In a move that’s sure to revive the perception that the weblog is all about cows, I pass to you straight from [ the The Ultimate Build Your Own Cow Page. Have fun!

I got to see my mother last night in Atlanta, as she was in town for a training session. The wonderful folks at Nschool even bought me dinner – a fine Italian feast at Dominick’s in Norcross. I ate at least three meal’s worth of very good food and topped it off with a large slab of cheesecake and bits off of everyone else’s dessert plates. Mmmm! It looks like Nschool is doing some exciting things (using technology exported from here in Athens) to bring web-based toools to the classrooms. Webpages, yes, and calendars, message boards, email, and more for the students, teachers, and parents – free to the schools. They do this through advertising, but unlike the ads like those found on Channel One and similar in-school programs, Nschool carefully screens the advertisers and links only to pages that offer educational content and things such as scholarships and grants. All in all, this looks like a super company.

Patrick Naughton has pleaded guilty to one count of crossing state lines for the purpose of meeting a minor for sex in return for having the other charges dropped. This saves him from sitting though a second trial. Excite posted an excellent lengthy article this morning titled “Jailbait and Switch” that details what he did, how he got caught, and how he fought his way through the first trial.

I’m sure glad I can dance and type at the same time. It makes me so very productive.

I tell you – my.mp3.com rocks! Here I was, wishing I had my Violent Femmes CD with me, when I remembered that I had beamed it to my.mp3.com. Now, a couple clicks later, I’m listening to the CD in streaming hi-fi. Thanks for letting me listen to my music when I want, where I want, my.mp3.com! I just hope the judges will see things our way.

…out of mints, pass the life savers
dropping hints, candy for candy coated tongue…

Flush with success from her popularity at Landover Baptist Church, Betty Bowers (“She’s a better Christian than you!”) has her own site. Full of suprises, the site reveals – among other things – the homosexual agenda: “4:10 p.m. Time permitting, bring about the general decline of Western Civilization and look like you are having way too much fun doing it. "

I know it’s been done before, but this is still mighty good: Space Ghost & friends in the “Whassup” commercial.

In one of those bizarre events that shows just how interconnected everything is, an entry in my referrer logs led me to an on-line textbook: A Radically Modern Approach to Introductory Physics. This book was written by a former professor of mine (and chair of the Physics department at the time) Dr. David Raymond. Dr. Raymond and I didn’t really get along all that well, and he is a very large part of the reason I didn’t continue on in graduate school (a decision I’m very happy I made), but I’m always interested when someone attempts to write a new introductory physics text. There have been very many attempts but very few successes, at least when looked at from a student’s point of view. One of my first confrontations with Dr. Raymond was when my friend Kevin Healy and I gave a talk in front of the entire department’s faculty and graduate students on suggested new approaches to teaching physics. I don’t remember why Kevin and I thought we had the authority to tell a group of world renowned physicists how to teach, but I know we gave a very reasonable talk full of reasonable suggestions. Generally, we both got a positive response, but Dr. Raymond (as department chair) took our criticisms personally, I think, and that began our rocky relationship and my decent from a bright young rising star in the department to just another student. I’m eager to see if any of our general ideas made it into the book. Oh – how’d I find this from my referrer logs? Someone was searching for kestrel, and his entry showed up two above mine because it’s being hosted on a computer named kestrel. Very tenuous threads that hold us all together, no?

It seems a shame to mow down all of the wildflowers in the yard. One of the nice things about a reel mower is rather than rushing through the job to escape the noise, I can hear the birds, play with the neighbor’s dog, and pay close attention to the life around me. Like the wonderful flower pictured here. It was only an inch and a half tall but still looked spectacular – deep blue bells against the greens of the grass and dandelions. I mowed around it.