When you have meetings with your architect and you decide on something, write down exactly why you came to your decision. Don’t rely on the architect writing it down. Also write down everything he’s promising you for your next meeting so you can check him on it.

Our guest room has a really cool pattern on lights on the dropped ceiling. My original decision was to have a ceiling fan without the dropped ceiling. Wish I’d written that one down. The ceiling fan in our master bedroom has been going for the last year, pretty much nonstop and we love it. Cool light pattern, not so cool, lots of heat, lots of electricity.

Advise on architects: Tom Vail of Vail Architects is bad. He might be good if his job were in sales or something where attention to detail isn’t important. Unfortunately, detail is important in architectural plans. Too many of my second decisions were forced on me because my original decision didn’t fit. Oh it fit on the plans, if only the plans reflected the reality of the space in the apartment. A few inches here and there matter and Tom Vail didn’t pay attention to those details.

From cnn.com: In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (Stanford ‘52) said that states should be allowed to set their own rules. “The states’ core police powers have always included authority to define criminal law and to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens,” said O’Connor, who was joined by other states’ rights advocates. Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas joined O’Connor in dissention.

I guess they teach reading comprehension and Constitutional Law at Stanford, courses that the six other justices need to revisit.

Totally unrelated, props to the House of Representatives who passed a bill to expand stem cell research under thread of Bush veto. Victories like these are these over the crazies in the Religious Wrong are too few and far between.

Taxes – A necessary evil, but very unfair. I’m not complaining about the rich paying too much, but rather the poor and middle class being unfairly burdened. The commerce of filing and minimizing your taxes is a big industry. Knowing your way around deductions, loopholes, tax shelters and the like takes a degree in accounting or a good accountant, both of which cost money. Estate taxes are hurting middle class Americans who have paid taxes on their income, yet their hard work will be taxed upon their death if they don’t hire a tax advisor to restructure their holdings into Trusts and gifts. The complexity of our tax system is a burden to low and middle class Americans, those that can least shoulder this form of recessive taxation. Congress should spend their effort making the tax code more fair for all people, instead of doling out yet another subsidy to farmers, energy companies, and H&R Block.

Farm Subsidies – A bit of indirect foreign aid or a misdirected waste of money. American farmers and Scottie Pippen (who got almost $100k from subsidies last year) should grow food, raise cattle and compete in an open market. If the market can’t sustain another peanut farmer, then I’m sorry but that’s what the market called for. America has huge trade deficits, and Congress is rewarding farmers to not make too much food, food that could be sold abroad or used to lessen our imports. Subsidies to farmers for empty fields should be stopped. No developing country it going to pull itself up through farming in the 21st century, unless you’re growing coca leaves or beautiful fields of poppies. Instead if America wants to help those developing countries, invest in infficient energy plants abroad and help build factories. South America and Africa should look to the surging productivity of Asian economies as a guide instead of trying to copy the economic growth plan of a hundred years ago.

Med-Mal Awards: Congress could rein in the exploding costs of health care by setting limits on medical malpractice awards. The American Dream isn’t to sue for wealth as seems to be the case. I’m sorry, it may sound harsh, but excessive judgements for medical malpractice (honest mistakes are just mistakes) are just paying off greedy plaintiffs and their sleezy lawyers. Awards should be capped while giving the judge in the case some guidelines and limits to which they can adjust the award as fairness dictates. Juries are not made by willing people as everyone I know tries to get out of serving and thus juries are not your peers. Judges should have the discretion to halve or double the award in special cases after polling the jury in private to get each jurors opinion on the appropriate awards.

Feels good to get this on paper. Thanks for reading Draft 1.

And what sort of morally deformed person would take pleasure in the bitter disappointment of so many to whom this meant so much? What sort of person gloats in public for nothing more than just the empty momentary and childish pleasure of being agreed with on something that doesn’t affect them in the least?

Gay marriage doesn’t affect you one way or the other. Gay marriage doesn’t change your marriage and it doesn’t change your religion. A million gay people can get married tomorrow and nothing would change for you. Nothing at all. You wouldn’t even notice it but for your obsession about other peoples’ sex lives.

* Britney Spears can still get married while drunk for the 5th, no 6th, no, 7th time in Vegas to someone she just met last week, or even that night.
* You can still get married and divorced in the same day if you wish in several states and in some you can do that several times.
* Two 80 year olds can still get married as long as they are of different genders and even if one or both are afflicted with dementia.
* Two people of different genders can be married without ever meeting one another, even on the day of the wedding.
* Your sister can marry a guy on death row and never consumate the marriage.
* Your grandmother can marry the 20-year-old pool boy.
* Mary K. Latourneau can still marry the schoolboy she raped.

Please don’t tell me that gays are destroying the sanctity of marriage. Heterosexuals are doing a pretty bang up job of that without any help at all from gays.

Remember these when you go to church on Sunday:
# “Leave to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
# “Whatsoever you do to the least of you, you do also to me”

NO DOUBT it is a thrill to ride a chartered bus all night from Cleveland with your fellow peace activists. No doubt it feels great when you wake up after a few hours sleep to shouts that you are rolling into New York City, where the big workers’ rights protest, or anti-fur rally, or whatever, is being held.

You stand around all day, sing songs, make new friends, shout for the TV cameras, listen to Martin Sheen speak. A memory to last a lifetime.

But that is not the point. Of course activists of every stripe want to come to Central Park to protest. The point is whether the average New Yorker wants to have a pleasant, well-tended park, or one that looks like a vacant lot the hour after the circus left. Most would prefer a pleasant park.

The said, there is a certain the-whole-world-is-watching thrill to go for a walk in the park and stumble across some giant rally of 100,000 people fooling themselves they are accomplishing something. So I have an idea: Allow, if not lots of big gatherings, then more than the paltry pair of nonopera, nonsymphony gatherings that are allowed now. But charge them. If it costs $250,000 to restore the lawn after each big hoo-ha, then require that groups pony up beforehand. That seems only fair – you make a mess, you clean it up. An extra buck or two a head won’t break most organizations – well, except maybe the peaceniks. They never seem to have jobs.

Last post I admitted to watching a lot of reality TV and especially Survivor. Congratulations to Rob and Amber, I’m a sucker for romantics and they’re cute together, and to Rupert for winning the ‘America voted’ million dollars. He got one of my votes. I’ve never voted on American Idol because I don’t watch the show live and the phone lines are only open for two hours in the time zone after the show airs. The key to American Idol and Jasmine’s reprieve from joining JPL and the football player is timezones.

I tried to vote on American Idol once. I got a busy signal and decided not to compete with the real fans and gave up. That’s the point, the phone lines are often busy, usually busy. Not being able to get through is considered the norm on AI message boards. This applies to all of the contestants and leads to fairly close results. When Jon Stevens was finally sent home, Seacrest said he got nearly 4 million votes out of the total 28 million. There were seven contestants that week so the winner and other 5 didn’t get much more than Stevens to make the 4 million vote average compute. Everyone has enough fans to clog up the phone lines, and that fact that the better singers have twice as many fans doesn’t matter because the bottleneck threshold is too low. This situation replicates itself all across America: Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific timezones….but what about Hawaii? Hawaii is three hours after California time so doesn’t compete on the lines with any other timezone. Jasmine Trias is a proud, flower carrying resident of Hawaii. Hawaii loves Jasmine Trias.

So simply, the voting is nearly even across the country due to not enough phone line capacity at AI Central. Then Jasmine gets a big boost when Hawaiian Islands Time rolls around and she advances to the next round. Simon called out Hawaii to use their five phones, and they did to vote overwhelmingly for their flower. Jasmine hasn’t been the best recently, but she has the best chance of winning.

Thad Out!

I watched my first reality TV show in college. Road Rules: Islands was pulling their RV into Newport Beach to do a comedy skit at Balboa Island. MTV hooked me with their Real World and Road Rules marathons. Back to back to back episodes to eliminate the waiting of who is going to hook up, who is going to demand respect, and who is going to say, “I’ve never in my entire life on this earth been….” Where does MTV cast?

MTV is like a gateway drug. I had it under control with a half an hour a week, and I could have stopped at any time…and then along came Survivor. I missed the first couple episodes because this was still 2 B.T. (Before Tivo), but Sarah and Vinnie couldn’t stop talking about it on my morning commute. I tuned in and instantly hated Richard Hatch, but instantly loved Survivor. In that first season I actually said to a date, “We have to take this sushi to go, because Survivor starts in 10 minutes.”

‘Survivor: Hatch’, turned into ‘Survivor: Colby Screwed Up’, and finally ‘Survivor: All Stars’ which finished last night. Survivor has always had an addictive hook into me. Last night rewarded me with a good episode, and a better after show. If you didn’t watch, a few players forgot this was a game and took it personally, another got literally booed off the stage, the loser proposed to the winner, and Rupert still hasn’t shaved.

Congratulations to Rob and Amber! Being a newlywed myself, I’m always a fan of others taking the plunge. Amber seemed to have a clue it would happen, but with Rob on a knee and Amber wearing an ‘I (heart) Rob’ shirt, she couldn’t say no. Props to CBS for dimming the lights and giving them a few moments of privacy.

Anyhow, Survivor is finally over for the season and I can cut back my TV watching. Don’t get me started on ‘The O.C.’ on which I take personally every time the water polo players are assholes or have to be identified by the whole team holding water polo balls on their way to class…

So I’ve admitted I have a problem, what is Step 2?

Tips for Running the New York City Marathon:

# Write your name on your shirt! Residents of New York will be out in masses, usually in the millions to support your quest for the finish line in Central Park, but they don’t know you. However, you’ll get a lot of support and cheers if you write your name in big letters on your shirt. Keep in mind that you’ll have a race number so plan accordingly. Bonus: American flags and “Ohio Loves NY” are appreciated.
# If you plan to keep them after the race, cut your toe nails before it. Shorter nails will be less likely to have problems.
# Bring Advil. New York is the city where you can get anything from Starbucks to pot delivered to your apartment, but Advil is your only friend on mile 16.
# Don’t try anything new on race day.
# An extension of the above is: Find out what sports drinks, power gel, etc. they are giving to the runners on the course, and try it before hand. I trained with Poweraid, but on race day had to drink a poor-man’s watered-down fruit punch drink. Get used to it.
# Drink early, drink often. It might be cold and you might not be sweating much, but you need lots of fluid.
# Have fun! For you first timers, finishing is a life experience.

Good luck on race day! I’ll be near the finish line on the right side, a few hundred yards before the finish…cheering for Florida Jill, England, John, and you.

We struggled not to turn it off, it’s that bad. The book is filled with pseudo product placements and references to pop culture that stick out and make you wonder if they were added for comedic value. Nary a glass of wine is sipped without a ‘Turning Leaf Chardonnay’ being mentioned. Character building is attempted by mentioning how much Maxine liked the movie, Shallow Hal, and her favorite actor, Gwenyth Paltrow. Names and brands are dropped like Patterson sold the spots for a thousand dollars a pop…is this a new business model?

As for Patterson being the ‘#1 suspense writer in America’, where’s the suspense? To have suspense, it helps to have characters that are defined by more than the products they consume or the music they like, ‘Isn’t Macy Gray the best?’ After building characters, writing suspenseful situations takes more than having the main character repeat, ‘You talk, you die.” over and over. Yeah, we get the picture, but we no longer care what you have to talk about.

Another review: Hackwriters.com

Even crazier – it turns out the guy was almost killed last month when he was buried up to the neck in an avalanche.

Two quick observations:
(a) you’re a stud, and
(b) someone is trying to tell you something, buddy.