My friend Kevin let me borrow the biography of John Adams by David McCullough and I enjoyed it immensely. A little while ago I read the book “1776″ by McCullough, and enjoyed it not only because its been a while since I read about the battles of the revolution, but also because his style is to draw the story from diaries, letters, and original texts which give you more then just the facts, but sort of an inside picture. McCullough does the same thing with John Adams, and he is wonderfully facilitated in this by the thousands of letters that were written between Adams and his wife and relatives and the statesman of the day, including many from Thomas Jefferson.

As with 1776, McCullough manages to keep the reader in suspense concerning what is going to happen next, especially for someone like me who hasn’t studied the era for a while. In talking about Adams life you learn a lot about the early days of the Revolution, the second continental congress and the declaration of independence, America’s alliance with France, and the life of Thomas Jefferson. Adams was a very outspoken person, and so in his letters we get insights on almost everyone and everything that Adams came in contact with.

The greatest thing that this book did for me was the way it showed just what an amazing person John Adams was, and how much he did for our country when there was so much to do. He was not only extremely dedicated and hardworking, but he was willing to work endless hours to further a cause that he believed in, despite much opposition and discouragement. After reading this biography you will come away sure that if it weren’t for John Adams this country would not be what it is today. It would either be a part of England still, or else if it was independent it most likely would not have the strong government structure that it does and would not be able to stand up the way it does.

John Adams was not only an extremely hard working man, but he was also upright and honest to the core. The early days of this country were marked by backstabbing and underhandedness between statesmen, and it wasn’t long before politics split into parties and politicians rose up who were not concerned for the good of the country but instead sought position and power. John Adams would have none of that. Never did he behave underhandedly or speak behind others backs, never did he manipulate situations or even campaign for a single position, and as President he refused to be sueded by one party or the other. He made known what he believed in, and it was only ever for the greatest possible good of our country.

Sometimes when you read a mans biography you come away disappointed in what you find out. In the case of John Adams, the closer you look the more amazing the man becomes, and it becomes more and more clear that God kept John Adams in order to use him for the good of this country. He ought to be forever remembered for all that he was able to accomplish.

In 2005 congress passed the “Energy Policy Act of 2005” which officially adds a month to daylight savings time. The rational behind the change is that with four extra weeks of daylight less energy will need to be used by houses and cars. The change is that this year daylight savings time starts three weeks earlier on March 11th, and it ends a week later on November 4th.

I am a big fan of this because I hate getting off work and having it be dark already. This way I get an extra hour of light every evening for an extra month. Of course there are those who think that it will not end up saving that much energy because all the clocks and operating systems that are pre-programmed for daylight savings time now need to be changed. My guess is that this year things will come out even, and in years to come there will be a net savings of energy. On a practical level this is definitely a fantastic change.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/12/news/howard.php

The hurricane expert who stood up to UN junk science

We had another habitat for humanity Saturday morning with the guys from church and enjoyed it very much. We had six people and we were able to work on several different projects. We started out doing sheet rock indoors, but there were a lot of Elon volunteers there and it was too crowded so we went outside and worked on the fascia of the house and a deck and wheel chair ramp. Here are some pics:

We were up early for some Biscuitville and I got to see the sun rise. I thought these pictures turned out really nice.

On the left is Kevin and our boss putting up the fascia and on the right is John and Karissa and James.

Kevin measuring and marking boards for the deck,

Karissa goofing off with the boards,

me cutting the boards,

and Tom assuming a management position over the board cutting process.

We were done by lunchtime and headed over the Martino’s for a bite, and then out to Mill Creek for some football with a bunch of others. Overall a Saturday very well spent.

National Review calls out the democrat senators for their anti war action in this great article. I am not sure what connection national review has with CBS but this is from the CBS news website, and is amazingly good.

“For all his flaws, President Bush at least has the virtue of focusing on how to try to win the war, when all around him the nation’s other leaders are playing cheap politics.”

Oh yeah and here is another interesting link while we’re at it.

Over at GetOutdoors they linked to Big City Mountaineers, and it looks like a really neat project.  Basically they get 5 inner city teen agers who haven’t had a chance to do anything like backpacking before, and they take them on a trip to the backcountry for 8 days.  There are 5 adults who go with the 5 kids on the trip, and this is where you get to volunteer.  Basically they have 3 volunteers on every trip whose job is to connect with the kids and help out with the trip.

Right now the trips are mostly in CA and CO, but they have done them in the east before, and hopefully they will do more here in the future.  The mountains of NC would be great for trips like this.  Volunteers bring all their own gear and pay $100 to help cover other costs, and gear is provided for all of the kids participating.  Reading their website it looks like a well organized operation, and definitely something worthy of glance.

The next big thing since uTube and Google video is Skypes new internet TV called Joost. Google wants something like this for Google video which is why it bought uTube, but it seems that Skype beat them to it. I am excited for the potential of internet TV because I think it will be an area which a lot of different players can get into. Bloggers will be the first ones to move into this space and hopefully they can get a foothold before the big networks take over.

The one problem I have with what Skype is offering is that it requires you to download and install something in order to watch. I think this will limit the number of people who give it a try and thus will limit how quickly it catches on. I predict that very soon Google will come out with uTube TV that allows views to simply click to their website in order to view endless hours of streaming media, interspersed with very short 15 second commercials.

No matter what happens I am always excited for whatever is new, and look forward to seeing where it takes us. By the way I have never been a big TV person except with sports, so my big hope is that it takes us to a place where every college will have their own channel and you can catch every sports event by NC State, online and for free. (College TV is already offering something like this, but the quality is really poor and you need to pay for it.)

Dennis Miller on WMDs and Osama Bin Laden

Also Tim Kurkjian on Fenway Park

Hiking, as defined by Demetri Martin and noted by Cutter, is “walking where it’s okay to pee.”

Also from The Piton: what ever happened to that guy from Blues Clues? Here is his webpage. Pretty sweet!

Here is a great suggestion for CBS