I live in the south, this is an irrefutable reality. This fact is especially apparent on holidays, particularly one where the accepted norms include barbcue, beverages and just about anything loud, fast and explosive. In a part of the country where, "hey y'all, watch this," is more than a saying, it is a life philosophy, the Fourth of July rules supreme as the holiday where the South revels in all it's Rebel glory. For this very reason, the Fourth is a particularly good holiday to stay home and hide out, which is exactly what I did for the better part of the weekend.

In the post WWII era, Levittown was a poster child for what was to become the suburban sprawl typifying almost every urban area today. William Levitt, himself a Naval Seebee, capitalized on the boom of demand for housing. GI's were returning from the war and taking advantage of FHA-VA loans for houses. He built the first image of cookie-cutter houses forming suburbia.

Tonight as I finished my session, the clouds were bright crimson and pink with twilight waning. This was good. I walked down to the Catawba in the dark and plopped my boat in the water. Taking off my helmet, the breeze was actually cool, a welcome change from the heat wave we have been locked into recently. Taking a moment, I simply enjoyed the sensation of evaporation, the prickly and slightly cool feeling on my head. This also, was good.

Working on making a map this morning, my mind began to wander. Making a population density map of Canada is not particularly interesting, since nobody lives in Canada. Thus, my mind was wandering. Not surprisingly the destination was slalom, or something closely related. In this case, it was what kind of race car would athletes' be.

Apparently keeping up this blog is good for my health, at least according to a neuroscientist at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, Alice Flaherty. According to Flaherty, blogging is much like complaining as a way to cope with mental and physical pain, acting as a, "placebo for getting satisfied." There is most definitely a lot of whining going on out there in the blogosphere, making this hypothesis seem quite plausable.

This now gives me a good excuse to maintain this site, it is therapy! Since blogging is now good for my health, I wonder if Uncle Sam would mind me writing off my computers and my hosting provider as a medical expense on my taxes this year?

Apple, they have a predictable pattern. Plucking something out of their idea farm, they release innovative technology products. These innovative products, the first generation rarely is the perfect solution. It is a great idea with a lot of work put into it, but rarely do they nail it on the first go around. The second time though, the pattern very much is to learn and slam-dunk the second one.

Saturday morning, it is just after eight in the morning and I am headed to the course for a morning session. Driving to the course, almost every business and parking lot is deserted except for one, Hardees. The drive through line wrapped out of the parking lot. I could not see an empty parking space in the lot. Looking at this, it is not surprising American's girth is steadily growing.

Thirty-two hours, listening to NPR on my drive in this morning, this is how much time the average American spends per week watching television. Thirty-two hours, this is pathetic? What is so worthwhile to spend 32 hours watching per week? This is 128 hours per month, and 72 days per year. How is this possible? What is going on?

After getting a new laptop for work, the first step was to get it set up, to remove anything not needed and install everything else on there which is. Installation includes all the stuff needed for work, including all the ESRI Desktop software, a couple of SDK's for VBA and Dot Net. The uninstallation typically includes all the garbage installed by default, such as Messenger and all those stupid games I never use in the start menu.

When my alarm went off at 0500 this morning, apparently it was not 0500. It was 0400. Montgomery, Alabama is on Central time (same as Tulsa), something I had forgotten when driving from Charlotte yesterday afternoon. This did not come to my attention until after getting out of the shower this morning, so I had a little time to read the newspaper before heading to teach.