Thursday, March 30, 2006

Showcase of the Immortals

It’s late March – early April and that means one thing…WrestleMania. On that topic this year’s WWE Hall of Fame inductions (yes, there is a pro wrestling hall of fame) are of particular interest to me since one of Dad’s old customers is being inducted along with his tag team partner. To residents of Central Florida Bob Windam might just be some guy who owns a used car lot in Mascot, Florida, however to wrestling fans he’s remembered as Blackjack Mulligan, tough Texan and master of the claw hold. Some of the highlights of his wrestling career were winning the World Tag Team Titles with Ric Flair (Flair’s first pro wrestling title) and his feuds with Andre the Giant. Also he’s the father of former 4 Horsemen member Barry Windam, Kendall Windam, and the step father of Mike Rotundo (I.R.S. of the WWF). After his wrestling career ended Blackjack eventually opened up his used car lot, which led to Dad selling batteries to him. One Saturday I went out with Dad in order to meet him and he seemed like a nice guy. If you ever buy a car from Blackjack you’ll surely be struck by how big he is, but for some fun go into his office and look at the pictures on his wall. While feeling diminutive standing in Blackjack’s shadow notice the picture of Blackjack and Andre the Giant. In that picture Blackjack looks tiny compared to Andre, it’s a nice little way to put things in perspective for an average sized person. The first two hours of the Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be broadcast online at WWE.com at 9:00 pm on April 1st and the final hour will be televised on USA Network at 11:00 pm. Here’s a video package about the induction, here’s Blackjack’s profile on WWE.com, and here’s a link to Blackjack’s own website.

Somewhat Busy...

It has been a while since my last posting, so I’ll do a quick little wholesale update on what I’ve been up to;
1: Finished my intramural volleyball season and then celebrated with the team + Danny and Laura.
2: Went to a brain bowl practice here at Pitt, had a good time too. I’ll be going back this Thursday.
3: Saw the Governor when he came by the law school to get a speech.
4: Angelina came for a visit.
5: Reunited with the majority of the volleyball team to beat Duquesne’s volleyball team in the Golden Gavel Competition (an annual competition between the law schools of Duquesne and Pitt).
6: Avoided doing school work by going to see a movie that night.
7: Eventually wrote a brief that was due, but only after spending part of the night at the local Dave & Buster’s arcade to help celebrate Sharon’s birthday.

So that sums up what I’ve been up to, a more interesting post will be forthcoming.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

I Paid How Much For This???

If you ever wonder why I'm so harsh toward pitt's law school (intentionally lower case letters) today provided another good example. I went to a meeting about how to register for courses and it turns out that Valencia Community College is far more technologically advanced than this law school. Let that sink in for a moment....I'm at a school that is considered to be one of the nations 50 best and I'm longing to have the amenities that I used to have at a COMMUNITY COLLEGE. We all know that Valencia is a great deal for the price you pay and also I've often said that I would have gladly paid the full price without scholarships to go to UM if I would have had to (which costs more than pitt law by the way), but I must admit that I feel cheated paying the price that I am going to this school. So, for those of you who hear one of my law school rants remember that it's not a whinny student you're hearing, it's a ripped off consumer.
On the bright side I did go to two other events in the last two days and both were great. One was a panel on non-tradition jobs for lawyers and the other one was about legal careers in politics, I might post some interesting observations on those later though.

Everybody Owes $30,432.74


It looks like the Senate will pass legislation to let our national debt grow to 9 trillion dollars in order to avoid a default on national treasury notes. Here are a few ways to put this into perspective:
#1: Type out 9 trillion on a keyboard. It's easy, just type a nine and then put 12 zeros behind it with a coma between ever three zeros. If done correctly it'll look like this 9,000,000,000,000. Whew, that was a lot of typing.
#2: Do your part and pay what you owe on that debt. I'll come out to around $30,432.74.
#3: Read Running on Empty by Peter Peterson.
#4: Spend $35 million dollars a day for life to equal a trillion, then live 9 times.
For more fun ways to better understand how far in debt we are read this great little explanation of how much ONE trillion is .

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Sunday, March 05, 2006

If You've Got a Little Extra Time...

While watching C-SPAN today I stumbled upon a familiar name on the schedule. Adonal Foyle was going to be on Q & A. I immediately recognized him as a player from the Golden State Warriors, but what I didn’t recognize was how interesting a person he is. Adonal is from the Caribbean and is completely different from the general stereotype of an NBA player, but that’s obvious since he’s being interviewed on C-Span. In the interview he touched on his path from the Caribbean to the NBA, his foundation Democracy Matters, basic campaign finance issues, and political apathy among young people. If you’ve got a little extra time the interview is worth watching. The link to see it can be found here, also Adonal has his own website which includes poety and a reading list.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Photograph-X Pittsburgh Division

I tried to get out of the shirt printing game, but it just pulled me back in. I couldn’t stand the idea of paying $16 for shirts that I could make for a fourth of that, so I decided to make my own screen printing press. After a couple weekends of building it and acquiring the other stuff I needed it is finally ready. It conveniently and inconspicuously leans against the wall when not in use and can do 2 color shirts, I was almost able to fit a third color on it, but I’ll have to try that on the next one. Bellow are pictures of the press while I was printing a job for the Pitt Law Democrats. I didn’t really intend to build the press for commercial purposes, but as a good capitalist I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to make a little extra money. Now if only Pitt had a Republican group that needed t-shirts in response…oh well. Oh yeah Danny, if you have any shirt ideas I’ve got you covered now.