2008 July | jordoncooper.com

Archives for July, 2008

Recently on Twitter

Note to self, never take a Greyhound bus again - http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAN3150230220080731 #

07/31/2008 | Twitter | No Comments

Sorry about the lack of updates since I upgraded to WordPress. I had a mistake with my Feedburner settings that I missed. All is working now and everyone should see current updates from the site. You can still follow the site at feeds.feedburner.com/jordoncooper

Tags: Feedburner, RSS, WordPress

07/31/2008 | blogging, technology | No Comments

Driving out to the lake

Mark was clowning around in the back seat and somehow got Maggi to wear her water dish long enough to take this photo.

Tags: Maggi, Mark Cooper

07/31/2008 | Life at the lake, family, photography, travel | No Comments

FactCheck.org

During the election months ahead, you may want to bookmark FactCheck.org which provides non-partisan fact checking of ads, statements and releases by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. It isn’t as much fun to read as the old Spinsanity.org used to be but it stilll provides a useful tool to us political junkies.

Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain

07/30/2008 | ideas, politics | No Comments

Contextless Links

How many more American bridges have to collapse before they get fixed? "At some point, relying on miracles is not going to be the best way to manage our system," said Pete Rahn, the transportation commissioner of Missouri. "I would pray we don’t have to have another disaster to bring about the right attention to this. I see very little political will there."
The UN’s war on a/c
Would Byron Leftwich not be a roster upgrade over everyone who has started for the Chicago Bears since Jim McMahon?
The goal of the IOC was to bring openess to China but in the end, China’s censorship culture changed the IOC
McCain is running some ads in swing states that are making an impact: I am pro-Obama but I think this election is McCain’s to lose.
Not that anyone cares about the Blue Jays around here but the Toronto Star has a pretty good Blue Jays blog written by Richard Griffin.

07/30/2008 | Contextless Links | 1 Comment

Recently on Twitter

I am off to the lake for an evening with Wendy, the kids, and the dog. #

07/29/2008 | Twitter | No Comments

How designers spend their day

via

07/28/2008 | design, video | 1 Comment

Alpine Barn

materialio.us has a great post about an abandoned alpine barn made into an avalanche proof cabin in Evolene, Switzerland.

I love architecture like this. Taking an amazing little building that has long been part of the local landscape and repurposing it into something different yet keeping the original charm.

Tags: architecture, cabins

07/28/2008 | design | No Comments

A decade

Speaking of Wendy, she has a longish post on a rather crappy anniversary she is marking today.

Tags: Wendy Cooper

07/28/2008 | family | Comments Off

Hanging out at the cabin

Wendy took this photo of me feeding Oliver at the cabin two weeks ago.

Tags: Oliver Cooper

07/28/2008 | family, photography | 1 Comment

Recently on Twitter

Yes, one can drink too much Amp Energy drink in one shift. #
It’s a wild night in the inner city of Saskatoon right now. Police lights are everywhere. #
@doctodd - Your message will be fine and if it isn’t, they will have forgotten about it by Wednesday anyways. #
Trying to decide if I want a mountain bike or a road bike. I haven’t had a road bike since I was 12. #

07/27/2008 | Twitter | No Comments

Roughriders win again. Now 5-0 for the first time since 1934.

According to the CBC,

Running back Wes Cates scored his eighth touchdown of the campaign with three minutes left in regulation to allow the Roughriders to improve to 5-0, their best start to a season since 1934. Toronto fell to 2-3, but remains in a tie with the Montreal Alouettes for first place in the CFL’s East Division.

Quarterback Darian Durant started for Saskatchewan, but left the game in the first quarter after taking a heavy hit on a failed passing play. Jyles came on in relief and had a solid outing, throwing for one touchdown and one interception, and completing 14-of-18 passes for 201 yards.

Again the Riders did it with their second on third string QBs.

Tags: CFL, football, Saskatchewan Roughriders

07/27/2008 | sports | 1 Comment

Holidays

For one of the first times we have been married, Wendy and I have the time and the money to get away for more than a couple of days at a time this year. Of course this all comes together during record high gas prices but the time part is the nice part of the equation. We are off to the cabin after working the long weekend for almost the entire week. I was going to stay a day longer but I promised Mark that we would take in the Saskatoon Ex together. Every eight year old needs to eat a corn dog, Elephant Ears and then ride some rides.

I am going to take another full week of in September and then some in December. This year I went from October to now without taking off more than two consecutive days which was a little too long.

Tags: Mark Cooper, Saskatoon Ex

07/27/2008 | Saskatchewan, family | No Comments

Remember when camp was fun?

An odd article from the New York Times about how odd parents act with their kids going to camp.

Norman E. Friedman, a consultant who conducts training at 44 camps, said parents also take up valuable camp resources by breaking the rules they have tacitly agreed to.

“They’ll give their child two cellphones, so if they get caught with the first one, ‘Just give it up and you’ll have the second one to talk to me,’ “ he said. “That’s widespread, not isolated. I call it fading parental morality. What they’re doing is entering into delinquent behaviors with their children. And what kind of statement is that to a child?”

He and others said parents also frequently send children away without packing their prescribed medication for attention deficits or psychological problems — and without letting camp staff know.

A later quote sums up the problem…

“It used to be the job of parents to expose their children to the outside world; today, it is their job to protect their children from the outside world.”

Tags: parenting

07/27/2008 | community | 1 Comment