Mellencamp: Life, Death, Love And Freedom Concert
Sunday night Kelly and I are heading out to see John Mellencamp with Lucinda Williams at the illustrious Red Rocks Amphitheater.
John Mellencamp will begin his summer tour this July on top of the release of his 23rd career album, Life, Death, Love and Freedom. The iconic artist was just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Mellencamp and his touring band will be highlighting new songs from the album as well as a broad spectrum of repertoire reflecting four decades of recording and touring.
2008
John Mellencamp Jack And Diane Live Summer 2008 Tour
1981
John Mellencamp - Pink Houses Acoustic from tv in 1981
Popularity: 4% [?
Throw Back Golf With Garden Party
Coming this August 23rd is a golf outing worth writing home about. It’s time to hunt down some old clubs and get that swing grooved for a golf classic.
Get your RSVP in before Aug 7th.
Popularity: 5% [?
“last Lecture” Professor Dies
Nearly 7 months ago I discovered Randy Pausch’s last lecture on YouTube (see video below). I was very inspired and many of the words he spoke still resonate in my mind. I read today that he passed away.
By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI, Associated Press Writer
PITTSBURGH - Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose “last lecture” about facing terminal cancer became an Internet sensation and a best-selling book, died Friday. He was 47.
Pausch died at his home in Virginia, university spokeswoman Anne Watzman said. Pausch and his family moved there last fall to be closer to his wife’s relatives.
Pausch was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer in September 2006. His popular last lecture at Carnegie Mellon in September 2007 garnered international attention and was viewed by millions on the Internet.
In it, Pausch celebrated living the life he had always dreamed of instead of concentrating on impending death.
“The lecture was for my kids, but if others are finding value in it, that is wonderful,” Pausch wrote on his Web site. “But rest assured; I’m hardly unique.”
The book “The Last Lecture,” written with Jeffrey Zaslow, leaped to the top of the nonfiction best-seller lists after its publication in April and remains there this week. Pausch said he dictated the book to Zaslow, a Wall Street Journal writer, by cell phone. The book deal was reported to be worth more than $6 million.
At Carnegie Mellon, he was a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design, and was recognized as a pioneer of virtual reality research. On campus, he became known for his flamboyance and showmanship as a teacher and mentor.
The speech last fall was part of a series Carnegie Mellon called “The Last Lecture,” where professors were asked to think about what matters to them most and give a hypothetical final talk. The name of the lecture series was changed to “Journeys” before Pausch spoke, something he joked about in his lecture.
“I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it,” he said.
He told the packed auditorium he fulfilled almost all his childhood dreams — being in zero gravity, writing an article in the World Book Encyclopedia and working with the Walt Disney Co.
The one that eluded him? Playing in the National Football League.
“If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you,” Pausch said.
He then joked about his quirky hobby of winning stuffed animals at amusement parks — another of his childhood dreams — and how his mother introduced him to people to keep him humble: “This is my son, he’s a doctor, but not the kind that helps people.”
Pausch said he was embarrassed and flattered by the popularity of his message. Millions viewed the complete or abridged version of the lecture, titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” online.
Pausch lobbied Congress for more federal funding for pancreatic cancer research and appeared on “Oprah” and other TV shows. In what he called “a truly magical experience,” he was even invited to appear as an extra in the new “Star Trek” movie.
He had one line of dialogue, got to keep his costume and donated his $217.06 paycheck to charity.
Pausch blogged regularly about his medical treatment. On Feb. 15, exactly six months after he was told he had three to six months of healthy living left, Pausch posted a photo of himself to show he was “still alive & healthy.”
“I rode my bike today; the cumulative effects of the chemotherapy are hurting my stamina some, but I bet I can still run a quarter mile faster than most Americans,” he wrote.
Pausch gave one more lecture after his Carnegie Mellon appearance — in November at the University of Virginia, where he had taught from 1988 to 1997.
Pausch often emphasized the need to have fun.
“I mean I don’t know how to not have fun. I’m dying and I’m having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there’s no other way to play it,” he said in his Carnegie Mellon lecture. “You just have to decide if you’re a Tigger or an Eeyore. I think I’m clear where I stand on the great Tigger/Eeyore debate. Never lose the childlike wonder. It’s just too important. It’s what drives us.”
Born in 1960, Pausch received his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Brown University and his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon.
He co-founded Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center, a master’s program for bringing artists and engineers together. The university named a footbridge in his honor. He also created an animation-based teaching program for high school and college students to have fun while learning computer programming.
In February, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences in California announced the creation of the Dr. Randy Pausch Scholarship Fund for university students who pursue careers in game design, development and production.
He and his wife, Jai, had three children, Dylan, Logan and Chloe.
___
On the Net:
Pausch’s lecture: http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/
Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
Popularity: 3% [?
Campbell Says Giddy Up!
Campbell has his first cowboy hat (thank you Kel) and he’s ready for the wild wild west.
Popularity: 2% [?
Rick Reilly Does It Again With A Great Golf Story
Rick Reilly does it again. His ability to capture a reader and make them laugh out loud is unreal. Please take a deep breath, relax and read the article below. You will not be disappointed.
LIFE OF REILLY
A day on the links with the round mound whose swing will astound.By Rick Reilly
Have you ever secretly longed to comb through airplane wreckage? Had a morbid curiosity about autopsies? Wanted to tour a torture camp?
I have. That’s why I purposely set out to play golf with Charles Barkley. Wait, don’t get mad! I’ve never met anybody in sports I admire more than Sir Charles. He is more fun than a Dubai expense account. He is unfailingly hilarious, generous and honest.
But his golf swing? Technically, it’s not even a swing. It’s a lunge. Scientists study it. He gets to the top, starts down and then—two feet from impact—just stops! Totally freezes! He looks like a man waiting for a rattlesnake to pop up so he can kill it. It’s the only swing in the world with an intermission. Me, I’d quit and take up the tuba. But not Barkley. He plays golf all the time.
Which is where I came in. Through a clerical error, I was invited to play in this country’s best celebrity golf tournament, the American Century Championship on the shore of Lake Tahoe. It was bizarre and cool at the same time. There were rooms in which every face you saw was famous. When was the last time the four people ahead of you in the taco-bar line were Lance Armstrong, Kate Hudson, Al Michaels and Lou Holtz?
(Random celebrity observations from the week: Michael Jordan’s girlfriend is scorching. Aaron Rodgers nearly gets a facial tic when asked about Brett Favre. Ray Allen can actually rap. After a bad shot, Ray Romano will yell, “I could rip off my own ear!” Jessica Simpson, in town with boyfriend Tony Romo, is not a stickler for detail. When I asked her, “Jessica, is today your birthday?” she replied: “Yes! No! Wait! Yesterday! No, wait, is today the 12th? Then, day before yesterday? I don’t know!”)
Anyway, after much begging I was paired with Barkley for the first round. The night before, as I walked through the casino to go to bed, I saw him. He was standing on a stage, pouring mobs of people shots of Patron, on his tab, which would top $10,000. So you knew he was taking me seriously.
We had the day’s largest gallery for two reasons: (1) The mayor of South Lake Tahoe declared it Charles Barkley Day to honor the $100,000 he donated to locals who’d lost their homes in fires; and (2) people wanted to see the Incredible Hiccuping Swing.
I have bad news. I saw it up close—and it’s getting worse. In one fairway bunker Barkley took it back, froze as usual, then suddenly flinched and aborted the swing altogether. Balk. He gathered himself and made another run but, again, could not bring himself to finish the last two feet. It was like a man trying to shoot a favorite old cow. The third time, he finally swung but whiffed. On the fourth, he hit it. And this was only the first hole.
When Barkley freeze-flails, people laugh, shriek and gasp, but it’s not funny. It is a pox on his life. “I’ve tried everything,” Barkley says. “Tiger can’t help me ’cause the hitch is there no matter what. I even tried getting hypnotized for 45 minutes and still woke up with the same crappy swing.” And so it went the rest of the day: Barkley making people laugh and hug him, interrupted by these sporadic fits that made them look away in sympathy. “Hey, I know I suck,” he yelled on the eighth hole, still lying two and not yet to the women’s tees, “but I got nice equipment.”
Thing is, he never stops having fun. I missed a putt badly on 12 and told the crowd, “I forgot—every green breaks toward Charles.” He counterpunched with “Uh-oh, God don’t like you bein’ mean to fat people.” Toward the end, I asked him why he puts himself through it. “Beats working,” he shrugged.
Overall, in this 54-hole Stableford tourney, in which double bogey is the most you can take, Barkley took the max on 41 holes and finished last by a large county. No wonder that, in Barkley’s group, the sign boy was given no numbers.
The best player of the week was ex-MLB pitcher Rick Rhoden. The wettest was Romo, who fell in a pond at No. 1 on Saturday. And perhaps the happiest was Rodgers, who was introduced at the first tee on Sunday as a “Green Bay Packers quarterback.” Rodgers corrected the announcer, “Starting quarterback.”
As for the nobody among the 82 celebs, I finished with a plus-two, good for 53rd place. But on the plus side, I was low sportswriter and beat Michael Jordan. One other crucial thing: I can remember when my birthday is.
Popularity: 2% [?
Web Optimization - Pingdom
This post is not as exciting as pictures of Campbell but it does highlight a pretty cool tool anyone can use to test the speed of a web page. Go to http://tools.pingdom.com
How it works
The Full Page Test loads a complete HTML page including all objects (images, CSS, JavaScripts, RSS, Flash and frames/iframes). It mimics the way a page is loaded in a web browser.
The load time of all objects is shown visually with time bars.
You can view the list of objects either in load order or as a hierarchy. The hierarchy view allows you to see which objects are linked to in for example a CSS file.
Every test also shows general statistics about the loaded page such as the total number of objects, total load time, and size including all objects.
Note: This version doesn’t load objects included in JavaScripts. We have also put a limit on the number and size of the objects that are loaded (to prevent the tool from downloading movies, for example).
This Full Page Test was inspired by the OctaGate SiteTimer. We liked what they did and wanted to take the idea one step further.
Popularity: 2% [?
Testing Scribefire
I just loaded a new Firefox plugin called ScribeFire. It enables bloggers to post directly from their browser. I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime you can learn more here:
http://blog.scribefire.com/help/getting-started/
Popularity: 2% [?
The Society Receives Some Local Coverage
Last night 9news ran a story on TheSociety.com. We are running a promotion for Denver/Colorado residents to getaway to the mountains during the DNC. For details on the DNC promotion go to http://thesociety.com/dnc.
Popularity: 3% [?
Soup Feeding Himself
This just in, Campbell can feed himself! Well, maybe not completely, but he can at least hold the bottle for a few seconds.
He has finally figured out how to keep one hand on the side for guidance. The first few times he was just pulling the bottle down and getting frustrated because the nipple was popping out.
Popularity: 2% [?
