Abby Update. There isn't much to update except to say that I'm quickly losing any romantic interest that I have for her. We didn't see each other this past weekend as she had work-connected stuff both Friday and Saturday nights. The Friday-night activity was women only but the Saturday night think sounded like something she could have invited me to but didn't. Neither of us called the other on Sunday. I'd say that's a bad sign.

I probably won't see her next weekend as I'm going out of town to a conference and I may not get back until late Saturday.

 
Saturday Night. Last night I went with Cindy to see the movie Identity. I intentionally avoided knowing anything about the movie ahead of time and I recommend that others do the same. I thought the movie was great but I did have a sense of disappointment at how the movie explained all that had happened.

After the movie we went to a neighborhood bar to shoot some pool and have a couple of drinks. I'd been to this bar a couple of times before - one time was on my first date with Abby. I'm a mediocre pool player (as is Cindy) but we held our own in mixed doubles. One thing that amazed me was how friendly the people at the bar were. A lot of the regulars went out of their way to introduce themselves to us and we spent much of the night hanging out with a married couple that we lost to in our first pool match. I didn't see anyone all night displaying any "attitude". The crowd was a good mix of ages from 21 to 45. This may be the Cheers! of my neighborhood.

 
Hilly Ride - 21.4 miles - 1 hr 20 min - Big Hill: 8:43

 
I've often wondered about this myself.

 
Business Dinner. I had to go to a dinner last night related to my job. The first 45 minutes was a cocktail party so I used that time to scope out any single attractive women that might be in the room. I had to look hard because it was very male-dominated room. Things looked good early when I found myself chatting fluently with a cute 30-something woman. But then she used those awful words "my husband" and I knew it was time to seek greener pastures.

I then got bogged down talking to some of my coworkers and didn't get a chance to introduce myself to the one ring-less woman standing near me. Unfortunately there were assigned seats for the dinner. I got lucky though in that my table had some cool people, all but one of which were people I didn't previously know. A cute woman sitting two seats to my left turned out to be someone who works for my employer but in a different building. I tried to charm her as much as a I could but since she was two seats away my efforts were limited. Now that I know her maybe I'll run into her at work.

 
Easter Sunday Dinner. I had dinner with Abby's family yesterday. Her parents are very nice. Things were crowded around the dinner table with Abby's sister and her fiance and Abby's brother and his wife and three kids there as well.

It was neat to see the house where she grew up. It's a very Frank-Llyod-Wright-ish house with lots of exposed brick. I see a lot similarity between Abby's own house and the one she grew up in. I guess it's natural to be attracted to the style of house in which you grew up. I'm an exception as I grew up in ranch-style houses but have always thought 2-story houses were the way to go.

 
I'm back at work this week and although the weather is nice here I'm already missing being in the desert.....

 
I'm back. I was out of town all week with no access to the internet. I was on a multiday bike ride through the Nevada desert around the Las Vegas area. Except for a little rain on Monday the weather was great. No dating news to report as I'm not seeing Abby until Sunday. We're going to her parent's house for Easter dinner. Should be interesting.

 
A Small Victory has a good post about the "anti-war/anti-America" movement's constantly shifting slogans.


and here's an interesting post I lifted from the comments section at the lovely-named full bleed blog.

Whoa Nelly. Before we start accusing the "pro-war" demonstrators of being racists while pretending that the anti-war crowd are wonderfully color-blind, let's review some history.

For exmaple, let's review the world's reaction to Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Int'l relief agencies esimated that by the end of 1988 1.3 MILLION Afghan men, women and CHILDREN had died as a DIRECT result of the war. Let that sink in----- 1.3 MILLION! Additional tens of thousands had been maimed for life. One third of the 16 million pre-war citizens had fled the country and were living as refugees (fyi, they weren't staying at the Hilton).

Where were the protests back then? There weren't any. You say we didn't know or we would have protested? Sorry, not true. The WASH POST reported to you that "Moscow was committing one of the world's great crimes." (12/15/85) Reaction in the European streets? SILENCE.

You say "but I only protest now because it's my country, why should I protest the Soviets?"

Interestingly, that attitude hasn't stopped people from all over Europe from protesting the US yet they stayed SILENT while the Soviets were wiping out huge percentages of the Afghan population. That suggests to me that, at least in Europe, the protests aren't really Anti-War, they're Anti-America. Two wars, yet only one gets protested. Interesting. Maybe it's that Europeans love Iraqi's but hate Afghans but I doubt it.

Maybe you can explain to me why Europeans are so fired up about protesting this "war" but were so passive about the Soviet's invasion and murder of Afghan civilians? Are the Europeans racists in your eyes?

and btw, America was one of the few countries that helped the Afghan's resist the Soviets (interestingly, France helped a lot as well). But after 9/11 some people on the Left tripped over themselves to shout "Yes, but we supplied weapons to the Afghans! in the 1980s!" as if we should be ashamed of doing such a thing.

I guess that was pretty crappy of us to help the Afghans stop the Russians from murdering them.

where was the U.N.? Oh they passed some sternly worded toothless resolutions. In 1986, the vote was 122 to 20 that all "foreign troops should leave Afghanistan."

Guess what? The Russians ignored it and went right on killing Afghans and destroying villages.

Yes, it's not pretty and you probably don't want to know the truth. Unlike our military, Russians didn't go out of their way to avoid civilian casualties. As a matter of fact, they often went out of their way to inflict civilian causualties. It was part of their strategy.

Where were the protests? Where were the marches?

Where?

Wow, get that person a blog!

 
The Blind Date. The blind date didn't happen. The woman I was supposed to meet Saturday night has a child and the babysitter cancelled on her. The evening wasn't a loss though as I went out with my friends and had a great time.

 
Tony Pierce made me laugh out loud today reading about his experiences with riding the bus in LA....

almost all of the people are incredibly attracted to me. if theres no more seats and im standing in the front of the bus, everyone stands as close to me as possible in the front of the bus.

if i stand in the middle of the bus, theres a huge bottleneck in the middle.

if i stand in the rear of the bus, suddenly thats the most popular area.

they all like to rub their asses up against me as they pass by, and once theyve passed and see theres no empty seats in the back they stand right next to me. whole bus to spread out in, they like to stand up against me.

I don't ride a bus to work but something similar happens to me anytime I go into a store. There can be 5 customers in the entire place but whatever rack of stuff I look at one of those other people has to immediately come over and look at the same stuff. On the bright side, they rarely rub their asses against mine.

 
Made the short trip over to Cindy's apartment last night to help her with her taxes (i.e., I did them for her). She's not a homeowner but there were a few new twists for me to learn. I used to work at a big CPA firm (not Arthur Andersen, but similar) but we only did taxes for rich people. The new twists involved being a single parent who gets a tax credit for child care expenses, the earned income tax credit and a credit for taking a college course. Given the low pay of a school teacher and the credits I just mentioned, Cindy pays almost zero taxes to the federal government.

Speaking of Arthur Andersen, I interviewed with them as a senior in college. The night before the interview two AA people took me out to a fancy restaurant. Just as we finished eating I proceeded to get sick which involved literally fainting in the middle of the restaurant (I'd never fainted before so I didn't sense it coming) and throwing up in the parking garage. Needless to say, I didn't get the job.

 
Andrew Sullivan is recording some incredibly off-the-mark statements that various writers have made over the past few days. Reading them is funny but sad at the same time, sad that there are people who seem to actually hope for the war to go badly. I also wonder if these people have any since of shame or embarrassment at how wrong they were.

 
Andy over at WorldWideRant has written an open letter to the newly liberated Iraqi people on behalf of the anti-war crowd. I believe that Andy's letter mistakenly suggests that the Susan Sarandon's of the world prefer that the Iraqi people live under Saddam's rule. I think the anti-war crowd wants the Iraqi's to be free, they just don't want anyone to use force to free them. What I cannot understand is how when faced with the two options of 1) fighting to free them or 2) leaving things as they are that any moral person could choose the second option. Yet, the Susan Sarandon's of the world proudly do so.

 
Bob Kerry says that he'll only appoint people to the supreme court who are pro-choice. It's my understanding that a "litmus test" is one in which a single factor is decisive. Hmmmm....so a person's position on the question of legalized abortion would be decisive for Kerry yet he states....

''Let me just say to you: That is not a litmus test,''

Is Kerry being dishonest or is he ignorant about what a litmus test is? Neither one fills me with confidence that he'd be a good president. He's got a good argument for why the abortion issue is an important factor in selecting supreme court judges, he should go ahead and have the political guts to say it's a litmus test.

 
Two Steps Forward, One Step Back. After just one week (maybe two) of having a somewhat normal relationship, Abby has slipped back into her old ways. She's fairly busy at work and now with some family issues and it's hard for me to see an end to this cycle anytime soon. Given that we're back in a down phase I've just said yes to a friend's offer to go out with he and his wife Saturday night and a blind date. My friend's wife continues to scout out women for me for which I'm grateful. Some people hate to be set up on dates but I've generally had good experiences. And given that it will be a double-date with my friends I'm confident the night will be a lot of fun.

Cindy called last night and asked me to help her with her taxes. She's not a homeowner and therefore doesn't itemize so I doubt there's anything complicated about them. I've got a Masters in Taxation but other than doing my own taxes, I rarely put that knowledge to use.

 
Betting on the Final Game. I can't pick a winning team for tonight's Kansas/Syracuse game. Syracuse gets +5 points which seems like a lot but Kansas is capable of blowing them out. Instead I'm looking at the Over/Under 158 points. Big game with lots of pressure....will these young guys get nervous and make lots of mistakes & miss a lot of their shots or will they play even better than usual and score lots of points?

I'm betting that the stress of being in the big game will get to some of them and therefore the bet is the UNDER.

Update. My perfect losing record continues. The total points was 159 which, unfortunately, is not less than 158.

 
The Hours. Saturday night Abby and I went to one of the local artsy theaters and saw The Hours. I enjoyed it but it left me unsatisfied. What was the point?

Abby loved the 1950s house and decor of the part of the movie that took place in LA. That's what the inside of Abby's house would look like if it was restored to its original condition. After the movie we went back to her place and talked for a while. I went home because I was taking care of a friend's dog for the weekend and didn't want to leave her alone all night in a strange house.

 
The Nation magazine says Blacks Can't Compete. This editorial in their magazine has a surprising unqualified statement about recent attempts to prevent universities from discriminating based on race....

Challenges to these programs will not stop until the right wing has cut off every avenue of access for minorities and women.

Do they really mean to suggest that the "right-wing" will attempt to keep minorities out of college even when they have high grades and exam scores? And, note how the magazine's editors aren't honest enough to admit that "minorities" aren't at issue because numerous studies have shown that asians are disadvantaged by universities' attempts to get racial diversity on their campuses. Asians, despite being a "minority" group, just score too damn high on entrance exams and then get overrepresented in top-level universities. Liberals hate it when any minority group succeeds on its own.

And why throw "women" into the above quote? Women make up well over 50% of college students now. If we want equity by gender, it's men who need a boost to get into college. I wonder if we'll ever see The Nation editors argue for a policy to help white males?

 
Betting on the Final Four. I did terrible in the office NCAA b-ball pool. At the end of the first week I was tied for 2nd place but now I'm in 21st place. Keep that in mind as I tell you that my bets for today's games are Texas -3 and Marquette +4 1/2.

Update.I accurately picked the loser of both games. Marquette got blown out by Kansas and Texas lost out-right to Syracuse. I better keep my day job.

 
Busy Week. I haven't posted much this week because there wasn't anything worth posting about that was relevant to my blog's theme. I haven't seen Abby since the night she went to dinner with my family. We talk every night on the phone but I cannot seem to get over this series of colds and I don't want to pass whatever I've got over to her. Maybe I can't get well because the weather keeps fluctuating. I've never been one to have allergies but maybe that's what's going on now. Anyway, Abby and I have plans for a date tonight.

Thursday afternoon one of my closest friends came by for a visit. We met when we were five years old. We don't see each other enough so it was great to have a chance to talk to him in person.

 
Great Photo........

 
Oral arguments were presented to the Supreme Court yesterday in the case to decide whether the U. of Michigan can discriminate based on race.

Not surprisingly, Justice Scalia showed considerable hostility to the University's position:

"The Michigan Law School program is much like Harvard's, Mahoney argued, and the students on both campuses 'overwhelmingly support the program.'
"Sure, they're in (the Law School) already," Scalia said.

"Mahoney also argued that '95 percent' of the decisions on who to admit to the Law School 'are not affected by race ... This is extremely limited in scope.'
"'I don't know of any other (instance) where we have decided a case because very few people were being treated unconstitutionally,' Scalia shot back."

 
Erin O'Connor's blog has been especially good lately. Here she writes about Weber State's campus diversity center creating a new category of offense "hate bias" where according to Keith Wilder

"If someone has a bias and they speak it out, or they say it, or they announce that this is the way they feel about something, and people just kind of walk by without focusing in on it, it's a little bit like a cancer left alone. It grows and it has an effect."

 
Half-full. The WSJ's Opinion Journal responds to the criticisms that Rumsfeld is receiving about our war strategy. They do it much better than I did here.

The Rumsfeld war plan also had to be designed with a far smaller military than we had in 1991. To refresh some memories, defense spending fell in absolute terms in seven of eight years of the Clinton Presidency. At the time this was called the "peace dividend," believe it or not. Colin Powell was able to deploy the Ronald Reagan war machine in 1991; Mr. Rumsfeld inherited the rump Clinton model, about 40% smaller in troops, older planes and ships.

Also, Andrew Sullivan is making a point similar to the one I made yesterday about Josh Marshall's tut-tutting.