I've been spending the past few days with my parent's in Morgantown, KY helping out my dad with some work. Because of that, I got to spend a large portion of the day doing title searches and the like. Yesterday I spent part of the day patching leaks in the roof to my mom's building downtown.

Tomorrow should be a good day. Teresa and I are going to make a day trip to Nashville. No definitive plans, just wanted to go see some of the things that the city has to offer. I'm sure I'll have pictures of the trip to post soon.

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. (Matthew 18:21-22)

Jay P. Greene discusses education funding in NRO today.

The hard reality is that we spend a large amount of money on education and have every reason to expect something in return. We spend considerably less on national defense and yet reasonably expect our armed forces to protect all of our lives and fortunes from foreign dangers. And the armed forces do this difficult job without soliciting donations and without an army of apologists blaming their shortcoming on a lack of funds. It will be nice when educators adopt a similar "can-do" attitude.

Knowing people that work in public schools, I know that there are a large number of teachers without this type of attitude and simply have an entitlement mentality. I think part of the problem will never be solved short of eliminating the tenure system.

Teresa thought I should pierce my lower lip. I thought I'd take the time to see how it would look and get outside opinions. I'm limited to photoshop elements, so I wasn't able to render the "best" image of what it would look like. So, if someone wants to take the time to do a better job (which would require something better then elements, of that I'm sure), just send it to me and I'll replace the image.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. (Romans 12:1)

It's that time again. It's been nearly a two years since the last time I got a chance to make a good batch of homebrew. The last batch I made was a very good New Castle Clone. It turned out just a little bit sweeter then the real thing, but was good all around. Today I'll be working on a basic brown ale with my friend Brian Casebier. I'll let you know how it turns out in about two months.

For more on homebrewing:

• Association of Brewers
• American Homebrewers Association
• Brew Your Own - Home Brew Magazine
• Beer and Wine Hobby - For your basic equipment needs

I'm probably the last to do this, but I thought I'd put in a plug for Chris Muir's cartoon day by day. This comic is generally insightful and always funny. Go check it out.

Other recommended comics:

• B.C.
• Dilbert
• Fox Trot
• Non Sequitur

A fun way to tell if you're cool.

(via Instapundit)

I'm not sure why I haven't been posting more lately. Probably because I'm spending more time relaxing in more traditional ways (sleeping in, reading a good book, etc...) or job hunting then I would during the semester when this, along with a few other things, was my main diversion. But I still can't break my habit of keeping track of my site stats. The Instalanche effect is still sending a minor ripple through the site as traffic continues to be at a slightly higher level than normal. I can't really tell if it's because I actually picked up some readership or if I'm still getting referrers from other sites do to the link. I'm not that nuts about traffic, though I would say it's about the same spot on my mind as it is in other corners of the blogoshphere.

Keith Windschuttle does a wonderful job of defining the hypocrisy of Noam Chomsky in the current New Criterion.

Chomsky has declared himself a libertarian and anarchist but has defended some of the most authoritarian and murderous regimes in human history. His political philosophy is purportedly based on empowering the oppressed and toiling masses but he has contempt for ordinary people who he regards as ignorant dupes of the privileged and the powerful. He has defined the responsibility of the intellectual as the pursuit of truth and the exposure of lies, but has supported the regimes he admires by suppressing the truth and perpetrating falsehoods. He has endorsed universal moral principles but has only applied them to Western liberal democracies, while continuing to rationalize the crimes of his own political favorites. He is a mandarin who denounces mandarins. When caught out making culpably irresponsible misjudgments, as he was over Cambodia and Sudan, he has never admitted he was wrong.

RTWT.

The power is currently out in the apartment and in the whole neighborhood for that matter. The street lights are out along with the lights in the window of Check's. We called into the power company and evidently this isn't the only area with a power outage. People throughout the city are without power due to the wind.

Now, if the power is out, you might be thinking, "How did you post this?" Well, two things: (1) UPS for the router and broadband connection; and (2) laptop. Hopefully the power comes back on soon, I'm getting hungry and everything in this house is electric.

Well, thanks to the Instapundit link I've already passed my monthly average on traffic. With over 25k hits to the site which, according to webalizer, equates to around 3000 unique visitors. Not bad for this little spot on the web.

I just noticed some errors with the comments on the site. Looks like it is now fixed, sorry for the mix-up.

This would probably freak out some of my friends, but it certainly sounds like the type of flight crew I would want.

(via Instapundit)

Many law school grads were in for a big shock this spring. After being told that they passed the bar exam that they took this past winter, it has been discovered that the Multistate Bar Exam was misgraded. Some law school grads that were told that they had passed may have indeed failed the exam. The testing company responsible for grading the exams gave credit for one question to some people that had answered it incorrectly. With 20,000 people taking the exam across the country, the misgrading could effect a reasonably large number of people. Ohio has postponed the swearing in of all the grads that scored the minimum required score while Massachusetts has announced that they will regrade their exams.

This is the first, and hopefully the last, time in 16 years that a mistake has occured. I know I don't want to deal with this when the time comes for me to take the bar exam.

(via Lawschool.com)

UPDATE - Well, I've now had my first Instapundit link. Welcome to the site everyone.

Redman asks about the flipside of the coin, whether people failed that should have passed. The answer is yes. Those that answered the question correctly had the answer counted as incorrect.

ANOTHER UPDATE - Kimberly Swygert writes about her concerns regarding the fairness of lowing scores based on errors of the testing company.

With the end of finals on Friday I was able to spend a good amount of time this weekend with friends. Spent a lot of the weekend at my old house, where my friend Jeff still lives. It's only a couple of blocks from Churchhill Downs, so it provided for a perfect place to party for Derby.

I joined in the fun on Friday afternoon. That evening, and throughout the weekend, several people were playing with a unicylce that Scott, Jeff's brother, brought with him. Most of the people that tried to ride it didn't have much more luck then Johnathan, a friend brought by my friend Nate Domin, here. It's really fun to watch people try to maintain their balance. It's really, really fun to watch people attempt the same after a few beers.

Speaking of Mr. Domin, we learned on Friday night how he got around New York when he went there this past New Years Eve. Of course, in the process we learned how to keep him in line. Not really, but we did have to get him to our destination on Friday night and he did volunteer. He jumped right into Steff's trunk and made no complaints when we closed it.

Friday night we spent time at the Granville hanging out. We had several other people join in here that didn't spend that much time with us the rest of the weekend as a whole. Among those that joined us where Nat and Colin. Nat came all the way from Pittsburgh, PA. Though packed a good part of the night, Granville was a pretty calm trip to the bar by my experience. Though calm trips to the bar are the norm for me. For some of the spicier events that happened at the Granville, you need to go to another souce. But we'll say that some people behaved in a rather interesting way.

Bryan Condor was kind enough to bring his famous Bourbon balls this year. After all, what's Derby, or any true Kentucky event, without bourbon. Everyone enjoyed them as demonstrated by Nat. Bryan also brought several bottles of bourbon for the enjoyment of those that came to celebrate derby with us. Selections varied from Woodford Reserve to Weller Special Reserve. But for the first time in years we didn't have any Maker's Mark in the house.

Hopefully I'll get more pictures to post over the next few days from friends that were there. In the end, it turned out to be an enjoyable weekend with friends. We were already talking about next year before everyone even headed home.

UPDATE - My good buddy Nate Domin has posted some pictures, with commentary, over at his website.

We didn't have as much damage here in town as they did further west, but it was still pretty bad. The picture to the left was taken right outside my apartment. Fortunately, most of the people in the neighborhood parked away from trees and I didn't see too many cars, etc... crushed.

I took a bike ride around Germantown and the Highlands this afternoon. I had two backtrack several times due to trees blocking the roads I was intending bike on. It looked like the utility companies were making a quick job of down lines though.

"It is difficulties that show what men are." - Epictetus

I finished my last final for my first year of law school yesterday. It feals as if a weight has been lifted off of me for now. It's a good thing that this weekend is the KY Derby as it provides the perfect excuse to relax as a lot of friends are in town.

Done, finished, no more... My finals are over and along with them, my first year of law school. No to wait for the grades.

On that and other thoughts of late:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:4-7

Statute of Frauds, Parol Evidence Rule, Conditions, Avoidance. . . Ah, Contracts, my last final of the semester is tomorrow and then a weekend to celebrate. And thankfully, just at the right time, KY Derby happens to be the same weekend that my finals are over.

So, what will I be doing this weekend? Grilling out, having a drink, and most important, hanging out with good friends. And to my friends that won't make it to Derby this year (yeah, you), we'll hold a mint julep high and toast you this weekend.