PATRIOTS UNDEFEATED

Kidding. But in Nicaragua, they are celebrating what almost was:

STRANGE YELLOW BALL IN THE SKY

Apparently I picked the right time to leave Richmond for a few days. After 5+ inches of rain over the weekend, now this??

Times Dispatch: "Strange Yellow Ball in the Sky"

CHICAGO: PART 9

Hey CP, It's an alpaca at the Lincoln Park Zoo

CHICAGO: PART 8

The Windy City from 1,000 feet.

SUBWAY FIGHT

On subway car 666 this morning, I had just heard a mobster analyze the near fight we watched on our bus detour -- two insecure men needed to ensure themselves of their masculinity, threatened lawsuits, hitting, slapping (but not punching). I could tell the mobster was watching me out of the corner of his eye from the other end of the subway car. We descended into the subway tunnel, things got darker and I thought, "Great, I'm on car 666, the lights are going to go out and the mobster is going to attack me in the dark and whisk me away to some unknown location."

Thankfully, he moved to another car and got off a few stops later. I arrived at Willow Chicago late, but unharmed. And none of this is fictional.

THE DRAKE

After 29 hours of travelling, i finally made it to The Drake. It's real nice. Too nice. And the Cubs won 13-6! Time to go meet high society...

WRIGLEY FIELD

Ahh yes. Cubbies and Pirates, comin' up next

WILLOW CHICAGO

Well, i got to Willow Creek's Chicago Campus 9:46 service at 10:52. Great old fashioned theater like Richmond's Byrd. On to Wrigley? I think so.

CHICAGO: PART 3

<>This tunnel in the Detroit airport has some psychedelic light/music show. crazy!

CHICAGO: PART 2

Flying to Chi-town in about half an hour. It's nice to have a break from school and work for a few days. Check back for pictures!

THE WINDY CITY

I'm flying out to Chicago tomorrow until Wednesday -- frequent flyer miles are the greatest thing ever. No particular reason, just for fun. On the agenda:

Wrigley Field

Pizza

Frank Lloyd Wright's House/Studio

We'll see what else we find while we're there. Dad's company has its annual conference at The Drake, so that's where we'll be staying. Hopefully I'll have updates on the blog.

ADAM JONES

Over a decade ago, Major League Baseball retired Jackie Robinson's number: no player would wear his number again. This year, on the anniversary of his debut, players around baseball wore #42 as a tribute to Jackie.

Adam Jones wore #42 for the Orioles. This kid (yes, kid. he's 1.5 years younger than me) is on my fantasy team, so I was excited that he hit a home run. But more importantly, a nice tribute to Jackie Robinson. When Adam hit the home run, one of the commentators said, "Somewhere, Jackie Robinson is smiling." I'm sure he is. Go Orioles!

MISSION WEEKEND PROMO VIDEO

I didn't have a video camera, and needed to create a promotional video for our churchwide mission celebration weekend. Here's what we got...

WHY DOWNLOADING FIREFOX IS LIKE GETTING INTO COLLEGE

Somebody else linked to this yesterday, and I was amused and interested. How could downloading my own personal web browser of choice be like getting into college? This Firefox thing is a piece of cake compared to what I had to do to get into college, much less graduate:

Why downloading Firefox is like getting into college

A quick glimpse at just about any profession shows you that the vast majority of people who succeed professionally also went to college.


This could be because college teaches you a lot.


Or it could be because the kind of person that puts the effort into getting into and completing college is also the kind of person who succeeds at other things.


Firefox is similar.

Read on...

Macs come with Safari, and PCs come with Internet Explorer. Seth is saying that it takes effort and persistence to make Firefox your browser of choice, so only the most dedicated of computer users would make it happen.

Seth says only the most dedicated students will achieve the prerequisites to go to college, apply to college and finish college are the same kind of people who would download Firefox. Interesting.

THE NORVA

According to a Times-Dispatch story today, the Norva will be named one of the top 5 rock clubs in the country by Rolling Stone next week. I've seen a few shows at the Norva (The Fray, Switchfoot twice and Relient K) and they have all been great. A lot of times at a concert you feel lost in the crowd, but at the Norva every seat (well, ok there aren't any seats -- every "stand") is close to the stage.

But the best part -- Bill Reid, owner of the Norva and part owner of the National in Richmond, said, "What we've done at The National is even better than what we did at NorVa." He expects The National to get the same award before too long. That will be something Richmond can be proud of. For now, we can just be proud of our neighbors.