Another President from Hope?

Former governor of Arkansas.  Born in Hope.  Southern Baptist.  Sound familiar?  This time, though, make him a truly compassionate conservative, a guy who gets things done, and you've got Mike Huckabee, who's thrown his hat into the 2008 presidential ring.  Most pundits think he's got no shot, but those are my favorite kind of candidates.

I won't go into detail here, but you can read as much about Mike as you'd like at the links below.  But for now, he's my guy.  I like Mike! 

Bonus: we share a birthday.

Official campaign site

A supporter's blog

On the Issues

Wikipedia page

Two Points!

Jackson made his first bucket in his basketball career in this morning's game.  He insists that it's not his first, but i think he's counting practice or playing around in the driveway.  He's played hard all year long, and has had few opportunities to shoot (for a variety of reasons).  But the boys have all improved all season long, and it's starting to coalesce for them.  Clicking in about passing the ball, defending, everything.  That started last week, a game where Jackson got a steal and broke away, dribbling down the court, in front of everyone, hair-flopping and grinning, reminding me of Eric Liddell running in Chariots of Fire.

And then today, he banked in a layup.  His gem of a coach cheered louder than anyone.

The dirty little secret, though... neither Julie nor i (nor Jackson's Aunt Leah, who was there too) saw the basket.  I've watched 99.9% of all seconds that Jackson has been on the court this season, but at this particular moment, I had just socked Julie in the nose by flipping David upside-down (like he enjoys so much).  Julie's eyes were closed in pain, and Leah & i were focused on her when we heard the cheers.  I had caught the action in my peripheral vision, but didn't see who took the shot.  I knew it came from where Jackson had been, and when i saw the coach's reaction, i knew.

We didn't let on to Jackson that we missed it.  But like i said, he was matter-of-fact about the whole thing anyway.

A Valentine's Gift

For Valentine's Day, i made Julie a photo book.  The website was fairly easy to use.  You just pick some photos to upload from your computer, then drag/drop them into pre-set formats (though you are free to alter the formats), add your text, and voila.

The quality was good, quite good actually.  Turnaround time was less than a week from creation to arriving by Fedex.  A suggestion for several events:  birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, births, vacations.

You can view the actual book i made at the link above.

The Dixie Chicks Clean Up

At last Sunday's Grammy Awards, my old fave the Dixie Chicks won all 5 of the awards for which they were nominated, including the big 3 of Best Album, Best Record, and Best Song.  Their wins in the country categories were well deserved and should not have been a surprise.  After all, every single studio album that they've released since adding Natalie Maines has won the Grammy for Best Country Album. 

But those big 3 wins are surely a function of their big GWB controversy.  And not just because the winning album and song were a direct result of, a response to, the brouhaha.  But also because the music industry wanted to send their own little message.  Fine for them.  Awards shows have been political for years.  There's a certain, quaint elitism to it.  And i don't think its just moneyed elitism, but a we're-gonna-stick-it-to-all-those-jocks-and-cheerleaders-who-razzed-us-in-high-school-for-being-music-dorks-and-now-look-who's-laughing flip-off.  I'm not talking about the Dixie Chicks, but about the whole of the Grammy voters.  Again, fine for them.

That said, I was very impressed with the Dixie Chicks' acceptance speeches. A good blend of humor, humility, perspective, self-awareness, and grace.  I was very happy to watch Marti & Emily (the 2 sisters) reach what must have felt like a culmination, an affirmation, and a chance to make a fresh start. (Even Natalie cracked that she was "ready to make nice.") To have followed their careers for 20 years, through the long toil of playing county fairs and honky tonks, of the quirky little cowgirl band with the cactus standup bass, it was nice to see this pinnacle.

P.S. I have wondered how the sisters felt being dragged along into Natalie's mess. They publicly stood behind their friend and bandmate, as they should have, but you wonder if they weren't "mad as hell" about the dustup. They worked for so long and so hard, and there must have been moments when it felt like it was all going to crash and burn. For good. And it had to have been tremendously hard on their families, to which they alluded in the final speech.

The Last Time Duke Wasn't Ranked

It's all anyone can talk about in college hoops.  Duke's slide of 4 straight losses in the ACC has left them outside the Top 25 for the first time in years.  Since about this time in 1996.  So, for some perspective, the last time Duke wasn't ranked...

- Duke Nukem 3D was released for the PC
- MLS had not played its first game
- Rent opened on Broadway
- ValuJet still existed
- Nintendo 64 was in late development
- The Ramones were still playing concerts
- Prince Charles & Diana were still married
- Kansas competed in the Big 8 conference; Texas in the SWC
- Tupac was alive
- The Dow was surging, and investors hoped it would hit 6000 soon
- Steve Jobs was running an outfit called NeXT
- The English Patient won the Best Picture Oscar
- Fox hoped to launch an all-news network later that year
- Suddenly Susan and Touched by an Angel were top 10 TV shows in
America
- You could not buy a DVD
- Phil Collins was still in Genesis
- Alanis Morissette cleaned up at the Grammys on the strength of her
Jagged Little Pill album
- Tiger Woods was an amateur
- Boris Becker won a major
- AOL was passing Prodigy & CompuServe in popularity
- If you discussed hoops on the web, you probably did it in a Usenet
group.