The New Helmet

I'm stoked about my new bike helmet. One of the gifts Kimberly got me for my birthday was a new Giro Indicator Helmet...the Titanium color. I haven't had a decent bike helmet in years. The one I had was cheap and uncomfortable. It slid around and I'm sure would not have much protection in a crash.

Giro...the company that makes Lance Armstrong's helmets...is very comfortable with great ventilation (20 vents!) and adjustment features. I'm looking forward to breaking it in on some Colorado mountain bike trails this June.

Jackson also got a new helmet...his is brown with jungle frogs on it. Here's some pics with us trying out our new helmets. Can't wait till the boy can go riding along with me on the trails.

All Time OU Basketball Team.

My bracket is still doing okay. I've got five in the elite eight. My final four can only be 50% correct however. But my championship game still has hope. And oh yeah...Kentucky was stupid for getting rid of Gillespie. They will rue the day.

So I've been toying around with my all time OU Basketball team. Wayman Tisdale, Blake Griffin and Mookie Blaylock are no brainers. But after that...I'm not sure who I'd pick out of the following group. Now that would be a team.

Alvin Adams
Eduardo Najera
Hollis Price
Stacy King
Brent Price
Ryan Minor
Harvey Grant

Bracketology

My NCAA bracket is doing very well so far. In fact this is my most accurate bracket ever.

I had 24 out of 32 teams advance to the first round. Siena, Cleveland State, Dayton, A&M, Maryland, Oklahoma State, Wisconsin and Western Kentucky were the teams I missed on. But come on...who picked Siena, CSU, Dayton or WKU? The state of Ohio was responsible for most of my bracket busts.

I had 13 out of 16 make it to the Sweet Sixteen. Wake Forest was knocked out of the first round. USC got beat my MSU. And I had Florida State, another first round casuality, in the round of 16...didn't see Xavier coming.

My Elite 8 is...Louisville, Kansas, UConn, Memphis, Pitt, Duke, UNC and Oklahoma.

My Final Four is Louisville, Memphis, Duke and Oklahoma.

My Final Game is Oklahoma defeating Louisville for the NCAA Championship.

Walletism

Sales of Toyota Priuses are down 35%. Overall the sale of small cars is down 25%. Meanwhile the sales figures of trucks slowly begins to rise from the ashes. All of this correlates with a drop in gas prices.

Americans have not learned a thing. Americans are not spurred by morality or ethics. Americans are spurred by one thing...their wallets.

We selfishly consume and consume as long as the price is right. We don't give a darn about CO2 emissions and the cost to the environment that God bestowed to us. We don't care a flip about our children's future. If we did, Americans would buy hybrids and other alternatives regardless of the price of gasoline.

Today's hybrids and high-mileage cars are now competitive in price with standard vehicles. We just want to guzzle our fossil fuels, drill baby drill, indirectly fund the radical Islamsists of Saudi Arabia and spew our toxins into the sky.

It's the 1970's show all over again.

Despite the cries of conservatives our economy is still largely based on free market principles. The market will give us what we demand.

For instance, in the next several months my household will soon purchase all our electricity from 100% wind power. It will cost the same, actually a little less, as the power we now consume which comes from coal fired plants. By the way, there is no such thing as clean coal...sorry President Obama. If everyone demanded that their power came from renewable sources I guarantee the market would meet that need. But frankly, most Americans don't care. They don't want to do the research, they don't want to bother with the details...it's too much work. So as a result...pollution from coal fired plants continues to wreak havoc on our environment.

We don't have socialism. We don't have capitalism. We have walletism pure and simple.

Guest Blog Post on The Professor

My friend and colleague Eddie Carson graciously allowed me the honor this week of submitting a guest blog post on his award-winning blog “The Professor” which I proudly include on my blogroll. Eddie is the director of A.P. Programs for the elite Houston Christian High School. He serves on the A.P. European History Test Development Committee and is a frequent presenter at A.P. conferences around the nation. I first met Eddie a few years ago at TCU at a European History Summer Institute that he was conducting. His guidance and advice has been invaluable as I sought to introduce an A.P. European History course to the curriculum at KHS. Three years ago I could get only five students to sign up for the course. Next year we have 35 students already signed up and may possibly have to open another section for the first time. Plus, Eddie is the one who introduced me to the world of sushi cuisine for the first time last summer.

My POST, discussing the place of African-American historical studies in academia can be found HERE.

photo: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The subject of my post on The Professor.

Hail to the Thief

Radiohead's sixth album, 2003's "Hail to the Thief," is vastly underrated. You must check out this masterpiece here...






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_to_the_Thief