Category - Family

A soft rain fell in the parking lot. Nearby, a girl was on her tiptoes trying to put a garbage bag into a dumpster, only to have it fall back on her repeatedly. My parents carried boxes from the rented trailer. Finally, but with some embarrassment, the girl succeeded in her task. "Epic fail," she said apologetically to the passersby.

I was back at Hume Hall, the honors dorm at the University of Florida, for my second year of college. Known as a haven for geeks and nerds who do nothing but play video games, the truth is more complex than that. Some of them are in fact ordinary people. And they know how to have a good time.

Tropical Storm Fay has been a bother. First it crossed over Florida, drenching South Florida in the process. While it moved toward the Atlantic Ocean, my family decided that yesterday would be a good time to make a run for Gainesville through the center of the state. We encountered some rain, but nothing really bad. The storm was forecast to move west, hitting Florida again. But before it did that, it stalled out. The storm was stationary from last night till about midday today, which bought me some time to move into my dorm room. Now it's been raining for hours, but the storm's large eye should be coming soon.

It is nice being in the same dorm as I was in last year. I haven't been at good old Hume Hall (East) in almost four months, but it's easy to get back into the swing of things. Everything is pretty familiar. I've already seen some of the same faces (my RA from the spring checked me in, and I had a chat with one of the cleaning ladies). I have a connection to this place. In fact, when I was thinking of things about last year I had forgotten to mention, I forgot to remember that my roommate and I wrote our names in cement that was drying outside the entrance of the building. Now that's a connection.

I chose a room on the same floor as last year but in the wing farther from the main building. I wasn't sure who I would get as a roommate, but it turned out that one of my chemistry lab partners chose the same room. That worked out well. I've spent this afternoon unpacking. I am now pretty unpacked, except that I haven't put up my posters due to a lack of suitable tape. Also, I forgot one of my bags. My parents haven't gone back home yet, though; my sister still has to move in to her apartment.

Ryan, my erstwhile chemistry lab partner and new roommate, had a head start on moving in. He got here a few days ago and has rearranged his furniture to his liking. Actually, he had to do it because he has a full-size keyboard. Incidentally, one of my floormates from last year had a similarly large keyboard and arranged his stuff the same way. Instead of having the bed against the back corner with the dresser against the back wall and the desk along the side wall, they both put the keyboard at the back wall, the desk facing forward in front of it, and the bed in front of that, with the dresser underneath the bed. Could that be the only possible arrangement when one has a large keyboard?

My roommate last year brought a TV, but this year, neither Ryan nor I had one. We didn't see it as too much of a problem, since neither of us watches much TV, but I reasoned that if somebody offered me a TV for free over the summer, I would take it. A few days ago, a family friend was collecting some donated items and had some surplus stuff, including a TV. She offered it to me. That's how I became the proud owner of a 13-inch Sharp 137LM color TV. It's my first TV set. I was the only kid on the metaphorical block who didn't have a TV in his room. When I asked my mom for one, she would say, "When you're 14." When I was 14, she didn't remember saying that. My sister can vouch for it, though.

The only thing that was missing was a remote control. My dad had a spare programmable remote, but it didn't know the radio signals for this TV, probably because it's old enough to vote and drink alcohol. As I looked for a matching remote for sale on the Internet, I marveled at the hidden yet complex world of online TV remote stores. Some of them claimed to have a compatible remote in stock for $40 or $50. No thanks. Luckily, someone was selling an original remote (with new batteries) on eBay for $5.60. It should be arriving next week. Thanks, Internet!

Now, I don't ask much of you readers, but if any of you feel a need to express your gratitude, friendship, thankfulness, camaraderie, undying devotion, or money, please write:

I can also accept packages.

In October 2003, I "suddenly became obsessed with the metric system," as I put it at the time. I mentioned plans for writing an article called "The Metric System: Ten Times Better or Inching Toward a Metric America." Well, that didn't happen. A fragmentary draft exists on my computer, last modified on October 19, 2003:

Convincing, ain't it?

As I may have mentioned, my parents have had our house for sale for almost a year now. On Saturday, we had a small garage sale. This is kind of a big deal because the only other garage sale we've ever had (as long as I've been around) was before we moved into our current house. It's a way of having less stuff to move. I couldn't think of anything I wanted to sell, mainly because I threw/gave away a lot of my stuff before heading off to college last year. The stuff I have left I want to keep, give away, or sell for a reasonable amount of money. I can't think of anything that I'd want to unload for a token price. Here are some things I actually have in my room:

• A metal detector
• Records
• 400+ issues of National Geographic Magazine
• A sledgehammer
• A lava lamp
• An inflatable pool raft
• World War II ration stamps
• An old lady wig
• A snapshot of an old Irish man playing the accordion (thanks, Luke)
• An uncut sheet of $1 bills
• A large stuffed penguin wearing a Santa Claus hat

...and much more. Man, I have a lot of stuff. But the garage sale didn't do very well, from what I hear. (I was asleep during much of it.)

Here in the United States, we're lucky to have some freedom. The same can't be said of the Top Five Most Censored Countries in the World. (Disclaimer: I am friends with the author.)

This is actually interesting, with nice pictures: 10 Very Rare Clouds.

One Post Wonder is a blog that features old blogs that have only one post. It would be funny if it were itself a one-post wonder, but it's not.

For the past five years, this blog has served as my personal journal, among other things. But I've been writing in journal-like settings for longer than that. Probably starting around first or second grade, I would have to write about a certain topic each day in a "journal." The golden age of the journal seemed to be around third grade, which is when I would have to write about things like "How I'd get my cat down from a 10 ft. tree" (February 19, 1998), "My Amazing Machine" (March 30, 1998), and "I Like Being a Boy Because":

I was pretty bent on preserving those editions of "Jordon's Journal," judging by the handwritten alphabetical index of titles I added to the end of each volume. But over the years, my elementary and junior high teachers required less and less journaling. I must have found the practice interesting enough that I decided to keep a real journal for myself.

The book itself is a small notebook that, as I recall, had come pre-packaged with a larger one that I used for school. I had previously used this small notebook as a stick-figure flipbook, but I covered the front cover with paper, leaving a window for the words "The Stick Flipbook," so it would read:

In the first entry, written on the evening of Wednesday, February 24, 1999, I briefly described a few things that had happened that day, including my first encounter with the 50 State Quarters series. I wrote that I had argued with my sister and my friend Sean, and that my friend Reid was "his usual." Such is the exciting life of a nine-year-old. Other entries were equally banal. "Dear Journal," began an entry written three days later,

I wrote about everything interesting that happened, including field trips. ("Dear Journal, I went to the Seaquarium yesterday and found that Flipper is still alive.") Soon, I was writing mainly about interesting things and ignoring the boring days. I would bring my journal on every family trip and chronicle it in detail. The most significant of these was a two-week car trip to Pittsburgh that July, which remains the longest vacation I've ever been on in terms of time as well as distance traveled... probably.

For the duration of the trip, I had Pennsylvania-mania (a term that, while cheesy, cannot be found in the journal). I would write a Pennsylvania-themed trivia question at the bottom of each odd-numbered page and the answer on each even page. I would keep track of our mileage between stops and some of the places at which we ate each day, as well as all the things we did and what time we entered each new state. A typical entry:

The answer is the Pennsylvania Turnpike. At the end of the trip, I had gathered these fun facts:

• We drove 3,353 miles.
• I estimated that we used 134 gallons of gas. I wonder where I came up with the figure of 25 MPG. I probably asked my dad.
• We saw 72 deer. That's kind of a big deal since we don't have them in South Florida.
• We used 10 rolls of film. I estimated this to be 240 pictures.
• We drove through the states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland.

In 2000, I wrote about a cruise to Cozumel in March-April and a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains in October. I also wrote about starting junior high school, mentioning my 22-year-old homeroom teacher, who was "SO HOT!!!" (I'm not going to lie. She was an attractive woman. She probably still is. And dang if I'm not almost as old now as she was then.) I also wrote about the antics of my science teacher, Mr. Tuttle:

There were more excursions to write about in 2001. I covered a trip up the east coast of Florida in April and a wedding in Charleston, South Carolina, in June. I recorded the last entry in the journal on pages 72-74 on Saturday, August 4, 2001. I described my experience at summer camp up to that point and my attempt to start a band with my friends:

Days later, almost on a whim, I would get my first guitar. It was a pivotal moment that helped shape the person I am today. And only 20 months later, I started The World of Stuff and took up journaling again, this time for the world.

And today, I am a Macho Nacho.

I'm 19 years old today. This is my last year as a nominal teenager. Next year, I'll be "in my twenties." That's frightening. But for now, I am still someone with "teen" in his age.

You know how, whenever it's your birthday, you remark that you don't look or feel any older? I sometimes do. But yesterday, I looked in the mirror and saw that I did look a year older. It occurred to me that Brendan Leonard and his friends were 19 when they produced and starred in The Brendan Leonard Show, which I watched avidly when I was 13 and 14. Now I look almost as old as they did then.

I had dinner with some friends last night. I chose Smokey Bones, which is a barbecue place, but a nice one. I don't even like ribs or anything, but they have good burgers and steaks and things of that nature. Unlike last year, more people were able to come than I expected, so it was nice to see everybody. After that, I stopped over at Gerri's luau-themed party for a little while, but then I decided to go home.

My birthday has been pretty much like a typical Sunday except that my grandparents are here. After brunch, we went to a bookstore, which was convenient for me because I got a Barnes and Noble gift card for my birthday. I bought a book about the history of Fermat's Last Theorem. It should be interesting, but I wish I could understand the proof.

Plans for tonight: dinner at home with the fam. They really are the best gift of all. That and money.

Similar to the Doomsday Clock maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the ACLU has its own Surveillance Society Clock going. Both are currently at five minutes to midnight.

What would you do if you had 1,500 Xbox hard drives? The correct answer is to stack them and play hard drive dominoes. It's absolutely mesmerizing. I bet they'd all be broken after that, though. Those things are fragile.

You know those t-shirts that say "I'm big in Japan"? Mark Rowswell of Toronto is big in China. Millions of people there know and love him because he can speak Chinese more skillfully than many of them. Yet at home, he's just an ordinary guy.

I went ahead and upgraded to Firefox 3 yesterday, leaving a backup of my profile folder in case I wanted to downgrade.

Good things:

• It seems faster. I'm not sure if it actually is, but it seems that way. It might be that I don't have as many extensions installed (since some of them aren't yet compatible).
• The AwesomeBar is pretty awesome. I've only been using the browser for a day, but I expect to get more accustomed to it.
• Better operating system integration, with a Tango theme that fits right in with everything else on my desktop. The widgets (checkboxes, radio buttons) are nice and smooth the way they should be. Text boxes have rounded edges. And the currently selected tab now has a nice hue to it that I think wasn't there before. Some buttons are smoother, and others look the same.
• Seems to be tougher on web standards. Despite the aches and pains that this may cause to web designers 'n' developers, it's a good thing. For what it's worth, Firefox 3 doesn't render web pages any differently from Firefox 2, but I have to write nicer JavaScript for it.
• You can click on a site's favicon (or lack thereof) to see the security information. Previously, the most you could see from the main browser window was whether a connection was encrypted. Now, the space around the favicon is blue if a site has basic security measures ("You are connected to example.com and the connection is encrypted") and green if it has complete identity verification ("You are connected to example.com, which is operated by Example Co., San Francisco, CA, and the connection is encrypted"). In the latter case, the name of the company or organization will show up next to the URL in the address bar. Firefox also warns you rather strongly if a site has a bad security certificate. I think these features are a good idea. Here's some more info.
• The thing where it asks you to save a password after you've tried to log in is cool.
• I like the improvements made to the download window. I may be the only person on Earth who likes Firefox's download manager the way it is: in a separate window. (A lot of people love the Download Statusbar extension. Tried it, didn't like it.) In Firefox 3, the download window has been refined a bit: you can search among your downloads, go to the pages where you downloaded each file from, and so on. A message appears in the browser's status bar tells you how many downloads you have going and how many minutes they have left. And you get a pop-up notification when they're done.

Bad things:

• It's still a memory hog from my limited experience. It's using 455 MB for me right now, but that's less than it was at a little while ago. It does seem to give unused RAM back, though.
• I thought I'd give the new malware notification feature a try. (This is not to be confused with the similar anti-phishing feature that has been around for a while.) It always seemed to download the list of bad sites when I was loading a page (or pages), which used all of my bandwidth and slowed down page loading massively. I unchecked the option and haven't had the problem since. I'm smart, and I can recognize suspicious web sites. [Edit Mon Jun 23, 2008 10:55 EST (UTC -5): This problem is caused by an extension and has nothing to do with Firefox's malware protection or Firefox itself.]
• Firefox 3 likes to wreak havoc on my site. It sometimes displays pages without the stylesheet or randomly fails to load random images. Sometimes it starts to load the page without a stylesheet and then applies it an instant later. It only reminds me how bad of a job I did with this layout. (Next time I redesign the site, whenever that may be, I'll make sure it looks good without a stylesheet. I'll also blindfold myself and see if I can get around using a screenreader. If not, it's back to as-yet-nonexistent drawing board.) I've set nglayout.initialpaint.delay to a nonzero value, but I'm not sure if that trick still works. We'll see. [Edit Mon Jun 23, 2008 19:59 EST (UTC -5): This problem was caused by my server's response to an about:config setting that was drastically different from the default for some reason.]

A thing I am ambivalent about:

• Bookmarking. Maybe it's just that I have too many bookmarks, but the changes in Firefox 3 make bookmarking a little more confusing. One-click bookmarking is simple, but it sends your bookmarks into the "Unsorted Bookmarks" folder, which you kind of have to hunt for. If you just click again, you can choose a folder and add tags. Looks like I won't be needing the OpenBook extension anymore. But your bookmarks now exist in three separate domains: the Bookmarks Toolbar Folder, the Bookmarks Menu, and your Unsorted Bookmarks. It looks like you can also place bookmarks outside that hierarchy (or non-hierarchy) if you so desire. Anyway, this seems to be an incentive to clean up all the loose bookmarks I've had lying around, like four Garfield Minus Garfield cartoons. The bookmarks and history can be found together in the Library, which I would like to be more easily accessible than Bookmarks -> Organize Bookmarks. (Oh, it's also available through History -> Show All History. But why not just have a button for the Library?)

I have had other issues, but most of them involve extensions, so they aren't Firefox's fault. That said, I recommend upgrading. It's new, it's shiny, it's probably fast. The good outweighs the bad.

I was going to write once again about my lack of romantic companionship, but listening to music and having a good conversation with a friend are therapeutic. I'll be going with my family to visit my grandparents this weekend. Peace out.

You can see changes in political and graphic design trends by looking at USA political election logos 2008 - 1960. (They go reverse-chronologically, so the name is arguably appropriate.)

Speaking of graphic design: these album covers might hurt your eyes, but they're really cool. Soulwax: Nite Versions, Any Minute Now.

I've always wondered how trigonometric values could be calculated without computers or calculators. I had no idea that there were so many exact trigonometric constants that could be written as ratios of irrational and irrational quantities.

Once in a while I wonder about my ancestors and distant cousins. Sometimes I decide to research them. My curiosity bit me again the other day, so I decided Googling both the Croatian and English versions of my family name. I had already gotten some information together in GRAMPS, so it was just a matter of adding people to it. Before I knew it, I was finding a lot of family members through obituary records and the like.

I decided to create a Kalilić/Kalilich Family Genealogy page to document my efforts and encourage other members of the family to contribute. As it happens, I've gotten back in touch with my cousin Michael, who discovered me on the Internet a few years ago. It turns out that he's been talking to one of our other cousins in the old country, and he's going over to visit in a few months. How about that?

All the information on the web page I've been able to find on the Internet for free. I'm actually pretty surprised at how easy it is to find indexes (or indices) of obituaries and death certificates. Immigration records are even online for free at ellisisland.org; those records have been very useful in determining which members of the family came to America when and how. I guess it's especially easy for me to search for things since the name I'm looking for is so rare (and probably even peculiar to my own family). Anyway, I've ordered copies of a couple of death certificates, including one for someone I've never heard of.

I've only just begun to figure out how the American branch of the family relates to the European branch. The immigration records shed some light on common ancestors, but there's not enough information yet. I'm eager to ask my European cousins that I know of how they think everything might fit together. I wonder if they know about the member of the family who died in the Jasenovac concentration camp during World War II. I guess the intrigue of genealogy is that it often raises more questions than it answers.

Here are some programming jokes. One of my favorites:

See also: Computer Stupidities: Programming.

Here's a video of Picasso's Guernica in 3-D (Flash, sound).

If I had to implement a CAPTCHA on my site (which I currently don't), I would choose reCAPTCHA. The creators of reCAPTCHA figured that all the time that people all over the world spend solving CAPTCHAs should be put toward something useful. So whenever you fill out a reCAPTCHA, you're helping to digitize old books by typing in words that computers can't recognize. (You receive two words; one that the computer knows and one that it doesn't. If you correctly enter the one that the computer knows, it will assume that you've entered the other one right as well.) So, bit by bit, you're helping spread human knowledge. And when the reCAPTCHA is cracked, spambots will coolly and efficiently help spread human knowledge.

It's getting pretty hot these days, so I've been trying to keep my room as cool as possible. I'm running the fan on full blast and keeping the door open to the rest of the house; for some reason, my room doesn't get very well ventilated. I also tend to keep the blinds shut so it's darker. My parents have their own strategies for the house, including the selective use of air conditioning. Sometimes it's windy, so it doesn't feel hot enough to warrant putting the A/C on. Instead, we have all the windows in the house open for a few days until it gets hotter.

It was windy on Friday. The windows in my room were open, but the blinds weren't, so they were banging and clanging around. It was also hot. So yesterday, my mom turned on the air conditioning, and I closed my windows. The blinds were still closed. Without the heat and wind, it was a more peaceful day.

When I woke up this morning, it was still a nice, air-conditioned, indoor day, even though it was a little hot in my room. As I lay on my bed after Sunday brunch, I heard a buzzing sound at the window next to me. I opened the blinds for the first time in who knows how long and saw what looked like a bee. I looked closer. There were two of them, and they were between the screen and the window. I wasn't worried, because unless they could rip through the screen, there was no way they could get to me. They must have been trapped when I closed the window yesterday. Unless I hadn't closed it all the way.

I thought I had closed the window all the way, but now that I had the blinds open, I could see that I hadn't. And why not? There was something caught in the window.

A snake.

I took about as brief of a look at it as I could bear. It had snake skin. It had a little snake head. Its mouth was open. It was dangling, caught between two window panels. Its head was between the window and the screen. Some huge flies that I had mistaken for bees found a good spot in its side to lay their eggs. Disgusting? Yes. But it was also pretty funny. How long could I have gone without noticing it?

My dad had a look, and then he went around the other side to get rid of it. I couldn't have gone much longer, apparently. It smelled pretty bad, but mostly the smell was outside. It does, however, explain why my room smelled slightly funny this morning. After I was able to close my window fully again, I sprayed down my room with an air freshener.

In keeping with the popular dictum, "Pics or it didn't happen," I have one photo here that I managed to snap before the snake was delivered to its final resting place. The picture's rather large because you need a long shot to appreciate how close this thing was to my pillow. Have a look. It's not graphic, but if you look closely, you can see the large, dark spot on the body where the flies were. Also, notice the festive pattern of my bedsheets.

So, what did you do last night? I slept next to a maggot-infested snake!

And now... the links:

Yesterland is a site that's all about stuff that used to be at Disneyland but isn't any more.

If you ever model for stock photography, be careful. You might end up everywhere, like the Everywhere Girl.

Here's a video of a real-life Rube Goldberg machine, apparently for some sort of contest.

I'm back from my weekend vacation in Fort Pierce. Not much has changed, I see. It's the same old world with the same old problems. Same non-problems, too.

The trip was pretty nice. We'd never before brought our Italian greyhound, Speck, so it was interesting to see how he'd react to the ocean. We've established that he's afraid of the pool, but he approached the ocean with interest... until some cold water reached his little paws. That was it for him. Although he was on a leash, he tried as hard as he could to run away. Later, my parents took Speck on a walk, and he got used to the incoming splashes. So my dad decided to carry him into the water. Then he placed him in. Speck tried to swim out of the water, and he had a pretty good go at it. But my dad helped him, and he tried to run back to the umbrella and beach chairs. He was shivering and wet, so he warmed up and dried off in the sun. That was Saturday.

On Sunday, we decided to be nicer to Speckie by not having him go in the water (which actually was pretty cold). So he was just chillin' there in his beach chair under the beach umbrella on the beach. What a good sport. And actually, he didn't make a mess in the condo at all, which is surprising because he's gone through some phases of being pretty non-housebroken (housefixed?).

On our way out on Sunday afternoon, we took a drive north to Vero Beach where we ate at the ice cream store we always make a point to go to. But instead of going back south, we went north to check out Sebastian Inlet. We just took a peek, actually. We continued to go north on A1A, and there weren't many chances to get back to the mainland. Around those parts, the island (whatever it's called) is very narrow and has little more than the road and houses on the beach. It looked like more of the beach houses were for sale than weren't.

We didn't get to turn around till Melbourne, where we could see clouds of smoke rising from what appeared to be a brush fire. As we headed south on I-95 and I thought about how many Wikipedia links I would include in my forthcoming post, we had to take a detour because of the fire. It took a while, but after that, we could get back on 95, and it was smooth sailing (driving) home from there.

I listen to music a lot, usually through headphones. My laptop's speakers aren't very good, and I tend to be self-conscious about the music I like to listen to. Last week, I was using my headphones a lot, and my ears started to hurt. So I did the sensible thing, which was to stop using the headphones. In fact, I stopped listening to music altogether. Only the pain hasn't entirely gone away. It was pretty unbearable at times last week, but my ears seem to be getting better. Either that or I'm getting accustomed to permanent hearing damage. I guess it's less of a hearing impairment than a feeling that I need to pop my ears. I really, really hope it does go away because it's made me think about the things I take for granted as well as my own mortality. It's one thing to say "I am made of meat and chemicals; when I die, my flesh will rot," but it's quite another to be confronted with the risk of losing the amazing ability to hear sounds in one's environment. Okay, ears, I get the message. I promise I'll never abuse you again.

Here's a site about the Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth. Pretty interesting stuff.

Have you ever wanted your own island? They're for sale at Private Islands Online. I checked out the page for Florida. There are a lot of keys you can buy.

One of baseball's most legendary records is (apparently) Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak in 1941. But how likely was it to happen? Researchers at Cornell University used historical baseball statistics (and a computer) to create 10,000 digital simulations of the entire history of baseball. In each "alternate universe," the players hit and missed randomly, but according to their batting average for that year. So, just how likely was it that Joltin' Joe set this record in our own particular universe? Find out.

This weekend, I'm going with my family to our usual vacation spot on North Hutchinson Island in Fort Pierce. I haven't been there since last March, so I'm looking forward to it. We go at least once every year. A typical trip to the condo entails going to the beach in the morning, playing games in the rec room, eating coffee cake for breakfast, relaxing by the pool, and going to Vero Beach to have ice cream at Cravings. The beach is the best part. While it's true that I live near a public beach, the one at the condo is private, so there's usually nobody there. I'll try not to get sunburned this time.

This is the first time I've gone there since I've had my laptop, so there's no precedent here. I'm not going to bring it because it sort of ruins the idea of having a vacation. We're also bringing the dog for the first time, presumably because we can't find someone to look after him. He's been good lately, so I don't expect any trouble. But we'll see.

Though I just said that the beach is the best part, I'm also looking forward to some good, old-fashioned R&R. I'd been kind of sleep deprived, living in a college dorm, so I was hoping I'd be able to catch up on sleep at home. I've been back for a week, and I haven't noticed an improvement. For one thing, it's bright in my room in the morning, and it's usually hot too. I could open the windows so it's not as hot, but then it would be noisy. To be able to sleep, I need to be stored in a cool, dark place with lots of quiet. What I need to have at home is one of those masks that ladies wear when they need to get their beauty sleep. I need my resting sleep.

Anyway, I'm leaving tonight, and I'll be back on Sunday night. Au revoir.

Scary stuff from Wired: FBI Targets Internet Archive With Secret 'National Security Letter', Loses. This is one of a few such cases to have come to light. Who knows how many others there have been?

Researchers have recently decoded the earliest known sound recording, made in 1860. It was scratched into a piece of paper as part of an attempt to record sounds visually rather than to play them back. But thanks to modern technology, the grooves have been converted to sound in much the same way that a stylus reads grooves on a record. This article has more, including the sound clip itself.

And finally: When you're a reporter doing a spot for the TV news, you've got to make sure you're standing out of harm's way. Such was not the case for this reporter, who got owned by a sled.

On Friday night I went out to dinner with some people from Get Carded, the organ donor awareness organization I'm in. After we put on our end-of-the-year concert, there was nothing left to do but celebrate. So we went to On the Border, a Mexican place that I went to once about 5 or 6 years ago.

Not everybody was there, but some people I knew were. After we ate (good food, by the way), there were the obligatory photos. Michael, one of the co-presidents, had an award to give out. Printed on his computer, was the "Volunteer of the Year" award, and it was given to... me! I couldn't believe it. Actually, I kind of could, but it was still a little hard to believe. Apparently I was the only person who helped out at all of Get Carded's events this year. I also got a gift card for Moe's, which is this extremely popular Mexican-type place. Many people would envy the $10 in Moe's cash I now wield.

But anyway, I really appreciated the award (even though Michael and Jehan, the other co-president, forgot to sign it before they gave it to me). I have it hanging on the fridge now. Hopefully there will be some competition for the award next year. That would be great for the group.

UF's spring football game was yesterday. It's called the Orange and Blue Game after the school colors. The Gators split into Orange and Blue teams, and they played each other. They get a chance to show off their talent, and the fans get their football fix until August.

I figured it would be a pretty big thing, but I didn't know it was going to be on ESPN. Actually, by the day of the event, I did know. I had planned on watching it on TV, but I decided to go instead because it was going on about a block away and, as my roommate said, 50,000 fans would be mad at me if they found out I didn't go.

The game was pretty informal. There were 44 minutes of play, with no penalties or anything. (A referee did throw a flag once, but I think it was due to force of habit. He just picked it up without saying anything.) The coaches were just chilling there out on the field, watching each play closely. The players went pretty easy on each other, and there was no tackling the quarterbacks. (The team doesn't want to get hurt playing against itself, you know.) After each field goal or extra point, the kicker would try it again at varying distances, just for giggles.

The atmosphere was likewise relaxed. Even though the stadium wasn't packed to capacity, there were still a lot of people there, and I saw some people I knew. Everybody had a good time, although some people left early. I can't blame them. The sun was bright. Even though I was wearing a hat and the game lasted less than two hours, I got sunburned like whoa. But I'm glad I went. I had a pretty good time.

The final score was Blue 28, Orange 14. Also: The Sun 1, Jordon 0.

Yesterday evening (actually more like the late afternoon), I got inducted into the Phi Eta Sigma honor society. It wasn't anything big, really. They had a room that was way too small for all the inductees and their guests. Fortunately, the whole thing didn't last very long. They said a few words, and then they called each person up to get a pin. Then it was a free-for-all as people lined up to get their certificates. My family came to the induction, and then we had dinner. I had lunch with them again today (at Moe's) before they left.

So now I have an official-looking Phi Eta Sigma certificate and pin. I can wear the pin whenever I want to look important, and people will think I'm in some fraternity that secretly rules the world. They probably won't know that it's just an honor society that does community service every now and then.

Here's an Ask Jordon question.

Carol: Is it possible for you to see when someone is visiting your site? Like me right now?

As with most web sites, accesses to files on this site are logged, mainly for statistics purposes and my own amusement. I can tell which IP addresses have visited the site, and what browsers and operating systems they correspond with (although all of that information can be faked). When you submit an Ask Jordon question, your IP address and browser/OS information are sent as well. I can tell that your ISP is Verizon and that you're using IE 7 on Windows XP (if your browser isn't lying), but that's about it.

With regards to the story I posted last time about Illinois state representative Monique Davis, she has apologized -- though not publicly -- for her bigoted tirade.

Can't decide between Clinton or Obama? Here's a Democratic Primary Quiz (Flash).

Here are photos of 10 Interesting Abandoned Places.