A sad, gaping loss. I hope his family can find comfort.

Pretties from the balloon adventure. Photos by me.

Indiana horizon at sunrise:

Balloon interior:

Burner in action:

Balloon shadow just after landing:

Partially deflated balloon in cow pasture:

My sister, who comments here as Bumble, and I were taken up in a hot-air balloon yesterday morning. It was absolutely as fantastic as you always thought it would be. Silent, still, views like the ones off the Sears Tower but without the heat, noise, grime, smells, and concrete. There are photos below the fold, but if you want to skip the narration and go straight to the in-flight pictures, they are here.

I was nervous before we went; not about flying or the height, but since I became a mom, reasonable fears of accidental death have blown up into an occasional, irrational near-certainty that because I’m so careless and rude to my child as to actually take an adventure that has a small chance of possibly going horribly wrong, it will actually happen that way. I tried to wrestle this down with the assurance that our pilot, Dave Bobel, has been flying balloons for more than thirty years and is certainly not about to crash himself just to validate my midnight fears. You won’t catch me going skydiving, though. Details and photos after the jump. (more…)

We both take pictures of the doors.

Of course he can tell you lots more cooler stuff about them than I can. All I can offer is that both of these doors used to belong to John Adams.

…and it ain’t public service.

Study after study shows that students who serve do better in school, are more likely to go to college, and more likely to maintain that service as adults. So when I’m President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you’ll have done 17 weeks of service.

Somebody please explain to Barack that pesky “correlation is not causation” thing. Students who do service on their own volition or at the urging of their parents or teachers, rather than under compulsion, and who also do well in school and go to college … hmmm … I’m trying hard to think of a reason … could it be they’re more highly motivated to begin with? Oh well, I’m too lazy to look for A Study proving that. When Obama’s education program has been running a few years, however, I’m sure the Studies will be overflowing with the puzzling, basically flat numbers of those who go to college and “maintain that service as adults.” Also the startling rise in the number of private schools that don’t take any federal funds at all.

Via Instapundit.

Thank you, soldiers, marines, air force pilots and personnel, sailors. Thank you.

(The good stuff, not that crap Barry O. is selling.)

I got this link at Hot Air, about bachelorhood. It starts out on how bachelors are likely to accomplish more and greater things in their lives than married men, and frankly, as a devotee of Dorothy L. Sayers and her commentary on that very truth as it applies to women, I was glad to read somebody’s approach to it for men. But still, as I read Christopher Orlet’s (what a great name, no?) list of the “architects of Western Civilization” who were single, I could only think one thing:

“But not Bach. Not Bach.”

Nor, in addition, any of the founders of our own American system of civilization, though of course they were working on and fleshing out premises that had been laid down by many in the list.

I have no trouble believing, generally, that accomplished single people will accomplish more than accomplished married people. But Bach. Bach is the spark of hope that it’s not all one way or the other.

I’ll see if I need to update after reading what is sure to be a twist on Orlet’s theme.

Update: The moral seems to be that this single formula works only if you are a highly accomplished person indeed. I can buy that too. Also, Mr. Orlet needs a competent copy editor or at the very least a good proofreader. Howling typos like “border” for “boarder” and “precidence” compete for attention with a notable lack of commas. Exactly the kind of thing a smart, sharp-eyed wife would prevent. (With apologies to Mr. Orlet’s wife if he has one.)

We don’t know, just that it’s to be “non-nuclear.”

[Christie Brinkley] is also on the board of directors of the Global Security Institute (they work for world peace and non-nuclear proliferation) and was recently in Rome for the Nobel Laureate Peace Summit.

These are vacation posts, if you can’t tell. Short. Shorter than usual, that is.

I’m trying to learn about photography–i.e. learn what’s actually involved with making my various camera settings produce good photos rather than using Auto all the time, which tends to wash out faces with too-brilliant flashes. It’s perfectly appalling how much light is needed to get a good flashless photo if you’re not deliberately going for a time exposure with a tripod and all. So that even with our technology it’s still amazing how much more efficient the human eye is at its job than the camera.

A friend says to me, of somebody else’s two small children visiting a state other than the one they live in, “First time they’ve been out of [small town in largely rural state where they live].” And just like that I appreciate far more the advantages of my military-brat upbringing.

“I will not say the song is completely autobiographical, but I’m down with that core audience,” he says.

–Weird Al Yankovic on his song “White & Nerdy,” which is “packed with references to Dungeons & Dragons, ping pong, and glee club.”

Dude, when did “glee club” get nerdy? I thought it was only band geeks who got all the grief. Even the drum majors. Ahem.

I’m a mother prone to a little hyperbole. “You took the longest nap in the world!” is a regular comment of mine on the rare occasions when the Bean does nap. Because he’s still battling jet lag, he’s been napping quite a bit this week. He’s always accepted uncritically the idea that whatever we’re talking about at the moment was the [biggest, best, coolest, longest] in the world. Until last night. He looked at me suspiciously and remarked, “Some people take longer ones.”

Sigh.

Or, Is Justice Stevens Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?

Supreme Court overturns D.C.’s handgun ban 5-4.

Rachel Lucas points to a snotty, annoying, and oh yeah, completely off-rocker piece of rhetoric by Justice Stevens:

In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.”

He said such evidence “is nowhere to be found.”

No evidence that the Framers would much rather have limited, and did limit, the actions of our elected officials rather than limit the actions of free, innocent citizens?

Has he ever read the Constitution? I Am Not a Lawyer (as everybody reading here has had plenty of evidence to show), but even I can parse this: Whatever the available tools may be, Justice Stevens, they do not include infringement. That word means exactly what everybody thinks it means, no matter how hard you and others of your ilk try to convince us otherwise. There are only four lights.

Even in our public schools, at least back when I was attending them, which was since D.C.’s gun ban was enacted, thanks, it was made perfectly clear from the moment we started studying the American Revolution that the Framers had every intention of limiting most widely the actions of our officials rather than the rights of citizens. Stevens still sucks.