June 23, 2005

WARNING: this is the longest blog entry EVER! Read at your own risk. If your eyes become tired please take a break. Thank you.

Well, I just saw the President, and some of you are going to be infuriated or dissapointed, or perhaps happy and overjoyed, but I felt he did an amazing job. He spoke eloquently and clearly, and came across as very intelligent. Additionally, he was extremely funny. He had the audiance laughing out loud ("LOL"ing for those in know) several times. Its quite a different thing to see the man in person as opposed to the media created version.

I'll tell you exactly how the morning went. I woke up at about 6:15, looked at the clock and went back to sleep. Then I woke up at 6:30. I got dressed and all. I figured dressing with a nice shirt and slacks would be more than adequate. I was wrong, everyone in the place was wearing a suit except for me and like 3 other people. So, I drove down there with plenty of time to spare, or so I thought. It took me a good 25 minutes to get from baltimore to the DC beltway. Then, to get from 95 to university blvd on the beltway (a total of 2 exits and maybe 3 miles) took a whopping half-hour. I hate the beltway. So I pull into the parking lot and a guy in a suit with a thing that said RNC around his neck and a guy that definately looked like a secret service agent told me I couldnt park there, and they directed me to park at some school that was far away, and then take a shuttle in. I thought to myself, "F-that." So I drove one street down and parked in a neighberhood and walked 5 minutes to the school. Then I was stopped by more secret service looking agents and I told them I had a ticket waiting for me. They looked at me like I was lying, perhaps because I wasn't wearing a suit like every other person there. I was lucky cuz the people who were supposed to give me the ticket were standing right there, so I got it from them, and got by the first round of security. Then I came to some desk where I had to show them my ticket and they scrutinized my drivers liscence and then let me by. Security round two passed. Then I came to a metal detector. After emptying out my pockets of their metallic contents I went throught the metal detector. The security guards went as far as to open up my cell phone and the battery pack of my camera to check inside. They really are not messing around with security for the president. I guess it is understandable. That was security round 3. Next, as I walked through the school to the auditorium, I had not one, not two, but three more people ask to see my ticket. What, do I have a beard and a turban or something? finally I came to the auditorium, showed my ticket to one last person and found a seat.

I sat about 7 rows back. It was a pretty small auditorium, and sat maybe 150-200 people. There was also, not surprisingly, an extremely diverse collection of young people sitting on the stage behind where the president was going to be. In the back and the side of the auditorium was a collection of cameras, cameramen and other assorted press. So then, having found a good seat I waited.... and waited... and waited.... It was ok cuz I had my dental decks to study, and I could listen to people with their republican banter. It seemed like everyone there was a congressional intern or a hardcore college republican. I think this is the major flaw in Bush's speaking tour. He is preaching to the converted. Everyone there probably worships the ground he walks on, and if he told them that they were all getting shipped off to Iraq to polish soldiers shoes they would've cheered and shrieked with joy. Bush did an excellent job presenting his viewpoint, and if there were more democrats in the audience his time would have been much better spent.

So, after I waited a good 45 minutes the sound guy came out and checked the sound and then a bunch of secret service agents started going around the audience. A secret service agent came to a girl sitting behind me who had a pile of papers in her lap. He asked to see her papers. I believe there was some anti-bush things written on the papers and the agent very politely asked the girl if he could keep the papers until after the speech. She obliged. Note: he did not force her to hand over the papers, nor did he demand them. He was cordial and clearly stated he would give the papers back after the speech. I think it is understandable, because the agents do not want to deal with some sort of crazy scene.

After a few more minutes they announced Ben Stein, and he came onto the stage. Then they said "Please welcome the President of the United States" and President Bush walked in to a standing ovation and hearty applause. He sat down and told the audience to sit. He began his prepared speech. I'm sure he's given the speech many times, but this is where he started to impress me. He spoke eloquently, and had perfect tone and clarity in his voice. Throughout the whole morning he utilized self-depreciating humor in an extremely effective manner. He was, for lack of a better way of saying it, very very funny. After his prepared speech he began the dialogue with the other people on the stage with him. If you look in the pictures you may be able to tell that there are 4 other people on the stage with him. The panel members were Ben Stein, some chick from reisterstown who is a financial analyst, a 23 year old who just got his first job, and a 22 year old who started a college organization promoting change in social security. Bush spent a few minutes talking to each panel member. This is where Bush really shined. His responses to their statements, although clearly not rehearsed, hit all the points that I wanted him to focus on. Before the speech I was for changing social security, but now after hearing Bush, he convinced me not only do changes need to be made, but also his plan is the best plan for making these changes as far as people my age are concerned.

Some points Bush (or the other members of the panel) made that I felt were good:

• Over the last hundred years, if you take any continuous 20 year segment, and look at the percent interest gained on an investment in the S&P 500 over the 20 years, the LEAST percent of interest gained during ANY 20 year period is a whopping 8%. Compare this to the 1.2% interest gained in social security over the same period of time. That will add up to alot of money for ANYONE.
• The government will place some basic restrictions on what types of stocks and bonds you can purchase with your personal account. This will keep people from betting all their money on riskier options. Bush actually said "you can't take your money and bet it at the racetrack." Well, there goes my sports betting idea.
• Today's elderly people will be guarenteed that they will receive all of their social security money. Thus, they have no reason not to support personal accounts, unless of course they hate their grandkids.
• Under the current system, if your spouse dies before retirement age, when you reach retirement age you get to chose to either get your social security allowances OR your spouses, but not both. The other persons money that they worked hard for is poof... gone. Under Bush's plan your personal account can be inherited by a spouse.
• The main focus of the personal accounts is to help young people. Everyone agrees that the social security system will run out of money sooner or later. Assuming that social security no longer exists, or is greatly reduced by the time that I grow up, then these personal accounts will be my own private source of money the government cannot take away.

There were other points made, that I forget right now, but maybe I'll think of them later. Feel free to debate/attack/slander me about what I've said. I think a little debate is healthy and fun.

So, after Bush and panelists finished, Bush went around and started shaking people's hands. I tried to get up close to the stage, but there was a mad rush and I was about three thickensses of people back. I took a picture of Bush up close and personal, and then stuck my hand out to try and shake his. He shook some peoples' hands around me, but alas, my hand got skipped. Thats alright though, as it was pretty thrilling to be that close to the most important man in the world. So after he finished, I went to downtown silverspring (the new hoppin' place!) and hung out at borders and studied. And then I had chipotle with some friends. Mmmmm.... 'potle. And that was that.

To sum up my experience, Bush really impressed me with his Presidential attitude, his intelligence and his humor. I am convinced that his social security plan is the best one out there as of now. And before all you people start attacking me, this is one of few issues that I agree with Bush on. I don't think there is anything wrong with having some views of both parties. In this day in age am I allowed to be pro-choice but anti-affirmative action? Can I be anti-guns but pro-social security reform? Do I have to be 100% left or 100% right? If I had to rank myself right now, I'd say I was 65% left leaning. But who knows what'll happen in the future... the see-saw could tip either way depending on what happens in the world. There I made my political manifesto and if you are reading this then that means you read this entire blog entry. Mucho props to you! I really should stop writting and go study now though.

June 21, 2005

So, I have some powerful connections and I scored a ticket to see George Bush speak this Thursday, the 23rd of June at Montgomery Blair Highschool in Silver Spring. It is one of those "town hall meetings," which means that there is a chance (albiet extremely small) that I could ask the President a question. The topic of the meeting is "young people and social security." I was trying to think of an intelligent, honest, unbiased, fair question to ask, but I could come up with nothing. Do any of you have any ideas? If you come up with a question, and I actually get the opportunity to ask the President the question, then you will win a prize. (note: prize value does not exceed $1.00).

June 13, 2005

177 photos

177 photos

June 4, 2005

Just wanted to let ya'll know that I am leaving today (saturday june 4th) for a cruise! We are leaving from New York City and going to port canaveral, miami, something cay, and nassau bahamas. I'm pretty excited, but unfotunately for all ya'll out there I will not be posting till I get back next sunday. Enjoy your week!

June 1, 2005

So look at what a teacher at my highschool (Hammond High School in Columbia, MD) did. Yeah, what a flippin' moron. For some reason, whenever I tell someone I grew up in columbia, they always ask me if I went to Centennial Highschool. And when I tell them I went to Hammond, they say they never heard of it. Well, now ya'll have heard of it.

So hammond did not even get ranked on this oh-so-reputable list of top 1000 public highschools put out by the Washington Post and Newsweek. The schools were ranked by calculating the ratio of, "the number of Advanced Placement and/or International Baccalaureate tests taken by all students at a school in 2004 divided by the number of graduating seniors." My questions are thus: Is there anyone who actually puts any faith in these lists, other than the parents of the students that attend the top few of these schools? Do these lists serve any advantageous purpose whatsoever other than to sell a few more newspapers and magazines? All these lists do is propogate the belief that AP tests and classes are a good thing for students to do. I find it odd that kids are being pushed so hard to take AP classes, while at the same time the rate of time that it takes students to graduate college is increasing. Shouldn't the opposite be occuring?

A much better index of how good a certain highschool is, would be to take the "actual" income of the average student 10 years after graduating their highschool relative to the students "expected" income 10 years after highschool if said student went to an "average" highschool. For example, say a students from a poor socioeconomic background went to a highschool in downtown baltimore. Lets just say that the average income of an individual from a poor socioeconomic background 10 years after highschool is $20,000 per year. But the students at this highschool, 10 years after graduating are averaging $35,000 per year income. This highschool clearly succeded in helping these students improve their lives relative to what is realistically expected of them and thus could be considered a very good highschool. On the contrasting side, consider the highschool in, lets just say, Potomac, Maryland. Lets say the students at this highschool mostly come from a very high socioeconomic background. Lets say the average income of an individual from a high socioeconomic background 10 years after graduating is $90,000 per year. The students who attended this school, though, 10 years after graduating are averageing a paltry $70,000. Well, certainly this school is not living up to expectations, and is not a very good school, as the students are not reaching their potential. I believe this method of measuring a schools success is FAR more accurate than calculating how many kids take AP tests. I mean, I took a grand total of zero AP tests, and I attended a highschool not even on any list o' great schools, and yet I think I turned out alright.

I have alot more to say on this topic, but I think I'm probably boring you.

What do ya'll out there in internetland think about this???? I'm looking at all you Wootten people to respond... being that you were ranked 17th and all, and I know you Wootton people are reading this, so don't be shy.

May 23, 2005

If you are a nerd like me you'll find this webpage kinda cool

So I just got back from nyc, which is just about my favorite place on earth. Just a few observations about new york city:

1. Almost everything there is more expensive. Examples: Beer = 5 dollars. Dinner at a somewhat nice resturant = 18 dollars. There is one thing though, that everywhere I went was cheaper. And that is sunglasses. Why everywhere else are sunglasses 200 dollars but in new york, there are literally thousands of people you can buy them from for 5 dollars? (why does that sound like one of the four questions on passover?)
2. Have you noticed that parking in manhattan is like $25 per half hour. If they can charge that much, then that means there are plenty of people out there willing to pay that much! I mean, really folks, who the hell pays that much for parking?! I wish I was friends with these people. They'd probably buy me that $370 lightsaber I've been wanting.
3. New york has the best food in the world. From the italian resturants of little italy, to the venders who sell the suger-roasted penuts on the street, it is really hard to be dissapointed with food in nyc. Also, the pizza there absolutely destroys pizza anywhere else in the universe, no doubt about it.
4. If it werent for the baseball teams in new york I'd probably move there tomorow. I mean the yankess! Common! Whadda bunch of assclowns. At least they suck this year and the O's are AWSOME. Also awsome is my fantasy baseball team, but thats the subject of another blog.
5. Not really new york observatoin, but close enough: why is it, that to get anywhere in new jersey it takes an hour longer than you think it should. I mean, the roads are rediculous and make no sense whatsoever. And what the hell is with the jughandles. Who made up these things. For those not in the know, jughandles are the new jersey way of turning left on a road. In normal states, to turn left you get in the left lane, and well, turn left. Makes sense, right? Well, the fine government of new jersey clearly lacks common sense and decided to make turning left an excercise in rediculousness. In order turn left, you need to get in the right lane, take an exit ramp looking thing, goto the perpindicular street, make a left onto that street, wait at the light, and then go straight through the light! Sound stupid? Of course it does, cuz it is stupid. But then again, I'm stupid too, cuz I went and ate at a white castle in jersey. That place is freakin' disgusting. Don't ever let me eat there again.

Ok, thats all I got for now. Later folks.

May 17, 2005

18 photos

18 photos

May 15, 2005

So, last night was a pretty crazy night. We went to this bowling alley, and there were all of these limos parked out front, and we were like "why are there all these limos parked out front?" Well, it turns out there was a Ray Lewis Celebrity Bowling Tournament going on in there. There were all sorts of celebs from Kyle Boller, to Deion Sanders to the mayor of b-more. But the best celeb of them all was none other than Steve Urkel himself (if I knew his real name, I'd put it here, but I don't). After hanging out at the bowling alley for a little while we drove around, got some FREE frostys from Wendys and then went to this billiards-Kareoke place. The kareoke place was crazy. It definately wasn't good ol' bar style of kareoke. Instead you rented a little tiny room by the hour. It was darkly lit and wierd, and I swear it looked exactly like I picture a brothel being. But once we got some drinks in us, and put the tunes on it was crazy. Everyone was singing and dancing, including yours truley (although I was sliiiightly off-pitch) and fun was had by all.

So, I finally remembered to bring my camera along, and I took some pictures. You can check them out by clicking the picture of the balls just below here (tee-hee... balls). That will pop up the photo album which has small clips of the pictures. If you click on the small clip of the picture it will bring up the full size photo. You can also add captions to the photos, if you want. Pretty cool, eh? Well, my brother Dylan designed and programed this whole thing, so go tell him how great you think it is (oh, and tell me too. I like praise).

May 3, 2005

I don't wanna brag, but these last couple-a-days have been really great! Yesterday the wizards won their playoff game, which has happened about as many times in my life as a Bush being elected to the white house. Also, I won my poker tourny, and came out a cool $15 richer. Yeah you read that right, the big one-fiver. Someones gonna buy a DVD, or maybe even two if they are on sale! Then today I found out I passed biomed (the 12 credit class from hell), did well in fixed prostodontics, and, most importantly, I won the election for vice-president of my class. I had to get up and make a speech in front of 80 people or so, and have them vote on us. I came out ahead and won! I do feel bad because my opponent is a good friend of mine, and I could tell that she was really upset that she didn't win. But, I will have alot of extra work ahead of me (cuz thats really what I needed, right?), but I will do alot to help my classmates and myself out.

My friend smitty and I are planning a cruise in late may from miami. Anyone out there in "Internet-land" have any suggestions? Anyone wanna come along? "The more the merrier," they say.

May 1, 2005

I'm studying for one of my last finals. Its dental anatomy. It shouldn't be that hard, but it really is. These questions are just rediculous. Each question has so much reading that by the time you are done reading the question not only have you forgot how the question started, but you are also ready for a snack and a nap. In order to study I'm studying questions from old board exams. Here's an example of a question from the 2003 National Board Dental Exam. Since its copyrighted, and these ADA people are mad powerful and scary and have lots of lawyers I'm going to change some of the words and make my own originial question, but you'll get the idea just by reading it. The answer is posted afterwards, so don't cheat and look at the answer before you think long and hard:

In maximum intercuspation, the lingual cusp of a mandibular first premolar most likely is occluding:

A. with the mesial marginal ridge of the maxillary second premolar and the distal marginal ridge of the first maxillary premolar

B. in the are between the maxillary canine and first premolar in the lingual embrasure

C. with the first maxillary premolar's facial surface

D. in the lingual embrasure between the maxillary first premolar and second premolar

E. it does not occlude on any maxillary tooth

If you put answer A because it is the longest and because you didnt actually read B,C,D or E then you are wrong, but good try. The correct answer is E. I thought it was D, but what the hell do I know.

So, it seems I can add blogging into my list of things I do to procrastinate studying. It'll fit in nicely with my other procrastination activities such as doing my laundry, doing the dishes, cleaning my room, cooking dinner, watching TV, playing online poker, playing solitaire, playing hearts, talking on the phone, showering, paying random bills, making up lists of ways to procrastinate, starring out the window, looking up cruises on the internet, checking fantasy baseball scores, checking NBA playoff scores, and last but certainly not least, getting destroyed by 10 year olds in halo 2 online.

April 27, 2005

So, my bro Dylan made me this blog for my birthday. I figure I should start posting things.

First, a little background about me: I'm currently 25 years old. I live in downtown, baltimore (or b-mo as those in the know call it) right near camden yards. I'm a dental student at the university of maryland dental school and plan to be a rich-succesful dentist or, if that doesn't work out, a professional ninja.

Lets see, more about me... I love to play sports. I'm a member of a football team in the baltimore sports and social club. Our team name is Super-Happy-Lucky-Extreme-Chance, and we are absolutely horrible. In fact, its 4 games into the season, and not only have we not won a game yet, we haven't even scored a touchdown yet! Seriously, a pop-warner team of 10 year olds could probably beat us. It's fun though, and we have a good time and get some excercise, so, gooooo SHLEC!!

I'm a big dork, and I love reading. My favorite kind of books are biographies, specifically biographies of presidents. I'm currently reading Master of the Senate, which, at 1167 pages, is just about long enough to keep me entertained. I'll read pretty much anything though, as long as its mildly entertaining.

So, I'm in the second year of dental school now, which has been, without a doubt, one of the hardest years of my life. I'm completely burnt out, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In just about 3 weeks I will be done this school year, and then I will GULP, start treating patients... should be way more fun than the 36 credits of courses I'm taking now.

Oh, I'll put some pictures up soon other than a pic of my sister (by the way Sloth, she is 15! Waaaay too young for you. And she doesn't like republican's anyway).

Everyone else in the blogging universe always puts stupid links or a quote from some political bullcrap article in their blog, and I'm sure I'll do some of that later... So stay tuned to this space.... hit refresh every 10-15 seconds, cuz you never know when something actually WORTH reading will pop up (although my guess is never).

April 23, 2005

1 photos

1 photos

April 16, 2005

Apparently there's a huge need for these things.

Don't forget about Mr. Bling.