Dave's Blog

Summer 2011

2011-08-19T00:48:00.000-04:00

We just got home from the second leg of summer on the road. What an amazing summer we have had!

39 days on the road, divided between two legs of about three weeks each.

more than 7700 miles driven, all with a teething baby in the backseat.

drove through 19 states and 2 canadian provinces, seeing places as diverse as Chapel Hill, NC; Gatineau, QC; Brooklyn, NY; Ottumwa, IA; and Arco, ID.

We slept in 16 different beds. Well, we brought the girls' bedding, so they actually slept in the same bed most every night, just in 16 different locations.

We spent over $600 on gas during the second leg alone though actually managed to stay under budget.

We found that state capitol buildings and wal-marts were our ideal places to stop. The girls could get out, walk around, and look at interesting things. In one case we practically had the building to ourselves!

As you can see, there aren't many comfortable places in Wyoming to nurse a hungry baby. It's a miracle that our three-year old didn't have a single bathroom accident during the whole trip. There were some close calls, particularly out west where the bathrooms are few and far between, but we always made it.

One of Olivia's favorite part of the trip was playing with a whole new set of cousins and all their toys.

Anne was always smiling (at least almost always). It's hard to describe just how delightful this little girl is other than to say that she is a lot like her sister.

Summer 2010

2010-06-24T08:35:00.002-04:00

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What a good life I have! I was able to raise a significant chunk of money this summer to come to France to research the creation of new regional health agencies. Thanks to hard work and the support/generosity of many people, I have been very successful in securing interviews with very influential and well-positioned people. I am focusing my study on three specific regions: Bretagne (Brittany, with Rennes as the capital), Ile-de-France (the Paris region), and Midi-Pyerenees (in the southwest, with Toulouse as the capital). We arrived in France a little over a week ago, beginning our trip in Paris where I did a number of interviews, and then in Bretagne where we have been based out of L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sante Publique in Rennes. Yesterday was a full day in which I took the train to the departments of Finistere and Morbihan and did interviews in Quimper and Vannes. Sarah and Olivia met up with me in Vannes and we got to tour the city and have dinner together. Olivia is convinced that every plane, train, or bus she rides is hers ("no, my train!"), so I felt lucky that she would share and let me ride with her.

What a Relief

2010-06-24T08:22:00.002-04:00

I thought it would be a lot of fun to be in France during the world cup. Unfortuntaley, the French campaign turned out to be a complete disaster, and it looked as though the US might not make it through. Almost literaly at the very last moment, a Landon Donovan goal kept things alive. This feels like justice after the two goals that were wrongfully disallowed against the US, either of which would have made the difference between being eliminated or not. Thank goodness none of that matters anymore. The amazing thing is that the US won the group and avoided a match with Germany and then a possible match with Argentina. Instead they have Ghana and the winner of South Korea and Uruguay. No team is easy, but I feel like the semis are a real possibility.

I didn't get to see the whole game because I was touring the beautiful towns of Quimper and Vannes in western Bretagne (I know, poor me), but I did see part of it from the street while looking into a restaurant and had some fun conversations with people doing the same as me.

Life as a Doctoral Student

2010-05-28T12:16:00.005-04:00

Looking back, I think this past semester will seem like a major turning point for me. It's amazing how much happened, particularly in the months of February and March. I think I've turned a corner from being a graduate student to being a budding researcher, with the major difference being that I now have projects of my own and am uses my classes as tools to help me accomplish my goals. Of course, there are still major hoops to jump through, but 2010 so far has been about developing and carrying out my own research agenda. I hope you'll indulge this "semester in review" post as it's a great chance for me to digest what I've just been through and put the next few phases in perspective.

1) Political Science admissions - One of the main reasons I chose Michigan was the possibility of setting up a joint degree between Health Policy and Political Science. Of course, until I was formally accepted by Poli Sci, this was just a possibility. All indications were that my application would be successful, but it was still daunting to gear up for another admissions process after working full speed for nearly a year on my original doctoral applications. I had the advantage of already being here and taking classes in the department I was applying to. Of course, this also meant that I was under a little more pressure to do well in those classes. Thankfully I got A's on both poli sci classes I took last fall and was doing well in the two classes I was taking when the admissions decisions were made (I ended up with an A- and A+). The good news finally came in February that I was accepted. Now I am in the fantastic position of receiving a degree (1 joint degree, not two separate degrees) from two departments that are near the very top in their fields. This combination dramatically opens up my possibilities after graduation, not only making more competitive for the jobs I apply to do, but opening up new markets I can compete in. In addition to the 30 or so public health schools in the US, I can now look for jobs in the countless number of political science departments or schools of public policy. Perhaps most importantly, I think this combination will greatly strengthen my research, and allow me to explore the questions of most interest to me in a robust way.

2) Jan/Feb applications - One of the nice parts of my current fellowship is the $1,500 I receive for professional development. Knowing I could use this money to travel to conferences I otherwise couldn't afford pushed me to explore options I wouldn't normally consider. One of the most intriguing meetings was the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) graduate student conference in Dublin, Ireland at the end of August. Of course, going to these types of conferences is a lot more productive and a lot more fun if you have something to present, so I suggested to my advisor that I was thinking of submitting an abstract. I honestly wasn't sure how serious I was at that time, but his encouragement and support pushed me over the top.

The next six weeks were a busy scramble to figure out what I was going to focus on for the abstract I submitted to ECPR and how I was going to carry out this research - all while staying on top of 4 doctoral level classes and maintaining balance between family (we spent February house-hunting, Sarah started a new online degree through UMass Amherst and we have a daughter who turned 2 in April), personal (I had my first colonoscopy and I signed up to run the Detroit marathon in Oct 2010), and spiritual/community pursuits (I volunteer in the nursery for 18 month to 3 year old kids on Sundays and am co-den leader of the wolf den in my congregation's cub scout pack).

My adviser in Public Health, Scott Greer, offered to let me write the chapter on France for a book he's putting together on the regional politics of health care in Europe. This generous offer has given my project more focus and a clear end goal. All of a sudden, Sarah and I were planning our second summer in a row and I was looking for funding sources to make this a reality. By February 15th I had submitted the ECPR abstract, as well as a grant for Dr. Greer to receive $6,000 to hire me for summer research, and a $5,000 research grant of my own through the International Institute here at UMich. Anyone who has put together research grants knows how much work they require, even if the final application isn't that many pages long. Developing my budget meant planning out where I wanted to go, how long I wanted to spend there, and what I wanted to do once there - not an easy task given how young the project still was. My ECPR abstract was accepted (read it here) and Dr. Greer and I did receive the $6k, though I did not receive the $5k grant. Strange as it may sound, losing this money was actually very good for my project as it forced me to focus my research and decide what would be most important to accomplish this summer. With too much money at my disposal I may have tried to do too much without doing any of it particularly well.

3) York University EU Center of Excellence Graduate Conference - In January I received an email inviting me to submit an abstract for the graduate conference at York University's new center of excellence in Toronto taking place in mid-March. My research project seemed much too new and under-developed in January for me to be ready to have anything to present by March 11th. However, by mid-February the prospect of an expenses-paid mostly risk-free conference seemed too intriguing to pass up. I submitted an abstract around February 21st for the conference taking place 3 weeks later, being very up front that this paper would mostly be a literature review and opportunity for me to become familiar with the history and theory of health care and regional politics in France. I developed a plan in which I essentially read a book a day and wrote a 20+ page paper over the course of a couple really long days - going to bed between 3 and 5:30am. Did I mention that much of this occurred over what was supposed to be my "spring break?" It's funny that the question of why I was doing this to myself didn't cross my mind more often; I was discovering my genuine interest and enthusiasm for this research.

I was so glad Sarah decided to come with Olivia, even though it turned out to conflict somewhat with a paper she had due later that week (of course she got an A!). I didn't get much time to explore Toronto with them but still had a blast. The conference itself was a lot of fun and I think my first presentation at an academic conference was a success. I was a bit nervous to hear the discussant's reaction, particularly about the theory section of my paper which I wished had been stronger. It turns out she thought that was one of the stronger sections of what she said was a very well done, if clearly quickly written paper. Here's the conference website.

4) Funding - Of course I didn't have time to celebrate upon returning home from Toronto, as I had two very different applications due within the week. The first was a $1,500 research grant from the University of Michigan Center for European Studies (which I received), while the second was to participate in a research seminar that would have provided me with over $4,000 in travel money in the summer of 2011 (which I didn't receive).

Anyone who has been through a doctoral programs knows that one of the perpetual dramas is where funding will come from to cover tuition, fees, and my stipend. No system for awarding such funding is perfect, so there's no point in going into detail about the process here except to say that it does produce some anxiety to not know how much money you'll have to support your family in the coming school year and where it will come from. I am extremely appreciative of everyone in both departments who helped put together a funding package I'm very excited about. I'll be GSIing (graduate student instructor, aka teaching assistant) a masters level health policy course in the fall and will receive a fellowship from Political Science in the winter that will allow me not have to work.

5) Infectious Disease - On top of everything I had going on, I had the opportunity to work with Scott Greer and Heather Elliot (an extremely talented masters student here at Michigan) on infectious disease policy in Europe for a conference Dr. Greer put together through the Center for European Studies. Although this isn't an area of focus for me, it was a great learning experience and a lot of fun to be a part of this project. The conference was rather small, allowing for a high degree of interaction, sharing of ideas, and networking. I think our presentation went pretty well. Check out the conference website here (including audio).

6) School - Did I mention that I was also taking four classes this semester? During the insane period between Feb 1st and March 30th, I not only submitted 4 research grants, 3 conference abstracts (I backed out of the third one because of funding issues and time conflicts), and presented at a research conference. I also wrote five 4-page papers, three 10-page papers, and took two exams. The miracle is that I actually did pretty well in most of my classes. Of course, grades become less important at this stage of academia, with the quality of my research taking precedent, but grades are still important marker of where I stand and I was relieved that my GPA essentially stayed steady this semester.

7) Prelim exam - Last weekend I took my first year prelim exam in health policy and services. It was a somewhat daunting experience, particularly after dealing with some burnout on the heels of an extremely busy semester. The content was not particularly difficult to understand, it's just that there is a lot to master. The exam itself was a marathon, with a 5.5 hour in person session in which I had to write essays in response to 3 seperate questions about the current health reform. After that portion was handed in on Friday afternoon, I was given a new question to take home and write a 3,750 word paper due Monday morning. Sarah and Olivia went to Niagara Falls and Toronto with some friends, so I had the place all to myself. Although I don't think they should be rushing my responses to capital hill to solve any policy debates, I do think it went well and that I passed. With this hurdle out of the way, the only hoops standing between me and candidacy (the phase of your doctorate when you focus solely on your dissertation) are my class work (probably 2 more years), a poli sci prelim, and a year long project in health policy.

8) This summer - I know this has been a long post, so I won't say too much yet about this upcoming summer, except that I couldn't be more excited. The most immediate thing on the horizon is the fact that we're moving. We decided not to buy a place but found what we think will be an even better deal for us.

The fact that the cheapest flights we found were out of Montreal means we will have a couple days with Sarah's sisters in eastern Canada before and after the trans-Atlantic flights. We leave for Paris on June 15th and will be spending a chunk of time doing research in Paris, Rennes (Bretagne/Brittany), and Toulouse (Midi-Pyrenees), as well as visiting Sarah's family in Nice. We may even swing down to Barcelona for a weekend! I'm very excited that we're going to be in France for almost all of the world cup. Hopefully the French team can get their act together in time to put together a nice long run (though I'm not holding my breath). On top of all this I get to see Phish twice on their upcoming summer tour! Sarah and I are going to the show outside of Cleveland on June 12th and I've got pretty good seats for the first night of Deer Creek outside of Indianapolis in August.

PHISH SUMMER TOUR 2010 from Phish on Vimeo.

Puerto Rico & Plagiarism

2010-05-27T12:11:00.000-04:00

I enjoy keeping an eye on Idaho politics and thought these two videos about the recent GOP congressional primary were too funny not to be shared.

Guess who won.

CA Maternal Morbidity

2010-02-03T21:24:00.004-05:00

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=7254220

http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/02/03/2010-02-03_giving_birth_in_california_more_dangerous_than_kuwait_or_bosnia_rise_in_mortalit.html

Some work my mom is a part of made the Bay Area news and the NY Daily News. Important stuff! (sorry imbedding the video didn't work)

Idaho Capitol Building

2010-01-10T20:28:00.002-05:00

I spent 3 months interning for the House Democrats during the 2006 legislative session in Boise and had a great experience. I really love that building though I'm glad it's been remodeled. My office was in a windowless basement cave and I attended many committee meetings where there weren't enough chairs for more than 10 members of the public to attend. I can't wait make it back to Boise and see the changes they've made.

Health Reform

2009-12-20T21:03:00.002-05:00

I have a confession to make: I'm burnt out on health reform. I know, it's terrible since I'm getting a PhD on the politics of health services. I don't know everything about health policy, but I know enough to realize that the debate has been twisted and distorted tremendously by both sides. What a complex issue! Suddenly, health reform turned into a debate about abortion; what a mess. I'm also hoping that we can finally put to rest the idea that health reform is a government takeover, that is a real big stretch.

As you have probably heard, 60 Senators have supposedly agreed to support health reform (the cloture vote is tonight at 1am). Although a major breakthrough, there are still many hurdles that have to be passed before a passed bill arrives on Obama's desk. The biggest question will be what compromises will come out of the conference bill between the Senate and the House. Does anyone know if the conference bill needs 60 votes as well, or is that step automatically skipped?

Although I'm a bit burnt out, I will be really interested to see what happens at this point. I don't know enough of the details to know whether I would prefer the House version (which includes a public option plan) or the Senate version (which doesn't include a public option, but does include an opportunity to buy into a privately run plan that is monitored by the same people who monitor the plan for federal employees). Either one seems fine to me.

Have you read David Brooks' latest column on health reform? I think it's one of the most balanced (brief) discussions I've seen. I agree with a rebuttal I read elsewhere that his arguments against reform aren't really that strong, but I still think people have some legitimate concerns.

Lamaze International

2009-12-15T21:13:00.003-05:00

I was recently quoted in a parent.com article about our experience taking Lamaze-certified prenatal classes before Olivia's birth and the way it helped us feel prepared. Here's the link to the full article: http://features.parents.com/natural-birth-methods.html

Here's my quote:

“When my wife, Sarah, and I had our first child we felt we were in many ways better prepared than most. I was working on a master's degree in public health and she is a registered nurse. However, we had a lot of questions about pregnancy and the birth process, and we wanted to be able to make informed choices. Thus we signed up for and attended an eight-week childbirth preparation class with a Lamaze Certified Instructor.

“This instruction gave us more confidence in my wife’s body and ourselves. During labor, many things our Lamaze Instructor taught us were useful, such as the labor position my wife used: on her hands and knees. We were taught that she should move around and be in positions that were the most comfortable for her. My wife refused to have continuous fetal monitoring because she found labor so much more painful on her back. We also stayed home longer, because I felt more confident supporting my wife through early labor and thus she was never confined to a bed.” —David K. Jones, husband to Sarah Sacuto

Phish Fall Tour

2009-12-09T21:48:00.003-05:00

It's so great to have Phish back! Here's a couple clips from one of their recent shows at MSG in NYC (no, we didn't make the trip). The above clip is the Rolling Stones song "Shine a Light," and the below clip is of their song "First Tube," (also from one of their MSG shows).

Sarah and I did get to the first show of the tour in Detroit (my 19th and her 2nd Phish shows). Thank you to our babysitters who made the evening possible! Here's a brief clip of the jam after the song "46 Days." There's nothing like the light show at a Phish concert!

Comments on public option

2009-10-26T12:30:00.002-04:00

There have been a few interesting comments made in response to my post on the public option a few weeks ago. Thank you for your perspectives! I think the two Jeffs have posted very valid criticisms of the public option and it's kind of refreshing to be having the debate on this level instead of the death panel level. It's obvious now as I reread this post that I was swept up in the moment and wasn't thinking through all the examples perfectly clearly. Unfortunately there is no real good parallel withthe health care industry. The imbalances are so severe that it really doesn't seem like a market to me. In that respect, I think it's interesting/ironic that this is the main selling point used by democrats - that it will create competition for private insurance companies who often otherwise have none. Despite the irony, I still think it would be a good step.

As far as I can tell, this debate centers on two issues: 1) what is the role of government, and 2) is health care a right or a commodity. If you are skeptical of government's ability to solve problems and think of someone's ability to have quality health care as a commodity in the same vein as someone's ability to buy a nice house, then you are understandably opposed to the public option. If you think government is the ideal way to solve societal problems and you feel so strongly that everyone should be able to buy a nice house that you're willing to have the govt spend tax money on it, then you probably don't think the public option is enough.

I come down somewhere in the middle on both of these issues. I am cautiously optimistic that the government can play a positive role in alleviating suffering and helping people create opportunities and take advantage of them. But I share some of the concerns expressed by my friends that I don't think a "government takeover" of the health care industry would solve the problems. As much as I love Canada and admire aspects of their system, I don't think it would work in the US right now and I am glad we're not going that route. Although not specifically stated in our constitution, I lean closer to viewing health care as a fundamental right that everyone should have access to as opposed to strictly viewing it as a commodity. Just as I don't think everyone has a right to own a very nice house (to the degree that the government should give everyone a four bedroom home), I don't think everyone has a "right" to get as much health care as they want. But I do think everyone should have access to some basic level of services at an affordable price.

With this frame in mind, I think the public option is a good compromise solution that deserves a chance. There is no reason to trust the insurance companies will help keep costs low and provide some basic coverage. The fact that they're increasing their prices so dramatically right now because of fear of health reform strikes me as circumstantial evidence that they are committed to doing their job - maximizing profits. Believing that health care is more a right than a commodity, I don't think it's wise to completely rely on companies whose job is to make money by denying just enough services. I think a non-profit option should be included.

All that being said, I'll be honest (since I'm more an academic than a politician) that I understand the concerns expressed by the Jeffs and am sympathetic. I don't think it will be perfect and I don't think it will solve all the problems, and it won't do as much as it's advertised to do. I think it's better than the status quo and I'm afraid that without the public option we're much more likely to end up with the status quo. Even still, if the public option gets defeated from the final bill, I still really hope that the other reforms are passed and implemented.

Public Option

2009-10-21T15:36:00.002-04:00

Heather Graham's sex appeal and the public option: effective?

AL East Champs

2009-09-29T11:39:00.002-04:00

It's been a pretty long time since I've had something exciting to say about the Yankees, but as September turns into October I'm feeling optimistic for the first time in many years. As you probably know, over the weekend the Yankees clinched the division by sweeping the Red Sox at home. The question now is who they'll play. If Detroit holds on, then it's possible I'll get to see the Yanks in my new backyard during the first round. I love this video, showing the team in a fun mood last night as they gave Pena the silent treatment after he hit his first career home run. It seems like it's much easier to have fun when you're winning.

8 Years Later

2009-09-18T09:26:00.003-04:00

For a week I thought about what I'd want to say on my annual post about 9/11 (can you believe it would have been my 5th year?). Ultimately, the most interesting thing I have to say is that I didn't really have anything interesting to say. Some might see that as emblematic of how quickly we've forgotten the dangers we face and how horrible 9/11 really was, but I see it as a healthy part of the healing process. I didn't feel compelled to search youtube for the worst videos I could find or revisit the photos. I didn't feel the need to cry this year. Even still, the subject almost surprised me in how it found its way into the talk I gave at church on Sunday (in our church, members take turns giving 15-20 minute lectures/sermons on various topics. Each person gets an opportunity every couple years depending on the size of their congregation). I shard my mom's axiom that "only good comes from God," to make the point that God doesn't cause the tragedies in our lives to teach us a lesson, although there are lessons to be learned in each tragedy and He is able to help us learn them. To some this might seem like splitting hairs, but it's an important distinction that liberates me from wanting to blame God for the bad things that happen to me.

If you're interested, you can read my previous 9/11 posts here: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005.

Pres. Obama's Speech

2009-09-10T11:30:00.008-04:00

After reading and watching the speech this morning, I thought Pres. Obama did a great job last night before Congress. I wish I could have watched it with some of my conservative friends so I could have heard their response. My experience has been that once I explain in simple terms what Pres. Obama is actually proposing (compared with what his opponents say he is proposing), they are generally impressed and seemed confused that there is so much controversy. As the President clearly said last night, in no way is he proposing a government take over of the entire health care industry. A Canadian-style single payer system would not work in America. What we want is choice and competition. What Democrats are proposing is that one of these choices include an insurance plan that would receive initial support from government funds but would otherwise be self-sufficient and paid for by premiums. First of all, despite what you'd think from watching Glenn Beck, a majority of Americans actually supports a public option. Even still, some very smart friends of mine have expressed concern that private companies couldn't compete on an even playing field with a government plan and that government would be overstepping it's bounds. I have four responses that usually alleviate these concerns:

1) Are you opposed to state-run public universities? Of course no one is. They provide a fantastic education at a fraction of the cost. Yet those who choose private universities are free to do so. Are you opposed to using a government run mail system to deliver your packages? Often it's cheaper, though you do have the option of using UPS or Fedex to take advantage of their particular services. Not only is there enough room for these private companies, but I suspect that their prices are lower because of the competition with the public company. As a result, consumers are better off.

2) I support a public option because I believe it will lower costs and increase access. Have you ever considered the job of an insurance company? They make money by not paying for services. Plain and simple. This requires tremendous administrative costs and overhead to deny claims, sometimes with disastrous consequences for people whose health care is delayed (as described early in Pres. Obama's speech). I have met many people who work at insurance companies, including some very powerful CEOs and I do not think they are bad people. They are businessmen and women who are doing their job to maximize profits. This is their legal responsibility to shareholders and their primary concern. In principle I am ok with that, but I would love to have an insurance option that operated as a not for profit with the mission of providing care instead of making money.

3) Let me say this third point carefully: A public option is nothing like socialism and not even close to a government takeover of health care. According to Pres Obama's speech, the CBO estimates that only 5% of Americans will sign up. But, if it does work well, and some people switch over from their private plans, that is fine with me. If everyone decided that the US Postal Service provided vastly superior service to UPS or FedEx, and these companies did not innovate, reduce costs, or improve services to compete with the public option, why would we want to protect their profit margins? I don't think we would and I don't think we should in health care either. Put another way, I think the strangest argument I've heard against the public option is that it will work so well that no one will want a private plan. I am not THAT optimistic about the plan, but if it does, why stop it?

4) Finally, I generally don't like to insert religion into these kinds of debates, but it's worth mentioning a scripture that has helped shaped my feelings. It describes a society using its prosperity to ensure that everyone was cared for. "And thus, in their prosperous circumstances, they did not send away any who were naked, or that were hungry, or that were athirst, or that were sick, or that had not been nourished; and they did not set their hearts upon riches; therefore they were liberal to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, whether out of the church or in the church, having no respect to persons as to those who stood in need," (Alma 1:30, Book of Mormon).

Obama before Congress

2009-09-03T20:21:00.002-04:00

I am so relieved August is over and Congress is coming back into session so we don't have to keep hearing about these town halls in which moderate Senate Democrats are threatened with the judgment of God for wanting to increase access to affordable health care. Pres. Obama is scheduled to speak before a joint session of Congress next week to advocate a more detailed approach. Is it just me or does this sound a little like 1993 when President Clinton spoke to Congress in September of his first year to resurrect support for dwindling support on health reform and shift focus away from the economy. Although I support the creation of a public option, I hope President Obama doesn't wave his pen and threaten to veto any bill that doesn't not include it (that didn't go too well for Clinton).

Historic Win Against Spain

2009-06-25T03:23:00.004-04:00

Last night the US Men's Soccer Team pulled off what might be considered one of the biggest wins in American soccer history. Having won the tournment for all North American, Central American, and Carribean countries last year, the US earned the right to play in this exclusive competition against the winners of each other continent, including Brazil, Spain, Iraq, Egypt, New Zealand, and world cup winners Italy.

The US got walloped by Brazil and Italy in their first two matches of the group phase, and to advance to the semi-final they needed the near impossible task of winning their last game by at least three goals and having Italy lose by at least three goals. Amazingly, the impossible happened as US beat Egypt 3-0 and Brazil beat Italy 3-0. Their reward was to play Spain, currently the highest ranked team in the world; a team that hasn't been beaten in over 35 matches, a period spanning multiple years. Once again, the US team did the impossible, beating Spain 2-0 with a gritty effort from many players, including important saves by Tim Howard in goal. Now it's on to the final against either Brazil or South Africa. No matter what, this tournment has to be considered a success for the US, a great preparation for next summer's world cup. It would be a mistake to get to confident however, as we did get trounced on pretty badly by Brazil and Italy.

Health Reform

2009-06-24T05:18:00.002-04:00

Watch CBS Videos Online

I don't think this was the most accurate or informative video I've ever seen on health reform, but it did feature a good quote from Jonathan Oberlander, a professor from my master's degree at UNC. I was his research assistant for a year and provided support for a couple papers published in Health Affairs on which he was kind enough to acknowledge me, including "The Politics Of Paying For Health Reform: Zombies, Payroll Taxes, And The Holy Grail," and "Beyond Incrementalism? SCHIP And The Politics Of Health Reform."

So how likely do I think significant health reform is to pass this year? This was a topic of conversation at the PhD recruiting day I attended at Berkeley, and I seemed to be the most optimistic at the table. Everyone else put it between 10-30%, though I said somewhere closer to 50%. That was in March, what do I think now? Believe it or not, I still think the chances are pretty good. The big question is how you define “significant.” My opinion is that the best reform will include a requirement that everyone purchase health insurance (similar to requirements that everyone with a car purchase car insurance) and the creation of a new public plan which will be allowed to compete with the current private plans. The health insurance industry obviously likes the first idea but hates the second. I agree with Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman’s recent column that insurance companies have understandable concerns about a public option, but I think that Americans should have more options, not fewer. If a public plan is able to deliver better care at a better price, private companies will have to become more competitive. As Krugman describes, companies that are already innovative should do just fine while it will be the inefficient companies that don’t survive. It might be that these companies will ultimately outperform the public option and be a more attractive option anyway. I’m perfectly happy to let the market sort this out, though I think it makes sense to let the government become a player.

The politics of the current reform debate are fascinating. The House this week came out with a bill crafted by the Chairman of three powerful committees (including Charles Rangel, who I interned with a couple years ago), which contains an individual mandate, a public plan option, a new agency to regulate insurance, closes the Medicare Part D donut hole, expands Medicaid, and increases Medicare reimbursment rates. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) is essentially taking the lead on the Senate side to forge some type of compromise with Senate Republicans. I think this is a worthwhile endeavor that could strengthen the final product, but I share the concern of many that seeking compromise will ultimately weaken the reform so that it doesn't please either the left or the right. The pieces of the puzzle are in place so that Senate Democrats can get this through without worrying about a filibuster, but hopefully they won't have to use this budget reconciliation option.

My Prediction: The House passes the more aggressive reform including a public option while the Senate passes a compromise package that includes insurance cooperatives instead. What happens as the two bills are hashed out in conference is anyone's guess. Given the results of a recent poll in which 72% of Americans (including 50% of Republicans) favor a public option, and that 57% would be willing to pay higher taxes to provide coverage for all Americans, it seems reasonable to guess that the House version might win. Of course I'm getting way ahead of myself. Any health reform bill getting out of committee would be a historic accomplishment in its own right.

Way behind...

2009-05-25T17:45:00.010-04:00

I apologize that this is going to be one of those posts that you see all the time on people's blogs about how it's been way too long since they posted:

It's been way too long since I seriously posted on this blog, which is too bad because I've had a lot of fun doing it over the past 3 years. In my defense things have been pretty busy lately. The following is just a brief summary of some of the things I've been to in the last few months, in addition of course to all the wonderful adventures that come with having a one year old, which you can read about at http://www.sacutojones.blogspot.com/ :

1) Graduation

In May I officially graduated from the University of North Carolina with a Master's of Science in Public Health degree, meaning that until I finish my PhD in a half decade or so, my name will always have the letters MSPH after it. I really loved being at UNC and find it hard to believe we've left and won't be living there anymore (you never know, right?). Chapel Hill is such a fantastic city and it was a ton of fun to be living in the south for the first time. If you're ever there, you have to get BBQ from Allan and Son's; it's my personal favorite. The graduation festivities were a ton of fun, especially because my mom received her doctorate on the same day, coincidentally from the same department of the same school. For what it's worth, my classmates named me "most likely to become a professor." I'll take it.

My actual program was wonderful, mostly because of the fantastic faculty who consistently went above and beyond to serve as mentors and friends to all of us. Maybe it's just because my undergraduate experience set a low bar, but I've found UNC to be such a supportive and user-friendly place without sacrifice any of the academic energy you'd want at a top-notch university.

Of course it was a blast to be there when the Tar Heels won the basketball national championship. There's nothing quite like the way UNC treats basketball and I'm glad I'll get to have this allegiance for the rest of my life.

I know it's cheesy, but here's a video someone made about the tar heels winning:

2) Michigan

Chapel Hill was wonderful and although it was hard to turn down their offer to stay for my doctorate, I decided it was time for a new experience. I was also privileged to have the choice to go to Berkeley, and although that was also extremely hard to turn down, it became clear to me that the University of Michigan will be the best fit for me academically, culturally, "weatherly," and provide the kind of lifestyle that my family is looking for at the moment. There is a great group of 2-3 other students who are studying political science and public health in a way that I didn't find at any other university in the nation and I'm very excited to be joining them. In a year I will formally apply to also be a part of the political science, one of the top two or three in many rankings, including the categories of most interest to me.

I am also very lucky to be receiving a nice financial package which will cover tuition, fees, health insurance for my entire family, as well as provide a monthly stiped just big enough for us to survive on. I've only been in Ann Arbor for about 30 hours and Sarah has never been, so in some ways it feels like a leap of faith, but we haven't heard anything that wasn't extremely positive. The same was true going into Chapel Hill, and the same process of studying, praying, visiting, and talking to others worked out well for us then, so we're confident now. Being out of the country is making it difficult to find an apartment, so we've decided to go with student family housing like we did at UNC. It won't be quite as new and nice, but will be very comfortable. We'll essentially be in a 3 story town house with bedrooms upstairs, living room and kitchen downstairs and a full basement. After a summer in a small studio apartment in France it will feel like total luxury!

3) Active Living by Design

Around midnight of their last meeting last June, the Chapel Hill Town Council officially appointed me to their advisory board charged with encouraging physical activity. Our decision to move to Ann Arbor cut what would have been a 4 year term to just 1, but I'm so glad I did this. I've worked to support a lot of people in advancing their ideas and opinions, it was fun to have a seat at the table and share mine. It was also a great experience to learn of the frustrations that come with trying to accomplish something within a local government context. Everybody I worked with was incredible and the committee is accomplishing some important goals, none of which I can take much credit for. The first picture is a few of us at Town Hall after receiving a proclamation ready by Mayor Foy proclaiming October 2008 to be Go! Chapel Hill Month. I wrote a series of articles in the local paper on the subject. During my time on the board there were 3 high profile pedestrian deaths in Chapel Hill and 1 in neighboring Carrboro. Two of these happened on roads I regularly jog and 1 on a street I regularly drive. I happened to be near one of the scenes shortly after it happened and watched with horror as the helicopter made the short trip to the hospital. It was the experience of serving on this board that really solidified my interesting in providing access to safe facilities for pedestrians, joggers, and cyclists. This topic developed into my master's paper which in turn is developing into a manuscript I'm working on for publication, as well as research I am currently doing in northwestern France.

4) NCIOM

During the final year of my master's degree, including the entire preceeding summer, I worked as the Jim Bernstein Health Policy Scholar at the North Carolina Institute of Medicine. In some ways this was a glorified title interns received for a few years, but I felt privileged to receive scholarship money in honor of a man dedicated to improving health in North Carolina. I was able to work on a number of important issues while at the NCIOM, including writing chapters on physical activity and the provider work force. I played a role in the publication of multiple reports, including the recent report of the task force on substance abuse, the task force on prevention, and the task force on transitions for people with developmental disabilities. I also wrote a number of pieces for the North Carolina Medical Journal, including this summary of resources on patient advocacy which came out in the latest issue. I must admit it's kind of cool to see 3 or 4 entries under my name "Jones DK" in pubmed. Even still, I will probably best remembered by the IOM staff for covering the IT issues during last years annual meeting in which Uwe Reinhardt spoke to hundreds of us in NC by videoconference. It was a somewhat stressful assignment but we pulled it off. I'm going to miss everyone I worked with there; thank you!

5) Visa for France

This story certainly deserves it's own post, but I'll try to succintly hit the main points. Last summer I met Antoine Flahault, director of L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sante Publique (the French School of Public Health) and over time he invited me to come to France for the summer. I've been working with the HR and International Relations department at L'EHESP since last fall to get all the paperwork straightened out for me to receive a visa and be able to come, etc. They have been absolutely wonderful, but of course it came down to the wire and threatened to not get done in time. Few things stress me out more than visa and immigration issues, but that's a whole other story.

To receive the necessary visa I would need to make an appointment and drive to the French consulate in Atlanta, Georgia, more than 6 hours away to hand them my application. Of course, I couldn't do that until I received a document from the city of Rennes saying there is a qualified position available for me to take. That couldn't happen until I had a contract from the school signed by me, UNC, and the French consulate. In other words, I had to receive a document from France, which I signed and sent to the consulate in Atlanta, had them send it to me, so it could be brought to an official in Rennes. Once approved, these documents were then sent back to me so I could present them in person in Atlanta. It is bureaucracy at its nuttiest.

I finally received the necessary papers, made my appointment and drove to Atlanta. It was actually a pretty nice trip in which I stopped for BBQ along the way in Greenville, SC. I got to ATL that monday evening and killed time by running and working on my papers. My appointment wasn't until Tue afternoon so I spent the morning touring the Jimmy Carter Library which was a lot of fun. I finally made it to my appointment only to be told that the consulate only processes my type of visas in the mornings. "Only in the mornings?!?!" Despite pleading my case and giving the whole sob story about leaving behind my daughter, etc, it turned out there really was no way to process my kind of visa in the afternoon. Of course I couldn't get an appointment for the next morning, but he said to come early and be willing to wait and he'd try to squeeze me in. I left feeling like crying, but had to buy a change of clothes instead! I showed up the next day well before anyone who works at the consulate and was grateful the same man was there and called me up to the window first. He took my papers, went to the back room to make photocopies and came back with a silly grin on his face. The wall of bureaucracy broke down and he said "You'll never believe this, but it turns out that France changed their law last night so that someone in your situation doesn't need a visa." WHAT!?!?!?! "Are you a student?" Yes. "Will you be there less than 90 days?" Yes. "Are you American?" Yes. Then you don't need a visa. Wow. So just like that, after months of paperwork, 3 days wasted in Atlanta, including 13 hours of driving, and it turns out I didn't need a visa! My brother in law's wise advice was to be sure they didn't change the law again before I left! Well, I'm here and everything went well. They didn't even ask me a single question at the border. The guy just took my passport and stamped it. Even still, I'm glad I did everything I was supposed to do, even if that happened to change while I was in the process of doing it!

6) Phish

Like I've posted before, I thoroughly enjoy the group Phish and am very excited they're touring again this summer. I'm sad I won't able to catch any of their upcoming shows but am so glad I spent the $ (yes it wasn't cheap) to see one of their shows in Hampton, Virginia last March. Here's a couple brief clips to give you a taste of how insanely fun that show was. Imagine being in about the 15th row during this madness. If you don't have the patience to watch the whole thing, fast forward the first clip to about the 2 minute mark. The second clip was not shot by me but was about where I was standing and gives you a feel for how intense it is to be on the floor of a Phish show, as well as the creative improvisational skills of the band and their lighting guy Chris Kuroda.

7) Running

I've decided to start training for another half marathon and am loving it. I am still not that fast but it feels great. I am targeting a race in eastern Michigan in late September and am already actively training, running 5-6 times per week. More on that some other time.

8) Traveling

During the last few weeks I have been to a number of incredible places, including Atlantic Beach NC, London UK, Paris, Rennes, and Toulouse. I'm a bit burnt out on traveling and look forward to being somewhat stable (although I am traveling to Toulouse again this weekend to pick up my wife and daughter and bring them back to Bretagne with me. While in London I toured Stamford Bridge, the stadium of the football (soccer) team Chelsea. I am not a Chelsea fan in particular (Liverpool!) but thoroughly enjoyed the tour. Here's my video of the route the players take from the locker rooms to the pitch (field).

9) L'EHESP

I am finally situated at L'Ecole des Hautes en Sante Publique in Rennes (in Bretagne in northwestern France). I am very happy to be here and am extremely grateful for everyone that has gone so far out of their way to make my visit pleasant. More about that and what I'm doing here in a later post.

Phish at Phenway

2009-04-09T10:38:00.001-04:00

BATTER UP: PHISH HITS FENWAY from Phish on Vimeo.

Phish is playing more than 20 shows this summer, but I won't be able to attend any of them because I'll be in France until August, and then too broke after that!!

2009-04-07T09:20:00.001-04:00

Timelapse: Franklin Street after the victory from The Daily Tar Heel on Vimeo.

A time-lapsed video of the intersection of Franklin St. and Columbia St. in Chapel Hill after UNC won the national championship in men's basketball last night.

Catching Up

2008-12-10T07:16:00.003-05:00

Election Thoughts

2008-11-10T23:27:00.002-05:00

Here's a brief video of President-Elect Obama walking with President Bush in many of the same places Sarah and I just visited.

What can I say about the events of last Tuesday? The final results far exceeded any projects I made, even on my most optimistic days. An African-American Democrat whose name sounds like Osama, and who has Hussein as a middle name, really won Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, etc, and will soon be sworn in as President. It's really incredible, and above all, shows how hungry America really is for change.

Strange as it may sound, I've been even more impressed with Pres-Elect Obama during the last week than I was during the campaign. He has seemed humbled and levelled by the weight of what has just been placed on his shoulders. I was amazed at how quickly he actede to appoint Rahm Emmanuel as his chief of staff, and while I initially had mixed reactions, I think it is a brilliant choice. It's true that Emmanuel has a history of sharp partisanship, but I think more than anything he's a pragmatist with strong political instincts. The right direction now calls for boldness but bi-partisanship, and he's pragmatic enough to go that direction. Best of all, he knows the House and has a lot of young legislators indebted to him. Combine that with Vice-Pres-Elect Biden's clout and experience in the Senate, and I think Obama will have a much easier time working with Congress than Pres. Clinton ever did.

Now what? in some ways it seems health care, energy, and all those priorities should be put off until the economy can be dealt with. It seems that every day in the paper there is someone arguing for doing as much at once as quickly as possible, and another arguing for babysteps. I'm somewhat inclined to believe that this is a golden opportunity that might not exist for long. Think of all LBJ was able to do in the first year after his huge victory in 1964, for example. As Al Gore pointed out in his recent op-ed, appropriately titled "A Climate for Change," the solutions to health care, energy, and the economy are so inter-related that dealing with the economy provides the opportunity to work towards solving the health care and energy problems. I know Ted Kennedy is working behind the scenes, even from his hospital bed, to craft health reform legislation. How will it play out? Only time will tell. What an exciting time!

West Wing Tour

2008-11-03T07:21:00.002-05:00

Me sitting in Helen Thomas' seat in the White House Press Briefing Room.

At the podium with my girls.

In front of the main entrance to the West Wing.

Holding my first press conference from the White House (hopefully last!)

Many thanks to my buddy Stephen for arranging the tour of the White House and West Wing.

My adorable girl was a bit tired in the morning before heading to DC, but she was a trooper all day long.

Here I am sitting at a desk in the old House Chambers of the Virginia Legislature, the room where Jefferson and Madison used to meet.

Cannonball Half Marathon

2008-10-20T11:07:00.003-04:00

On Saturday I completed my4th half marathon, the Cannonball Run in Greensboro, NC. It was a fantastic day, and I'll post pictures soon. In many ways it was my favorite of the 4 halfs I've done, in some ways not.

The worst part was that we got there late, so I missed the starting gun. By the time I got there they had already rolled away the mat for the timing chip and I couldn't even see the last person anymore! They told me where the course went I just started running. I eventually caught someone, and pretty soon was passing a bunch of people. It was a stressful start, but it was also so relaxing to not have to fight through a crowd of people to get into a rythm.

The course was exceptionally beautiful and I enjoyed savoring every moment of the first few miles.

My goal was to finish in under 1:59:55, the average time for all half marathoners in 2007. To do that I would basically need to maintain a 9min per mile pace, which over 13.1 miles would be difficult but doable for me. I only started running 2 years ago, never having run track or anything in school, so this is all still somewhat new to me and I know I'm not very fast compared to most people my age/shape, but it's great to see that improving. In May 2007 I did the Ottawa Half Marathon in 2:25 (weighing around 197lbs at the start of training and 189 at the end). In February 2008 I ran 2:09 in the Myrtle Beach Half, weighing 181 at the end. Two months later I ran the Raleigh Half in 2:07, weighing 179. My best 13.1 mile run in training has been 2:05.

5 miles into the race I felt really strong at 44 min (just under 9 min pace), and was confident I could get under 2 hours. At mile 8 I was still feeling really strong, running consistently between 8:50 and 9:10 min/mile. Even at mile 10 I felt like I was certainly going to contend for 2 hours, as I was at about 92 min. I had told myself that if I could get to 10 miles in around 90 minutes, then I would have a full 30 to do the last three, meaning I could run 10 min/mile the whole rest of the way.

Then mile 11 and it's big hill hit. Ugh! It just seemed to keep going and going. There weren't enough water stations. My legs threatened to start cramping up. I stopped noticing what song was on my ipod. I stopped and walked. I kept pushing, but could feel that my legs might start cramping up at any moment and that pretty soon I'd be on the ground unable to walk. I wished I had done a couple more long runs during training.

We turned back into the park near the finish line and I still hadn't seen the 11 mile marker and my mind was playing serious tricks on me. I eventually saw the 12 mile marker, but by then it was 1:55 and 2 hours was out of the question. I still felt like I could break my personal record of 2:05, but not knowing my way around park, I got real discouraged to see another uphill every time we turned a corner. Not knowing how close I was, and really afraid of cramping up, I started walking. Little did I know the finish line was just around the corner! Once I started to hear the small crowd (ony 350 did the race, so there weren't very many spectators), I ran the last 100 meters or so and felt pretty proud to be done.

My final time according to my stopwatch was 2:06:40. My time from the firing of the starting gun was 2:10:12, but remember that I was THE VERY LAST person to start, a full 3 minutes after everyone else. So I didn't meet my goal of 1:59:55, I didn't break my record from training runs, but it was my personal best in an actual race, so I guess that's something to be proud of, right?

This put me in 235th place out of 354 overall, and 15th out of 26 in my age group (25-29).

Article in the Chapel Hill News

2008-10-07T23:20:00.010-04:00

When Mayor Foy proclaimed October to be "Go! Chapel Hill" month in Chapel Hill, in honor of the organization I've recently started volunteering with, I thought it would be a great opportunity for the local newspapers to run articles on the importance of physical activity and having a healthy lifestyle. When I suggested this to the Chapel Hill News they offered to have me write 4 short weekly columns during the month of October. I've written newspaper columns before for the politicians I've interned with, but this is the first time I'm publishing under my own name. It's pretty fun.

Here's the article published in last weekend's Chapel Hill News (circulation 22,000). This week I'll be writing about the relationship between physical activity, the economy and the environment.

In case you can't read that, here's the full text:

Mayor Foy recently proclaimed October “Go! Chapel Hill Month” and encouraged everyone to incorporate physical activity into their daily routines.

Go! Chapel Hill is an organization formed with a 5 year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to promote ways to do this. As a jogger who has had his share of near-misses, I know that being active has wonderful health benefits, but isn’t always safe. Although Chapel Hill has many beautiful greenways and sidewalks, many improvements are still needed.

One example is how difficult it is for pedestrians to cross Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Bus stops, businesses and apartments are often far from nearby intersections, prompting many to brave four lanes of traffic every day. The Town recently announced that new crosswalks will be built on MLK, such as one connecting the Shadowood Apartments to the bus stop across the street. This is a great step.

Building crosswalks is simple and relatively inexpensive, and more are needed on Chapel Hill’s busiest streets. In a month devoted to active living, this is particularly important, as few things encourage physical activity more than making sure it’s safe.

Canadian Election

2008-10-06T10:14:00.006-04:00

Most Americans don't realize, but ours isn't the only major election happening right now. Canada votes for Prime Minister & Parliament in less than 2 weeks on Oct 14th. Because of the parliamentary system, the election was only called a month or so ago. The American campaign has cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of almost 2 full years, while the Canadian campaign costs significantly less and lasts just over a month! Of course, they're constantly in campaign mode, wondering when the elections will be called.

What do I think will happen? What do I want to happen? I can't vote in the election, so it doesn't really matter, but as an intern in the House of Commons in the fall of 2006, I had the unique opportunity to spend time with many of these leaders and watch how they operate up close, so I'm very interested in how things play out. I've stood in a scrum of reporters just 2 feet from Stephan Dion (leader of the Liberal Party - the man on the right), Jack Layton (leader of the New Democratic Party - in the middle) and Gilles Duceppes (leader of the Bloc Quebecois, not pictured), and just about every other national leader except Stephen Harper (the Prime Minister - on the left). I've been around him a number of times though, attending question period, etc, but he was less acecssible (rightly so) than everyone else.

I was always particularly impressed with Dion as someone who is passionate and sincerely interested in the issues, not to mention incredibly intelligent. I'm not sure he's a natural fit for the position, and would be someone everyoe across Canada would be confident about having as their leader right now. Even if he somehow wins, it'll be a minority government, and it'll seem like the conservatives will be itching to go to the polls as soon as they can.

On the other hand, I worked for a Conservative Member of Parliament (Rob Merrifield) and got to sit in on a lot private strategy sessions, so I feel I have a sense for how that party operates as well. I really enjoyed my time with him and found him and his staff to be extremely impressive. By and large I was impressed with everyone else too, but some people had surprisingly little depth of knowledge or interest in some key issues, and were much more likely to oppose/support something purely on ideological grounds with no clear reasoning other than "it's what the minister's office wants." If I had worked up close with another party I probably would have had the same impression. Perhaps that's the nature of federal politics. That being said, Harper always impressed me as intelligent, consistent, and having sharp political instincts.

I was largely impressed with the sincerity and intellect of individual members of the Bloc Quebecois (a party devoted solely to advocated Quebec's interest and autonomy), though I think the foundation of their party is incredibly weak and somewhat self-serving. They always want independence and special rules for Quebec, but always push for the maximum federal dollars as well. I don't think you can have it both ways...

The NDP and Green Party are full of good people, but don't have a broad enough platform to gain significant support. Even still, I think Jack Layton is an effective leader for the NDP and is the source of some most memorable quotes.

My prediction: Conservatives win a minority government, liberals have a new leader very soon, Green party wins at least 1 seat (not many more), and the new government doesn't last 2 1/2 years.

To see previous posts about my internship in the Canadian Parliament, check out post about: giving my dad a tour, a typical day in Oct 06, Dion takes over Liberals in Dec 06, and holiday dinner in the Parliementary restaurant,

Phish Reunion

2008-10-01T18:59:00.004-04:00

PHISH HAMPTON 2009 from Phish on Vimeo.

After 5 years of not playing, Phish announced this morning that they're getting back together for a weekend of shows in Hampton, Virginia. I won't go into all the details, but Hampton is a particularly famous venue in Phish lore, so this is very fitting. The announcement came by way of this video being posted on their website at 3am this morning! (No I wasn't awake to see it that early). I heard about it by 9am, and quickly signed up for the lottery to get tickets. The Hampton Coliseum only seats 13,000, and I'd expect at least 30,000-50,000 people to try to get tickets, so I'm not counting my chickens until they hatch. To give you an idea, at 10am I decided to look at hotels just out of curiousity and found that virtually EVERYTHING within 10 miles was booked already.

In case you can't figure out what the guy in the video is drawing, here's a picture of the venue:

Mayor Foy's Proclamation

2008-09-26T15:14:00.004-04:00

At the beginning of Monday night's Town Council meeting Mayor Foy presented me and other members of the Active Living by Design Advisory Board with a proclamation declaring October to be "Go! Chapel Hill Month." He stressed the importance of physical activity and thanked our committee for the work we're doing to encourage active lifestyles and to advocate policies which make active lifestyles possible. You can watch the video of his proclamation here.

In case you didn't know, I was appointed to the committee by Town Council in June. It's been a fantastic experience to work with Councilmember Ed Harrison, as well as all the dedicated people on the committee. Over the last few months our agendas have focused on a variety of topics including community gardens and "complete streets." Our most recent meeting was devoted to reviewing the town's sidewalk priority list. I'm somewhat a nerd for detailed oriented things like and enjoyed understanding how these projects get prioritized. I was particularly excited by a few of the projects on their list, though somewhat confused by a couple others. In the end our committee passed a couple resolutions advocating that a major focus be to improve pedestrian safety along Weaver Dairy Rd and Martin Luther King Blvd. I spoke up about the importance of adding more crosswalks along MLK, especially near bus stops. Somewhat coincidentally, I recently read the town will be adding four new crosswalks on MLK this fall, including linking the Shadowwoods Apt complex and the bus stop on the west side of the street. It's nice to know we're on the same page.

Links

2008-09-15T15:49:00.003-04:00

In case you haven't noticed, I've added a few more links to the right side of the page. I also got rid of the daily update on the Yankees. It was more depressing news than I could handle! Here's a quick profile on each of the links:

My family's blog - The real reason anyone comes to a blog of mine is undoubtedly to check out pictures of my daughter. My wife and I update this blog regularly with pics chronicling her growth.
My Church - I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and very happy to share something that's made a major impact in my life and family.
The Fix - Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post updates this political blog about 3-4 times per day and in my opinion is a must read. His analysis is usually dead on and well thought through.
Antoine Flahault - I've recently become acquainted with Monsieur Flahault, the Dean of L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Publique, the School of Public Health in France. He was kind enough to put a link to this blog on his blog, and I'm happy to do the same to his very interesting and well thought through posts. Curious what a well informed French academic would write in a letter to the incoming President of the United States?
North Carolina Institute of Medicine - Over the summer I worked as the Jim Bernstein Health Policy Scholar, supporting the work of three task forces focusing on improving health in North Carolina. I'll continue working there 2 days a week through the entire school year.
Go! Chapel Hill Advisory Board - In June I was appointed by the Chapel Hill Town Council to serve on this advisory board dedicated to encouraging active lifestyles. We're currently focusing on how to improve the build environment so that people have safe places to walk, jog and ride their bikes. It's been a great experience so far and I'm looking forward to the direction the committee is going in.
Liverpool FC - What can I say, I've become a fan of European soccer, and I'm claiming the Merseyside roots of my great grandmother Clara Simpson in rooting for Liverpool. In case you haven't been following, they've had a pretty good stretch the last few years. They won the Champions League in 2005 (the Super Bowl of European Soccer), lost 2-1 in the 2007 finals, and almost made it to the 2008 finals. It's been a delicate start to the new season as they barely qualified for the major tournment, sneaking by a team from Belgium at the last minute. However, when all is said and done, barely winning is the same as winning!

Palin/Hillary Joint Appearance, sorta

2008-09-15T15:46:00.002-04:00

In case you missed the much anticipated opening of SNL's new season last night, it's worth watching:

7 years later

2008-09-11T14:36:00.005-04:00

This is a very touching picture entitled "Victims" I recently came across. Like last year, I don't have much to say about this anniversary other than that I'm deeply touched and reminded of the importance of living our lives the best we can; you never know when it will end. For me, that means focusing on being a loving husband and father, enjoying learning, and working to make an impact on other people's lives.

This was the same picture I used in my 2006 post about the 5th anniversary. It's a picture of my mom and I on top of one of the towers when I was just a few months old. Of course, the picture means more to me now because I have a daughter that age who quite frankly looks exactly like I did.

You can read my thoughts on 9/11 as posted in 2007 when I wrote about an aspect of NYC I love, 2006 when I tried to make sense of my feelings & 2005 when I wrote about my experiences that week.

The Fix Picks

2008-09-09T11:42:00.003-04:00

As a boost to my ego, Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post updated his state by state projections and came to very similar conclusions as I did. In case you don't regularly read his blog, The Fix, you should, as it THE SOURCE I turn to for political analysis.

His post yesterday arrived at the exact same number I did, 279, though in a different way. Based on the latest polls that came out last night/this morning, he's updated it so it came down to Obama at 269 and McCain at 249, with Ohio making the difference between whose President. In case you haven't seen the recent polls, McCain has surged since the convention to either lead or tie Obama (depending on the poll). Just last week Obama was up 50-42.

56 days to go and the drama just keeps building. The worst case scenario is that the election day results are razor thin or in any way ambigous. If McCain wins, I hope it's a clear victory, and not by 3 electoral votes, etc. I get more worried every day that it's going to be SUPER close and we're going to have some new chapter to add to the Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 episodes. Like I said in my last post, I think it's mathematically possible they both end up at 269; then what?

My prediction as of Sept 7 - Obama barely wins

2008-09-07T13:59:00.004-04:00

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

With around 60 days left to go, here's my analysis of who would win if the election were held today. As you know, the candidate who wins 270 electoral votes becomes President. If Obama is able to win every state Kerry won in 2004, plus one or two more (depending on which ones), he'll be President. It's clear many states won't change, but here the close ones (according to recent polls and my own gut) include Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. From this list, I predict the following:

Obama: Iowa, Minnesota, and New Mexico.

McCain: Colorado (Obama got close in the polls, but isn't over the hump), Florida (it's hard to be optimistic about Florida after 2000), Indiana, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and North Dakota.

Deciders: Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania & Virginia.

This gives McCain 240 and Obama 222. Could it be any closer? Here's why I think Obama will win:

Michigan (17) - Although the numbers are close, Obama has been up in every poll for awhile. A recent Zogby poll has him up 9. I think Romney would have made a huge difference here and for that reason I'm really surprised he wasn't one of McCain's two finalists (Pawlenty and Palin were apparently the two).

Nevada (5) - The recent CNN poll has Obama up 5. This is a relatively conservative state that could easily still go for McCain. This is another place where Romney would have helped out, this time due to the large Mormon population.

Ohio (20) - Apparently Kerry lost Ohio by a margin of only 1 vote per precinct. If 1 person in each precint would have voted the other way, we'd be re-electing President Kerry right now. In all honesty, maybe it wasn't so bad as I think by 2005 people saw how Bush wasn't getting the job done. This really allowed for someone like Obama to really rise to the surface. All the recent polls I've seen are within the margin of error, meaning it's still too close to call.

Pennsylvania (21) - Did you know Biden is from Scranton? If not, you'll probably hear about it soon. Pennsylania is hugely important and Biden helps a lot. The most recent Qunnipac poll has Obama up 7, while the recent CNN/Time poll has him up 5. Either way, good news.

Virginia (13) - Another state Bush won in 00 & 04 which Obama can make a serious run at. In fact, Bush won by 9% in 04, but Obama is now up slightly in a recent PPP poll.

Obama doesn't have to win all the toss-ups, but there are a number of realistic scenarios in which he can put this together. It's impossible to predict how this will play out, but under the scenario above, it kinda boils down to Virginia. Click on this state to see how the tally changes if McCain wins it. Of course, if Obama wins Colorado, Indiana, Virginia, Florida, North Carolina or any of the other potential toss-ups, then the others don't matter quite as much. Notice that if Obama wins NH, Michigan, Penn, Nevada, but loses Virginia, Florida and Ohio, then they're both tied at 269. Anyone know what happens then?

VP Choices

2008-09-06T13:40:00.004-04:00

The most exciting and interesting presidential campaign that I've witnessed or studied has taken a few more interesting turns recently with the selections of Joe Biden and Sarah Palin for VPs. I'll spare you all my thoughts on these two choices, other than saying that both make some sense for various reasons. Biden will be a fantastic VP who can use his relationships in the Senate to move legislation. He's a great campaigner whose not afraid to attack McCain's weaknesses but with sincerity and respect.

Palin could possibly be the future of the Republican Party (they've been struggling to have a clear direction for awhile now), though I think in many ways it's a strange choice for McCain. Sure she has some experience as a reformer and knows Alaskan energy policy, but she undermines McCain's entire strategy that Obama is too inexperienced. If Obama's level of experience is such an issue, why did he pick someone with even less experience to be his VP? A few months ago he said his choice of VP was especially important given his age and medical history, and they would need to be able to step in on day 1 to take over. Frankly, I have zero confidence Sarah Palin could do that and I can't honestly belive McCain does either. He met her 2 times before making the announcement, including the time he interviewed her for the job! I'm tired of Republicans using the talking point that she has more executive experience than Obama and Biden put together (which if it's so important, doesn't she have more exec experience than McCain?) What does she know about foreigh policy? What does she think is the solution for health care system? Ending poverty? Social security?

It's true Obama doesn't have decades of experience, but he's got a clear record of thinking deeply about these issues, including being President of the Harvard Law Review, publishing two books which include lengthy discussions of these subjects, teaching constitutional law at Chicago University, years in the Illinois Senate, 4 years as US Senator, and 2 years of campaigning for President in which every word and idea has been scrutinized. NO ONE is more capable or better positioned to improve our standing in the world and relationship with European and world leaders than he is. I have a lot of respect for McCain and think in many ways he'd make a good President (the 2000-2007 McCain, I'm not as sure about the more right wing 2008 McCain), but now is just not his time.

Greensboro Half Marathon

2008-09-05T13:30:00.001-04:00

I'm deep into my training for my 4th half marathon and couldn't be more excited. It will be on Oct 18th in Greensboro, NC (the pic is of the course map). I created a 17 week training plan which started on July 30th. It's hard to believe how quickly time goes by, but now I'm already on week 11. These next 3-4 weeks are the peak of the training when I'll have 13, 14, and 15 mile runs, along with plenty of 3, 5, 6, and 9 mile runs.

The summer months were really tough as it was so humid, but I've adjusted and am getting faster again now that the weather's getting nicer. I'm still not that fast, but have gotten pretty comfortable running anywhere from 7-9 minutes per mile (depending on the distance). I haven't had too many runs longer than 9 miles since the Raleigh half marathon on April 5th, so I'm not expected to be able to maintain that pace for 13.1 miles (21.1km). My goal is to finish in less than 1:59:55, which apparently was the average time for everyone that finished a half marathon in 2007. My personal record is 2:07, so I'm certainly in reach. I would have to average a 9:10 pace, and think I can do it.

The thing I love about running is how individual the goals are and how they help see progression. For many people these times seem incredibly easy, for others they seem completely out of reach. They used to be for me, but hopefully aren't anymore.

Health Reform - Harry & Louise

2008-08-21T08:05:00.003-04:00

Monday was the biggest day for health reform in a long time with the re-emergence of Harry & Louise. You'll recall how the Clinton's failed to get health reform legislation passed in 93-94. One of the reasons they didn't is because they waited clear until September of 93 to introduce specific ideas, and they hadn't worked with members of Congress at all to develop the ideas. Remember that Congress was Democrat at the time, but rather than having two chambers of allies, they had expended their political capital on the free trade agreement, the balanced budget, etc. By the time there were actual hearings on the Health Security Act, it was close to the midterm elections of 94, and Dole and Newt were telling Republicans to oppose the Clinton plan no matter what. To capitalize on the perception that the Clinton plan was bureacracy gone amock and that it was hugely complicated, etc, a number of groups came together and released a tv commercial featuring a fictional couple named Harry & Louise complaining about the gov't forcing them into a health plan they didn't like. The commercial only ran in DC for a limited time, but it got huge media coverage and quickly became the symbol of the demise of the Clinton health reform attempt. Here's the original video.

Now, many of these same organizations have teamed up (including the Nat'l Federation of Small Business Owners and the American Hospital Association, two groups that strongly opposed the original Clinton legislation) and released the new Harry & Louise ad to strongly SUPPORT health reform! Check out their website. They're not endorsing a particular candidate or a particular reform proposal, they're just working to ensure that health reform is one of the first things the new President tackles so it doesn't get pushed back until Sept 09 when his political capital is expended on other things. It's still too early to make a prediction of how this will play out, but this is huge, good news, in my opinion. Dr. Oberlander has reminded me to maintain some healthy scepticism, pointing out that it's easy to agree on the principle of reform, but things can splinter quickly when specific proposals are being debated.

My other reason for guarded optimism is that Obama's staff (it's no secret who I'm supporting, right?) is already meeting with Congressional leaders to lay the groundwork to get a jump start on health care, the economy, energy policy, etc, rather than losing control of the first 100 days like Pres. Clinton did in 93.

How will all this play out? On verra!

Catching Up

2008-08-15T18:03:00.002-04:00

As you know, it's been a little while since I've posted and plenty has happened. It's amazing what having a 3 1/2 month does to your spare time. Today is basically the official end of summer as it was my last day at work on my full-time schedule before school starts next week. What a summer it's been! I'm gonna recap some of the main things that have happened since we got back from California 5 or 6 weeks ago. They fall under a few main categories: my baby girl, academic pursuits, volunteer activities, work, half marathon training, Olympics and other sports, and of course politics. Here we go, enjoy!

PhD Application Process

2008-08-15T18:01:00.001-04:00

I've decided to apply for a PhD to start next fall, August 2009. I'm nervous but extremely excited. After a lot of thought, research, advice, prayer, etc, we've narrowed down the short list to 7 fantastic schools. In no particular order, the schools are UNC, Harvard, Berkeley, Michigan, Yale, Duke and George Washington. The first five would be to the respective schools of public health, while the final two would be in health policy programs through the schools of public policy. Each of these schools is extremely competetive, but after great conversations with faculty at each place, I feel I am within reach and am excited to give it a shot. Which is my first choice? It's hard to say since I love each of the schools for many reasons. Truth be told, part of me is going to be dissapointed to not go to the other six I turn down or don't get into, because they are all so unique and great. That being said, I don't think I could turn down an acceptance from Harvard, for example. The political analysis program is absolutely first rate and puts you on track to a great career teaching at the best universities in the country. After 2 years of living in a beautiful smaller town, we're not sure we're ready for big city living (notice Columbia isn't on the list?), but somehow Boston feels different and special. Mostly because it's so close to Montreal and Ottawa, the two cities I called home between 99 and 07. Applications are due Dec 1, Dec 15, Dec 31, Jan 1 and Jan 15, and we won't know where we're accepted to unti March or so. Anything can happen, but we couldn't be more grateful for the oppotunities on the horizon.

California

2008-07-14T19:07:00.004-04:00

We went to California for the fourth of July weekend and really enjoyed being with my mom and everyone else. We enjoyed seeing places in the area such as Half Moon Bay, San Fran and Berkeley.

Olivia was so much fun to be with on this trip, so easy and pleasant the entire time.

She especially enjoyed her time with her cousins, even though Shawn beat me in the horshoe tourney.

This is just an especially beautiful photo of my sweetheart at the beach at Half Moon Bay. I am so in love with her and so grateful for all her support and friendship, not to mention her leadership skills. I love you Sarah!

As of June 25th

2008-06-25T13:27:00.001-04:00

2008 Election Day 2 of 3

2008-06-23T22:00:00.001-04:00

I voted today for the second of three times in 2008, with the first being the May 6 Primary and the third being the big one on Nov 4th. Apparently though I was one of a very small group who voted in the Democratic primary runoff for Labor Commissioner. I've read that overall turnout was less than 2% of registered voters and was told that at 6:30 I was only the 12th person in my precint to vote (polls closed around an hour later). I also heard it cost the state something like $3million to have this runoff election. There's got to be a better way, right? Even still, I was pleased to vote for Mary Font Donnan, having met her at a function and coming away very impressed.

Less than 5 months left...

2008-06-19T09:07:00.004-04:00

Daddy's little girl

2008-06-08T22:19:00.002-04:00

It's so much fun being a dad. Don't get me wrong, the hours are tough, but the pay is great! We discovered very early on that Olivia loves bath time, somehow it just calms her right down. At first we thought she'd hate it and that we'd have to be as quick as possible, but it's clear she's enjoying it, so we spend at least 5 minutes, and sometimes even 10-15 just splashing in the water. She doesn't really smile yet, and she's not splashing on purpose, but she seems to love putting her head back in the water so her hair swishes around. It's so cute.

He had a dream...

2008-06-08T19:11:00.003-04:00

This powerful picture speaks for itself, even still, Eugene Robinson wrote a great article in today's Washington Post describing the "mind-bending improbility" of what Obama has accomplished. "A young, black, first-term senator -- a man whose father was from Kenya, whose mother was from Kansas and whose name sounds as if it might have come from the roster of Guantanamo detainees -- has won a marathon of primaries and caucuses to become the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party." I think Hillary's campaign has broken just as many barriers and I admire her for her run. I strongly disagree with anyone saying she lost because of her gender. While it was probably a factor for some, I think the biggest reason she lost was that she's a Clinton, which is ironic since that was one of her greatest assets as well. This great article in today's NY Times describes all the baggage and in-fighting the Clintons would have brought with them.

2 funny videos & a link

2008-05-26T16:25:00.003-04:00

This is a great spoof on the commercials for the NBA playoffs which accurately summarizes the Dem nomination up to this point. Below is a funny japanese spoof of the office, and since I know that all you really want are pics of Olivia, here is a link to our blog.

Funny Political Ad

2008-05-21T11:21:00.003-04:00

In the Dem. primary for US Senate yesterday, Oregon House Speaker Merkley was given a run for his money by Steve Novack. This race wasn't supposed to be so competitive, but it ended up being particularly interesting as Novak displayed a sense of humor, capitalizing on his "uniqueness." Apparently he's only 4'9" and was born without a left arm. "People are looking for something a little different; well, I'm little and I'm different!" Even still, he lost, and it'll be Merkley vs. Gordon Smith in the fall. This is one seat I kinda hope stays Republican, as Gordon Smith is an impressive moderate Senator who, along with Orrin Hatch and Harry Reid, is blazing the trail as a successful Mormon. If you've been following the blog long enough, you'll recall that I met Sen. Smith in 2006 as he as in NYC to discuss the book he had written about dealing with his son's suicide. It was a touching and impressive book to say the least. Check out my April 2006 posts to read what I wrote then.

75,000 People at Obama Rally

2008-05-20T15:34:00.000-04:00

55 million seconds of marriage

2008-05-19T09:54:00.003-04:00

According to the counter on the right side of this page, Sarah and I will soon have been married for 55 million seconds (we're at 631 days right now). I have felt like the luckiest guy on earth for most of that time. I was particularly blown away during the 9,000 or so seconds we were in the hospital before Olivia was born (2.5 hours) and during most of the 1.8 million seconds since (3 weeks). Yesterday I had two profound moments of gratitude and joy as I thought about how things have changed during the last three weeks (constituting 3.3% of our marriage thus far). The first was during church as I sat with Olivia sleeping cuddled up in my left arm, and Sarah tired, with her head on my shoulder as I held her in my right arm. I am a dad, this is my family! The other moment was when the three of us laid down for our afternoon nap. Sarah and I spent some time looking at Olivia in the middle and I had the same thought, "I am a daddy and this is my family!" Life is pretty good and I can't wait to see what the next 55 million seconds bring.

Sen. McCain on SNL

2008-05-18T10:15:00.003-04:00

I have a ton of respect for John McCain and as the Republican Primary was heating up, he was the candidate I would have most preferred to end up as President. For a similar reason, he's one of the toughest for Democrats to beat in 08. There's a lot more I like about Sens Obama or Clinotn (ie Health Reform), but I could live comfortably with a McCain presidency. Even still, the fact that his first term would end with him in his 80s is a bit troubling.

Pics of Olivia

2008-05-16T15:21:00.003-04:00

I love being a dad and can't believe how amazing Olivia is. Sarah and I spend most of our time just staring at her, and she's not even doing new stuff yet like smiling or laughing. It's obviously hard to put into words what it's like to have your first child, but it's amazing. We've posted a lot more pics at our blog, enjoy!

Jefferson-Jackson Dinner

2008-05-05T22:55:00.004-04:00

On Friday night Dad and I went to the Raleigh Fairgrounds to attend the NC Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, the annual fundraiser for the Dem. Party. I've been to a few of these types of events before, but this was special as both Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton were scheduled to speak. But before we saw them we got to hear two candidates running to replace Elizabeth Dole in the Senate (Kay Hagan and Jim Neal), as well as two candidates for Governor (Bev Purdue and Richard Moore). All were very good, though I found Hagan to be particularly impressive and I look forward to seeing if she can compete with Dole. Neal was very good too and was the only candidate to come up to our section to shake hands, etc (I can't believe more didn't, we were a trapped, captive audience obviously interested in politics). The second photo is of Jim Neal and a native of our section. The bottom photo is of Hagan during her speech.

Finally the secret service came out and Hillary was announced.

I thought she did a great job and feel very confident that if she ends up being the nominee I would support her. I was pleased to hear her say that if Obama wins "you better believe I'll work my heart out for him." She also mentioned how great John Edwards is, and then in the next sentence said she'd create a cabinet level position devoted solely to ending poverty. It's obviously pandering, but why not?

Around 9:45 it was Sen. Obama's turn. The atmosphere was pretty electric as the Obama fans were pumped, really making it feel like a high school pep rally. For the record, I voted for Obama this morning, but when I say fan, I mean the people who were jumping up and down, yelling, chanting "yes we can," etc. Somehow that's just not my style.

I'm a dad!!

2008-05-01T22:19:00.003-04:00

At 6:37 am on Monday April 28th, my daughter Olivia Kerrie Jones was born. It was an unbelievable experience and I can't believe how much I love this 6lb 14oz girl. This is my very favorite video as it shows her responding to my voice just minutes after being born. I talked to her quite a bit while she was in the womb, telling her all about school, the Yankees' off season, the campaign, my running, etc. It was a pretty amazing experience to have her recognize my voice so quickly. I love the other photos as well. You can see more at our other blog: www.sacutojones.blogspot.com

Updates

2008-04-27T22:20:00.003-04:00

I am as ready to be a dad as I'll ever be. I had so much fun tonight playing with my friend's daughter and thinking about how much I already love the girl in this belly:

In other news, I've decided to train for the Richmond Marathon on November 15th, yes the full 26.2!! I'm pretty nervous and excited at the same time and glad to have a new goal. I've discovered the Carolina North Forest, a beautiful 750 acres of trails in thick woods which provide wonderful shade on hot runs. I've been increasing the number of days I run lately to 5 (I was only running 3 times during the busiest part of the semester), though I've taken a break from longer distance. I ran 6 miles once and 5 miles twice last week, as well as a couple 3 milers. I've been really inspired by one of my Econ profs who ran a 2:35 time in the Boston Marathon last week, coming in the top 100, averaging around 6 minutes per mile!! Imagine coming in the top 100 of one of the most prestigious races in the world. He said the highlight was passing Lance Armstrong and then not seeing him again the rest of the race.

Update

2008-04-26T10:01:00.003-04:00

We went to the midwives yesterday and Sarah had her first cervical check. Turns out all those contractions have been productive because she's already 2-3 cm dilated and 60-80% effaced. This means she is well on her way and hopefullythe earlier phase of labor should be a little shorter. It might also mean we're closer to Olivia's birthday, though it's impossible to know. We know of people who have walked around 3 cm dilated for a couple weeks before anything happened. Even still, this is good news and means the end is right around the corner. Apparently the baby's head is also at station -2, which to me sounds like the name of a sci-fi thriller, but means that she has dropped a lot and is deep in the pelvic bone. Sarah had some regular contractions again last night, but only for an hour or so. She had worked herself so hard organizing a bridal shower for our friend Angela, that by the time she was doing dishes, they were coming every 4-5 minutes. They stopped by the time she fell asleep, but it's only 10am and she's already at a baby shower she planned. This girl doesn't know how to stop!

39th week

2008-04-23T08:19:00.002-04:00

Today is the start of the 39th week of pregnancy and I couldn't be more excited. We'll be sure to let everyone know when it happens. Without getting your hopes up too much, you might be interested to know that Sarah has been having pretty regular contractions for a little while now. This happened last week too, so we're not letting ourselves get too excited. Last Wednesday (7 days ago) she was having contractions every 12-20 minutes for a period of three hours. We eventually went to bed and they stopped. Last night I got home around 8pm and Sarah said she had been having contractions for an hour already. They kept coming all night, about 10-20 minutes apart, so we eventually went to bed wondering if it would be like last week. When I woke up this morning at 7:30 Sarah was somewhat awake due to a contraction. I've been timing them this morning and they've been 12-16 minutes apart. In other words, while the contractions haven't been too strong or that close together, they have been pretty regular for over 12 hours now. Does that mean we're in labor? This is quite the week to go into labor as I have two huge papers due tomorrow and 2 final exams early next week. Luckily I've been preparing for this and have already finished the papers and think I could do well on the two finals. We'll see what happens!

Healthy Americans Act

2008-04-21T08:28:00.002-04:00

This video was put together by a PR firm hired by Sen. Ron Wyden with the goal of building support for his bill to create universal health insurance. He's had the bill out for awhile, and I think by and large it's a pretty good bill. But what's interesting to me about this is that the video isn't really aimed at getting the public's attention but trying to get other Senators and Members of Congress interested. Apparently 7 dems and 7 reps have signed on to support the bill, which is great, but obviously way short of what he'll need. I doubt he'll be able to get this off the ground and I'm sure nothing major will happen until there is a new (DEMOCRAT) President in the White House. Even still, his bill could be the foundation they build on in 2009. What do you think, can we have our cake and eat it too?

Raleigh Half Marathon

2008-04-10T11:40:00.002-04:00

Here are a couple of the official photos from the half marathon I ran on Saturday. It actually felt pretty good and I look forward to doing it again, though that was probably my last major race until after the summer is over. It was 65dgs and 90% humidity and I was praying for rain to cool me off; imagine if it had been 85 or 95 dgs!? I'm thinking about doing a 5k on Sat April 26th here in Chapel Hill, but I've been sick all week and haven't run once since Raleigh, so I'm not sure.

36 weeks!

2008-04-09T11:53:00.000-04:00

We officially hit 36 weeks today, a major milestone in "our" pregnancy. Supposedly she weighs around 6 pounds and is about 13 inches from crown to rump. This week she is practicing blinking, has fully developed sucking muscles, and her gums are becoming more rigid. At our midwife appt yesterday we confirmed that she is really in the head down position, though we were pretty sure we felt her laying side to side last night (unless she has supper wide shoulders!) We have noticed her dropping a little bit, though she usually seems to come back up each time. It seems the mucus plug is starting to drain away, though it's hard to tell. Sarah is doing well, handling it like a champion. She's feeling pretty ready for it to be over and to be able to walk & job comfortably, as well sleep comfortably. We couldn't be luckier though and feel so grateful for how good everyone has been to us. We're really in the homestretch, although I must admit it feels like we should be a little bit closer than we actually are. Patience is the key at this point (though I'm ok if she waits to come until after finals).

New Prophet & Apostle

2008-04-06T10:34:00.004-04:00

This is General Conference weekend for my Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, aka the Mormon Church). Every April and October the 13 million members of our church gather for 2 days of meetings to hear 15 minute talks from our leaders. The themes this weekend included service, compassion, family, and an impressive report on the public health initiatives the church is conducting throughout the world. On Saturday Thomas S. Monson officially became the 16th President of the Church and David Todd Christofferson became the next Apostle (a lifetime appointment to top governing body). He is on the left in the above photo, with the next most junior Apostle, Quentin Cook. Click here to read the Newsweek article about Pres. Monson. Elder Christofferson (Elder is a title) got his law degree from Duke (I'll try not to hold it against him) and worked in Charlotte for awhile before eventually being called to work full time for the Church. He was in charge of running its huge geneology program. Check out his press conference after he was announced as the new Apostle.

Raleigh Rocks Half Marathon

2008-04-05T14:12:00.002-04:00

Today I ran the Raleigh Rocks Half Marathon in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was my third half marathon ever. In fact, I didn't start running regularly until Feb 2007. So while I am still not very fast, I am pleased with my progress. In Ottawa in May 2007 I ran the (13.1 miles) 21.1km in 2:22:42. In Myrtle Beach last February I ran it in 2:09:40. Today I ran Raleigh in 2:07:37. It was still 2 minutes slower than my fastest time (which came in a training run). Again, it's not fast, but I'm pleased that I've been able to start from nothing and fairly comfortably run a half marathon. I haven't signed up yet, but I'm thinking seriously about gearing up for a full 26.2 mile marathon in 7 months. We'll see. Many thanks to dad for coming to me in Raleigh. He took the two pics, the top being the before picture and the bottom the after in the parking lot before heading home to watch conference.

Rep Henbest Retiring

2008-04-02T12:41:00.002-04:00

Having read this article in today's Boise Weekly about Rep. Margaret Henbest, I feel particularly proud to have worked closely with her. During the 2006 legislative session I lived in Boise interned for her and Rep. John Rusche (now the House Minority Caucus Chair). Both of these people were incredibly kind to me and taught me a lot about the inner workings of state government. As this article highglights, Rep. Henbest is someone who knows how to get things done and is able to build coalitions and consensus around her ideas. We had our share of disapointing defeats while I was there, and I know she had others during her 12 year tenure, but she accomplished so much she can be proud of. The above photo was taken on my last day in the legislature, immediately after she and a few other Representatives and staff had taken me out to lunch. I will proudly say that I am 17 pounds lighter than in that photo!

The state capital building in 2006. It is closed for renovation right now and I think expected to re-open in 2010.
My office was through this door on the right. What a fun place to work (though it was kind of like a dungeon down there!)

Chelsea

2008-03-31T18:33:00.005-04:00

We got to meet Chelsea Clinton this afternoon during her campaign stop in Chapel Hill. Unfortunately the guy who took the picture put the camera on video mode so we actually ended up with a video of the moment, which was even better because you can see her congratulating Sarah on the pregnancy and saying she hopes I'll vote for her mom.

Sarah and I really enjoyed getting to meet Chelsea Clinton this afternoon and hear her thoughts on issues ranging from health care to Iraq to energy and NASA. I was extremely impressed with how articulate she was and how able she was able to talk through the nuances of these issues. As I told the radio reporter who interviewed me after the 70 minute Q&A, I still plan on voting for Obama, but if Hillary does end up being the nominee I would feel very confident voting for her.

She even got asked one or two wierd questions, though she handled it very well. This is the last minute of a really long winded question in which the guy talked about everything from criticism of her dad in 1992 to how beautiful Chelsea is, to finally talking about NASA.

Chelsea Clinton at UNC

2008-03-31T15:34:00.003-04:00

(can you spot me in the photo?)

Sarah and I are sitting in the third row of a packed student union at UNC to hear Chelsea Clinton speak. There must be 400 people here, but luckily we got a large comfortable seat. They tried to take my seats away before I played the "8 month pregnant wife" card and they let me keep my seat. Apparently Chelsea's plane was late this morning so she's been behind schedule all day.

Note to self: if I ever am involved in planning a political event, don't have "It's the End of the World as we Know It" as the background music before the main speaker comes on. They finally turned it off and now we're hearing from a UNC A Capella group.

November Predictions

2008-03-21T12:22:00.003-04:00

In my view (and with some help from the Washington Post website) there are 7 states that are really going to make the difference in who is elected President in November: Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. It's possible that some states could be competitive, like Virginia and NC, but it's safe to assume they vote for McCAin. Go ahead and play with the map, but you'll see that gives McCain a 254 - 217 advantage over Obama/Clinton, with 67 votes up for grabs to help someone reach the magic number of 270. I am not basing this on much other than what I've read, my opinion and some polling, but here are my predictions for which of these 6 states Obama or Clinton would win as the nominee running against McCain:

Clinton - Minnesota, New Mexico and Penn. Result: Whoever wins Ohio wins the whole thing.

Obama - Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Iowa, Penn. Result: Obama wins, even if he loses Ohio.

So why do I think Obama is more electable than Clinton in November? A combination of three huge factors: 1) A lot of conservatives can't stand Hillary and with her as the nominee it's going to be a lot easier for the Reps to get out the vote. This could make all the difference in Ohio as the gay marriage thing did for Bush in 04, as well as the other 6 or so states Bush won by less than 2%. 2) Obama excites people and has cross over appeal, meaning he'll be attractive moderates unsatisfied with McCain. 3) There are a lot of conservatives who don't like McCain and would be willing to consider Obama. This makes a lot more states competitive, including Colorado and Iowa, which as I demonstrate, could actually make the difference even if he loses Ohio. All that being said, Obama would have to win enough of these swing states to put him over the top.

This is a very exciting race, partly because the Republican and Democratic nominees (if Obama wins) don't necessarily just attract the traditional party base, meaning a lot about the electoral map could change in November.

Angela's Baptism

2008-03-17T10:47:00.000-04:00

A couple weeks ago we attended the baptism of our friend Angela. Every baptism is special as it's a symbol of the happiness someone is feeling in their life, but this felt extra special for a few reasons. This was the first time I have seen a friend of mine from school/work get baptized. She first met the church through her boyfriend (who served a mission in Brazil) and has been learning about it for a year. She spoke at her service and described the joy and peace that has come into her life as she has incorporated the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Bible and the Book of Mormon in her life. The depth of her sincerity and committment was impressive; I feel lucky to know her.

Our friend Anna
3 of my classmates and their significant others.

Governor David Paterson

2008-03-12T11:16:00.002-04:00

I'm sure you've heard the news about NY Governor Elliot Spitzer resigning today because of the terrible scandal in which he paid $5,500 an hour to be with a prostitute in DC before testifying to Congress the next day (on Valentine's Day). So all of a sudden, my home state of NY will soon have a new governor. I've known of David Paterson for a little while as he's been in the NY State Senate for a little while and has developed a reputation as amiable and able to work leaders on both sides of the aisle. What I didn't realize is that not only will he become only the third African-American Governor since the civil war (Deval Patrick, the new Gov of Massachusetts being one of the other two), but he will be the first legally blind person to ever be Governor. According to this great profile in today's NY Times, he developed an infection as a child that left him blind in one eye and with severely limited sight in the other. I'm simply blown away by his ability to overcome what others might consider to be an insurmountable obstacle. He graduated from Columbia and then earned a law degree from Hofstra, entered politics and ended up becoming Senate Minority Leader in Albany, Lt Governor, and now suddenly Governor. He's even completed the NYC Marathon! As much as I thought Spitzer was going to be a great Governor, his abrasive style just hasn't worked and now I'm looking forward to seeing what Gov. Paterson can accomplish.

HPAA = Champions

2008-03-09T20:25:00.007-04:00

Led by our fearless captian Brad Heaton, fellow classmates and I from the dept of Health Policy and Administration (HPAA) won the intramural tournament at UNC!! Of course it's the co-ed league, not the 5-5 guys league, and it was the recreational, not competitive league, but we're feeling pretty good about ourselves. It was a tough tournament in which we had to win 5 games after a 1st round bye in order to be crowned champions. Entering the tourney ranked 22 out of 50+ teams we won by beating the #5, #2 and #1 teams. The final was our toughest game. Down by 8 with 2:30 left, Lauren hit some clutch free throws, Gabe's defene forced some turnovers, and Morris hit a big three pointer to end up with us having the ball in a tied game with 25 seconds left. Morris held for the last possession, passed to Brad who drove the lane and got fouled as he threw up a tough shot. The miracle was the ball went in! He missed the free throw, but there wasn't enough time for the other team to get something together. All of a sudden we were champions! We got a couple t-shirts, our photos taken and had tons of fun. Morris was named tourney MVP (well deserved) and we're looking forward to doing it again next year with 8 of 11 players returning (and a good recruiting class on the way). Click here to see the tournament bracket (though be aware that the point totals got screwed up as sometimes it seems that the team with less points advanced). Here some photos of the celebration:

This video is proof that I scored in the championship game. I averaged about 7-8 points during the regular season and first couple rounds of the tournament, but as we got into the sweet sixteen and elite 8, the guys that were guarding me got better and better and my average dropped to 4-5 points. Of course I didn't care one bit as I was doing my part to help our team win, but I'm glad I made my free throws in the final game. Since we ended up winning by only 2 points, you could say these were the game winning shots (even though they occured with 5 minutes left in the first half....)

Tuesday Primary

2008-03-02T17:06:00.003-05:00

This Tuesday is a big day in the race for President. The Republican nomination should be mathematically locked up, and we should know if Hillary has enough momentum to keep going or if she'll need to drop out. Part of me feels very ready for her to face the music and for all of us to move on to the next chapter. Of course, I can't blame her for hanging in there and fighting like she is. She truly believes she has something to offer, and she is certainly still within striking distance, so why not continue fighting?

I think these two ads are very interesting. The Clintons put the first one out the other day, and Obama's campaign followed quickly after with their version.

What do you think? In some ways the question is really about who can match up against McCain on foreign policy, his greatest strength (deservedly so).

We're in the Final Four!!

2008-02-28T15:53:00.002-05:00

Here at UNC, the words "final four" are magical. While it's too early to really talk about Roy taking Tyler and the boys to the real final four, I'm excited to announce that HPAA is in the university wide co-ed intramural semi-finals. If we win tonight then we play in the championship game on Monday.

It's a great league of 4-4 bball (2 guys/2 girls on the court at all times). It's been a fun road to this point in which we are technically still undefeated. In our 3 games of league play we staged a late comeback in which Gabe hit a dramatic shot to put us within reach, and then I hit a last second shot from the post to end the game in a tie (no overtime). We won big in our second game and had to forfeit the third because not enough people could make it.

We earned a bye from the first round of the 50+ team tournment, but then had to play a really tough team of juniors and seniors. Morris and Brad carried our team and we held off each of their rallies to end the game up by three.

The sweet sixteen game was a comfortable beating of the team we beat earlier in the season, but they were a lot of fun to play with. The elite 8 game last night was incredibly dramatic. While it was close the whole time, we managed to maintain a 4-6 lead for the entire second half. That is, until one of their girls closed her eyes and banked in an incredible three pointer to tie the game(from a foot behind the line). We couldn't get a good shot on the inbound play and would have to try to take the lead and hold them for five more minutes. I was pleased with my contribution, as I made a layup and later a free throw that gave us a 3 point lead with less than 90 seconds left. Of course they managed to tie it up again, and for whatever reason ended up fouling Lauren pretty hard. It couldn't have been more dramatic: 5 seconds left, tie game in overtime, 2 free throws. The first one rimmed out, but she nailed the second one. They quickly got the ball up court and ended up with a great shot at the basket. Fortunately for us, they missed their layup (that would have knocked us out of the tourney) and we lived to see another day.

Eli Manning the hero

2008-02-23T09:26:00.002-05:00

This one's for you dad...

Myrtle Beach Half Marathon

2008-02-22T14:33:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday we went to South Carolina where I ran the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon. It was only my third race ever and second half marathon. Follow these links to read about my experience doing the Ottawa Half Marathon last May and the Red Cross 10K in Fayetteville, NC last August. For the record, I ran Myrtle Beach in 2:09:33, coming in 1320th place out of 2800. I finished in 55th place in my age group (men 25-29) out of about 80. Finishing in the top half is a nice improvement from Ottawa. For perspective, my Ottawa time would have made me 1587th place in this race.

When I prepare for a race like this I have 3 tiers of goals. In this case, the primary goal was to beat my Ottawa time of 2:22. I thought this was going to be easy by how well I was running distances of 3-7 miles, but the first two times I tried running the full 13.1 miles in training I was just as slow or even slower than 2:22! My second goal would then be to finish under 2:15. There is no particular significance to this number other than it being a round number and a decent drop from my Ottawa time. By race day, I had actually run the 13.1 miles in 2:05, so my top goal then became beating that.

I had a tough start to the race, there were almost 5,000 people (3,000 doing the half and 2,000 doing the full) on a relatively narrow road that it was hard to get in a good rythm at my usual pace. Even still, I was feeling pretty comfortable as I passed the 3 mile mark and waved to my dad and Sarah who were yelling my name as I ran past. I felt good all along Ocean Blvd (mile 4-8) though was consistently frustrated that the mile markers seemed further apart from each other than the map I had drawn of the race the night before. By the time I got to mile 9 on the King's highway I knew that I would comfortably accomplish my most important goal of beating the Ottawa time of 2:22, felt pretty sure I would beat 2:15, but that 2:05 was going to be tight. As we turned left on Mister Joe White Blvd around mile 12 and had 1 mile to go I knew 2:15 was in the bag, but 2:05 wasn't likely. I then set 2:10 as my goal which is significant because it's how long it would take if you ran an average of 10 minutes/mile the whole race. As we turned into the parking lot of the minor league baseball stadium for the last quarter mile, with the energy of the crowd pushing me and the finish line in sight, I sprinted to the end and finished 27 seconds ahead of my ad hoc goal. While I didn't accomplish the third goal of beating my personal record, I met the other two goals and that feels pretty darn good.

I'm registered to run the Raleigh Rocks half marathon on April 5th and am really looking forward to getting to know Raleigh better by running its streets. If you're interested my three goals are (in order of importance to me) 1) beating my MB time of 2:09:33, 2) beating my personal record of 2:05:30 and 3) finishing under 2 hours. I'm getting good advice from lots of people, including my economics professor, as well as tremendous support from my wife, and look forward to a great day. After that I'm planning on running a 5k on April 26th here in Chapel Hill, and then gearing up to do the full 26.2 miles of the Richmond Marathon on November 15th. I have 9 months to reach that goal!

Training Analysis

2008-02-21T15:08:00.005-05:00

I'm a numbers guy and I think that one reason I love training is that it gives me something to keep track of, analyze and strategize about. Sarah teases me that I make spreadsheets for everything (the exact number of times I've been to the temple, had personal scripture study this year, as well as the time, distance and weather conditions of each run in the last 12 months, including my weight each week). So now that I have been running regularly for 12 months, it's time to analyze the data!

In the last 12 months I've had 3 major training periods for each of the 3 races I've run. From Feb-May 2007 I trained for the Ottawa Half Marathon, from June-Aug for the Fayetteville 10k and from Oct 07-Feb08 for the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon. Unfortunately I haven't found my June-Aug training log since we moved, but I've beaten all those record anyway. This analysis will mostly be a comparison between the two half marathon training periods.

Total duration of training: Ottawa - 16 weeks (Feb 7-May 27), Myrtle Beach (MB) - 20 weeks (Oct 1 - Feb 16)
Total number of miles ran: Ottawa - 197.6, MB - 329
Average # miles per week: Ottawa - 12.35, MB - 16.5
Total times ran: Ottawa - 71, MB - 70 -
Average # times running per week: Ottawa - 4.44, MB - 3.5
Peak weekly mileage: Ottawa - 27.3 (44km, twice), MB - 27.4
Peak distance (other than race day): Ottawa - 12.4 (May 12th), MB - 13.1 (12/14, 1/11 & 2/1)
Coldest training run: Ottawa neg 24C (-11F), MB 26F (-3C)
Hottest training run: Ottawa 25C (78F), MB 93F (34C) (doesn't factor in humidity)
Change in weight: Ottawa - from 197 - 185, MB - from 187 - 180.

Records
5k (3.1 miles): Ottawa - 29:00, MB - 25:27
10k (6.2 miles): Ottawa - 64:00, MB - 54:04

It's hard to compare times between the two training periods because I ran distances in Ottawa based on KM while I now run based on miles. I've thought it will be interesting to compare times for each distance during the last four months, from the fastest time I ran a particular distance compared to the first time I ran it.

5k (3.1 miles): 30:33 on Oct 1st --> 25:27 on Dec 18th.
5 miles: 53:02 on Oct 6th --> 43:53 on Dec 17th
10k (6.2 miles): 1:09 on Oct 20th --> 54:04 on Jan 28th
8 miles: 1:30:18 on Nov 3 --> 1:17:12 on Jan 17
9 miles 1:30:54 on Nov 17 --> 1:24:36 on Feb 11

For the "record" (bad pun), since I've been busy with school I've only run twice since Myrtle Beach, but beat personal records both times. On Monday I ran a 25:19 5k, at an 8:08 pace. On Wednesday I ran a 53:49 10k, an 8:40 pace. It's a good start to my 2 month training for Raleigh and 9 months until Richmond.

The Campaign

2008-02-10T23:08:00.000-05:00

As you know, Obama and Clinton are virtually tied in the delegate count for the Democratic nomination with roughly 3/5 the country having voted. Who knew that the NC primary in May might be one of the more important ones? Like I have said already, I am supporting Obama, but with tremendous respect for both Sen. Clinton and McCain, and yes for Mike Huckabee as well. There are things about each of them I have liked for a number of years. That being said, Obama is the one that I think can actually get substantive legislation through congress in 2009. It's hard to imagine Hillary getting major health reform through, or McCain trying to get the type of reform I think we need. While Obama's plan isn't quite as ambitious as Hillary's, it seems much more politically realistic to me. Not only that, but with him at the top of the ticket, and with the unusually high number of Republicans retiring in Congress, I think the Democrats would be in a strong position to pick up seats in both the Senate and the House. Probably not enough to get the "super majority" 60% needed in the Senate, but enough to be able to move things along. Hillary might be the main reason many conservative voters (who don't love McCain) make it to the polls in November, meaning that she, democrat majorities, health reform and other initiatives would be so much more unlikely. Even still, like I've said before, if she does win the nomination, I will be behind her.

What's on my mind

2008-02-08T11:04:00.001-05:00

Here's a video collection of some things that are on my mind lately:

Obama's won me over. I've liked him for a long time (relatively speaking), but haven't been sure until recently that he's who I would support for the Democratic nomination. When I first got an ipod in 1995 I subscribed to the podcasts of every Senator on itunes, which was basically just Obama and maybe one other. Each week I felt like I got to hear him as he told me his thoughts on the big issue of the week, from immigration, to health care and foreign affairs. What I respected most was his sincerity, the feeling that I was hearing what he really believes. He didn't stick to the party's talking points and wasn't afraid to compliment the Republican ideas he agreed with. More than anything I think our country needs a President who can heal the partisan divide and anger over the war that afflicts our country. As much as I love Hillary, it's obvious he'd be better at that. While her health care plan would be more effective than his (though I like his a lot), I think he's much more likely to get something passed. That being said, if she is the nominee, I will be behind her 100%. Even still, if McCain ends up being the President, I imagine I will be very supportive of him, as he won my respect years ago. My only concern is that he'll be trying too hard to prove he's "conservative" and won't be sticking to what he truly believes. Knowing him, I'm not too worried about that.

In case you haven't seen these Super Bowl highlights yet (or haven't seen them 100 times yet), enjoy! A smile still comes across my face as I watch Manning avoid all those tackles and Tyree make that catch on his helmet and then break his back as he holds on to the ball. What a game! The Patriots were 2 minutes 44 seconds from finishing a perfect 19-0 season for the first time in NFL history, but it wasn't meant to be as the Giants won their first Super Bowl since 1991, when I was 10. Speaking of that game, I can still remember so clearly watching Scott Norwood miss that field goal. Let me set the scene for you: if he kicks the ball between the goal posts, Buffalo is the champion; if he misses, then the Giants are.

(I don't endorse the fake newspaper headline or the ending, but the clip is fun to watch).

I cried 10 year old tears that night watching this interview feeling so bad for him, but so happy he missed it. You know it's a tough moment when the reporters are trying to console the players on the air!

I can't quite describe what it is about the Shout Out Louds that make them one of my favorite bands these days, but I can't get enough of their album "Our Ill Wills." Maybe it's the Swedish accent? I'm not sure about the video for "Tonight I have to leave it," but it's a fantastic song. Here's the video for "Impossible":

Other than my sweetheart, the baby and school, this is what's on my mind lately.

Funny Commercial

2008-02-07T18:12:00.000-05:00

This was a good commercial from the super bowl

Congrads

2008-02-02T18:14:00.000-05:00

Congratulations are in order to our friends Chris and Melissa who just found out they're having a boy. It's so wonderful to have such good friends to go through this experience with, and am glad our kids will get to play together. I know you two are faithful blog readers, so congrads to Melissa and Chris +1.

Myrtle Beach Half Marathon

2008-01-28T15:26:00.000-05:00

In 3 weeks I'll be part of this mob of people starting the Myrtle Beach half marathon. I've been traning hard since the start of October and feel ready. The race starts early, which is tough for me since my favorite time to run is the afternoon. The best part, however, is that I should be making the turn on mile 4 just in time so that I'll be running along the ocean during sunrise for over four miles. I expect it to be an unbelievable experience.

President Hinckley 1910-2008

2008-01-27T23:08:00.000-05:00

Perhaps you've heard the news that President Gordon B. Hinckley, the man that members of my church revered as the Prophet of God on the earth, passed away this evening. He died around 7pm at his home in Salt Lake City with members of his family present. I feel deep emotions of gratitude and appreciation for the life he lived and the influence he had on me. If I had to pick one defining moment in my life when things clicked into place and I caught a vision of my potential, and felt inspired to live the kind of life that would merit eventually meeting someone like Sarah Sacuto, it would be at the dedication of the Boston Temple in October 2000. I was just a few rows away from him, with my freshley shaved head and goatee, as he taught about my eternal potential. The feeling I had was unbelievable and undeniable. In a sense, every good thing that has happened in my life is a result of the feelings and resolutions I had that day.

That was not actually the first time I heard him in person. I saw him in St. Louis in 95 or 96, shortly after he became the prophet. I saw him in 1997 with 21,000 at Madison Square Garden. I actually saw a free Sonic Youth/Busta Ryhmes concert later that day on the main steps of Columbia University's campus. I was 16, so which event of the day do you think I enjoyed most? Even still, I was deeply touched by hearing the prophet.

The next time I saw him in person was the summer of 2004 when he was in NYC to dedicate the Manhattan Temple. He spoke at a fireside the night before at Radio City Music Hall, and then on Sunday morning I serendipitously was the at the "cornerstone" ceremony, and with a group of 40 or so people, got to be with him in that solemn experience. During the Saturday night fireside at Radio City, he challenged us to be better people, to resolve "to make a difference because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." He asked us to memorize this phrase and write it in our journals. I'm doing my best.

The final time I saw him was in March 2006. I was moving from Boise, Idaho (where I had worked in the legislature for 3 months), and was on my way home to NYC after having attended my Aunt Brenda's funeral. I happened to know where and when Pres. Hinckley's ward met, so my cousin Michelle and I showed up early and got a seat in the center of the third row. Sure enough, five minutes before the meeting started, he and Pres. Faust walked in and sat on the far right side of the front row, just a few feet from us. It was a beautiful experience to take the sacrament with these great men and consider the impressive lives they have lived. Now that they have both passed away, I hope to live up to their example so that my daughter(s and son(s)?) will someday consider me a similar example for them.

Green card!

2008-01-23T15:15:00.001-05:00

We did it! Sarah is now a permanent resident of the United States! They don't call it a green card anymore, but she now has a resident alien #, and will soon have a social security number, meaning she can work, study, pay taxes and come and go as she pleases! This is an absolute miracle which I honestly sometimes wondered if I would ever see. I'll write more about it later because I have to get ready for class, but this is incredible news and we couldn't be more excited.

Mr. Sub Commercial

2008-01-13T20:18:00.001-05:00

A good friend of mine sent me this commercial for Mr. Sub, a sandwich shop in Canada. He said it's a good reminder to feed our missionaries. Pretty amazing that our church and missionaries are so well entrenched in mainstream culture now that it's the commercial for a major food company! Hilarious.

La Marseillaise

2008-01-13T12:37:00.000-05:00

To pass the time during our long drives in Utah/Idaho, I asked Sarah to teach me "La Marseillaise," the French national anthem. We sang it over and over in the car, getting animated and pumped up each time we got to the chorus, "Aux armes citoyens! Formez vos battaillons!" Enjoy the video clip of the french national team before one of the world cup games. Speaking of soccer, France was able to secure themselves a spot in the huge Euro 2008 tournment to be played this June in Austria and Switzerland though they'll have to make it out of the round robin phase from a group that includes Italy, the Netherlands and Romania (the top two teams advance to the 8 team knockout tourney). Can't wait!

Great UNC ending

2008-01-07T04:44:00.000-05:00

It's 4:44am and I'm waiting for Sarah to be ready so I can take her to the airport to catch her flight to Montreal. In case you haven't heard, she has an interview for her permanent resident visa (greencard) on Friday, with a medical exam tomorrow up north. She'll be gone for about two weeks and everything is expected to go smoothly. While I wait, check out the highlight from this great win for UNC against Clemson last night! This was the first test of the season and they ended up surviving and staying at #1 in the country. Honestly, I hope they don't end up going undefeated into the tournment in March, that's too much pressure! At the same time, I can't think of which game I would want them to lose. Go tar heels!

Merry Christmas 2007

2007-12-25T22:29:00.000-05:00

I've thought a lot about my faith in Jesus Christ during the last few months and feel so grateful for my belief in Him as a Savior. There's nothing this world needs more right now than peace and goodwill, which is what His message and sacrifice is all about. As this wonderful editorial in the Washington Post outlines, it's hard to imagine how this peace will be achieved amidst all these wars. Even still, I am full of optimism that great things can be accomplished out of small seeds. Nothing has rejuvinated this optimism more than the experience of becoming a father. This beautiful girl growing inside Sarah quite literally grew from our small seeds and will grow to become a beautiful woman. It's true I haven't seen her yet and don't know her personality, but if as her mother's daughter I'm confident she'll be my greatest contribution to the world so far. This is a picture of Sarah and I opening up her very first Christmas gift. For the record, it was a beautiful sweater and hat that my mom crocheted for her. In the background is my step-sister Tiffany and her fiance Fred who will be married in 3 weeks!

Christmas in Mesa

2007-12-24T22:11:00.000-05:00

Didn't I marry the cutest girl? I took this picture of us in front of the Mesa, Arizona temple after attending a session with my Grandparents. This is one of the oldest LDS temples I've been to, and of the really old ones I've seen, this might be the best example of renovations improving the building and temple experience without losing its historic feel. Because I'm kind of a nerd about keeping spreadsheets to track things like running, I have a record of every time I've been to a temple. For example, I know the exact number of endowments I've done, or the number of temples I've attended, and the exact number of times I've been to each. In case you're wondering, I've been to 20 temples with Montreal the most frequented. The rest of the list is: Manhattan, Idaho Falls, Boise, Bolivia, Provo, Washington DC, Boston, Salt Lake, Logan, Bountiful, Mt Timpanagos (UT), Jordan River (UT), Ogden, St. George, Manti, Las Vegas, Raleigh and Edmonton.

Inside the temple visitors center was a beautiful display of nativity scenes created by artists all over the world, including a beautiful collection of french pieces. We loved our private time with Grandma and Grandpa before the rest of the crowd arrived.

Tales from the road

2007-12-23T11:38:00.000-05:00

It's Sunday morning, December 23rd in Mesa, AZ; day 4 of our 17 day journey through Arizona, Utah and Idaho. After going to the UNC basketball game and staying up way too late on Wednesday night, we were up at 4:45am to get to the airport (thanks for the ride dad!). It's great to be with my Bingham grandparents and all the other family that's coming into town. I'm real dissapointed to be sick (I blame everyone in Chapel Hill who was sick last week), though I'm starting to feel better. I've been really looking forward to running in a place that's warm, flat and not humid, so I've decided that I'm going running on Monday regardless of what I feel like.

We really haven't done too much other than hang out with family and eat some wonderful meals, but we'll get some pictures uploaded soon.

HPAA Grad in Congress

2007-12-12T11:00:00.000-05:00

Perhaps you heard about the special election yesterday in the Virginia 1st Congressional district to fill the seat of Rep. Joann Davis (R-VA) who died earlier this year. Robert Wittman (R), a 1 term member of the VA House of Delegates comfortably won with more than 61% of the vote which wasn't really a surprise to anyone. The interesting thing though, is that he has an MPH degree from my department at UNC, Health Policy and Administration (HPAA). He's the only HPAA grad in congress that I know of, and I feel a bit of pride for his accomplishment.

We're having a girl!!

2007-12-09T11:28:00.000-05:00

As Sarah posted on our blog, we had our ultrasound on Thursday and are thrilled to announce we'll be having a baby girl. It was an unbelievable experience to watch my 8 inch daugther move around on the screen, showing us her toes, thumbs, arms and all the other appendages that she seems just as enthralled by. We would of course been just as excited to have a boy, but it's wonderful to finally be able to start referring to our baby as "her" instead of "it." My world feels like it's been completely changed and I didn't know I could be this happy. It's pretty wonderful. I hope you enjoy the following pics, though they are not nearly as great as watching her move in real time.

I love the shot of her little foot! As I look at the other two, I'm reminded of a scene from the West Wing I saw recently. Toby is looking at the ultrasound of his twins when the technician announces, "Mr. Ziegler, here are your babies' heads." To which he reacts with much more emotion than his character usually shows, "My babies have heads!" That's what I felt like saying each time we saw something new, like the four chambers of the heart, the spine, her thumbs, her nose, ears, toes, etc. I've always thought of the creation of life to be a miracle, but now that it's actually happening to me, it seems to be even more than a miracle, though I don't quite know what word to use.

These are some of the 4D pictures of my daughter. They didn't turn out amazingly well since she's still so young (18 weeks). The tech said that if she had been around 24 weeks, we would have been able to see her features really well, but at this point, they all just look like old men.

Mormonism in the Media

2007-12-08T10:21:00.000-05:00

There has been LOTS written about Mormonism in the media lately due to Mitt Romney's presidential aspirations. As a young democrat Mormon who has in the past and expects to work in government/politics in the future, I feel I have a lot at stake in how Romney handles questions about his faith and the stereotypes and frames that get developed as a result. He's not who I will vote for next November, though I think he has done a very good job dealing with these questions and paved the way for aspiring young Mormons like myself. Here are some snapshots of the media coverage.

This is one of my favorite videos in the mainstream media, because it shows that we are truly a worldwide church now, now simply dominated by the Utah culture.

Since he got in the race, many have suggested Romney would eventually have to give a speech about his faith like JFK did in 1960. Once former Baptist Minister and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee passed him in the Iowa polls, the timing was suddenly right for Romney to deliver such a speech.

This is the full video of his speech pulled from the Romney youtube page. All in all I think he did a good job of discussing the role of religion in society without defending the specifics of his faith.

It's too soon to tell if this speech will help Romney's campaign in Iowa, but here is some of the press coverage so far:

The New Republic, where former Clinton speechwriter David Kusnet concludes, "Mitt Romney, you're no Jack Kennedy."

EJ Dionne's Washington Post article, which described the speech as both "brilliant and frustrating," as well as "inspiring, yet also transparently political in its effort to find the precise balance that would satisfy Republican primary voters." I agree with Dionne that one of the weakest parts of the speech was the assertion that freedom requires religion. Does it?

Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson (the one who wrote term "Axis of Evil" but has since criticized the Bush White House) wrote that JFK's speech remains a landmark of American rhetoric, Romney's bold and intellectually serious speech deserves to be read along side it.

Finally, David Brooks column in the NY Times which suggests that while the speech might down as a historic event for Mormons, his reaction is more muted. Even still, he concludes it was not a mistake for Romney to deliver the speech and that he threaded the needle well.

Liverpool vs. Porto

2007-11-30T12:18:00.000-05:00

Liverpool - Porto 2-1
Uploaded by robotdotcom

As much as I love baseball, basketball and hockey, the best annual competition in the world has to be the Champions League in Europe. The top teams of country compete in a large tournment which eventually gets narrowed down to 32, 16 and so forth, until one team lifts the trophy. Last year Milan beat Liverpool, the year before Barcelona beat Arsenal. This week Liverpool had what was essentially a do or die game for them in the group stages against Porto from Portugal. In front of their home crowd at Anfield (their stadium), they won with a dramatic goal by the newly signed Spanish forward Fernando Torres. Now, the fate of their champions league season rests entirely on one game in Marseille in two weeks. They win, they're assured of going to the round of 16. If not, well, they keep their focus on doing well in their English league games so they can play in the Champions League again next year.

Health Care Editorial

2007-11-30T12:14:00.000-05:00

Click here to read a letter to the editor published in today's Daily Tar Heel (the Chapel Hill newspaper) that I helped write. Two classmates and I created this survey, sent it to 3 schools of public health, compiled the results and drafted letters to the editor of the school newspapers for those 3 schools, as well as all the major papers in NC and the Country. The total print circulation of these papers is 10 million! Of course we don't expect to get published in all of them, but in addition to the Daily Tar Heel, we expect to be published in the Greensboro News and Record in the next week. Kind of fun!

Dr. Oberlander in NEJM

2007-11-27T09:55:00.001-05:00

Dr. Jonathan Oberlander, the prof I work for as a research assistant, had another publication in the New England Journal of Medicine this week. Click here to read his profile of the health reform plans being offered by all the different candidates. There's also a link to an interview you can listen to.

England vs. Croatia

2007-11-25T20:08:00.000-05:00

England vs Croatia from F T on Vimeo.

The qualifying round for the Europe 2008 tournment just finished with some very exciting matches. I missed them because I was in NYC, but as always, I got all the highlights on www.footytube.com. The big story was the England-Croatia game. All England had to do was tie this game and they would qualify to play in the huge European tournment in June. But as you'll watch in this game, they gave up two early goals, dramatically came from behind on a Lampard penalty kick and a Peter Crouch goal, only to concede the go ahead goal right at the end. Absolutely tragic! Of course, the coach didn't make it more than 3 days before being fired. As a side note, France did qualify for the tourney, but it was a long tough road.

First heartbeat!

2007-11-20T11:16:00.000-05:00

We had a midwife appt just a couple days after Sarah came back and it was wonderful!! She put this little machine on Sarah's tummy and clear as day we heard "thump, thump, thump" going 140 beats per minute!!! It was incredible, I had a huge grin on my face the whole time and asked Sarah how much it would cost to buy one of those machines (too much apparently). Her tummy is starting to show now, and occassionally she feels movement in her tummy. I couldn't be more excited about this pregnancy and love the time I have spent talking to our child already about everything under the sun, from sports, cartoons, politics, family home evening, etc. We're now at 17 weeks, so we're almost halfway there!

UNC basketball

2007-11-17T11:01:00.000-05:00

My dad recently moved to Chapel Hill, NC where he'll be working on his PhD distertation. We are so happy to have him close by and have already done a lot of fun things. For example, we had a great time at one of the UNC basketball exhbition games. Our apt is literally a 4 minute walk from the Dean Smith Center, or the "Dean Dome" as it's known down here. In case you don't know about UNC basketball, it's practically its own religion. They are consistently among the best teams, and this year is no different. They started the season ranked #1 in the entire country, and still haven't lost a game!

Emotional Goodbye

2007-11-15T10:55:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of our emotional goodbye at the Raleigh-Durham airport on Oct 17th. Sarah ended up being in Canada for more than three weeks, but she came back with a visa! Sorry I don't have a picture of when I picked her up, I didn't let go of her long enough to reach for the camera...

Pres. Sarkozy

2007-11-13T19:53:00.000-05:00

When I heard that he'd be giving this speech, I thought it would be a great thing for my wife to enjoy and so I looked into how we could go. Here's a link to the cspan archives of his speech; you have to scroll until you get to Nov 7. The video quality starts off poor, but be patient. When it turned out she would be stuck in Canada, I decided to find a way to go anyway, so I called my Congressmen and Senators, asking them for information. Nobody had details, so I called a couple newspapers, congressional committees, until finally the office of the House Clerk told me that each Member of Congress would get two tickets, one for themselves, another to give away. My chances got a whole lot slimmer at that point. I called my Congressman (David Price, of the 4th District in NC), and my two Senators (Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr) to ask if I could have their extra ticket. Though I'm Democrat and the Senators are both Republicans, they were incredibly kind to me and did what they could, though with a whole state full of people to give tickets to, I obviously didn't make the cut. However, David Price apparently didn't have anyone else bugging him for the ticket, so on Monday night I got an email from his staff member saying I got the ticket! All of a suddent I had to make plans to leave for DC in a day. I called my Aunt Mere who lives in the Virginia suburbs south of DC and she said I could stay with them.

So the next afternoon, after voting in the Chapel Hill town council elections, I got in the car and drove 4.5 hours to their house. The next morning I rode the train into DC, picked up my ticket in the Rayburn office building, read through the Washington Post in the staff cafeteria, then headed over to the Capital. It took 25 minutes to have a background check before I was let up into the gallery at 10:40. The Senators filtered in around 10:50, and Sarkozy came in around 11:05. It was amazing to be in the House chambers for a Joint Session of Congress, to see the most important people in the nation (other than some notable absences, like Clinton, Obama, Dodd, Biden, McCain, who were all out campaigning). I did see Pelosi, Kerry, Kennedy, Hatch, Sec. Kempthorne, Sec. Chertoff, and tons others.

As for the actual speech, Sarkozy is a powerhouse. My translation thing didn't work, and the sound wasn't turned up very loud, so I had to struggle to hear and understand, but I did alright. He received lots of applause and I thought he did a fantastic job. I'm very curious to hear more about how the French people are responding to his efforts to strengthen the Franco-American relationship.

I spent the afternoon attending a Senate Judiciary Committe, an extremely important and prestigious committee with oversight jurisdiction over the whole federal judicial branch of government. This room, Dirksen 226, is where all the Supreme Court Justices have been confirmed. The actual meeting wasn't that interesting to me, but it was a great way to end my day.

As it turned out, my mom was in DC for a meeting, and was able to get a hotel room with 2 beds for the same price, so I stayed an extra day and hung out with her. It was great to go out to dinner with her and stay up "late" talking, as well as have a nice breakfast with her. Of course, as great as it was to be there and with mom, it was so great to hit the road and drive practically straight to the airport to pick up Sarah, who I hadn't seen in over 3 weeks!!!

Speaker Pelosi at Meredith College

2007-11-12T23:33:00.000-05:00

I got to hear Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi speak at Meredith College in Raleigh recently. I read about it online, found it was free, and arranged to meet some friends there. It was an all girls college, so you can imagine it being a pretty uplifting and inspiring experience for the students. She spoke a bit about breaking the "marble ceiling," as well as about the direction of the country. It was a fun experience to see the first woman Speaker of the House, but little did I know I'd see her again in just 5 days!

Sarah's Back!

2007-11-11T19:25:00.000-05:00

I can't tell you how great it is to have Sarah back! She had her interview on Oct 19th. Although it went well, they didn't really give her many details about when she'd get the actual paperwork allowing her to cross back into the States. They never actually said the words, "you're approved," so I wouldn't be totally relieved until she was physically walking off the plane in North Carolina. The visa ended up arriving on Wed Oct 31st around 10am. Sarah wrote me immediately, so I got the good news on my laptop during class and obviously didn't focus much on the lecture. We had already purchased a flight for her to come back (thinking it would be cheaper to move a flight, rather than purchase a new one), and since it was scheduled for only week after on the 8th, we decided to save the couple hundred bucks and not change the ticket. As planned, she landed in the Raleigh Durham Airport around 7:20pm on the 8th and life has been so much better since!

Immigration Situation

2007-10-18T11:46:00.000-04:00

Pray for Sarah on Friday! We received word on Wednesday night that she had been invited for a visa interview in Montreal this Friday. She was planning on going back to Canada next week, so it's not a huge deal that this letter came this week, in fact it's pretty good timing. Except they only gave us 2 days notice!!! Can you believe it? We have had an unbelievable adventure with the immigration process over the last 18 months (regardless of the outcome on Friday, the adventure is far from over), but this is the most unbelievable thing so far. The letter was actually dated and mailed on Friday the 12th, arriving in Gatineau on Tue the 16th. We got word of the appointment around 6pm, went to a previously scheduled dinner at a friend's house in which I studied with a couple friends for Wednesday morning's exam.

By 8pm we had switched Sarah's flight information so she would be leaving the next day and cancelled our hotel reservation in Wilmington for Thu night (we were going to spend Friday at the beach). A friend came over around 9:45 and we gave Sarah a blessing that her body and mind would be at ease and that she'd make it through this stressful experience well, having learned a lot and ending up grateful for it.

I started going through all our application information, going through the pre-interview instructions, scanning dozens of pages of stuff into my computer for our records, double checking everything. Of course I found a couple mistakes, and had to update a couple forms. I needed to start from scratch on another form relating to my financial situation, and since I wasn't going to be there in person I had to have it notarized. Since Sarah was leaving before any notary opened, and it was too late to get to one, I would have to UPS it to her Wednesday morning to arrive on Thursday for her interview on Friday. In other words, if the mail had been one day slower, we wouldn't have been able to get this document done correctly!

Sarah did a couple loads of laundry, I ran out to the bank (the interview fee is $100 in US cash) and drove around to make sure I could find the UPS store and the notary in the morning, as well as filling up the car with gas. By the time we finished all that and went to bed it was 3:30am. Sarah woke up around 6:15, I woke up at 6:45. We left for the airport at 7:25, and I said my goodbye as she went through security around 8am. It's hard to explain why I felt so emotional, I feel confident everything will go well, but I cried while driving back to Chapel Hill.

I drove straight to the UPS store where they notarized the document and sent it on its way. I got home, changed shirts (no time for a shower), barely caught the bus and made it to school on time for my exam. It went ok, though I'm glad it's only worth 10% of that grade and that I'm generally doing well in that class. I had two other classes that day which were very relaxed because it's the start of my 4 day weekend fall break.

Sarah had a pretty insane day of flying. Most flights would have cost almost $700, though she found a way to go for $350 by making two stops. It meant that she would fly south to Orlando, Florida, then up to Newark, NJ before arriving in Montreal at 6:37pm. Well, our motto is that if something can happen, it will, so of course there was a lot of fog in Newark and they closed the airport for a bit. She was able to find a way through Cleveland, which worked out fine, except she didn't end up landing until 9:15pm, 13 hours after I had said goodbye to her. Have I mentioned that she's pregnant and has been throwing up at least once a day? Thankfully, she didn't throw up once all day! Unfortunatley however, she has already thrown up today's (thursday's) breakfast. Hopefully she'll feel well during the actual interview tomorrow. The other good news is that the UPS I sent her arrived this morning despite mechanical problems with the plane in Kentucky, and that the parcel Yohann sent (the original interview appointment letter) arrived in Montreal safely as well.

As far as we can tell we've done everything we are supposed to do and she should be approved to receive this visa. Of course, this is just a K3 visa, meaning she can work or study yet, but she can live in the States legally while she wait for her greencard application to be approved. She's nervous but will surely do well. Like I said, please pray for her.