Ulmus Jefferii

Well I have been busy, lazy, and feeling guilty the last month. Perhaps I could blame the onset of spring or my search for a job, but it matters not.

It’s really coming to crunch time for me. I will be selecting where I live and the job I will have. It’s coming to the end of the semester and there is a demo for research. I will so ready for a change of pace with out 20 different things to do.

I would like to think when I have free time I will better utilize than I have in the past. But only time will tell.

Let’s sum up my week to bypass those tedious details. Two near sleepless nights, loads of ramen, back to work after a month, phone interview, Wikipedia editing, Trolley almost running me off the road, later that day nearly face planting cause the curb jumped up and got me, and tonight Critical Mass on Leap day.

Oh yeah, Happy Leap day! A Holiday we can all get behind.

So word I was thinking of was mass. I must confess it was a lot of fun riding around Atlanta with probably 100 other cyclists. Too bad I don’t really know any of them (two of them work in the same building). I need me some cycle buddies.

I would love to be in school and TA hassle-free for a few years. That would be my ideal. Basically I want to be challenged and have time to pursue (with cohorts of course) my own ideas, thoughts, and desires. And quite frankly I do not have the concentration to more than three things. And that is why I think graduate school has not quite been all that I had hoped. Don’t get me wrong I don’t regret any of it, but I had high hopes.

At least I’m trying to get out again. It’s been a while since I stretched my legs. I am going to cycle somewhere that requires a overnight stop (hopefully spring break). But for this weekend its off to my hometown for some home cooking and some fresh air.

To quote Mike Huckabee, “it ain’t over” and I must agree.

Today Ralph Nader has declared his candidacy for the President of the USA. This begs the question of when (not if) the remaining potential candidates will announce. I am of course speaking of Mayor Bloomberg.

But back to Nader…I think his major strength is his connection to FDR. That’s right folks, FDR been in office less than a year when Nader was born. I am not going to fuel the popular beliefs that FDR had himself cloned, but if you believed such things the timing would roughly add up.

I must confess, Nader or Bloomberg could steal my vote from Lobsterman (and many other voters) if they followed the tradition of ancient Rome.

“Candidate” is a derivative of the Latin “candida” (white). In Ancient Rome, people running for political office would usually wear togas chalked and bleached to be bright white at speeches, debates, conventions, and other public functions.

[source]