December 16th

Ronald Reagan

Ron Paul

www.ronpaul2008.com

Dan in Real Life

My beautiful wife and I went to see Dan in Real Life last night. It was a really good movie. I would definitely recommend it. The house that they lived in was really cool looking.

Spider Solitaire

My awesome wife got the decks to go all black and then all red.

Chicago, Illinois

Chicago, Illinois - Marathon

On Sunday, we went to the Chicago Marathon. You can really see the determination in the expressions on the runners' faces.

I guessing that "Corre papi, corre" means "Run dad, run."
Lots of spectators made posters.
Lots runners wore costumes.
And then it was over.

Morgantown, West Virginia

I travelled to Morgantown, West Virginia, with my dad for an insurance law seminar at West Virginia University. The scenery there is really nice.

Lots of rolling hills ...
and old houses tucked away in the woods
Before we left, we went to a big football game

Dayton, Ohio

Somewhere on our way to Dayton, Ohio (possibly in Richmond, Indiana) we saw quite a lot of smoke on the horizon.


I think we heard on the radio that there was a building on fire. It was pretty cool to see, but I hope everyone is ok.

On Saturday morning, we watched the Dayton Marathon. It started at 7:35 a.m. The starting line was near the Museum and it was a really nice morning. I overheard one runner say that everyone ran faster since the weather was so nice.
Part of the course went right by the hotel we stayed in, but it seemed like most of the course was on the Wright Patterson Air Force base and was off limits to civilians. After the start, we headed back to the hotel to see some more runners. Here are a few photos:

Later, we headed back to the finish line to see the first person finish. The first person to finish the marathon was in a wheel chair. After that several people that ran the half marathon showed up and a little later, the winner of the full marathon crossed. The first video is the wheel chair participant finishing, the second video is the winner of the half marathon, and the third video is the winner of the marathon.

It looked like several people from the air force base ran the marathon as well.
A lot of people had their kids with them when they crossed the finish line,
and some crossed the finish line alone.
Lots of planes flew overhead, (courtesy of the Wright Patterson Air Force Base).
It's always fun to watch marathons. Congratulations to all the participants. There wasn't much to do in Dayton, but we weren't anxious to start driving again, so we stayed there another night. On Sunday morning, we ate at FirstWatch Cafe. It was really delicious. I had a chickenchanga and almost ordered a second one since it was so good.

On the way home, we saw a giant candle in Centerville, Indiana, and decided to stop and check it out.
It was the Warm Glow Candle Company Outlet Store. Probably the biggest candle store I've ever seen.
It had some pretty good deals,
but I was a little bit concerned about this fire exit.
Luckily there weren't any fires that day.

Later, we stopped in Greenfield, Indiana to go to some antique shops. They were all really cool. I got an old book called, "Problems in General Science".

It was a good trip. I had a really good time.

Ron Paul

Nest above my door

Scratch

Movies

We saw Ocean's 13 last night. I thought it was really good. I'd recommend it to a friend.

Interesting Quote

Here is an interesting quote from Richard Bushman.

What questions does Mormonism answer? David Brooks had those interesting columns a few months ago about how people will die for meaning, and Charles Taylor was on the TV lately saying the spiritual questions are the big questions, which I think is very close to David's sense of meaning.

What Mormons really try to do is to offer a story – a story of human existence that begins in the world before and comes to this world. It answers the classic questions of whence, why, and where. It's not just something that stands above Mormons, but is imbued into their minds. It's related to the Christian story of fall and redemption, which is another story of the meaning of life, but it extends that story into the pre-mortal life and into eternities hereafter.

Over and over again, I talk to people who joined the church, and I say, why did you become a Mormon? And they say, it answered my questions. I don't know exactly what they mean by that, but there is a sense that their perplexities about life somehow were put to rest by what the Mormon missionaries told them.

You can find the entire text here.

Plant

Things that I really don't like today

1. The DMV

Ordinary post

I've posted a lot of pictures recently. I thought I'd just write an ordinary post instead. My good friend graduated from the U of I last week. At my friends graduation, Jawed Karim, the co-founder of YouTube, spoke at the ceremonies. I posted a few clips on YouTube. He gave a pretty good speech. I've been having some trouble getting my router to work--not sure what the problem is. I'm not sure if that is the correct use of the hyphen. I checked with wikipedia. It's the dash, not the hyphen, that I was actually looking for. They have a good example of how the hyphen and the dash are used:

The use of a hyphen where a dash is intended—especially when the intent is to interrupt rather than connect ideas—can confuse readers, since the word-connecting hyphen often conveys the exact opposite typographical meaning of the thought-separating long dash. wikipedia

I was not aware of that. And now I can go free, free from the prison walls that my hyphen-dash confusion had created and now bound only by the enigmatic semicolon.

Nest under my deck

Not sure what this bird is

Robin

www.panaramio.com

CAS Exam 3

I took another actuarial exam today. It was pretty hard, but I feel like I did slightly better than I did last time (which is good, because last time I just barely missed getting a passing score). Now that the exam is done with, that means I get to relax for the next 6 to 8 weeks until the results come out.

Small Bird

www.panaramio.com

Flowers

www.panaramio.com

Rabbit in the morning

A Rabbit

He just sat there for a really long time.

Unit Coin

I tutored a guy in Excel. He was home for two weeks before going back to Iraq. When I told him he didn't have to pay me, he gave me this coin as a gift.

American Tree Sparrow

Mourning Dove

Blades of Glory

We went and say Blades of Glory last night. I really liked it.

TMNT

We went and saw the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles last night. I thougt it was pretty good. They have 50 cent bring your own bucket nights on tuesdays.

A bird doing some kind of shakey thing

Cricket

My neighbors are playing cricket in their backyard. I think they are from India. The dad and the son are taking turns pitching and batting. The mom and daughter are watching. Oh wait, the daughter is batting now too. How cute.

What are laws?

An interesting definition of laws:

they are guildelines created by (either small but powerful groups or the conscious of the public as determined by elected officals) filtered through a judge's broad goals of efficency, accuracy, and morals, (occasionally) skewed by the beliefs, opinions and moral outrage of 12 (supposedly) representative citizens, biased by two men who put aside any personal feelings and agrue to the last drop of blood, right to the ethical line for another individual who has to pay the cost -Dave Christensen

New Basketball

My beautiful wife got a new basketball today.

EGM Mystery

I have a subscription to EGM. It started about a year ago. It's a fun magazine to read. I'm not sure how I got it, but thanks to whomever I owe my gratitude.

Walk

We went on a great walk today.

Blood

I gave blood today.

www.panoramio.com

www.panoramio.com/a small church

It's pretty cool. It has pictures from all over the world.

From small churches to great pyramids.

http://www.panoramio.com/pyramids