Triad Tennis Nirvana

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Today’s a big day for tennis lovers in the Piedmont Triad and Winston-Salem in particular.  Andy Roddick beat Tomas Berdych to clinch a win for the US over the Czech Republic in the first round of the 2007 Davis Cup.  That means the US team will be playing its quarterfinal Davis Cup tie against Spain at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum from April 6-8, 2007 in Winston-Salem.   Tickets go on sale Thursday, February 15 at 10 a.m. for US Tennis Association members and on February 19 for the general public.

For those of you not familiar with the Davis Cup, it is similar to the Ryder Cup for golf except that it doesn’t pit America against a European team, it’s played every year and it’s the US vs. the rest of the world.  In other words it’s a big deal.

Even if you’re not a big tennis fan you should look into getting tickets for this one.  It’s the best chance you’ll have to see some great American players (most likely Andy Roddick, James Blake, and the Bryan Brothers) and some very impressive Spanish players (Rafael Nadal, David Ferrer, Fernando Verdasco, Feliciano Lopez).  On top of that you really have to see professional tennis live to appreciate what these guys are doing.  The ball is hit harder and the players move faster than you can imagine until you see it up close and personal.

I’m a tennis fanatic so this is about as exciting as it gets for me.

Job Offer!!

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Somehow the email I’m copying below made it through my spam filter.  I share it because it openly, one could say even enthusiastically, invites me and the million other people it targeted to join them in being an international scumbag.  It also purports to be from the chairman of a major investment firm in Singapore.  Actually it looks like an investment firm tied directly to the government in Singapore.  Really in terms of spam it’s a nice change of pace from all the stuff that’s supposed to put hair back on my head and give me a renewed sexual vigor.  Here it is:

From: notice01@optonline.net
Subject: JOB OFFER!!

From The Desk Of
Mr Lim Siong Guan Chairman,
EDB (Chairman of the Board)

250 North Bridge Road
#28-00 Raffles City Tower
Singapore 179101.

Date; 9th /Feb/ 2007

EDB CO LTD SEEKING YOUR ASSISTANCE IN OPENING
OF NEW OUTLETS IN YOUR LOCALITY.
Dear Friend,

This email comes to
you from the desk of Mr Lim Siong Guan chairman EDB SEMICONDUCTOR COMPANY
LIMITED based in Singapore.EDB is a Global manufactural of Gray market goods,and
this are items manufactured abroad and imported into the US without the consent
of the trademark holder. Examples of such goods are REFRIGERATORS of all
kinds,Electronics and Home Appliances.

We import this products into the
World Trade Market at large and due to the high demands of our products , we
have been able to acquire outlets all over Europe,Asia and America where our
products can be bought. And as at today, there are 10 EDB companies in
Singapore, including its Asia-Pacific headquarters and eight manufacturing
companies in various sectors, ranging from refrigerator compressors to consumer
electronics to advanced displays and semiconductors.

Due to the high
rate of sucess in the last fiscal year of trading in the United States and
Canada,we have deceided to embark on major expansion plan in these Countries
even as the global economy is showing optimistic signs of pick-up.We intend
doing this by wanting to open new outlets where our products can be bought from.

This idea of more outlets is making us to contact you today to know if
you would be able to perform the following task for us which are listed below
1
Helping in the sales of our products to willing customers that are wanting to
buy.
2 Receiving payments from customers by all means of payment method that
is available, and one that suits their convinent at that point in time. We want
to bring to your notice that this position does not require any relevant
experience and it is best suited for all{ graduates, professionals and non
graduates}.

If you deem you are fit enough for this job,we would want
you to supply or furnish us with the following information via email
1 Your
Full Name As It Would Appear On Your Letter Of Appointment
2 Your Contact
Address
3 Telephone Number { Both Home And Mobile} / Fax
4 Your Present
Occupation
5 Lastly,we would want to know if you have any form of
dis-ability

Note that if we eventually deem you fit for this
position,you would be placed on a 10% commision for each sales and any amount
you help receive from customers.

Thank you so very much for having the
patient and time to read this email.We look forward to hearing from you.

Wishing you a Blissful day,
Mr.Lim Siong Guan,
Chairman,
EDB
SEMICONDUCTOR.
officeoflimguan@yahoo.com

Really it’s a thing of beauty don’t you think?

More Tivo to Love

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Anyone that’s talked to me in the last year or two probably knows that I love-with-a-capital-L my Tivo.  It looks like I’m going to have even more reason to love it in the near future.  Amazon is teaming with Tivo to offer video dowloads from Amazon’s Unbox service straight to Tivo, and it looks like you’ll be able to rent or buy.  They’re doing a limited test but they expect to roll it out to all Tivo subscribers in the near future.  One limitation is that the Tivo has to be hooked up to a broadband network (luckily ours is hooked into our network) so Tivo users that still have their systems updated via dial-up will either have to hook their systems into their home network or go without. Here are details from the announcement:

    To activate the service, subscribers will simply log on to
Amazon.com and follow a few simple steps to establish a link between
their broadband connected TiVo Series2(TM) or Series3(TM) box and
their Amazon account. Once the initial set up is complete, eligible
movies or television shows from Amazon Unbox can be downloaded
directly to the customer’s TiVo box. After the movie has been
downloaded, the title will automatically appear in the subscriber’s
TiVo "Now Playing" list with all of their other recorded shows, easily
viewed with just a click of the TiVo remote.

    Customers can purchase television episodes for $1.99, purchase
most movies for between $9.99 and $14.99, or rent movies starting at
$1.99. As an added bonus, all purchased videos are automatically
stored in each customer’s "Your Media Library" at Amazon.com for
future access and download.

Su-weet!

I truly hope this gets going, but I’m waiting to see it actually launched before I get too excited. I was stoked when Tivo said they were doing a deal with Netflix but that deal seems to have died on the vine.  If the Tivo/Unbox service does indeed go off as planned and does work as advertised then our Netflix subscription might be going the way of all flesh.

Snow in Huntsville, Alabama Courtesy of Celeste’s Cousin

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Celeste’s cousin Richard Joye comes from a family of tinkerers and engineers.  He and his two brothers are the kind of people that make me question my own IQ level (i.e. by comparison mine is dismally low), and just to prove it he’s built his own home-brew snow making operation.  It’s cool enough that the local news station did a story on him.  You can see it here (hopefully the link works).  If it ever gets up on Youtube or Google Video I’ll update this post with the video.

We get to see Ricky and his family every year at Thanksgiving in Charleston, SC and he and I end up hanging out and having a bunch of drinks while our ladies go shopping.  When the kids were little we’d have daddy-duty during our ladies’ shopping sprees so we’d take them to the beach and let them run rampant, go wading in the freezing water and stuff enough sand in their ears to make their heads weigh a pound more than normal.  Good times!

There was that one year when Icehouse first launched and we didn’t realize that it had a higher alcohol content that "normal" beer.  Nothing like puking in front of the in-laws, but that’s a story for another post.

More on the Church Thing

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I’ve often commented on the differences between DC and Winston-Salem.  In particular I’ve written about how in DC the first question anyone asks you at a party (or some other social situation) is "What do you do" or "Where do you work" and in Winston-Salem it’s "Where do you go to church" more often than not.

Fellow DC-to-Winston transplant Esbee wrote something similar today and one of her commenters seemed to find the idea of asking someone where they go to church to be rude.  Personally I don’t have a problem with it, and honestly I’m glad to get away from being classified by my job status and perceived earning power.  As Esbee notes what is more remarkable than asking where you go to church is the assumption that you go to church at all.  If I had to guess I’d say maybe 25% of the people I knew in Northern Virginia went to church regularly, but here it’s probably 75%.  It’s an interesting difference between the communities.

A Sleeping Pill You Won’t Catch Celeste Taking

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Celeste (my lovely wife) hates ingesting anything that makes her feel like she’s losing control.  She doesn’t mind the occassional drink, but she rarely gets drunk because she hates losing control.  Her parents never had to worry about her taking drugs because she wouldn’t have been able to handle the feeling of getting stoned.  Hell, I’ve seen her almost hyperventilate when she’s smelled someone smoking weed.

On the other hand Celeste is like most other women who have hit their 40s, have young teenagers and a pain-in-the-butt, no-good husband who snores like a bear in hibernation: she has a heckuva time sleeping.  Every once in a while she’ll take a mild over the counter sleeping aid, but I can almost guarantee you that she’ll endure massive sleep deprivation before she’ll take zolpidem, which in the US is known as Ambien and in Australia is known as Stilnox.  Apparently there have been some pretty interesting side effects reported in Australia:

A woman taking the drug "woke with a paintbrush in her hand after
painting the front door while asleep," the Adverse Drug Reactions
Advisory Committee said in a bulletin published yesterday.

Another patient reportedly gained 23 kilograms over seven months while taking Stilnox.

"It was only when she was discovered eating in front of an open
refrigerator while asleep that the problem was resolved," the bulletin
said.

The committee also received two alarming reports "which suggest the possibility of driving while asleep."

The new study marks the first time "inappropriate or strange automatic
behaviour" related to Stilnox has been noted in Australia since the
drug was introduced here in 2000, although cases have been reported
overseas.

The health department also received 104 reports of hallucinations and 62 of amnesia relating to the drug.

Found via Boing Boing.

No Child Left Behind

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NochildletterToday we received a letter from the North Carolina State Board of Education, Office of Curriculum and School Reform Services (click on the image at left to see it).  From the letter:

"Although great gains have been made in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School System (WS/FCS), the district did not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in Reading (for four years in a row) or Math (for two years in a row) in grade spans 3-5, 6-8, and at the high school level, based on 2005-2006 test results. According to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the district is entering Corrective Action Phase of District Improvement. This identification means several things for the school district.

First, the district will continue to identify steps to improve student achievement by revising the school district’s Title I District Improvement Plan. This plan describes what the school district will do to help low-achieving children meet challenging academic achievement standards. In revising the plan, the district will consult with parents, school staff and others…

Second, in revising its Title I plan, WS/FCS is required to focus on the professional development needs of its instructional staff. This must be done by directly addressing the academic achievement problem(s) that caused the school district to be identified for improvement. (Emphasis mine)"

While I’m sure there are teachers that need improvement, and there are some that are incompetent, I don’t think you can lay the blame at their feet.  The problem is probably much deeper and I suspect that we parents are as responsible for the kids’ failures as the teachers, if not more so.  I’m also sure that there are plenty of kids who are themselves responsible; raise your hand if you know a bright, lazy kid.  So why mandate professional development for teachers and yet not mandate some sort of participation by parents of underachieving kids?  Why not mandate that underachieving kids have to stay after school for tutoring?

The larger questions about whether No Child Left Behind is worth a damn, or if evaluating schools based solely on standardized tests is a good idea are too sticky to get into here.  But simply by looking at the current educational context and accepting the goal of a minimum number of children passing the tests we should ask ourselves if addressing one part of the equation, teachers, is adequate.  I dare say it’s not, and I hope that the consultation with parents and school staff will result in at least some discussion of the expectations for parents and students in the process since the law doesn’t mandate it. I don’t care how much training a teacher gets; if they aren’t supported by the parents the kids are lost, and if the kids aren’t held accountable then they’re going to continue to fail.

**Update:  Esbee has a great post on homeschooling that I think is relevant to this piece.**

PC Crackers

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Over at Hogg’s Blog the Hogg shares a little something from his friend in Kentucky:

Just keeping you posted so you will not embarrass yourself.

Due to the climate of political correctness now pervading America,
those of us in Northern Alabama, North Georgia, Tennessee, North
Carolina, Western South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky
will no longer be referred to as “Hillbillies.” You must now refer to
us as “Appalachian-Americans”.

Thank you.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got possums to fry.

Much debate ensued in the comments about the proper technique for preparing possum. 

Upon further inspection I was probably wrong in using the title "PC Cracker" since hillbilly seems to be a more specific derogatory description of white folks than either redneck or cracker.  From Wikipedia:

Hillbilly is a term referring to people who dwell in remote, rural, mountainous areas. In particular the term refers to residents of Appalachia and later the Ozarks in the United States.
Usage of the term "Hillbilly" generally differs from other terms
referring to rural people in the United States in that it can be used
for mountain dwelling people anywhere but is generally not used to
refer to rural people in non-mountainous areas. While terms like redneck and cracker
often connote rejection of, or resistance to, assimilation into the
dominant culture, theoretically hillbillies are merely isolated from
the dominant culture. Nevertheless, the term is sometimes considered derogatory depending on the context in which it is used or the attitude of the target.

That last sentence cracks me up.  When have you ever heard the term hillbilly used in a fashion that wasn’t derogatory?  And what does it say when you type "hillbilly" into Google and the image below is one of the three that appears at the top of the search results?

Hillbilly

21st Century Neighborhood Watch

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Over at Life in Forsyth Lucy has a post titled "Another White Van" that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of a vigilant neighbor armed with email.  It seems that a man was seen trolling their neighborhood in a white van.   A neighbor noticed him, did a little research on the tag numbers, got a name and thought they found evidence that the driver was a registered sex offender.  They fired off an email to warn the neighbors and the neighbors forwarded it to their friends and pretty soon everyone was on the alert.

Well, it ends up that there the person they spotted had the same name as a registered sex offender but he himself had a clean record.  In addition, he was in the neighborhood with his girlfriend to pick up a dance student and since he’d never been there before he was slowing down in front of houses in an effort to find the right house.   Unfortunately the person who knew this wasn’t part of the email loop so didn’t know what was going on. Luckily one of the people in the loop found out the truth and let everyone know.

Lucy, who is also a 2004 transplant from the DC area, points out the the Beltway Snipers were originally thought to be a white guy in a white van, but in fact were two black guys in a blue sedan.  Her point is a good one: while it’s always good to be vigilant we can often be led astray by half truths and speculation. This case also points out the inherent flaws of email; just ask anyone in the working world to tell you stories about someone left out of the loop for a project or meeting because they were accidentally left off the "cc" list.

Luckily no one got hurt in this case, and it seems that at least one of the neighbors did the right thing by contacting the police instead of handling things themselves.  The police were the folks who figured out it was a case of mistaken identity.  I’m assuming they contacted the driver and found out why he was there  so he might have gotten a little fright when they called, but that’s infinitely better than getting a beat-down from a bunch of scared neighbors.