I sure as heck won’t stop them.  Check it out:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/14/foie.gras.ap/index.html

So, elections were just held this past week here in Memphis (I guess it’s probably state wide).  So, leading up to election day I’d see tons of people standing on the street corners holding up campaign signs.  It’s a minor annoyance.  But that was last week.  Today, we’re driving home from the movie and what do we see?  A bunch of idiots (and I mean a bunch, probably 75 of them) holding signs and shouting condemning the Israelis.  I mean, come on, this is Memphis.  I bet half the people driving by (on a Sunday evening, no less) don’t even know or care about the situation over there right now.  And to top it off, they are protesting against Israel?  Look, I’m one to believe that Israel is not a close American ally.  Israel is looking out for Israel.  They appreciate our support, and in exchange, they give us chunks of intelligence.  They are not, however, looking out for our interests any further than what also benefits Israel.  That said, I truely respect the Israeli position.  Those people have the balls to go out and do what’s gotta be done.  It’s not pretty.  It’s not clean.  I don’t even think Israel is doing as much as they could do to limit collateral damage, but what else can they do?  Honestly, what else could they do?  What would we do if a the drug cartels in Mexico started lobbing missles/rockets over the border into American towns and the Mexican government couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything about it?  You bet we’d be hitting back pretty hard.  People just don’t get that.  I’d love to have that ideal world where we can work out perfect solutions where nobody ever gets hurt, but this is reality.  This is real life and real life isn’t pretty.

We went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest today.  Turned out to be a little disappointing.  It started out as a decent film, but close to the end I felt the length eating at me (similar feeling at at around 2 hours of Pearl Harbor).  Then, they pull some crap and start setting up another story that they don’t finish.  This isn’t a TV show, and it’s not billed as a trilogy, so they shouldn’t be doing this.  Needless to say, they’ve got a cliff hanger for part 3, whenever that comes out.  Aside from that rude ending, I quite enjoyed the story.  It was funny, and actiony, and fantasy, and all the summer blockbuster boxes checked, I just can’t get past that dirty trick ending.  What, next year they’ll put the trailers in the middle of the film… Grumble grumble grumble…

Well, apparently my connection and server outages are still happening. I contacted my host to see what’s up and they said that they are still having issues with the server I’m on and they hope to have it fixed next week. This is really making me think about not renewing with them this year.

Okay, it’s been a while since my last post. A lot has happened, but my web presence has been pretty limited. Two words: Moving sucks.

Let’s see what all has happened…

Well, I graduated. I really wondered about my grade in my Theoretical Foundations of Computing class, but I did manage to pull it off. It was a little stressful waiting for the grades to get posted, but all was well.

Graduation Day was interesting. We got lucky in that the weather was cloudy and cool. I’ve been to plenty of graduations out in the sun and that sucks. Heck, it even rained on us, but they gave us rain ponchos as we walked out onto the field. President Bush made quite an entrance with the helicopters flying over the stadium. They (”they” being the President and his entourage, filling 4 or 5 helicopters) landed on the practice football field just east of Gallagher-Iba. President Bush’s speech was a good one. It was short at about 20 minutes, but that’s not such a bad thing. Many keynote speakers drone on forever. It was pretty much non-partisan and very much a graduation speech; not a political speech. It really made those protesters seem stupid. In effect, despite what many of them claimed, they were protesting our graduation and not the government’s policies. I didn’t walk down to the protesting area, but from the signs I read, and the stuff I heard from their PA system, they were pretty pathetic. They assumed the speech would be political and wound up making fools of themselves. The media gave them a heck of a lot of coverage, though.

After the preliminary speeches were done, everyone left for lunch and got ready for the 2 graduation walk ceremonies in the afternoon. We went to Pat’s apartment for a little gathering Pat and Mom put together. They did a real good job. Pat’s apartment is pretty small, but we managed to just fit.

For the walk part, we were inside Gallagher-Iba. I was far from the last person to line up for the procession from the A&S gathering site to the arena, but lots of people pushed forward so as not to look like they were late and I wound up at basically the end of the entire walking process. It took so long I think I might have fallen asleep waiting for my name. I’m sure glad that is over.

The next day was a moving day for me. I intended to move out before noon, but it wound up taking until nearly 21:00 for me to get done. That was a long day. I then spent the week with Pat.

The next weekend was for moving my stuff out to Memphis. That was one heck of a drive. I hate driving. Have I mentioned that? I hate driving.

My next week consisted of me catching up on a season worth of TV shows. Except for Survivor and Grey’s Anatomy, I had Beyond TV recording everything I wanted to watch for the semester. Wow was that a lot of shows, but I did get caught up.

When Shinta got back to Memphis, we went to see Mission: Impossible III. It’s a fun action film. I don’t get all the negative press over it. I thought it was about as good as the second film. I particularly enjoyed the action. It was constantly moving forward. They had it cram packed with HK weapons too. I also noted that some of the mercs in the bridge scene were carrying Krinkovs. Gotta give props to the great AKS-74U.

The next day (Saturday) we caught Over the Hedge. It’s a really funny film. I enjoyed it. I didn’t exactly enjoy the little kids and the huge mess they made in the theater, but it was a good film. I recommend it. As intended, it’s good for all ages.
Then, Sunday, was Marrina’s graduation. So, I made the long drive back to OKC for that. While there I picked up the grandparents so that they could spend the week with us in Memphis. It was a wonderful week. It has been a long time since I’ve been around them for such a period of time and it was great. We took them to the Wat Buddhasamakeedham for the yearly memorial of my dad’s death and Uncle O took them back to OKC with him. I hope it wasn’t the last time they stay with us.

When we got back to Memphis, we went to see The Da Vinci Code. It’s a good thriller. I never read the book, but the story was really good. Most of the twists I didn’t expect and they were interesting. I don’t understand why the critics didn’t like this one either, but I did. Maybe it’s because I didn’t read the book, but it was good.
Last night we went to see X-Men: The Last Stand. That was a good film too. At least in the summer blockbuster sense. It thought it was about as good as the first film (the second was the best of the three). It was well done and I think well written. The special effects were mostly good. There were a few things that the special effects could have improved on, but for the most part it was fairly seemless. No spoilers here, but there were a couple of interesting twists I didn’t expect.

I think that catches things back up.