"I love YouTube"

That phrase sounds a lot like "I love you too." Seriously Wade, that's not what I said!

If you have too much time on your hands

You can do what someone in my customer's office did.

Apparently they even tin foiled toothpicks and a straw that were on her desk.


They got back at the guy who did it by saran-wrapping his desk, though I have yet to see pictures of that.

Glad I didn't go to law school

There are a lot more reasons than this that I'm glad I didn't go, but this article only helps my case against going.

The United States last week became the world's first nation of 200 accredited law schools, as the American Bar Association gave provisional approval to two North Carolina institutions.
...
It's the numbers at the top that get all the attention: At the largest law firms, median starting salaries were $145,000 last fall, according to NALP, an organization that tracks law placement.

But many students don't realize at first that the high-paying law firms recruit almost exclusively at institutions ranked in the top 15 or so. Overall, the median salary for new lawyers is $62,000. For public interest law jobs, new lawyers can expect about $40,000.

Meanwhile, the average amount students borrow to attend a private law school surged 25 percent between 2002 and 2007 to $87,906, ABA figures show. For public law schools, borrowing averages $57,170.

I'm not complaining about those average salaries, but with where I'm at with no law degree in relation to that, I'm more than happy that I didn't go to law school from a financial perspective, never mind the myriad other reasons that were even more important than finances.

(For those who don't know, I took the LSAT and visited two law schools - Baylor and Texas Tech - and was on my way towards getting through the applications before being sidetracked with a job offer that I decided to take. I haven't looked back from that decision since and though I'm in an entirely new industry now - and enjoy it 100x more - I love where I'm at and what I'm doing and have absolutely no regrets about not going to law school.)

The gang is coming back

The Tar Heels are back and looking better than ever.

Tar Heels players will return to school

All three of North Carolina's basketball players who filed for early entry into the NBA Draft have decided to return to school for at least one more season next year.

UNC officials announced at 4:42 p.m. that Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green have withdrawn from the draft. The deadline was 5 p.m. to withdraw and maintain college eligibility.

Lawson, a point guard, said last Saturday that he was 50-50 in his choice.

"The process of 'testing the waters' has given me valuable information about my draft status and I have decided it would be better to return to school," Lawson said in a prepared statement released by UNC.

"I love school, my teammates and the coaching staff. I look forward to playing next season and trying to win a national championship."

The decisions mean that UNC's starting lineup from this season will return in the forthcoming season. The three players were UNC's No. 2-4 scorers and helped the team go 36-3 and reach the NCAA Final Four semifinals.

Ellington reached his decision after talking over his situation with Coach Roy Williams.

"After going through this process and gaining valuable information then discussing my future with my family as well as Coach Williams, it was an easy decision for me to come back to the University of North Carolina because of my love for the university and my teammates," Ellington said in prepared statement.

The same Final Four starting lineup all back. Can you say "unstoppable"?!?

Oh, and the Tar Heels are 1-0 at the College World Series too. Go Heels!

The death of Tim Russert

Love him or hate him, every political junkie is very, very familiar with the man.

Tim Russert dies after a heart attack, New York Times reports

Tim Russert, NBC News's Washington bureau chief renowned for his tough questioning of politicians, has died, the New York Times reported. He was 58.

Russert died of a heart attack, the New York Times said on its Web site, citing his family.

Russert hosted the Sunday morning talk show "Meet the Press." He was also a best-selling author whose books included a tribute to his father, "Big Russ and Me."

Joining NBC News in 1984, Russert took over as anchor of "Meet the Press" on Dec. 8, 1991, now the most-watched Sunday morning interview program in the U.S. and the most-quoted news program in the world, according to the network's Web site.

Leaving town

...and staying put at the same time.

Tomorrow, we're flying out of town for 11 days in the Pacific Northwest with my brother and sister-in-law. It should be a much-needed vacation (then again, who doesn't "need" a vacation?).

We've also been contemplating a job opportunity in California for the last month. We decided not to pursue it. A customer of mine had approached me about working with them. There was a lot that sounded good about it so after initially turning it down, I decided to consider it.

Without going into boring details, there was enough that didn't come together with what I said would have to be the "perfect storm" that we decided not to make the move.

My mom said that when considering a job opportunity, you have to answer the question: If this opportunity went away tomorrow, would you be relieved or disappointed? Truthfully, I'm neither. More than anything I'm simply excited about the summer that's upon us. I'm excited to pursue Christ's reign in my life. I'm excited to see where the rest of this year will take my wife and I.

I'm not disappointed. I'm not relieved. I'm excited. I like that.

Jesus takes the wheel

This is scary and then a huge blessing and then funny all at the same time.

Pilots run out of fuel, pray, land near Jesus sign

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - It seemed like an almost literal answer to their prayers. When two New Zealand pilots ran out of fuel in a microlight airplane they offered prayers and were able to make an emergency landing in a field — coming to rest right next to a sign reading, "Jesus is Lord."

Grant Stubbs and Owen Wilson, both from the town of Blenheim on the country's South Island, were flying up the sloping valley of Pelorus Sound when the engine spluttered, coughed and died.

"My friend and I are both Christians so our immediate reaction in a life-threatening situation was to ask for God's help," Stubbs told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

He said he prayed during the ill-fated flight Sunday that the tiny craft would get over the top of a ridge and that they would find a landing site that was not too steep — or in the nearby sea.

Wilson said that the pair would have been in deep trouble if the fuel had run out five minutes earlier.

"If it had to run out, that was the place to be," he said. "There was an instantaneous answer to prayer as we crossed the ridge and there was an airfield — I didn't know it existed till then."

After Wilson glided the powerless craft to a landing on the grassy strip, the pair noticed they were beside a 20-foot-tall sign that read, "Jesus is Lord — The Bible."

"When we saw that, we started laughing," Stubbs said.

Nearby residents provided them with gas to fly the home-built plane back to base.

Obama's wife is fair game

The Tennessee GOP has used some less than upright tactics against Democrats. Having acknowledged that, when your wife is campaigning for you, it's fair to put her comments under just as much scrutiny as yours.

Obama tells Tenn.'s GOP: 'Lay off my wife'

WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama has a message for Tennessee's Republican Party: "Lay off my wife."

Obama, his party's presidential front-runner, and his wife, Michelle, were asked in an interview aired Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America" about an online video last week by the state's GOP taking her to task for a comment some considered unpatriotic.

"The GOP, should I be the nominee, can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record," Obama said. "If they think that they're going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I find unacceptable, the notion that you start attacking my wife or my family."

Are you serious? Unacceptable to make your wife an issue in a campaign when you have your wife stumping for you all over the country? It's ridiculous to think she won't be an issue, just as individuals who've made poor comments introducing John McCain have been lambasted for them.

He called the strategy "low class."

The video, posted on YouTube, centered on remarks Michelle Obama made while campaigning in Wisconsin last February, when she said: "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country."

I don't disagree about his comments on the Tennessee GOP here (they do need to think about the type of campaign they want to run), but again, it's immature for him to assume his last comment holds any water with anyone.

"Whoever is in charge of the Tennessee GOP needs to think long and hard about the kind of campaign they want to run, and I think that's true for everybody, Democrat or Republican," Obama said in the ABC interview, adding: "These folks should lay off my wife."

I think this only serves to highlight some of Obama's rather immature expectations of people. Send your wife to campaign for you, expect her words and actions to endure criticism.

Avoiding the gas pump

This guy embodies the phrase, "Put your money where your mouth is."

Wis. man won't buy gas for 31 days, maybe longer

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. - Brian LaFave couldn't care less how high gasoline prices climb these days — he's parked his pickup truck and is refusing to buy gas for a month, possibly longer.

"The goal is to not use one drop of gas for 31 days," LaFave said, calling it his personal stand against the oil companies.

Now LaFave, 31, is riding his bicycle or walking everywhere he goes. He won't even let friends pick him up unless they already planned on being in the neighborhood.

"If they're not going out of their way, I can take the ride," he said. "But if they're going out of their way, then ... I'm still consuming gasoline so it kind of defeats the purpose."

LaFave started the effort May 11. He bikes to his third-shift job at Aldrich Chemical in Sheboygan Falls, a 9-mile commute.

"I did like a practice run ... two days in a row to make sure I could do it," he said. "I'm not in the greatest shape. The mornings are the worst. It feels like it takes forever. I get like a mile down the road and I want to die."

It's a big change for someone who put 300 miles on his truck the week before he stopped driving it.

LaFave fills out a chart each day listing how many miles he bikes, the destination and the gas price that day, among other things. He plans to compute his savings and donate that amount to a charity that provides food to children in Africa.

"I think just with the gas prices being so high, everybody complains about it but no one ever really does anything about it," LaFave said. "People continue to drive nonstop and not think about it, but I just wanted to take a stand and say, `I'm not gonna pay this much money for gas.'"

100

That's the number of work emails I sent Monday. I'm afraid to even try to figure out how many I received.

At what point do you just auto-delete everything?