Chuck Grimmett

Archives

Month: April 2009

  • Day 100 – Favorite Photoblogs

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    I know that my blog frequently lacks interesting and quality photos, so here are my favorite photoblogs for you to check out:

    I admit that I only know one of these people, so the rest of these photoblogs were referrals from friends. I plan to take some photos of my extended family tomorrow, so I will hopefully have an interesting candid for you. In the mean time, the above links can occupy you for hours!

    Hillsdale closed the college offices at noon today, so my afternoon classes were canceled. Also, one of my morning classes canceled to keep the schedule balanced, so I only had one class this morning and I drove home early! I was home by 1 p.m., so I spent the afternoon helping my dad and uncle clear roots out of the main drain that goes out to the road. The tree in our front yard somehow gets its roots in through the joints in the pipe and causes issues every so often. So, today was the first time in a while that I crawled under our house.

    I have a little bit of work to do tonight, so I am going back to it. It is wonderful to be home, even if for a short time!

  • Day 99 – Cascarelli’s Pizza

    Cascarelli's Pizza

    David, Richard, and I went to Cascarelli’s Pizza in Homer for dinner tonight. This pizza had green olives, turkey, jalapenos, red onions, and an excellent, spicy red sauce.

    I all of my classes except 1 are canceled for tomorrow, so I am driving home tomorrow morning for a short Easter break. I also have Monday off for travel, so I will be at home until Monday night. I am looking forward to it! I do have some school work to do, but it will be nice to be home, see family, and relax.

  • Day 98 – Fall ’09 Schedule

    • ECO 203-01 Macroeconomics T-TH 1 p.m. Lea
    • ECO 412-01 Austrian Economics T-TH 9:30 a.m. Steele
    • HON 251-01 Lost art of Epistolary Communication W 2 p.m. Wenzel
    • MTH 400-01 Linear Algebra MWF 8 a.m. Webster
    • PED 393-06 Basic Shotgun Sat. 10-11 a.m.
    • POL 101-05 Constitution T-TH 2:30 p.m. Krannawitter
    • MUS 204-01 Understanding Music MWF 1 p.m. Jones

    That’s right. My college has a shotgun class that counts for PE credit.
    This is my schedule that got approved for next semester. I am pretty excited! I am most excited about my Austrian econ class. I will take the second level of it in the spring.

    The weather turned nice again here at Hillsdale. Almost all of the snow is gone and I bet it will be gone by the time I go to bed tonight. It is still almost 50 degrees here. I am currently sitting inside, however, because I am covering a 4 hour lab assistant shift in the new graphics lab. There has not been anyone here for almost an hour now, so it is peaceful. I have music on and I am working on a writing reflection and a few short pieces for The Seasteading Institute. This is a beautiful lab. It is filled with new Mac Pros with 6gb of RAM and cinema displays. I need to get a permanent LA shift here next semester.

  • Day 97 – Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift

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    Dr. Paul A. Rahe

    Tonight I had the privilege of going to a lecture and panel discussion of Dr. Rahe, Dr. Birzer, Dr. Morrisey, and Dr. Arnn on democracy’s drift into soft despotism. The talk was centered upon Dr. Rahe’s recently published book, Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect. (Timely, because the 250 year anniversary of Tocqueville’s death is next Thursday.) The talk and all of the speakers were excellent. I purchased the book and I will comment on it once I read it (which will most likely not be until this summer).

    At the book signing afterwards, Dr. Rahe made an interesting comment to me that I have to think about for a while. He said that for freedom to work in America, social conservatives need to be libertarian, and libertarians need to be socially conservative. I think he is making a great point there, but I need to think through the short justification he provided me. Look for my thoughts on this later in the year when I have more free time to write. This comment really intrigued me, so I intend to think about it in the coming months.

  • Day 96 – Snow, Exams, and Political Essays

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    What do all of these things have in common? My day today!

    First of all, the outcome of the snowstorm in the photos I posted last night was about 4 inches of wet, heavy snow on top of everything. We had several large tree branches fall around campus due to the weight of the snow. It was a sunny day, though, so it was beautiful! Surprisingly, the snow is still on the ground, even though it was in the high 30s today. Everything will freeze again tonight, though, since it will be in the 20s.

    I have two exams coming up; one Tuesday in microeconomics, one Wednesday in poly-econ. I am spending my evening studying for them, as well as a quiz I have in Calc II tomorrow.

    As for political essays, you should read Patri Friedman’s essay at the Cato Institute, titled Beyond Folk Activism. (I am in the acknowledgements at the end, because I was part of the editing team!) It is a great essay outlining the dangers of folk activism and focusing on realistic activism and alternatives to folk activism.

    Also worthy of reading, Detroit businessmen had enough of government fiat and created a private currency that is being used around Detroit! I need to go there and find some before the government tries to shut it down. (Unfortunately, though, it is backed by U.S. currency, so is subject to the same dangers. Maybe they will eventually back it with gold or silver.)

  • Day 95 – Crazy Michigan Weather

    Crazy Michigan Weather - Long Exposure

    Long Exposure

    Crazy Michigan Weather - Normal Exposure

    Normal Exposure

    I drove back to Hillsdale late this afternoon. When I arrived, it was raining, but relatively warm. It was still the same at 9pm after I got out of my exam review session. Then, after I was in my dorm for an hour, the temperature dropped and it was snowing like crazy! I went out and took the two photos above. The first one is a long exposure, and the second one is a normal exposure. I took the second one so you can see just how much it was snowing, since it is not clear from the long exposure (you can see the snow, but it is just lines under the street light). The building is Howard Music Hall, which is right across the street from my dorm. Click on the photos to view them larger.

  • Day 94 – Both Sadness and Hope

    This article deeply scares me.

    A part of the article, however, gives me hope:

    “In Seoul, on Saturday, more than 100 anti-North Korea activists had burned a miniature model of a Taepodong 2 missile and clashed with police, according to South Korean media reports.”

    It shows that at least some people will stand up for what they believe in. I am not sure clashing with police is a good thing, but at least they only burned their model missile and nothing else. I wish people in North Korea would do this sort of thing, but I realize they run the risk of being shot if they do so. The situation in North Korea saddens me. The North Koreans will never even have a chance at knowing freedom or peace with Kim Il around, or any Juche ideologues for that matter.

    Government oppression, no matter where it is, really saddens and upsets me.

  • Day 93 – Back in Amherst

    Amherst, Ohio

    I am back in Amherst for the weekend to take care of a few things, namely getting fitted for a tux so I can go to Amanda’s prom at the end of the month. The above photo was taken in front of the Amherst Town Hall by my long exposure project with Sean Nelson, Illum. Click on the photo to view it large.

    Also, good news: I got 100% on my CCA paper, and a B+ on my second American Heritage Exam with Dr. Birzer.

  • Day 92 – Spring!

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    Windowsill Flowers

    Spring is here! Flowers of all sorts are budding on campus and the weather is finally warming up. Of course, I did not take this photo here, because I have not had time to spend on taking photos around campus. I have had a lot of work this week from multiple fronts. Click on the photo to view it large.

  • Day 91 – April Fool’s Day

    I did not pull any April Fool’s Day pranks today; in fact, I forgot about it until my econ professor passed out an exam at the beginning of class, which is a week earlier than it is scheduled for. Anyway, as soon as I remembered, I went online to Google’s home page to look for April Fool’s hoax this year. They always post it as a legitimate announcement at 11:59:59 on March 31. Their announcement always looks like it could be real, but once you look at the links attached to the announcement, you quickly realize the hoax.

    This year it is CADIE, the Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence EntityArchived Link. Read Google’s announcementArchived Link, technical specsArchived Link, and CADIE’s homepageArchived Link. Along with CADIE, Google released multiple services supposedly powered by CADIE, the gBall, Gmail auto-pilot, upside-down YouTube videos for a better viewing experience, and more little things which probably have not been found yet.

    Last year, it was AdSense for Conversations, and in 2007 it was Gmail Paper (and much more, of course).

    Have fun today with your hoaxes, pranks, and jokes!