Shortly after I met Max, he got a job at a local bank BB&T. Max was working and living in Greensboro which was 45 minutes away from where I was living. One day he had car trouble so I picked him up from work. We were hungry so he took me to a nearby restaurant/bakery called Panera for the first time. One thing about me is, I won’t remember the exact date, I won’t remember what we were wearing, but I will remember the food. I had the Turkey Artichoke Panini, which is a hot turkey sandwich with cheeses, grilled onions, artichokes and lots of good stuff. That has been my favorite sandwich ever since. About a year later Panera came to Burlington, the city were I work and now live. They have the best sandwiches, soups, salads, and pastries. Burlington is growing and we are getting a lot of the fun stores I used to drive an hour to shop at. We now have Target, Old Navy, Michael’s Crafts, Best Buy and more. Since we’ve been growing I saw a Starbucks being built next to my Panera. I began to be worried. The evil Starbucks Coffee shop will take business away from my Panera and who knows, it may cause Panera to close! I told everyone I’m not going to Starbucks, Panera is better! Of coarse the real reason I wouldn’t go to Starbucks is because it’s a coffee shop, I don’t drink coffee. Then one day I was in Target. Target also has a Starbucks near its snack shop. I was sitting waiting for Max and I saw a young girl with a pink, drink that looked like a milkshake. A big light shone around and I realized, that could not be a coffee drink! I asked the mother what was the drink and she informed me it was a Strawberry Blended Creme. I then ran to look at the menu and saw there was a whole list of Blended Cremes that had no coffee in them! So I ordered the Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino® Blended Crème and I fell in love with it. It’s basicly a smoothie made of chocolate syrup, chocolate chips, milk and ice, topped with whipped cream. Yum! Since then I’ve tried them all. They have a Chocolate Chip, a Strawberry, a Vanilla Bean and they just came out with a Banana one. My favorite flavors are the Chocolate Chip and the Vanilla. The Vanilla reminds me of snow creme we would make when I was a child. I’m okay with the strawberry and the banana but it’s artificial flavoring which makes it taste more like a children’s cereal. So Starbucks is not evil, at least not completely. And now I don’t think that they will shut down my Panera. Panera has more food and better pastries to offer than Starbucks. Also Panera offers free wireless internet connection. I see people all the time there with their laptops and we use ours there too. Long live Panera! Long live Starbucks, as long as they keep my Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino® Blended Crème! If that ever goes off the menu, evil will have taken over them completely!

Best technical line of the day:

Turns out, the laptop has a built-in motion sensor. Nominally, it's there to protect the internal hard drive. The basic idea is this: If the accelerometer suddenly notices that the gravitational pull of earth is no longer present, the most likely explanation is that the laptop, sensor and all, is currently accelerating at 9.81 m/s² towards said earth. In that case, it will (wisely) try to turn the hard drive off in preparation for impact.

What a way with words.

I wish I had thought of this.

OK, one more political link and I'll call it a day.

Jerry Taylor recently appeared on an NPR show, and determined after a little wrangling that, the Left is of many, many minds when it comes to energy conservation - and all of those minds seem to coexist in the same head.

For instance, the government should (1) encourage bus riders and discourage car drivers and simultaneously (2) drive the price of gas down so that it's less expensive to drive cars. In fact he was "treated to a rather loud rant about why most people had no option but to keep buying gas." In other words, the Left considers it imperative to get the government involved in gasoline conservation while at the same time believes it's impossible to get people to consume less gasoline.

I hate to push Jayden's pictures down (he is really cute). However, for my last political gripe:

I may try sending some reading material to my government representatives.

OK, I'll get back to work, but for now, just click the link.

Not a big deal, but apparently I'm a little nerdy.

I don't know how I get so lucky. I just found a site that includes this gem in the archives (under May 20, 9 PM, slightly edited for content because my family reads this):

Boss: Where is Luke*?
Assistant: He took a day off. His brother got meningitis.
Boss: ... If his brother doesn't die he will be a complete idiot for the rest of his life.
Assistant: How you know that?
Boss: I had it as a child.

Jayden's first flight. Last Wednesday we ventured out to California to visit Max's family. Jayden's experience flying was not a happy one. He felt sick on the plane and slept most of the flight. I took this picture when we were preparing to land in Arizona. This is before we had to use the barf bags. My poor baby, it was so hard on him. He ended up being sick the whole time in California. He had a fever, lost his appetite, and was coughing. I think he was stressed out by all the changes.

Jayden did have a better day. We were not able to fly home on Sunday so Max's brother Wade and his family came to visit. Jayden was happy to play on the swing set with Seth and Michael. In this picture Michael is on the swing with Jayden and Grandpa Snake in the Grass is pushing them. Jayden also was happy playing with his Aunt Shelly, going out through the window over and over again.

Another political post:

The FBI discovered $90,000 in cash in a Louisianna Congressman's freezer. Apparently Louisianna weather is a lot hotter than anywhere I've lived. However, because the FBI also raided the Congressman's office in Washington, Republican leaders are complaining about it. Newt Gingrich, who wants to run for President, and who made political mileage because Clinton's Oval Office wasn't sacred from investigation, has even declared that this investigation into bribery "is the most blatant violation of the Constitutional Separation of Powers in my lifetime. The President should respond accordingly and should discipline (probably fire) whoever exhibited this extraordinary violation."

Since I was born after Watergate, from the earliest I can remember, I was repeatedly told about Nixon vs. the United States, and I know that the President isn't above the law. I find it odd that the House of Representatives is so sure it's above the law.

Maybe a letter-writing campaign is in order. Here's a draft:

Dear Supreme Congressional Being,

Dennis Hastert is currently Speaker of the House in some attempt to say that the Republicans take ethics seriously. Do you believe Hastert can be effective in this role, given that he's been so quick and loud to declare Congressional office spaces free from FBI investigation? Why hasn't he been removed from his post yet? By the way, I will be voting in November.

Unfortunately, Brad Miller (my Congressional Representative) is a Democrat, so sending this to him won't go anywhere. But I will send it to both North Carolina Senators (Republicans), and a few nearby Republican Representatives. I'll also send a modified version to Dennis Hastert.

OK, while I've been able to contain myself up to this point, here's a little "politics."

One time my mission president made the comment to a group of district leaders that I was "not normal" and that I enjoyed reading church handbooks (largely because missionaries aren't supposed to read, say, George R. R. Martin, Tad Williams, or Robert Jordan). Likewise, every so often I stop by the Supreme Court's website, and see if there are any interesting opinions recently issued. I've noticed that Roberts has been able to shepherd the Court toward a lot of unanimous opinions. Yesterday the Court released an opinion in Brigham City v. Stuart.

From the official summary: "At about 3 a.m., four police officers responded to a call regarding a loud party at a residence. ... They entered the backyard, and saw—through a screen door and windows—an altercation taking place in the kitchen of the home."

The question was whether the police should have entered the home without a warrant and without permission, given that they saw a fight taking place inside. The Utah courts decided that because the police only entered for the purely selfish reason of arresting the suspects, they were involved in an unreasonable search. The Supreme Court unanimously held that "Because the officers’ ... motivation is irrelevant ... it does not matter here whether they entered the kitchen to arrest respondents and gather evidence or to assist the injured and prevent further violence."

This wouldn't catch my attention if this had been a split decision. But a unanimous decision generally means that it wasn't even close. Rhenquist had a way of finding what everybody on the Court could agree with, and then adding more to his opinion until only four other judges would sign off on it; releasing a 5-4 decision and grabbing as much ground as possible. Roberts, instead, seems happy to get all nine justices to agree on a single general premise. While it makes court watchers happy to see everybody playing nice, it does tend to make the District courts look silly.

For instance, several law schools recently tried to limit access military recruiters had for their impressionable and sophisticated students because the schools don't like Congress's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Lower courts wrestled with the issue, and had a difficult time deciding where to draw the line. The Roberts Court issued an opinion that could have been summed up in two sentences:

"The Constitution gives Congress the power to raise armies. The District Courts shouldn't spend their time trying to balance fifteen different factors to determine that exercising that power is Constitutional."

Or, how Stevens wrote in this case:

This is an odd flyspeck of a case. The charges ... are minor offenses ... two of which could have been proved by evidence that was gathered ... before [police] entered the home. The maximum punishment for these crimes ranges between 90 days and 6 months in jail. And the Court’s unanimous opinion restating well-settled rules of federal law is so clearly persuasive that it is hard to imagine the outcome was ever in doubt. Under these circumstances, the only difficult question is which of the following is the most peculiar: (1) that the Utah trial judge, the intermediate state appellate court, and the Utah Supreme Court all found a Fourth Amendment violation on these facts; (2) that the prosecution chose to pursue this matter all the way to the United States Supreme Court; or (3) that this Court voted to grant the petition for a writ of certiorari.

It seems that looking good as a District Court Judge just got a little harder.