I admit it. I was an early PowerPoint Ph.D. in my career, at one point thinking primarily through PowerPoint. There has been a big backlash in the last few years as the application has become ubiquitous in corporate meetings.

Here is a good example of the data contraction ills of PowerPoint vs the elegance and power of talking. The first is an eleven slide pitch prepared by Peter Abilla and discussed on schmula.

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Well done, sir. On a side note, if you’ve never looked at the work of Edward Tufte, you’re really missing out on something. He’s one of the world’s leaders in visual presentation of information. I’ve had his book, “Visual Display of Quantitative Data,” for several years. Amazon.com named it one of the best 100 books of the 20th Century, which is a pretty nice endorsement (btw, I couldn’t find such a list via Google…).

And with that, I signed up for his course in the ATL on Tuesday. I didn’t realize he was in town, so I’m pretty excited to do this. I miss formal education from my days in Corporate America. Trip report to follow. You can find a podcast from NPR with Tufte here.

Duet
Originally uploaded by csquard

Our middle son is in 4th grade and chose the cello when looking to pick an instrument for orchestra (our eldest plays the viola). The viola rarely gets cracked open at night, which we’re OK with. Our eldest enjoys playing but isn’t really into it, so we’re not going to try and turn him into a wunderkind.

The cello is another matter. He’s been into it since he got it and requested lessons from a musician at our church. She also teaches music class to our youngest at the church. I had the opportunity to take him once when my wife was out of town. It was me and eight stay-at-home mom’s with their two and three year-olds lounging on the floor, clapping and dancing around. Maybe in some cities, it’s called Group Therapy.

Anyways, he’s working on a solo for the recital coming in the spring sometime, and he’s doing just great. He wants to take his cello to the mountains this weekend for some reason, so I’m sure we’ll dutifully stuff it into the minivan.

My favorite cello music has to be Bach’s Cello Suite, which may be familiar to you from Yo-Yo Ma’s performance in “Master and Commander,” the Russell Crowe movie.

He puts so much into his music. I listen to this on iTunes all the time.

Mstislav Rostropovich, a Russian cellist, plays the same piece in 1991.

As I wandered on YouTube, I discovered an incredible gem. Again, hopefully old news to some of you, but I found an arrangement from the late Michael Hedges at the end of a concert he did in the summer of 1987.

He was a revolutionary acoustic guitarist, laying the groundwork for the likes of today’s Kaki King among others. (btw, Kaki will be playing at The Tractor Tavern tonight at 9:00PM in Seattle, just in case anyone can get the nanny to watch the kids tonight…) On a side note, I found out The Wife is eligible for quadruple reward points from DSW Shoes as their only customer to buy 100 pairs of shoes in 2007.

I’m planning to download some of his music later today. The instrument he’s playing is referred to as the harp guitar in the YouTube, which I’ve never heard of but was pretty neat. This was at the end of a concert in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It will blow you away…

Janet Jackson pulled out of last week’s SNL, so Mariah Carey stepped in with a new song. It has Jack McBrayer from 30 Rock as a Geek Squad-type guy making a house call. The song is titled, “Touch My Body,” and I’m not exactly sure what some of the lyrics mean:

“Touch my body
Put me on the floor
Wrestle me around
Play wit me some more
Touch my body
Throw me on the bed
I just wanna make you feel like you never did
Touch my body
Let me wrap my thighs
All around your waist
Just a little taste
Touch my body
Know you like my curves
C’mon and give me what I deserve
And touch my body”

OK, more Mariah

“We Belong Together” (live)

“I Still Believe” and “Hero” in Korea, I think (1999, live). “How do you say hello in Korean?” An nyoung ha se yo, I believe Mariah!

Dreadful questions for Bill Murray during a round at St. Andrews (aired on CBS News with Katie Couric a year ago). How he didn’t bash in the skull of this guy is beyond me…

We were in church Sunday. During the sermon, the pastor referenced the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition (I can’t exactly remember the point of what he was saying actually). I subscribe to SI but don’t read it too much anymore (should anyone subscribe to any magazine?). I had assumed that SI had discontinued their swimsuit edition after I hadn’t received it the last two or three years.

Then I turned to my wife, who gave me the most evil, sheepish grin you could ever get from your wife. My SI edition, a rite of passage I’d hoped my boys would stumble upon laying around the house, had ended up in the recycle bin the last two years.

At least we have the internets…

I was an early adopter when it came to March Madness, furiously scribbling the names of the teams on single pieces of paper (no brackets pre-printed back then). I loved it, loved college hoops, loved it. This was before they killed NCAA basketball by sending high school and freshman rooks into the NBA. Before, I could get behind some random team for several seasons (e.g., Georgetown). Now, I’d be hard pressed to give you the names a dozen players in this year’s tourney.

So with that as a qualifier, here are my picks (Sweet Sixteen in bold to save on space…)

Round 1:

UNC
Indiana
Notre Dame
Winthrop
St. Joseph’s
Louisville
Butler
Tennessee

Kansas
UNLV
Villanova
Vanderbilt
Kansas St.
Wisconsin
Gonzaga
Georgetown

Memphis
Mississippi State
Temple
Oral Roberts
Marquette
Stanford
Miami
Texas

UCLA
Texas A&M
Western Kentucky
UConn
Baylor
Xavier
West Virginia
Duke

Sweet Sixteen winners
Indiana
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Georgetown
Memphis
Texas
UConn
West Virginia

Final Four
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Memphis
UConn

National Title Game
Memphis over Vandy

The logic of this? Well, everyone has christened UCLA and North Carolina as some incredible teams, and I just think with so much parity that we won’t see that. The SEC is way down this year, which means half the Final Four will be from the SEC. Three teams from the state of Tennessee, with UConn thrown in (I have no idea why).

Virtually no one is picking Memphis, with most pundits naming them as the first #1 seed to head out. SI had a great article on their offense a few weeks ago, adopted from a high school coach in California somewhere. Incredibly athletic and fearless, playing a free-flowing game that no one has been able to stop this season.

I’ve also gotten rid of some of the darling picks (Pitt, Davidson, Drake). I also like getting both Hansbrough brothers out in the 2nd round. The Hoosiers have come through alot this season, and UVa showed them that the Tar Heels are hardly immortals. I don’t like Stanford winning two games, and there are definitely some stretches on my board (Indiana, Vandy, West Virginia). Whatever.

There you go. btw, I just bought ITT stock today, so you can take that to the bank as well!

When I look at the site statistics, I sometimes stumble upon some real gems. Ornate Push from TanOrpheus has a terrific post-mortem complete with hand videos from a $3 re-buy on Stars. Maybe everyone knows about this site or this person, but I think it is one of the best analysis of tourney play I’ve seen, especially the betting size discussion. You’ll be glad you went there.

Raindrops on Step
Originally uploaded by csquard

I’ve had my space heater on all day drying my toes and Birks while my head has remained damp.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. President George W. Bush had this to say today: “Five years into this battle, there is an understandable debate over whether the war was worth fighting, whether the fight is worth winning, and whether we can win it. The answers are clear to me: Removing Saddam Hussein from power was the right decision — and this is a fight America can and must win.”

I won’t use this day to comment on our President, the decision to invade, and the aftermath. There have been too many men and women who have died or been physically and mentally harmed to use this as a time to get on a soapbox and answer President Bush’s questions.

My summary: we won the war, we didn’t understand that we’d invaded a sovereign nation, we’ve not won the occupation, and the next decade for Iraq, the Middle East, and the US won’t be simple or straightforward for anyone involved. That starts with us.

I’d like to ask everyone to take a couple minutes this afternoon and evening just to think about those we know and the nameless, faceless kids from our high school and neighborhoods growing up who would now be in Iraq if this had happened in 1979-1984. Or 1988-1993. Or 1995-2000.

So Shannon Elizabeth is better looking than Fuel or me, she’s got more cash than either of us (I hope), and she’s arguably a better poker player than either of us:

Shannon Elizabeth: four WSOP cashes for $10k, $125k for 3rd place in NBC HU Championship
Fuel: zero WSOP cashes, some forgotten cash in kanuck dollars
CC: zero WSOP cashes, $400 or so once at Commerce

Now, it looks like she’s a better dancer than either of us (although surely there is a video in the works to challenge her…)

(thanks to Wicked Chops for the heads-upa)

I pulled over last night on the way to a soccer game to grab this shot from the sky.