Today was the third Sunday of Advent — the sunday of Joy. I lit a candle today during the service at ERUUF (the first time I’ve ever lit a candle during the service before for a joy or concern).  Mine was a very special joy. As a kid I didn’t love the Joy Sunday of Advent as much as I loved the others.  Peace was probably my favorite (little activist kid that I was).Joy was also the pink...

This is the “Presto” Potato Peeler.  I have one of these that I picked up for free, but haven’t used.  After messing with it for 10 minutes trying to figure out how to make it work, I asked youtube to help me.  This wonderful woman demonstrated it excellently. It’s actually pretty neat, I’m going to try making homestyle baked potato fries later tonight.

Last night, for the first time since becoming a dad, I stayed out past midnight in Durham. I had a lot of fun, discussed my potential future band w/ my potential future bandmates, and had some great discussions at Drinking Liberally, saw some great music (Pistil @ the Broad Street Cafe), and even played a little shuffleboard with the band afterwords at the Green Room.

Washing & Ironing: How To Iron A Shirt This is a video I watched just recently, after a life time of bribing other people to iron my shirts for me.  It started in student Congress, circa age 15.  Before that I’d gotten my grandmother or mother to iron them, though the times I needed an ironed shirt were few & far between.  Since then I’ve bribed roomates, travelmates, and girlfriends...

Onwards from AKQA on Vimeo.

In keeping with my recent movement towards Foreign Policy readings… I’m looking for a new book to read. Specifically, I’m looking for a book that is les than 600 pages, more than 100 pages, written from an angle that would not be described as neoconservative or right-wing, and in the category of non fiction covering one of these 5 topics: China:  Especially Mao through Now.  (Hey, that Rhymes!)...

I first got into blogging in 2003, when a group I was a member of started a group blog…  and I took the leap from there to reading political blogs early on. The first blog I started reading on a daily basis, and even posting comments and diaries on, was called My Due Dillegence, and there were primarily three writers who I read:  Jerome Armstrong, Chris Bowers, and Matt Stoller — especially those last...

Last night Annabelle decided to wake up at 1am, and not go back to sleep for about 2 hours.  She would cry her loudest possible wail if I put her down, or tried to feed her, or did anything but hold her.  I ended up taking her on a nearly 2 mile walk, and then rocking her to sleep when we got back.  It was intense. I did, however, see a pair of deer right in the middle of one of the condo complexes near...

I’ve updated this blog quite a bit.  I cleared out a whole bunch of old code that just wasn’t doing any good, and replaced it with a much simpler design.  Perhaps I’ll even start blogging here soon. In other news:  Annabelle is nearly walking!

The Charlotte Observer recently tried to pick-apart what makes NC so popular with new residents. North Carolina came in 3rd place in the US for 2008 (behind Washington DC and Nevada) as the most popular state to move to / least popular to leave. The interesting thing isn’t that we’re in 3rd… it’s that we’re actually down from 1st place, a rank we’ve been holding the last...