Archives for August 2006

Walk About America

August 30, 2006

When it comes to charity, it always helps to have some kind of event or organizational story to motivate people to give and make a difference. It's just good branding. It's a lot easier to get people to buy into a cause related story or event than it is to just get them to donate and have their money fly into the proverbial "ether". Think of telethons and marathons and those sorts of things. Anyways, this post isn't really about branding or advertising or whatever it is that this blog is actually about lately.

Eric Latham, who was a Fraternity brother of mine at
Virginia Tech, had a great idea to get people to actively participate in cancer research funding: He walked across the country. It’s been great to see
someone doing everything he can to try and make the world a better place. He's raised an incredible amount of money ($23,611 so far) for cancer research and along the way encountered some pretty incredible things. Please support him by checking out his website and the book
that he wrote about his experiences.

Classical Conditioning and Burritos

August 29, 2006

If you ever took a science class you learned all about
Pavlov and his dog. If you happened to
go to school during the Bush administration, allow me explain this for
you. Ivan Pavlov had a dog. He performed an experiment by teaching the
dog that whenever Ivan rang a bell, the dog would receive a treat. After a while he learned that he could cause
the dog to salivate by only ringing the bell. This is called classical conditioning. Classical conditioning focuses on reflexive behavior or involuntary
behavior. Any reflex can be conditioned to respond to a formerly neutral
stimulus. (thanks Wiki).

Anywho, I am a great believer in the power of Mexican
food. Especially burritos. In fact, I would only go to Mexican
restaurants if Krissie would let me.

But that’s neither here nor there. The point is that I’ve noticed in the past year that whenever I hear
Mariachi, Flamenco, or any non-pop Latino music, I salivate.

Not so targeted direct mail

August 28, 2006

I live in an apartment. TruGreen ChemLawn is wasting their money. Everyone point and laugh.

Outsmarted by a dog

August 25, 2006

We've been training Bailey to ring this bell whenever she needs to go outside to use the bathroom. The problem is, she's learned that when she rings the bell she gets to go outside, even for a few seconds. Now she rings the bell all the time. We've been outsmarted by a dog. Hopefully we can bring this back under control with some delicious dog treats. It kind of reminds me of companies putting technology out there for consumers to use, only to have the consumers figure out how to hack into it and bend it to their will.

Durham Dog Park

August 25, 2006

A battle for submission

This little wiener dog dominated Bailey, who is 4 times her size. It's interesting to watch the dogs at the park form a pack and feel out their rank. Dogs are so social it's incredible.

This post goes out to all the other bloggers out there who are risking having their laps exploded by Sony laptop batteries. Keep fighting the good fight.