Sometimes, I just have to stand back at accomplishments of others in admiration. When this happens in the music realm, its especially sweet, as I then have a song I can listen to for the rest of my life!

Mike Doughty's "Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well" is just SICK. The groove is amazing. His beat-poetry lyrical style on top of it just rocks. Very catchy and melodic - accessible to the mainstream, which is important.

As a musician, you just sit back in awe at where this guy pulled the inspiration for this song from. Obviously, the entire Soul Coughing catalog is an incredibly unique contribution to recent (past decade or so) popular music, but I am really excited about hearing Doughty's upcoming full-length solo disc after hearing this single, which is also being featured this season in "Grey's Anatomy."

And, oh yeah, AHSIMC is now a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. A lot more on this to come.

Lori is 25 today. Going to PF Changs (her favorite place) and then to the Vandy law library, where she's got some work she has to do and wants me to keep her company. Hey, when its your birthday, you call the shots.

Deep into iTest grading, easily the most tedious part of the whole thing. Some of the team names are hilarious, and some teams came up with fairly "creative" answers for questions they couldn't solve...which makes it much easier to deal with grading this many tests.

Certainly, this won't be happening next year. We'll be pulling out all the stops on automating the site, which will also eliminate another annoying aspect of running this thing: teachers that haven't configured their spam filters to let iTest emails through on a regular basis. Everything will run through the website, so there's no risk that we won't receive an exam or that everyone won't get the test on time.

The response to the iTest iNvention contest (sponsored by Griffin Technology, where kids submit ideas for a new iPod Nano accessory) and the 2006 iTest Logo Contest have been amazing. The Griffin folks and I will sit down soon to determine the best iPod Nano accessory, but I have to admit that several of these things would be cool if they built them. I have no idea who will (or should) win, but I do know we have demonstrated a major success with our first corporate partner.

The 2006 iTest logos I've been getting have ranged from uninspired violations of various copyrights to amazing works of art. Either way, its fun to see what folks have come up with.

These winning entries, along with excerpts from the email we've been getting, will be great additions to the press materials we send out on November 1 as part of our 2005 iTest Nationwide Awards Announcement.

Though my team in the fantasy baseball league that I ran this year was easily the worst team I've ever had in years of playing, largely due to my first round draft pick not playing all year (Bonds) and poor choices in other rounds in selecting players whose time hasn't quite come...

my team in Evan's league is tearing it up. The "Mariners" are up 13-0 in the championship round with 6 days left to go, all but securing a fantasy championship in his league. For posterity, the members of the team (which have pretty much been intact all year, since I haven't changed it much) are:

Mike Piazza - C, New York Mets
Mike Sweeney - 1B, Kansas City Royals
Luis Castillo - 2B, Florida Marlins
Joe Randa - 3B, San Diego Padres
Jose Reyes - SS, New York Mets
Manny Ramirez - OF, Boston Red Sox
Carl Crawford - OF, Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Lance Berkman - OF, Houston Astros
Jason Bay - OF, Pittsburgh Pirates (in my first Util slot)
Pat Burrell - OF, Philadelphia Phillies (in my second Util slot)

Jake Westbrook - SP, Cleveland Indians
Jae Seo - SP, New York Mets (neither of these guys were in my lineup til later in the year)
Kyle Farnsworth - RP, Atlanta Braves
Duaner Sanchez - RP, Los Angeles Dodgers
Derrick Turnbow - RP, Milwaukee Brewers
Yhency Brazoban - RP, Los Angeles Dodgers
Felix Hernandez - SP, Seattle Mariners

Jeff's latest blog entry discusses the Wright amendment, which has been a frequent problem of Lori's and mine when we fly to see her family in Dallas. Articulate, as usual, and insightful.

www.thebrokedown.com

Will Canzoneri's band. Go there and frolick in the land of good tunes.

As versatile of a musician as he is, its not surprising these guys are enjoying a hefty amount of success.

What are you still doing reading this?

This is insane...Lori gets these emails from Gee through the law school listserv, and forwarded this to me...

From: gordon.gee@vanderbilt.edu
Reply-To: gordon.gee@vanderbilt.edu
To: vanderbilt-students@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Urgent Message from Chancellor Gee
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 20:15:15 -0500
vanderbilt-students

From: gordon.gee@vanderbilt.edu

September 25, 2005

Dear Students,

I am writing tonight about a very serious matter.

Earlier today, you received a Security Alert regarding a shooting in the Morgan House residence hall. Although the incident is still under investigation by Metro Police and VUPD, we can share with you the latest information.

At approximately 2:00 a.m., a female Vanderbilt student brought several non-student individuals into Morgan to attend a party onthe 10th floor.

These individuals were asked to leave the party after they made a disturbance. When the non-student individuals, and the Vanderbilt student, got on the elevator on the 10th floor, two of the individuals--both men--pulled out handguns and fired several shots into the hallway, hitting a male Vanderbilt student in the arm. The assailants--along with the female Vanderbilt student--then rode the elevator to the ground floor and fled the building. In addition to the student who received the gunshot wound, two other students received minor injuries in the ensuing confusion. All three were treated and released by Vanderbilt Hospital, and each is expected to make a full recovery, for which we are very grateful. VUPD responded immediately to the incident and--along with Metro Police--are conducting an active investigation. We expect that those responsible will be identified and prosecuted.

We are confident that this incident--as horrifying as it is--represents a very unusual occurrence. However, as you know, campus safety has been an issue of intense discussion in recent weeks. Working together, we have made great progress in educating and informing students about the programs and services that are in place to ensure the security of our University community. Every residence hall has card readers to limit access to students and residents. Vanderbilt has a large and well-trained police force that patrols the campus 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and there have been increased foot patrols and bike patrols in recent weeks. Security cameras are installed in many locations on campus, including a number of elevators, and have been particularly helpful in the investigation of this incident. Student Life staff are holding meetings in the residence halls to give students an opportunity to discuss the recent incidents with VUPD officers, and student leaders held a town hall meeting to talk about campus safety. Staff and students have conducted a review of lighting in the Greek Row area and have identified dark areas to which additional lighting is being added. Five additional Blue Light Emergency Phones have been added in locations across the campus, including the Greek Row area. We have also added another van to the Vandy Vans escort system to provide an increased number of campus escorts.

Together with continuous education and information about personal security, all of these measures help create one of the safest college environments in the region, if not in the country. But there is one element of campus security that requires the cooperation, participation, and vigilance of every student: responsibility for guests that are brought to campus. In this morning's incident, security cameras indicate that the assailants were let into Morgan and accompanied to the party by a Vanderbilt student. This was not a random shooting or "home invasion." Rather, the perpetrators were given access to our campus by a current student.

We pride ourselves on being part of an open community that values constant interaction to the extent that it is neither realistic nor desirable to create unwieldy barriers. At the same time, we must ensure that our University remains safe, and that every member of our community understands his or her responsibilities and rights. For these reasons, I am appointing a special Task Force of students, administrators, and security specialists to review campus security, with a special emphasis on our policies and procedures for access to residence halls and other student areas. The members of this Task Force will be announced tomorrow (Monday, September 26). I will direct the Task Force to provide an immediate analysis of both our current procedures and the mechanisms for enforcement, and to make recommendations for changes that will address our twin imperatives of openness and safety. I expect this process to take weeks, not months, and for there to be vigorous and informed discussion among students about the alternatives, which will then be presented to the University community for implementation.

There is no question that the safety of our students, faculty, staff, patients, and visitors is our highest priority. Incidents such as the one that occurred in Morgan House remind us that senseless violence can occur in even the most protected and comfortable environments, surrounded by friends and colleagues. We must work together as a community to prevent a recurrence.

I am making a personal pledge to you--our students--that I work tirelessly to ensure our campus remains one of the safest.

Cordially,

Gordon Gee

Titans couldn't quite pull it out against the Rams in one of the worst games I've seen Steve McNair play. Bulger and Holt made Pacman Jones look like the inexperienced rookie he is. Haynesworth was out and while that certainly made a difference in the game, can't really worry too much about that with the toughest game yet coming up next week against Indy at home.

Time to get a jump on some of these legal documents that I'll be spending my week here at home reading before heading out to South Carolina.

Good new song by Ben's brother's band, Belerian, which is comprised primarily of Vestavia students and is based here in Nashville. Josh attends Belmont, as I think the majority of the band does.

Song is called "Siren" and the recording is raw in a good way. Josh's guitar is sounding good as usual but its the bass really letting it rip and the vocalist letting loose that make it memorable. The groove is great and I think its cool these guys are obviously getting a feel for playing together.

If you're here in town, check 'em out. I know I will when I return from Beaufort. (Oh yeah, I'm getting dispatched to Beaufort, South Carolina, by Actus to assist in the crisis management going on there. I'll be gone from October 3 through Oct. 15.)

PS...MySpace page for Belerian is at www.myspace.com/belerian.

Back from seeing "Just Like Heaven," a movie Lori had been dying to see...not your typical chick flick. Pretty funny and featured the guy from Napoleon Dynamite in a really funny role. Not too bad if you gotta go see one of these.

Continuing my prolific blogging re: the iTest...

I have had to play my reluctant role of kindergarten teacher in restoring sanity to the artofproblemsolving.com AHSIMC forum. The kids were irritated at typos (which I was too, a lot) but also with some of the answers. Of course, like any forum over time, this place has degenerated into the same people posting over and over again, and unfortunately for us, its some people with an axe to grind.

I am disgusted at the lost potential of working closer with the site folks, as Mathew's a good guy and a Vestavite. But just when I think I've brought the forum back under control, along comes an inexplicable post from the site creator condoning the high school rudeness and general belligerence on the forum, as well as telling us how to market our own competition! (They don't like us calling ourselves a "premiere" competition. They probably won't like it when we actually are one, either!)

I don't mind kids running their mouths on an online forum - that's what this outlet is there for. And of course they are going to lack discretion. But when some middle age guy who is supposed to know better comes along and doesn't unequivocally denounce rude, insulting behavior on his own forum, where he is viewed as a figurehead, I wonder what on earth I'm doing as part of it.

I can't explain it. Maybe you can. Go to the site yourself and check it out and give me your thoughts at some point. I really don't have time for this type of stuff. I had no idea this guy ran his business like this when I signed on, and now its probably too late.

In another oddity, some random student decided to email us his half-finished college admissions essay, calling it "the answer key."

Looking at the plethora of Griffin iPod Nano accessory ideas and 2006 iTest logos that have been coming in has been a blast, but there's been several bizarre ones too.

We are full-speed-ahead on pursuing the iTest trademark, and I gave the go-ahead today to the legal team to lay waste to another party that's challenging our trademark instead of moving us to the Supplemental Register. Simultaneously, we await the IRS' final word on our tax exempt status, a decision that will definitely affect us one way or the other.

Watched the premiere of The Apprentice with Lori tonight...

If the show has a low point, its that Trump is quick to fire people who don't play by his rules. He fired Bradford last year early on because he refused his exemption, a move designed to motivate his team. For whatever reason, the Donald doesn't seem to be too fond of moves like that.

Tonight, the team leader (I forget her name) did a decent job, and there was a clear loser who needed to go from the women's team after they lost and had to face the boardroom. When the team leader elected not to bring the customary two people into the boardroom - opting only to bring Melissa, the nasty girl who couldn't get along with anyone - Trump once again took offense. Fortunately, he appeared to have learned from his previous mistake and fired the right person this time! So the show is off to a pretty good start.

Now that the iTest has concluded and I've had a chance to actually breathe for a minute (!) as well as return to work, I think life may be returning to normal for a while. The iTest CS development is underway and if early indications mean anything, its going to be a monstrous success filling a much-needed demand for computer science competitions in the US. But where do we go after that to continue to grow? That's going to be a huge question.

We've got to take the final step in eliminating typos from next year's test, as well as get our new online infrastructure in place so we can begin testing it for next year. The work, quite simply, never ends.

The 2005 iTest has concluded...whew! What a crazy 5 days. We've got a lot of work to do with grading and getting the Solutions Guide printed before moving on to get the iTest CS fully ready to go.

Back to work tomorrow. Off to sleep!

Our sponsor had a change of heart all of a sudden...and just like that, Griffin Technology is once again the 2005 iTest's Corporate Partner. Check them out if you have an iPod and buy their stuff at www.griffintechnology.com.

The 2005 iTest launches in 10 hours to 240 schools across the country, with huge groups of students slated to participate at many schools. Our participation will be way, way up. This is gonna be big.

Decide for yourself...(from the New York Times, taken from Gaurav's blog):

As the levees cracked open and ushered hell into New Orleans on Tuesday, President Bush once again chose to fly away from Washington, not toward it, while disaster struck. We can all enumerate the many differences between a natural catastrophe and a terrorist attack. But character doesn't change: it is immutable, and it is destiny.

As always, the president's first priority, the one that sped him from Crawford toward California, was saving himself: he had to combat the flood of record-low poll numbers that was as uncontrollable as the surging of Lake Pontchartrain. It was time, therefore, for another disingenuous pep talk, in which he would exploit the cataclysm that defined his first term, 9/11, even at the price of failing to recognize the emerging fiasco likely to engulf Term 2.

I am now 25 years old.

Halfway to 50.

I thank God for allowing me to reach this point. He has brought a wealth of opportunity to my life, including the opportunity to be happily married. I sit back and think of everything that has happened over the past year of my life and am very grateful.

I am emotionally drained from watching footage and reading stories from the Gulf Coast over the weekend. It is extremely difficult, actually, for me to watch the footage - I can read the stories on the internet a bit easier. I am angered by President Bush's actions over the past week and disgusted at both the response of our government as well as its failure to act years ago to mitigate the risk involved for New Orleans after an internal FEMA report predicted this disaster 5 years ago. As I've noted in this space before, President Bush is well on his way to a legacy as one of the worst US Presidents of the modern era.

However, I am equally disgusted by the politicizing of Katrina by various individuals and groups with their own agendas. Does everything have to be political these days? It gets tiring. The anger and vitriol in the current political climate needs to go, and the successful 2008 Presidential candidate will likely be the individual best able to de-claw the debates on various issues.

This world of constant flux and viewing everything through political lenses simply can't sustain itself. And yet, its the world in which I find myself at the start of a potential watershed year for my own aspirations in a variety of fields.

Let others complain and groan about the state we're in. I'm in too much of a hurry to whine.

I pray to God to influence my life and help me live a fulfilling life. Thankful to be happily married and in prime position for the first time to seize opportunities I have been given, I move into yet another year of my life with optimism and determination.