Holidays

I've celebrated Halloween by eating nothing but candy all day, but I also voted yesterday and Election Day deserves its own holiday too. The first step has already been taken b/c my kids don't have school on Election Day. Now if you can just convince people that starting the holiday shopping season in early November instead of late November would boost the economy we would have ourselves an extra day or two off. I like Thanksgiving b/c it's always on a Thursday and you almost assuredly will take a day off on Friday to get a 4 day weekend. Election Day could work the same way. Just think of all the Election Day sales you could get ready for if it was the new unofficial start of holiday shopping. It's not like stores haven't had seasonal merchandise out since the beginning of October. Let's give our economy a swift kick in the pants. Oh, and you can probably get out some voters who spend all day working and don't feel like going to the polls at the end of the day. But that would mean the holiday would have to something to do w/ its original intent. I'm sure if it were enacted that original intent would quickly fade away.

What I've been up to

I would say nothing but that isn't much of a blog post. I went to what was probably the best rock show I've been to in a really long time. Tiger Bear Wolf played w/ Black Taj last Sunday in Greensboro. If that wasn't enough Birds of Avalon and Tiny Meteors also played. So if you have a band that has a drummer, a bass player, and 2 guitarists who rock you have a new standard to aspire to. The only problem was it came on a night after a football all-dayer and I had to work the next day. Don't worry. I didn't work too hard.

There was also an excellent rock moment this week when I pulled into the neighborhood at lunch time and Strawberry Fields came on the radio. With lots of trees changing colors and the sun shining brightly on that tenth of a mile w/o houses, it had an excellent psychedelic quality. If you want to eliminate all drug use in the world, capture that moment and sell it as a pill. Oh wait that would be drug use too. In that case I think everybody should get hooked on LSD (Leaves, Sun, Dan's car radio).

The most exciting thing to happen w/ the kids was Desmond's class watching Charlotte's Web during lunch at school. Although I didn't get to watch it w/ him, he told me his favorite character was Templeton the rat. This led to 3 days of me doing Paul Lynde impersonations. I don't know that they were good impersonations, but I had a 5 year old laughing the whole time. That's all I can ask for at this point.

The bulk of my free time during the non-football week is spent reading books. I pretty much read nothing but nonfiction. Maria did recommend Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. If all fiction were as good and easy to read as that, I'd probably read a lot more. Oh and I read the Harry Potter books to Desmond and we are currently on the 6th book. That is no small task when you are reading aloud and your audience has a 4 second attention span. Anyway, there are a bunch of sports related books that I've read and would recommend (although none moreso than America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation), but it's the history books I want to comment on. While I was reading The Fighting Quaker about Greensboro's namesake Nathanael Greene I had a hard time following the maps despite the fact that I live in the area most of the maps depict. Granted interstate-40 wasn't on the map, but I at least can recognize the rivers and towns. Still these maps looked like they were 200 years old and while that may be authentic I'd like to point out that North Carolina no longer extends westward to the Mississippi river. A much better use of maps was this summer's best seller Mayflower. There were only a couple of maps spread throughout the book, but I kept going back to them to get an idea of the area they were talking about. And not to suck up too much, but Dr. KK's book White Flight does a really good job of laying out the spread of desegregation in Atlanta w/ maps. I don't know if this is a much welcomed trend in historical books to use current maps, but it really does make it a lot easier to follow. And while probably the best historical book I've read recently (Guests of the Ayatollah) has a couple of maps, it like any other good history book is more about the people, politics, and events of the era that make it interesting.

Finally, I'm w/ Pedro when it comes to firing Dick Baddour. I can't tell if the guy is an assclown or a douchefucker, but he needs to go. There are only 2 sports that make money for a university (and sometimes that number is 0), and if you are only hitting on 25% of the coaching hires on those (and that 25% is a gift from Dean) you aren't doing a good job. Since Pete lives in Carrboro, I say make him Carolina's AD. At least he doesn't have to uproot his family to take on the challenge.

13th district debate

WXII.com has a debate b/w Brad Miller and Vernon Robinson up on their website. They also debated today for WTVD and WRAL. Of course it is highly entertaining and in Part 2 they let the candidates ask each other one question directly. Miller tries to bring us back from "planet Vernon to planet Earth" several times, and Robinson keeps bringing up "the foreign homosexual importation act" (HR 3006). It would have been better if they were in a steel cage, but it was pretty good.

Stuff to get angry about

First of all, Desmond was jumping on our bed and broke the bed frame. I guess it's not so bad b/c we just put the mattress on the floor, but then he had the nerve to tell me I hurt his feelings when I sent him to his room after it happened. I mustered all my parental responsibility and didn't go into sarcastic dad mode when he told me this. If parenting were the NBA, Maria would lead the league in assists.

Then, my lawnmower broke. It's missing some screws (maybe my cats don't look like me, but the mower definitely does) so starting it puts more stress on it than it should. I've broken this particular piece (the rotor?) 3 times now. It's only $9 for the replacement part so I don't want to replace the mower, but looking for replacement screws is a maddening experience. I can come close to what should fit in there, but there's a reason my ratchet set has separate 1/4 and 5/16th pieces.

Finally, we participated in the Crop Walk and NC House member Pricey Harrison and her supporters had the nerve to carry around signs typically reserved for yards and hold them aloft for the entire walk. Sure there were other people who carried signs, but the represented such political entities as Unitarian Universalist Church of Greensboro, First Lutheran Church, First Presbyterian Church, Christ United Methodist Church, and Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church. I thought it was great that she and her supporters participated in the walk. I thought it was fine that she and her supporters wore t-shirts promoting her candidacy during the walk. I thought it was tacky that they chose to hold their signs aloft during a walk to raise money to fight hunger throughout the world. If you want to participate and put photos on your website or in the newspaper, that's great. If you want to use the event to promote your political ambitions by drawing attention to the fact that you participated to potential voters, take a hike. I don't have anything against the lady's politics and I don't even live in her district. That didn't stop me from emailing her to express my displeasure. It shouldn't stop you either.