tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32089148336153504092007-12-24T17:14:21.112-05:00AJMBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208914833615350409.post-74753967734725458072007-12-24T17:04:00.000-05:002007-12-24T17:14:21.136-05:00

I was watching television the other day and saw the Coca-Cola ad featuring a party of penguins being interrupted by polar bears. It's a pretty picture of tolerance, except that polar bears are Arctic and penguins are Antarctic. Perhaps nobody else is bothered by this scientific inaccuracy, but I cringe to think that a bunch of elementary school children now believe that penguins and polar bears

AJMtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208914833615350409.post-30525277029350403102007-10-15T22:41:00.000-04:002007-10-15T23:12:29.690-04:00

I was in Chicago this weekend and decided to go to improv comedy on Saturday night. I went to a show called ComedySportz, which takes two teams of three comedians and has them compete against each other for the audience's laughs. The show was very interactive, with a comedian "referee" (dressed in an NHL referee's uniform, no less) soliciting input from the audience multiple times each scene.

AJMtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208914833615350409.post-64994778354034222402007-08-31T23:31:00.000-04:002007-08-31T23:40:24.440-04:00

For the last four months, my existence has been defined by Bay Area Boulevard. I'm working on an intensive project for work (so intensive that they temporarily relocated me to Houston to work on it), and it just struck me that, for being here for four months, I haven't really seen any part of Houston. I have, however, seen plenty of Bay Area. My apartment is on Bay Area, as is my gas station,

AJMtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208914833615350409.post-63989170480913971762007-08-01T00:10:00.000-04:002007-08-01T00:14:48.267-04:00

As someone who wants to be a high school teacher, I find this very disturbing, regardless of the facts: A Teacher Grows Disillusioned After a ‘Fail’ Becomes a ‘Pass’.

AJMtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208914833615350409.post-46533523880135890212007-07-01T20:24:00.000-04:002007-07-01T21:18:54.655-04:00

Two interesting articles in today's New York Times:The Amateur Future of Space Travel. I especially like the phrase "'containing garment' business," used to refer to a company that manufactured space gloves, pressurized suits, and bras.The Six Stages of E-Mail. So true, so true.

AJMtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208914833615350409.post-46827621731098145562007-06-24T14:37:00.000-04:002007-06-24T15:20:12.537-04:00

The not-so-recent news article on the boy who had two spiders removed from his ear reminded me of a similar experience of my own. In the Fall of 2001, while a sophomore in college, I developed a keen interest in paleontology, which I pursued with both coursework (including a class from the late Stephen Jay Gould) and a summer internship at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Kimberly,

AJMtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208914833615350409.post-20018723890255452372007-05-28T13:24:00.000-04:002007-05-29T13:22:17.215-04:00

Yesterday, for the second time in as many years, I went to Arlington National Cemetery to watch Rolling Thunder XX. But this year, I had another mission: to visit the grave of a college classmate of mine who died in a car crash in December 2006 while serving in the Air Force. I didn't know him very well--we knew each other's names and would exchange greetings when we passed on campus--but his

AJMtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208914833615350409.post-69846461395897460352007-05-21T22:28:00.000-04:002007-05-21T23:41:15.564-04:00

As someone who believes, deep in my soul, that people who use curse words simply aren't able to think of the actual word that represents their true feelings, I generally do not find modern comedians funny: it seems that every other word is unprintable and, as a result, I don't watch many comedy routines (or movies). So, this evening, it was refreshing to watch a Bill Cosby comedy special from

AJMtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208914833615350409.post-7964555675066489932007-05-11T21:27:00.000-04:002007-05-11T22:31:40.786-04:00

Last weekend, I drove from Arlington, VA to Houston, TX as part of a job relocation (hello, hurricanes). Over the course of two days, I did about 22 hours worth of driving which, for the most part, I enjoyed. Besides the opportunity to think and reflect on a number of things, I was able to really reflect on two things that seem to be omnipresent in American society: There is nothing good on the

AJMtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208914833615350409.post-28563631725464637952007-05-09T22:30:00.000-04:002007-05-09T22:50:22.160-04:00

The May-June issue of Scouting Magazine features an article on how units and others can keep Scouts who recently turned 18 involved in Scouting, and I'm featured in the article as an example of someone who, instead of becoming involved in a unit, became involved in Council/District activities. Though the article is short, I think it's a good first step in addressing what I consider to be a

AJMtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3208914833615350409.post-31792129625136855402007-03-15T22:29:00.000-04:002007-03-15T23:31:19.436-04:00

Samuel Morse, when sending the first telegraph message, put it best: "What hath God wrought?" [Numbers 23:23] Certainly, when you look at all of the noise on the internet, it's hard to imagine that the best use of our gift of technology would be to post all of our ramblings and musings in a forum where anyone bored enough to look could find it. Deciding to do this was a decision I came to with

AJM