Funny (and probably true) election day quote:

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. – George Bernard Shaw

But more seriously:

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. -Robert Hutchins

Please take twenty minutes out of your day and go vote!

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
- Benjamin Franklin

Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.
- Henry Ward Beecher

Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself.

He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience—or to fake—a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer—because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement. He does not seek to gain his value, he seeks to express it. There is no conflict between the standards of his mind and the desires of his body.”

Francisco d’Anconia
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

–

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Ashutosh Kadakia and I’m friends with Adam and Shannon from IU.

This is a pretty hard act to follow after all the great toasts we had yesterday, and following in Mr. Hanson’s wake and these lovely maid of honors wake isn’t easy.

But, let me start by apologizing for this awkward presentation – I was going to make it formal, and I had a 717 word speech ready to feed into a teleprompter, but then found out at the last minute that President Obama has gone through so many of them, that teleprompters are in short supply.

No but in seriousness, this was an absolutely perfect weekend and I can’t imagine a bride more beautiful and radiant than Shannon. For those of you that weren’t there yesterday, Shannon’s aunt has a recording of Shannon from when she was 3 ½ asking her what she wanted to become when she grew up – she replied, a lady and a mom. Well Shannom has clearly become a lady.. And well Adam its time start on that second part.

I’m quite used to seeing Adam in grungy sweats, and that dirty tan baseball cap, so seeing him here in a tux is a welcome change – so Shannon thank you for that.

However – I think it’s a great honor to be here as Adam’s best man; we’ve lived together, travelled together, closed out Nick’s and Kilroy’s together, Facebook stalked together, skied together, and even occasionally studied together, and – he has been – and continues to be – a terrific friend.

But, let me hasten to say that the term “Best Man” is a purely a ceremonial title for weddings and not – in any way – an actual intellectual or physical distinction.

However – if any of you single beautiful girls gathered here wish to think “the Best Man” title is an accurate description of my manliness and power, that’s perfectly fine with me.

I think it’s fair to say that I was the first to know – even before Adam knew – that he and Shannon were destined to get married. I broke this rather extraordinary news to Adam as we walked – perhaps staggered is more accurate – back to our dorms while we studied abroad, but in reality the prediction was not that difficult to make.

While we were competing over who could consume the most British pints, all Adam did was talk about Shannon. It was Shannon said this, and Shannon said that, and how bright Shannon is, and how beautiful Shannon is.

But, it was altogether unnecessary, because – truth to tell – I completely agreed, and Erik is a great guy, but I think it was a bit shortsighted of you to not have a sister for me.

Well Shannon thinks I’m and absolutely reckless, awful California driver, who should have his license suspended and when Shannon found out about my being the best man, the first thing she said to Adam was any role he wanted me to play at the wedding is perfectly fine with her, as long it didn’t involve my driving her anywhere.

And, knowing my miserable record for attending classes in college I think she was a bit nervous about me showing up for their wedding, but – not to fear, Shannon, I may have missed half our R305 classes, but I am here.

But, in all seriousness, as I’ve watched Adam and Shannon grow closer, I’m totally certain that they are perfectly matched for each other and there is no doubt in my mind that each has found the perfect soul-mate for life.

And it’s great to be able to say that the couple we just to joke about being the married couple, are now officially the married couple.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, please raise your glasses.

To Adam and Shannon Jorgensen:

• May they always have around them the kind of wonderful people who are here to bless their marriage this evening;
• May they comfort each other in the hard times and share in all the good times;

Ladies and gentlemen, to Adam and Shannon Jorgensen.

On my drive back home from Bloomington I had to pass through the mountains. Roughly 10 miles before entering the Rockies a blue R32 with darkly tinted windows pulls up next to me. For those you who don’t know what an R32 is, it’s basically a 240HP, all wheel drive version my GTI. It has the same body style and is nearly undistinguishable except to an enthusiast’s eye. The driver rolls down the window and as the window is half way down I can hear Tom Petty blasting even at 85mph. I glance over and there is a drop dead gorgeous brunette in her early 20’s driving this stick-shift R32 at 85mph in a 65mph zone. She flashes me thumbs up and mouths nice car. I yell back you too, she smiles, and rolls up her window.

We drive side by side for a while, and then as the mountains approach she falls back behind me and flashes her bright lights twice. I drop two gears from 6th to 4th as the mountains approach and start focusing on the driving. Driving through the Rockies isn’t exactly rally driving but it’s a great drive and can be dangerous at high speeds. I start off driving a little over the limit which is well within most peoples comfort zone.

About a mile or two into it the girl starts tailgating me to signal me to me to speed up. Slowly, I start driving more and more aggressively. A few minutes later I reach the point where I would have been driving normally if I didn’t have anyone following me and this girl is still right on my tail. I hit 30-40 mph over the limit in the straight-aways and 20-30 over on the curves and this girl is sticking to me like glue.

To say the least, I was impressed. Granted she was in an AWD car with 60 horses on me, but come on, I’m a guy who takes his car to tracks and this is a girl with perfumed hair.

We get through the mountains, she pulls up next to me, rolls down her window, smiles, waves, drops two gears, shoots out in front and takes the first exit. I thought about following her, but then rationality kicked in. Instead I rolled up the windows, turned down the music, turned on the AC, and activated the cruise control.

I’m not sure if I subscribe to the whole love at first sight philosophy, but I’m sure for that sliver of time I could have been a suitable poster-boy for it.

We entered the restaurant soon after a guy (let’s call him J-Bob) who was soon to become object of humor in the near future. The guy appeared to be in the mid 40′s, wore a cheap leather jacket, worn truckers hat, yet underneath he had some sort of silk shirt on and black slacks. He was lanky, not groomed, but definitely not homeless. He was a regular there since the waiter who seated us asked the guy ‘Are you going to seat yourself again tonight?’

Anyway, she seats us next to him from where it was possible to look over on his table. He pulled out this chess board and starts setting it up. This isn’t a wooden board or elegant board. Rather the types we used to use back in the day in the $10 chess competitions in middle school. It’s the nylon-plastic full size ones with the oversize pieces. I glanced over at it and figured he was meeting someone. Meanwhile, Kate and I look over the menu, and I keep stealing glances over at this curious character.

The guy makes his first move against an imaginary opponent. I glance over and think to myself either this guy is good or crappy. I let it go another few minutes, and I asked, “You play chess often?”

You had to be there to understand better: I asked a question which warranted a single sentence answer, but even a yes/no would have been sufficient. But J-Bob, starts out not with ‘Yes I play often’ or ‘Yeah, I play occasionally’ but rather:

“I’m 51 years old and I’ve been playing chess since I was 5. My aunt showed me the game, and I distinctly remember her showing me the game. You know I’ll never forget this in my entire life. It just came to me, the game. The only thing I asked her was the manual said black/white while the pieces on the chess board we had were red/green. I beat her in like 5 min and she couldn’t believe it. Right now I’m a 2250 rated chess player. Until then my family just thought I was a dumbass but then afterwards they respected me. I deserved that respect”.

This was about the time I realized I just made a mistake. There in front of me I have someone interesting, fun, and hilarious, yet I just asked this random bum who was playing chess with himself if he played chess often.

J-Bob said this all in a very fashionably hip but tragically common slur that is stereotypical of both insane geniuses and common crack heads in Hollywood movies. Well, one would imagine that his answer was more then sufficient but he keeps going. I can’t recall anymore of it, because at this point, Kate and I both had our hands over out mouths trying to prevent ourselves from laughing aloud. This went on for another 9-10 minutes. J-Bob kept rambling about his prison days (which is when Kate, very noticeably, moved her purse to the other side of her bench), his speed-chess days, his tournaments, his drunken driving days, and his love life; all in a babble which would have taken a dozen of the CIA’s best translators to make coherent.

How we got him to stop? Kate went and got her cell phone from my car and I started talking to the waiter. He still kept talking for another 2-3 minutes but then got back to his chess.

So now you know.

Well, I BS-ed the way through the Knowledge Checks. We didn’t ‘do’ any of them, just used probability to our advantage and ‘guessed’ on them. Then I went and “studied” with Kate for couple hours where, as usual, we didn’t get anything done. Following which, it was thirsty Thursday, so Jake and Scott quenched thier thirst while we watched edTV. That was followed by talking, reading, and basically anything and everything non-work related.

That’s pretty much how my typical Thursday evening goes anyway, so why am I worried?

M118 Midterm— Saturday
K201 Practical — Saturday
A100 Final — Sunday
G202 Midterm — Monday
X204 Paper — Tuesday
K201 Lecture — Wednesday
X204 Presentation — Thursday
Kelley B-School Application — End of month
Sign up for Classes — 1 or 2 weeks?

If I make it though this month and back home with good grades I should be set for the rest of the semester. By the way guys, I’m coming home on the 5th of November. I’ll probably be very busy since it’s only for 2 days, but let’s make plans for Thanksgiving weekend.

You can sense that they are completely genuine. They say what they mean, and mean what they say. They don’t pretend; they act. They understand they are better then most people, yet never feel the need to profess it. They don’t care what people think. Others opinions don’t matter. Their sense of pride is not derived from others. They never look for pity or worse, compliments. They don’t pretend to know what they don’t. Every action they perform is representative of their character.

Those are people I can connect with and remain friends with. It’s not a connection of ‘Damn she’s hot’ or ‘He’d be fun to party with’ but something superior then that. It is something I can’t feel. It’s something I know.

I’ve met very few people like that in my life.

—-

Describe a book, play, composition, poem, scientific discovery, technical achievement, myth, historic event or work of art that has inspired and intrigued you. You can assume we are familiar with the plot and details; instead, tell us what it means for you personally.

Considering that Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” was voted the most influential book after the Bible, I suppose it’s fairly clichéd for me to assert that “The Fountainhead” changed my life more profoundly then any other book I’ve read, but I must do so. Until the summer of eighth grade, I had the same relationship with non-educationally mandated books as a cat does with water: I avoided them like the plague. My cousin finally heckled me into picking up a copy of “The Fountainhead” at a local used bookstore. By the time I got to somewhere near the second sentence, I was hooked. I had never before read any writing that had that much power and elegance to it, and I discovered that ideas that were still only just percolating within my adolescent mind were fairly developed and clearly articulated in the text.

It was the first book of ideas I had ever read, and I owe my continuing pursuit of meaning and philosophical truth to the questions that the book raised. For example, Rand’s scathing depiction of media manipulation made me wonder how much of what I believe is due to social and other conditioning. I force myself to go back and question my intentions and premises wherever possible, so that my beliefs can be truly mine, and not what I was told or pressured into thinking about myself or the world. Even today, I always try to understand the root and complexity of an issue rather than make hasty judgments based on a cursory glance or a preformed bias.

The force of Roark’s personality also greatly influenced who I am today. In the book, I saw clearly articulated, for the first time, many of the virtues I have made an effort to cultivate where possible. These virtues include decisiveness, self-motivation, self-respect, sincerity, honesty, and courage, which are also traits beneficial to and characteristic of leaders. I don’t agree with all of Roark’s actions- I think he could use a little less judgment and a little more compassion- but I have always been impressed by his work ethic and the depth of his faith in himself. His commitment to producing quality work, and the enthusiasm he has for his work correlates directly to my own passion for creating excellent hotels that are truly hospitable and welcoming, anywhere in the world.

The extent of his artistic integrity also influenced my own- I am an amateur photographer and web design artist. While many others are content to use hackneyed methods and techniques, I always strive for the pure integrated aesthetic- the truly original and beautiful- not original as equivalent to reactionary, or original for its own sake. For example, if I am taking a picture of a person, I try to avoid showing that aspect that they usually display, and instead try to capture the essence of who that person is on a deeper and more fundamental level, and also doing so in a unique way, by changing technical specifications to suit what I am trying to capture.

Furthermore, like Roark, I have known for years what I have wanted to do with my life, and the book has encouraged me to stay true to that. I’ve consistently refused social and other pressures to pursue careers in fields that don’t fascinate, challenge, or fulfill me quite as much as business does. “The Fountainhead’s” antagonist, Peter Keating, realized halfway through his life that his true passion was always art, and not architecture, and tried to make a half-hearted, desperate switch when the most fruitful years of his life were gone, and even his own interest in either field had diminished. My insistence on doing what I love was only strengthened after reading the book and I haven’t “sold out” and gone into other things- particularly science- despite tremendous pressure from my teachers, friends, and even family.

Ultimately, “The Fountainhead” served as the catalyst for my intellectual and personal growth, and every time I return to it, I find fresh encouragement. I’m not sure that integrity and commitment necessarily equal success- reality has a way of leveling our romanticism- but the book gave me something to reach for.

“Hi”

But today, I tried out Trebuchet MS and realized what a great font it was. The look of it has always made me cringe in the past, but now I’m liking how it looks on papers that have a casual tone.

Oh and speaking of useless topics, Word 2003 is fantastic. I love how they redid portions of the user interface such as the side reference pane. One thing that they changed which annoyed me is the Help. If I’m not mistaken the moved the help to an online site. I guess that helps with keeping articles updated, but its annoying have to wait for the help thing to load.

Nevertheless, I hope you all have a wonderful time regardless of whether you’re going off to a private or repeating senior year.

In other news, I found out at a cyber café in Boston that I pulled off A’s over the summer.

I’ll be out embracing summer vacation from the 15th to the 25th and upon my return I’ll engulf you with pictures and stories. Please behave yourselves while I’m gone.

Chicago Wedding -> Montreal -> Boston -> Home

–
The Highwayman
by Alfred Noyes

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon clondy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwyman came riding–
Riding–riding–
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh.
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butt a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard;
He tapped with his whip on the shuters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; His face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like moldy hay,
But he loved the landlord’s daughter;
The landlord’s red-lipped daughter;
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say-

“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”

He rose upright in the stirrups: He scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i’ the casement. Her face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

Part 2:

He did not come in the dawning; He did not come at noon;
And out o’ the tawny sunset, before the rise o’ the moon,
When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching–
Marching–marching–
King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord; They drank his ale instead;
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed.
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the muzzle beneath her breast!
“Now, keep good watch!” and they kissed her.
She heard the doomed man say–
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

The tip of one finger touched it; She strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love’s refrain.

Tlot-tlot! Tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!

Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight;
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him-with her death.

He turned; he spurred to the westward; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, and his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
The landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him, and his rapier brandished high.
Blood-red were his spurs i’ the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat;
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highway man comes riding–
Riding–riding–
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
And he taps with his whip on th shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

http://photo.askthefool.com