There’s two things I like very much, traveling and having other people pay for it. Why not do that for a living? Look at all the television shows where some person gets paid to travel around the globe. Those are great shows, but I think I have an angle that hasn’t been exploited. Most shows jump from country to country each episode. I’d love to do a show where a single country/region is the focus of the show. The first country I’d like to travel through is Russia. Start at the Estonia-Russian border heading towards St. Petersburg and zigzag east across until I reach the Bering Straits. I’d like to spend a full year traveling and then turn that into 52 episodes. Most importantly, I’d like to find things of interest that are overlooked by other travel shows. If the network likes the results from that, I’d follow up the next year by traveling through the former Soviet republics. After that I’m not sure where I’d go, but I’m sure I could think of something.

I actually know someone that works for one of those networks and she’s working on a pitch for a show with the theme of cousins backpacking through Europe. They liked her original pitch and want her to work out specific details and make the pitch again. I’m thinking of using my camera and computer to do a sample episode with Madison as the location to show what I’d like to do in Russia.

This is as good a time as any to offer up another shameless pitch for a song I like.

I’m not a lover of poetry. Poetry is an art lost on me. The only poets I can name off the top of my head are Edgar Allen Poe and Walter Savage Landor. I probably remember Poe because the Halloween episode of The Simpsons that mimicked his poem “The Raven”. I do however know exactly why I remember Walter Savage Landor. Who the hell has the middle name Savage? Years ago when I was in high school one of his poems was discussed in an English class. I don’t remember the poem, but I remember this guy with the middle name of Savage.

Music however is a form of poetry I do appreciate. Especially songs like “Radio” by Alkaline Trio. This is actually a Tom Petty song, but Alkaline Trio delivers a hard hitting, emotional cover that fuels my punk rock heart and revives feelings of angst with former girlfriends. Who can’t appreciate verses like this:

Shaking like a dog shitting razorblades
Waking up next to nothing
After dreaming of you and me
I’m waking up all alone
Waking up so relieved while you’re
Taking your time with apologies
I’m making my plans for revenge
Red eyes on orange horizons
If Columbus was wrong I’d drive straight off the edge
I’d drive straight off the edge

That’s poetry as far as I’m concerned.

You’re dying. In your last moment of life, you’re granted the knowledge of one thing. Simply ask one specific question and you’ll be given full knowledge of it.

It’s interesting what peoples responses are. Kate would want to know if her family will be alright. Now granted you couldn’t possibly know for sure what you would want to know until that moment occurs.

I think I’d like to know about the edge of outer space. The commonly held assumption by most in the scientific community is that the space is infinite and the universe is constantly expanding. We can measure the expansion of the universe, but we cannot prove that space is infinite. Perhaps space has an edge, but what is it. When you get to the edge do you find absolute nothingness? Now I don’t mean there is nothing beyond the edge. Most of space is nothing. I mean beyond the edge, there is nothing. Perhaps if you go beyond the edge, you become nothing. Or maybe if you go far enough up, you come out at the bottom? I call that the “Asteroids” theory. If you’ve ever played the classic Asteroids arcade game, you know what I mean.

The possibilities are endless and mankind will probably never answer that question. If there is no edge, we could never prove it. If there is an edge, it is further than all the stars visible through our telescopes. Unless we can travel faster than light, we won’t go beyond those stars until a far off era.

The School Information System Blog posted an article about school administrators monitoring students internet activities and then punishing them for “violations”. I have a big problem with this. First of all, schools should not be allowed to punish any student for anything that happens off of school grounds. An internet website is most definitely off of school grounds. If a student does something wrong outside of school, then it is an issue for law enforcement or civil court, not school administrators.

It’s unbelievable that it’s become necessary, but a law needs to be created to clearly limit school administrators authority and establish rights for students.

An interesting thing happened last night around 11. I was at Barriques playing cribbage with friends, just like most every Wednesday and we were slowly funneling out when my brother Nick calls me. Nick left Barriques just a few minutes ago, so I figured it was something bad. Nick tells me between laughs that Bill should move his car. Apparently a suspected explosive device was found at the parking ramp across the street from St. Raphael church on South Fairchild. The police had the area taped off the parking ramp and there were squad cars blocking some streets. Bill talked to the cops about getting his car out of there, but they told him they’d have to check things out first. Bill was able to get his car two hours later.

Bill didn’t like cops before this, so this really didn’t help his perception of law enforcement. It just had to happen to Bill.