If Only Our Right to Vote Was As Powerful As Our Right to Spend a Dollar

When is the last time you were extremely satisfied with how the federal government handled something? If you're like me, it's been awhile. I'm almost always satisfied with services and/or products I receive from private companies and it's not uncommon for me to have absolutely no complaints when I spend my hard earned money. Yet, that same level of satisfaction is harder to come by when doing business with the government. There's a variety of reasons for that, probably the biggest being that the government's incentive to provide exceptional service is fairly low-why should they? Ignoring politics for now, the federal government is in no danger of going out of business. The officials managing.. well, almost anything backed by the federal government.. know that if their level of service is subpar, they may get reprimanded or even lose their jobs but their organization is in no danger of going out of business. If a federally backed organization loses money the taxpayers will just subsidize the losses. Services that don't compete with the private sector have even less incentive to please its customers. Consider the IRS: why should they provide good service? If you refuse to deal with them, you go to jail. There's no personal profit incentive; the service is provided because lawmakers say the service is required. So what incentive does the government have? Officials want to stay in power; they want your votes.

Imagine a government whose sole purpose is to maintain roads. I guarantee in that situation you would find the roads impeccable. If the party in power (yep, bringing in the politics factor now) ever did a poor job of maintaining the roads they would immediately be voted out. Now imagine that government expands to also provide law enforcement. If they let a few roads fall into disrepair here and there, voters would complain.... BUT they might not vote the party out if they're providing stellar law enforcement. On average, 50% of a person's decision on whom to vote for is theoretically based on road maintenance while the remainder is based on law enforcement. See where I'm going with this? The more services a government provides, the further diluted a person's vote is. Voters tend to overlook smaller issues and vote based on what's more important to them. The government becomes less answerable to voters for each single issue as it adds more services. Why should the party in power worry about satisfying people on smaller issues when everyone is focused on major issues? They have an incentive to make sure the government provides a level of service high enough to placate people equal to the value that the average voter places on that particular service relative to all other services the government provides. If you don't like the service FedEx gives you, you're going to take your money elsewhere. You only have 1 vote, are you really going to vote somebody out of office because the post office lost your letter? Not likely. This leads me to a concern I have for our nation.

We've seen over the past year and a half or so (beginning with the Bush administration) an expansion of the federal government unprecedented in post FDR history. This has led to an equally unprecedented increase in federal spending. President Obama has greatly accelerated this trend. Sure, some of this expansion may have been necessary to deal with the economy in its current state, but that is a claim that can and will be debated for quite some time. Now, it's looking increasingly likely that we'll see a level of governmental involvement in our healthcare that has never before been seen in our nation's history. Putting politics aside, how much more does this dilute our vote? Will concerns for the state of our education system get a backseat to the state of our healthcare system in future votes? Sure, there is a good argument for the fact that not much will change because government inaction also spurs people to vote. People will vote at their dissatisfaction at the government for NOT regulating or providing a particular service. Still, the more involved the government gets in our lives, the lower the incentive the government has to provide quality service in any particular category and the more disillusioned voters become.

Now, you have a constituency that is dissatisfied with their government. People were dissatisfied with Republican leadership and decisively voted them out of office. Now, most people are dissatisfied with Democratic leadership, evident in the fact that even the senate seat in Massachusetts, usually an easy win for Democrats, has a real chance of going to the Republican contender in this Tuesday's special election. That state has not elected a Republican to the senate since well before I was born. Approval ratings for the current health bill are lower than Bush's approval ratings when he left office. With our nation's two party system, we may be seeing the start of a trend where voters have no choice but to just keep voting the party in power out of office until someone finally gets it right. The fact that our last two presidents (Bush & Obama) blatantly ignore(d) public opinion polls when setting policy only makes things worse (though there is an argument for presidents who do what they think is right; we do elect them to office to make decisions more so than to follow opinion polls).

If Republicans return to power in the next couple elections, it will not be because people want Republican leadership - it will be that they don't want Democratic leadership, the reverse of what happened in 2008. This trend can only get worse if the government continues to expand; it increases the likelihood that people will be dissatisfied with something the government is doing. More people will lose trust in our government and will become disillusioned with politics. In turn, the government has even less incentive to focus on what's important and to give people a reason to vote for a particular party - they only have to wait for the other party to mess things up (or just to convince people to blame that party for something that would have happened anyway). A lot of this is theoretical and based purely on my opinions and ideas, but it's still worth pondering. If only our right to vote was as powerful and influential as our right to spend a dollar.

Oh, and happy belated new year.

The ACC's Next Television Contract

I think it's safe to admit that if my blog were judged based on how often I make new entries, it would be a complete failure. I should probably stop acknowledging the fact that I'm slack. Still, to anyone that may still regularly check for updates, I apologize. I suppose I've made other things such as work and TV higher priorities. Anyway, the beginning of football season also got in the way. Just like the last few years, I was really excited for the beginning of college football season. Clemson had a new coaching staff, more experience at the line, and CJ Spiller was returning. I had high hopes. Unfortunately, we haven't performed quite as expected. It wouldn't be so bad if the ACC still garnered respect as a football conference. Alas, we're mediocre in a mediocre conference.

Over the last few years, the SEC has gradually established itself as the dominant conference in college football. They sealed the deal with a $3 billion television contract that took effect this year. The value of the ACC's television contract? $258 million. ACC schools on average earn about $3M a year from television rights, and SEC schools will now make approximately FIVE TIMES that. Beyond the obvious questions of whether such disparity is even healthy for college football, it's clear that the ACC (and other conferences) needs to at least somewhat close that gap or SEC schools will be so flush with cash no conference will have any hope to ever catch up. John Swofford (the head ACC honcho) has made it apparent that the conference is at least a little worried about the television contract situation, and is beginning to look at options. It'll be interesting to see what happens, but I developed a theory today on what I think could happen.

Comcast, the nation's largest cable provider, is worried that their business model is dying. They believe that to guarantee their survival they need to acquire content. Their current strategy is pursuing the entertainment giant NBC Universal. Their shareholders don't seem to agree (their stock dropped upon announcing their new strategy) and Time Warner doesn't either (they recently separated their cable division from their content division). Still, management is adamant so the naysayers don't really seem to matter right now. Acquiring NBC Universal would give Comcast a plethora of channels and content and give them significant leverage they previously lacked. They've hinted that one of their first priorities would be to create a challenger to ESPN.

While Comcast's new sports network will start out with whatever rights Comcast and NBC currently have, they'll need more if they want to become a serious challenger to ESPN. In the realm of college football, the SEC is pretty much off limits as they are deep in bed with ESPN and CBS. IF comcast succeeded at purchasing NBC Universal, the birth of their sports network would probably occur fairly close to the time the ACC's current contract expires in 2011. The logical move for Comcast would be to acquire the rights to a conference with a large foothold within its subscriber base since it may take a few years to convince other cable networks to broadcast its new sports behemoth. Comcast has a heavy presence on the east coast in areas such as Atlanta, Florida, South Carolina, Virginia, and Boston, all ACC markets. The ACC would most likely be happy to oblige to save the expense of starting its own network (something they seem hesitant to do anyway). Comcast would be betting on an ACC resurgence and the ACC would be betting on Comcast leveling the sports broadcasting playing field.

Will the ACC narrow the gap with the SEC in its new contract? Probably, but by how much? The SEC signed its contract just a few months before the economy took a nose dive (and they hired away one of ESPN's best negotiators in hopes of getting a better deal, which seems to have worked). Also, even if the ACC improves by 2011 it won't be as appealing as the SEC. Maybe the ACC could double its contract value to $500M or $600M but it won't get anywhere near the SEC's $3B. Sure, my prediction doesn't leave a lot of room for error (such as Comcast shareholders voting down a NBC acquisition) but it's definitely possible. If it happens, you read it here first.

Jambalaya and Evil Prehistoric Dodo Birds

My weekend was fairly uneventful yet not boring. If you read my 'downtown' blog you may be shocked to find out that I only went downtown once this week. My liver and credit card statements both owe me thank you notes after the last few weekends [DISCLAIMER: I have multiple family members who read this blog so I feel obligated to reiterate that 1) No, I'm not a raging alcoholic. 2) My liver is quite healthy 3) Yes, mom, I follow the disclaimer on Bud Light bottles that advise one to 'drink responsibly' and there is no cause for alarm or reason to worry at night.] On Saturday night, I actually went to the driving range and realized with the help of a friend that my golf technique is quite awesome with the exception of nearly every aspect of my swing and my handling of of a) irons b) woods c) the putter. I do, however, have under control the operation of the ball retriever for those times when I aim for the water. Time to hit the reset button on my golf game.

On to the main topic of discussion. As I was eating the chorizo and bell pepper jambalaya that I made for lunch, I realized that there was nothing of particular interest to me on television. So I ended up watching this show on BBC called "Primeval". I had heard it did pretty well and had decent ratings and I admittedly was quite the dinosaur nerd as a kid so I figured the show had to be awesome. The premise of the show is apparently that anomalies start appearing all over England that allow 'creatures' from both the past and present to travel into our time period, of course wrecking havoc on everything in sight. There's a British intelligence agency apparently set up to track and contain these anomalies. So, apparently you get to see both dinosaurs and alien-looking things from the future in one show. How cool is that? (as a kid I was a huge space nerd. I'm definitely losing cool points with at least one person reading this blog). At first I was somewhat into it, it seemed (and still does seem) like an interesting concept for a show. Yet... the show kinda sucked. By posting this, I'm hoping that some Primeval fan out there reads this and runs to the defense of the show to explain to me how the show makes sense. I'm really just confused as to how such a big network could produce something so terrible. (I should point out that I did hear BBC declined to renew the show this year, but it took them a few seasons to figure it out.)

First, these anomalies are apparently just doorways from other time periods which you can go through from either direction. I don't claim to know anything about aliens from the future, but why would dinosaurs (in this episode the evil creatures were actually prehistoric birds that looked like dodo birds) see a doorway of blinding light and feel obligated to run INTO it. Then, apparently running through the anomaly gave these dodo looking birds a massive injection of rabies AND supernatural steroids because they proceed to chase after every human in sight with no good intentions AND when these poor folks try to speed away in their shiny new SUV the dodo birds OUTRUN them and cause them to wreck. Really? Apparently the natural instinct of a giant bird placed in unfamiliar surroundings is to kill and eat everything in sight. I suppose acting confused and bewildered would be too boring. Luckily, one of the main characters devises an ingenious, fool-proof plan to kill one of the birds. As everyone is fleeing through a field of unexploded mines he steps on the trigger of one of these mines. He waits until the bird catches up, and jumps off of the trigger just in time for the mine to detonate and obliterate the bird into "featherines" [pardon my newly created corny word]. Somehow, the person is so quick that he gets away unscathed. I've never stepped on an unexploded mine, but I have a feeling that minefields would be a lot less dangerous if you could simply run REALLY fast and outrun the blasts. In the end, the birds are fooled into running back through the anomaly by one of the humans cleverly deciding to play the sounds of a prehistoric dodo bird distress call via record player. Doesn't everyone have at least one vinyl of the classic prehistoric dodo bird distress call in their collection? The acting and story line were also far from exemplary. It was one of those shows where someone says "I think they're gone" and you immediately know that 3 seconds later the birds are going to somehow appear as if on cue.

The preview had me enticed to watch the show again for a few seconds until I remembered that I was not enjoying the episode that I was already watching. Please don't watch this show. On second thought, please watch it and tell me if the show I saw was a fluke or if BBC executives really were shortsighted enough to hire either the writing staff from the last "Indiana Jones" movie or perhaps some ninth grade English class from Iowa. Apologies to crystal skull fans and Iowans.

Why the U.S. Should Support the "Coup" in Honduras

The most obvious question I ask of myself right now is: why am I sitting down to write a blog entry on Friday, July 3? Have I no life? I console myself with the fact that I did just get off work (yes, I had to work today) and ... the events that I'm seeing in Honduras right now are.. very troubling to me and I'd like to spread the word.

As you may already know, there was recently a coup in Honduras, with the president being exiled out of the country at the crack of dawn. The U.N. has almost unanimously condemned the coup, with even President Obama calling the coup illegal. Most of the world is isolating Honduras and demanding that the president be reinstated. The problem is... from what I can tell, it's not a coup! The actions of the Honduras military are legal and fall within the country's legal framework. Before reading further, it should be noted that the person who took over in this "coup" is actually from the same political party as the president who was ousted! I found a chronology of events on another blog called 'Atlas Shrugs' by Pamela Geller. While I haven't independently verified all of the facts, the chronology conforms with what I've been reading in The Wall Street Journal, which also maintains that the "coup" is legal and should be supported by the United States. I'm going to for the most part copy that chronology here, as it is already well worded. I've removed some background and events that I've deemed less important or more speculative. The original chronology builds background by painting Mr. Zelaya as an extreme leftist. That may be so, but he was democratically elected so I have no issue with that. What's important is that we help Honduras maintain their democracy. Keep in mind that the chronology is not written by me but by a source of the author of the blog I mentioned earlier:

[

· Mel Zelaya was elected 3 ½ years ago with an underwhelming 49% of the vote. He was seen as a fairly conservative member of the liberal party.

· Somewhere along the way, Mel decided to take a lesson from his mentor (Chavez) and arrange it so that he could remain in power for as long as he wanted. There was a little problem with this. The Honduran constitution, enacted in 1982, has 378 articles. 6 of these articles are “cast in stone”, meaning that they can NOT be changed. These 6 articles deal with defining the type of government, territory claims, and presidential term limits. They are the basis of the Honduran democracy.

o One other tidbit from the constitution – Article 42, Section 5 says that anyone who is found to “incite, promote, or aid in the continuation or re-election of the President” would face loss of citizenship. Remember this one later on in this saga.

· To further complicate things for Zelaya, ANY changes to the constitution have to be initiated by the legislative branch. The congress has to convene a constituent assembly. That’s basically a group of people selected by the congress to analyze any proposed changes and form those ideas into the new constitution. After the proposed changes are formulated, the congress would approve them to be put to a national referendum. The executive branch (the President) has nothing to do with that process.

· Mel didn’t think that the congress would go along with his ideas of staying in power so he decided he’d call his own referendum. He doesn’t have the authority to do that – remember that constitutional changes can only be done by the legislature AND the term limits are one of the articles cast in stone – but he goes ahead and calls one anyway.

· The Honduran Supreme Court says “Sorry Mel, you can’t do a referendum. That’s not within your power as president”.

· Mel, or more probably one of his advisors, figures out that if a referendum can’t be done, we could probably do a survey or a poll instead! Great idea – nobody will figure out that the poll that we’re now going to do is exactly the same thing as we were going to do with the referendum.

· Damn those people on the Supreme Court! They figured out the ruse! They ruled unanimously that regardless of what you call it, if it acts like a referendum the president can’t do it. If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . . .

· Mel continues to talk of doing the poll on June 28 regardless of the Supreme Court

· The Congress looks at the poll that Mel wants to do and gives an opinion that the poll would be illegal and they will not support it. Remember that Mel’s own political party is in control of the congress.

· The Attorney General also analyzes the poll and determines that it is illegal. Over the course of the weeks leading to June 28, the AG reiterates many times that the poll is illegal and anyone participating in the poll would be committing a crime and could be arrested.

· Mel runs into another logistical snafu. He needs some ballots printed. The entire political structure of Honduras (except him) has ruled that the poll is illegal. It’s a pretty sure bet that he can’t get the government to print the ballots for an illegal referendum so he asks his buddy Hugo Chavez to print the ballots. Of course Hugo says “No Problem Commrade!”

· The rhetoric in the 2 weeks before the “poll” gets tense. Every legal opinion in Honduras says that the poll is illegal. The Supreme Court reaffirms its ruling that the poll is illegal. The Attorney General keeps saying that the poll is illegal and that anyone participating is committing a crime. Mel’s own political party says that the poll is illegal. There literally is not one legitimate group in the country that is siding with Mel about the poll.

· Traditionally the military handles the distribution of the ballots and voting materials. The head of the military, Romeo Vasquez Velasquez says that the military will not participate in the poll because the Supreme Court is the entity that determines what is legal and what is illegal in Honduras. The Supreme Court has determined that the poll is illegal, so the military will not participate.

· Mel Zelaya promptly fired Romeo Vasquez. The other heads of military (Navy and Air Force) as well as the Minister of Defense resigned in support of Vasquez.

· The next day the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Vasquez was fired without reason and demanded his reinstatement. Zelaya refused.

· The ballots arrive in Honduras (from Venezuela on a Venezuelan flagged plane). The Attorney General demands that the ballots be confiscated and held at a military installation.

· Mel decides that if the military won’t distribute the ballots, he’ll get his own people to distribute them

· Mel gets a couple of buses and a few cars full of supporters. They drive to the Air Force installation that was holding the ballots. They forcibly entered the installation and took the ballots. Not only was this “breaking and entering” it was a complete betrayal of a lawful order of the Attorney General

· The Attorney General says that the President has committed treason and asks for him to be removed from office. The congress created a commission to examine Zelaya’s actions and determine if removal from office is appropriate.

· A side note here about removal from office. I’m in no way a Honduran constitutional expert, but from what I understand, there’s not a clear means to impeach a sitting president. In a lot of constitutions, the impeachment of a president would be done by the legislative branch. In Honduras, there’s no such structure. There could be criminal charges brought against the president and the trial would be handled by the judicial branch. Not much different than anyone else accused of a crime. I’ve not heard of any provision to temporarily remove a president from office until the criminal charges were adjudicated. What would you do? Let a man accused of treason remain as the sitting president until the trial was completed? That would be insane, but that may be the only choice.

· On Saturday, June 27, Mel got most, if not all, of the ballots distributed around the country. The polls were set to open at 7am on Sunday.

· The Supreme Court voted to remove Zelaya. The Congress decided to remove Zelaya. The Attorney General stated many times that Zelaya was committing illegal acts and in fact committing treason. The military determined that the poll was illegal and that their responsibility was to uphold the constitution as opposed to supporting the president.

· Early Sunday morning, about 6am, the military went to the president’s house and removed him from the building. He was put on a plane to Costa Rica. This was done to enforce the ruling from the Supreme Court.

· This is where Article 42 of the constitution comes into play. The way that I read that article, Zelaya should have lost his Honduran citizenship at this point.

· Once Mel had been removed, the President of the Congress (Roberto Micheletti) was sworn in as the new President of Honduras. This was exactly the person that is indicated by the constitution. It was a proper and legal succession of the presidency. The first thing that Micheletti did was confirm that the regularly scheduled elections would be held in November. His post is temporary until the new President was duly elected.

END.]

Wow. If all this is true than we are doing a great disservice to the people of Honduras by condemning them for trying to protect their democracy from the illegal actions of their president. Public opinion of the United States in Latin America has already been damaged by years of neglect. Let's do the right thing and support a country that has actually taken a stand against attempts to hijack it by a president who tried to over-ride every other branch of his government. This is a perfect weekend to reflect on and be grateful for the freedoms that we have as U.S. citizens. As a country we should also reflect on the role we play in supporting freedom and democracy around the world. If this concerns you, please spread the word. Now that I've posted my thoughts I think I'll spend the rest of my weekend doing more exciting things than thinking about Honduras. Happy July 4th.

Ahhh! We're All Going to Die from Global Warming! Wait... what? why?

I've always been somewhat of a skeptic when it comes to the notion of human-induced global warming, and even more of a skeptic when it comes to the whole idea of trying to stop or even reverse it. I have no gripes with trying to help the environment, but where do you draw the line when it comes to sacrificing economic health, safety, and personal choice all in the name of helping the environment? Unfortunately, society over the last few years has taken on the belief that global warming is fact (despite a lack of hard scientific evidence) with a tendency to label disbelievers as radical. I've noticed over the last few months that there is a growing backlash around the world against the theory of global warming and now seems as good a time as any to address it with this week's passage by the House of a new climate change bill.

First, the bill. Basically the government wants to create a cap-and-trade system in the U.S. to cut down on our nation's energy use. I'm not going to explain how such a system works, but if you don't know I'd encourage you to look it up. The short story is that it would amount to a tax on almost anything that uses energy in order to give people incentive to conserve energy. Environmentalists love it, but do we want environmental legislation that the Heritage Foundation estimates will cost the average family of four $1,870 a year by 2020 and $6,800 a year by 2035? Britain has a similar system that costs Brits an estimated $1,300 a year in taxes per family.

Second, CAFE legislation. CAFE is the acronym for the U.S.'s fuel mileage requirements for cars. Currently, automakers must have a fleet-wide average fuel economy of 27.5 MPG, though this is slated to rise to 35 MPG in the next several years under new legislation that I believe already passed, though maybe it's in the climate change bill. Having fuel efficient cars is great, but there are trade offs to such standards. Cars must be built with lighter, less durable materials in an attempt to meet fuel standards. A 2002 National Research Council study found that CAFE standards of 27.5 mpg for cars contributed to about 2,000 deaths per year because of restrictions on car size and weight. With standards rising to 35 mpg, the death rate will surely be higher. Also, when it costs less to drive, as it does when you have a more fuel efficient car, many Americans respond by simply driving more and consuming more gas. Setting the bar too high may force American car companies to abandon cars such as the Mustang and the Camaro (or at least high performance versions) and give Americans fewer purchasing options. If I want to buy a gas guzzling car, then that's my choice, and I'll pay for it at the pump. What's next? Telling Americans they can't buy plasma televisions because they consume so much energy (plasmas actually do consume a considerable amount of energy relative to older tvs) ? Some automakers, such as Mercedes and BMW, merely ignore our environmental standards because they realize it is impossible to build the cars their customers want with that kind of fuel efficiency. Since the U.S. created CAFE standards, $735M has been collected in fines, 2/3 of that amount paid by Mercedes and BMW. Unfortunately, American car companies don't make the same profit as Mercedes and BMW do per car and will be forced into making cars that their customers may not want just to appease environmentalists.

Third, global warming. While the GOP argues against the climate change bill by attacking its economic consequences, Americans have for the most part been ignoring the changing tide overseas. Australia is soon expected to vote down their version of a climate change bill because of a growing number of Australians that doubt the science behind human-induced global warming. New Zealand recently dismantled their cap-and-trade program after the government that enacted it was voted out weeks later. The number of scientists who disagree with the UN's claims on global warming has increased 13-fold in the last 2 years to more than 700. A Japanese environmental physical chemist who originally helped write the UN's climate change report now calls man-made global warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Here's a few other tidbits I've seen recently worth considering:

-At the 2008 meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau Germany, half the laureates on the climate change panel disputed the 'consensus' on global warming.

-According to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Earth's average rate of warming over the past 30 years was just 0.32 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. The Global Surface Temperature has remained flat since 1998.

-NASA claims that the majority of the top 10 warmest years on record occurred in the first half of the 20th century. They have found no evidence of warming in the U.S. over the past several years.

-The founder and director of the International Arctic Research Center, which exists purely to study climate change in the Arctic, has extensive research that shows that temperatures have actually decreased since 2001.

-A study done by Yale University estimates that without addressing global warming, it will cost the global economy $22 trillion. However, if we adopt the policies promoted by Gore, those policies will decrease the cost of global warming to $10 trillion, but the policies themselves will cost $34 trillion (all estimates of course, but it is clear that adopting those policies run the high risk of costing more than they're worth).

The point of this posting is not to argue that global warming doesn't exist. I don't think there's clear scientific evidence either way. However, with growing evidence against the original scientific analyses that caused us to panic over global warming, we would be wise to place a higher value on our economic well-being, safety and right to buy what we want over the possibility of preventing or diminishing a problem that may not even exist.

Why I Go Downtown [and why you're missing out if you don't!]

This weekend has been pretty eventful. I went to the driving range and actually saw some improvement in my shots. I also ran Race for the Cure, which is the largest foot race in NC, drawing about 24,000 participants. I ran it in 25:48, which is my best time since I've taken up running again, though my high school self would balk at that time. The race raised $2 million for breast cancer research, which is awesome of course. I also saw The Hangover tonight.. hilarious, I'd recommend it. I haven't used a bicycle in years but Saturday I got the sudden urge to buy one. About 2 hours later I was the proud owner of a new mountain bike.. I was advised not to make any 'rash' purchases when I told a friend I was considering buying it but I'm thinking I'll get some decent use out of it. Anyway, enough with the weekend update. You know, it's no secret that I like to go out on the weekends. In fact, most weekends don't feel complete if I don't. I think a lot of people, or at least some, view such behavior as something that correlates to 1) immaturity, 2) being single, and/or 3) some level of being an alcoholic. While it's true that such assumptions apply to many people that regularly go out (and I'm guilty of being single, I won't claim that's not a big reason why I go out), I've always known that a lot of it for me is just being out amongst friends and meeting new people. I think last night while I was walking across downtown on a quest to get some of the best nachos I've ever had I further narrowed it down.

I never know what's going to happen when I go downtown. I go out because I love the variety of experiences. I love not knowing what the night has in store. Here's the problem with NOT going out: Although some people substitute 'going out' with other social activities, oftentimes the alternative is staying at home or spending time with a good friend. That's great and important, but when I stay home I know with pretty good certainty what the night will bring. How is that interesting? Part of what makes life awesome is that we don't know what it has in store for us. As human beings, we are instinctively social creatures. In general, we thrive on social interaction. Social interaction is vital to experiencing randomness in life. Meeting people not only makes life interesting, it expands your network. It's amazing the cascading effect that meeting just one person can have in your life. If you've never thought about it, I'd highly encourage you to. The most seemingly insignificant decisions are the ones that change the rest our lives. We make hundreds or thousands of them a day, so odds are at least one of them is going to have a significant effect on your life. The decision to go to one restaurant over another, to walk left or right in a crowded concert, to arrive at a place at one time or five minutes later: those are the decisions that can change your life. Think about it. For example, when I got offered the job I have at IBM I was asked when I wanted to start. The recruiting manager made a passing comment about how other people were taking a month off after graduating to go to Europe. I didn't end up going to Europe, but I decided to wait a month before starting. The start date I chose determined which orientation session I went to. The friends I met there became the foundation for many of the friends I have here today. If I didn't choose the start date I chose, I would not have the friend base I have now and I would not be living in the apartment I have now and would likely not be writing this blog.

I'll give an example of something that happened this weekend to illustrate my point. Last weekend, my friend Joe and I went to a bar nearby for a few minutes where we befriended our waitress. When we were downtown at a concert last night, we saw the waitress a few yards off (small odds since there were a few thousand people present). She gave us free passes to the after party, which determined the bar we went to after the concert. There, I saw her talking to a group of guys. I decided to join in the group for no particular reason because I'd become bored with whatever I was doing at the time. Within a few minutes, I discovered that the guys lived a couple doors down from me in my building! Now I know some neighbors that I would have likely never met if Joe and I had not sat at the table we did a week before. I also would not have ever met them if I did not have a desire to 'go out' nearly every weekend!

When I first moved here, Raleigh's downtown nightlife was... so-so. I went out, but more rarely, because it wasn't that exciting and the odds of meeting someone interesting was much lower than what I was used to in Clemson. There was a lack of vibrancy. Fast forward two years and the difference between Raleigh now and then is substantial. There is a vibrancy and level of excitement in the downtown that was fairly non-existent two years ago. As Raleigh is now the fastest growing city in the country, I expect for the trend to continue. I look forward to it and the energy and opportunities it will bring. I thoroughly believe that a vibrant nightlife is crucial to a healthy downtown and a healthy city full of many opportunities.

Some say that the course of one's life is determined by fate and some say by choices. I say it's a combination of the two, but there is no doubt that it is largely determined by one's choices. The more time you spend at home the fewer choices there are to make and the less chance you allow yourself for opportunities and an interesting life overall. If the nightlife isn't your scene, then so be it. There are other opportunities to network. However, if you're just sitting at home, you're missing out. Friendships, business deals and experiences that will last a lifetime are being created while you're sitting at home watching re-runs of Jeopardy.

Airport Randomness and Misc.

Wow, I have gotten... very slack at keeping this up. I may have even waited longer to make a new post if it wasn't for Caroline reminding me multiple times that my blog was falling by the wayside. Perhaps it's because my last posting had so many views (easily set a blog record) that I knew that the views for whatever I wrote next would disappoint me. Or maybe I've just been busy... we'll chalk it up to that. Since my last posting, I went to New Orleans, went to the World Beer Festival in Raleigh, spent a long weekend in Charleston and had a few friends come up for a long weekend here.. all of which could have made potentially good blog topics! One thing I will mention is the large number of random airport occurrences I've had since moving here... I suppose I didn't fly that often before I moved up here but Raleigh is a decent sized city (the Raleigh-Durham MSA [Metropolitan Statistical Area] is larger than the Charlotte MSA, though Charlotte has a bigger airport) and you wouldn't expect to see people you know very often... one thing I've learned is that no matter where you are, we live in a small world.

So these are not all people I know, but here's a few instances off the top of my head:

1) I flew to West Palm Beach last summer. A friend of mine drove me to the airport, and as I was getting my bags out of the car we discovered that she knew the girl getting out of the car in front of us.. they went to high school together I believe. I ended up talking to the girl, she was going to WPB too! We ended up hanging out on the flights/connecting airport down there and then when I was in WPB I ended up seeing her and her family at a restaurant I was at.. I've seen her in Raleigh since then too.. small world!

2) When I flew to Dallas last fall as I was boarding the plane I noticed a girl I know hanging out in the terminal.. unfortunately too late to talk to her but still random. When I arrived in Dallas I saw another girl I know who was on her way to Vegas with her bf.. I later found out that her ex (whom I knew her through) was randomly in Vegas at the same time and saw her (or so I'm told it was random)!

3) When I flew to New Orleans last month, I parked at a private parking area a few miles from the airport and took a bus to the terminal.. when I was in the New Orleans airport restroom later that day I noticed the guy next to me was on the bus with me that morning in Raleigh.. small world.

What blows my mind is that these things seem to happen every time I fly... I'll let everyone know if anything happens next time I fly.

On a side note, I watched Star Trek a few weeks ago.. I don't really advertise it too often, but admittedly I'm a Star Trek fan... the new movie is great and I recommend it to anyone regardless of whether you've seen or liked any of the prior movies/shows (wouldn't normally recommend this but the movie is awesome). I say this for the sole purpose of leading into this video that I found online a few days ago with Jay Leno.. pretty hilarious: