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Today Show

Just finished a breakfast meeting at Rock Center and ran into Meredith Veira interviewing Dr. Phil. Weird. He has a very shiny head.

Watching US Open in Madison Square Park

What a great date night. Da Umberto and the US Open is MSP. And my date digs me! Go Federer. 5th set.

ONLY IN NY: Can you find the cat in this picture?

Taken steps outside my office at Columbus Circle.

VIDEO: Turks & Caicos 2008, Episode 3 - The Conch Hunters

As promised, here is Episode 3 from Turks. BEWARE: Several conch were killed during the filming of this video. No other animals were harmed during the filming of this video (all other killing happened off camera).

Sea Lark Villa, Provo, Turks and Caicos - Stay Away!

We stayed at the Sea Lark Villa in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, in Aug. 2008. This is our honest review of the property.

http://sealarkvillaturksandcaicos.blogspot.com/

COLUMN: New Standard In Advertising In A Social World

MediaPost ran a column I wrote for them today titled "The New Standard In Advertising In A Social Media World". You can check it out here. It's nice to see some of my tuition at Medill going to good use.

PHOTOS: The Conch Hunters

Kass, the boys and I had a great time yesterday on the water off Provo. We took a boat from Turtle Cove to the great reef. The fish were abundant and colorful, as the pictures show. We also dove for conch (which we then ate raw and fresh!) and visited one of the most gorgeous beaches I have ever seen.

Conch are interesting little animals. I can't say I love the taste (not bad, but not in love with the taste). They spend their first 8 years growing this massive shell that has come to symbolize all things caribbean. They then have their shell bashed in and eaten.

The creature itself is a really ugly thing. One leg. Two tiny eyes. And a hunk of soft flesh. Think giant oyster and stone crab mate and deliver inside a nuclear reactor.

Stay tuned for Episode 3 of the video series, which will feature this trip.

Cat-Bounce Biden to Cost Obama the Race?

I've let it known how I feel about Sen. Joe Robinette Biden. He's very smart and very political. Come on ... he's only been trying to get into the White House for 20 years!!! The American public has voted him off the island again and again.

While I don't know him well, Sen. Biden is the only candidate I've spent more than 5 minutes with. As part of my last stint at Northwestern's Medill Journalism School in the summer of 1996, I covered Washington for the Delaware State News. Delaware is a small state and its congressional delegation is even smaller -- two senators (Biden and Bill Roth, who is now dead) and one congressman (Michael Castle, who is also a former governor of the state, all very incestuous). So in addition to learning a little more than I needed to about chicken farming, I got to know Sen. Biden.

So I wake up today in Turks and Caicos and read about Biden's dead-cat bounce. And the more I read and the more I think about Sen. Biden's singular focus on becoming vice president (and ultimately president), the more I feel that Biden will cost Obama the race.

Why? Two major reasons.

First, he has a ton of baggage. The baggage hasn't come out to date because he wasn't a real contender and he wasn't fully vetted by the press. But it will. This baggage won't be real substantive stuff. But it will be enough to distract people and keep the focus away from Obama.

Second, and most importantly, Obama's pick was a political pick made for political reasons. Problem is ... This goes against everything that Obama has projected to date. He's running as the anti-politician, the new-age politician, the breath-of-fresh-air politician. Obama's choice should have reflected this. He should have picked someone exciting, not a washed up, uber aggressive, Washington insider who has been trying to walk into the front door of the White House for two decades.

Having said all of this, I'm going to do whatever I can to get Obama elected. He's the best of two not-ideal candidates. I like his message. I'm not clear about how he would govern, how he would handle the economy and international relations. But we need new blood in the White House and I can't imagine voting for someone who doesn't even USE a computer.

Myles Gets Air!

Love this picture from this afternoon. Enjoy!

PHOTOS: Vivi Likes Sand!

Everyday while we've been in Turks we've taken Vivi to the beach. Vivi's first reaction to sand was fear and loathing. We have slowly evolved to peaceful coexistence. So, yes, I may be stretching the truth a little in the headline. But as these pictures show, Vivi has come to terms with her fear of the sand.

Not a Bad Sunset!

PHOTOS: Sunday in Turks

Another amazing day in paradise. Enjoy! Hard to believe we've been down here for 8 days already. Time flies when it's this nice out.

VIDEO: Turks & Caicos 2008, Episode 2: Golf

Yesterday Myles, Cole and I hit the Provo Golf Club. Not the best course in the world. But we had the course to ourselves. This was Myles' first time on an actual course (he's been to the range at least 100 times and has the swing to prove it).

Stay tuned for more videos from paradise.

Sea Lark Villa, Provo, Turks and Caicos - Stay Away!

We stayed at the Sea Lark Villa in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, in Aug. 2008. This is our honest review of the property.

http://sealarkvillaturksandcaicos.blogspot.com/

VIDEO: Turks & Caicos 2008, Episode 1

Enjoy!

Olympic Mediocrity for US? Did Bush Kills the Olympic Flame?

As of this morning, here is the Olympic medal count from Yahoo! Sports. I have no idea if they are correct or not but I assume they are.

The numbers look awesome for the US. But if you look under the hood, the numbers aren't as awesome. 31% of our medals are gold medals while a whopping 57% of China's medals are gold medals.

Michael Phelps accounts for 42% of the US' gold medals. If he weren't at the games, only 20 percent of our medals would be gold and we'd be tied with China for the overall count.

Listen, I'm not bashing the US. It's amazing that these people can swim, run, jump, play ping pong and badminton like they can. It just struck me as another exercise in mediocrity for the US. In the 5 summer Olympics from 1984-2000, Americans won more gold medals than other colors. That streak was broken in 2004 and it looks like 2008 is tracking the same.

So my question is: When did second and third place become acceptable and can we make any correlations between our Olympic drive and our economy and president since 2000?

Here are the actual stats. They're meaningless but interesting nonetheless.

UPDATE: Here are the latest numbers. The overall sentiment above does not change as of Aug. 23. The Chinese have 50%+ gold medals versus our 31%!

 

Grandpa Dave's Obit

From today's Balto Sun.