Urban Onramps

Right on - that was Bush speaking today to the NAACP. The text of his speech is here: President Bush addresses annual NAACP convention. Here’s Condi in the front row:

Mike Potemra made the above comment, in context of Pope Benedict XVI’s call to pray for the terrorists.

So I’m back in the States and doing grant-writing for Harambee. In going through old files, I saw that there’s a bunch of foundations that gave us money in the past 10-15 years that we never went back to - I’m not sure how that happened. But those foundations are back on the list, yes!

Here’s a brief round-up for stuff on the net:

• States stepping up to tackle immigration laws: It’s gonna get rough out there
• A New Alliance of Democrats Spreads Funding: It looks like they read this report:

Stanford Social Innovation Review: War of Ideas: Why mainstream and liberal foundations and the think tanks they support are losing in the war of ideas in American politics

• Interesting: Airline Makes Panama a Hub of Latin American Air Travel
• A week old: Surprising jump in tax revenues is curbing deficit
• Top 50 California Foundations in Total Giving: In case you were wondering
• Bonus pic: Micah on the table:

…just had a gun held to her head by a police officer. She and a bunch of other teens had to get off a bus, get face down on the pavement, and get a gun pointed at them. We are calling in to the police department to find out what happened. I would despise it if that happened to my Sam Sam. THEN I heard that the corner store that my house is adjacent to CAUGHT FIRE FOR A THIRD TIME last night. At 2am to boot, just like the first time. Very suspicious. Plus someone said it hit 110 degrees the other day. On the bright side, I just talked with my friend Derek about nothing in particular. We reminded ourselves that our ship is coming in, except when it isn’t.

UPDATE: We talked to the police. It looks like they will come to Harambee on Thursday night to speak to our teenagers. They will explain their procedures in such situations, and may even bring a copy of the 911 call they received and to which they responded. That’s a good step on their part.

Bono was telling the truth in that song, cuz it’s hotter than a mo’fo, i mean, uh, it’s hot hot, real hot, so hot it doesn’t even matter any more. I just don’t care. I left the fan on me all night as I slept, and I never do that. New Yorkers are tough. And for whatever it’s worth, you know that new show in USA called “Psych“? I’ve never seen it, but I like the adverts. Well, I went to iTunes Music Store and looked for it. Turns out the pilot is free for the download, so I’m, uh, downloading it. It’s about a guy who fakes like he has psychic powers to solve crimes, somehow he’s successful, so he has to continue to facade of being a psychic.

APPLE STORE: I think I’m about seven blocks from that crazy new Fifth Avenue Apple Store… Yes, I’m in a Starbucks in mid-town, what did you expect?

Or at the top of the boat, at least - we just got back, and we had a great, great time. I created a slideshow in iPhoto, exported it as a Quicktime movie, then shrunk the movie to iPod size. It’s still 35 megs. If you’d like to download it and view it, click this. But don’t feel obligated. I rarely download stuff that people/friends say, “you just gotta download!” and I don’t often look at people’s photos or videos or listen to their songs or podcasts - but why am I saying all this? You are grown. Decide for yourself. It’s a good overview of our trip, tho, save for the first two days worth of photos, which mysteriously disappeared after Sam was messing with the camera.

Sam loved the waterslide. He was never ever scared. Amazing. Maybe it was because there were so many other little kids on the slide, I dunno. But he loved it. He misses it. He said that he wants to go on the water slide again. But then I opened his eyes: “You know, Sam, they have a place like Disneyland only it’s full of water slides. It’s called Raging Waters….”

To John Teter and other such-like F.O.R.s (friends of rudy):

So I just got approved for Premier Executive on United Airlines. That’s the second highest level of frequent flyer hoo-haw you can get. Double mileage bonus, priority on upgrade and standbys, etc. The way I did it was through the elite status match system. I already had American Airlines AAdvantage Platinum status. I called up United’s Mileage Plus 800 number and asked them to match my elite status. They told me to fax a letter, a photocopy of my Platinum card, and a copy of my latest statement to their office, and they would let me know in five days. I don’t have a latest statment, since I get it online, so I printed that off and sent it. And they matched. The deal is that they want to steal (excuse me, “win over”) frequent travelers to their airline, so they do this sort of thing. One great thing is that my status on United is good through February 2008, since I requested the deal after July 1 (after the midway point of the year). So now I’m going to try the same thing for Delta Airlines. For a few years I’ve stuck with American Airlines, especially because fares haven’t differed much between major airlines, plus there are benefits to focusing your business on one airline. What I like more than upgrades is priority standby - if there are six people ahead of me trying to get on an early flight home from Chicago (say), and then I show up, I immediately get put to the top of the list because of status. I get on the plane (almost always) and get home earlier to my family. But in terms of sticking with airlines, I’ve noticed something different lately. The rise in fuel prices has made for some weird variances in fares. Coming out here to New York, I could only find $600 round trips (I booked late; but in the past, booking late was not a problem). Every other airline had a similar price - except United. United’s fare was $315 round trip. So I went with them. And when I traveled to Michigan recently, I also saw that United had an oddly lower fare (maybe that’s what bankruptcy protection does for you, gives you some space to hammer your competitors with low prices). So now I’m thinking that I may fly other airlines a bit more, since I expect this sort of situation to continue. Hence my interest in United’s status match, and Delta’s. NOW, here’s the kicker. I don’t fly 50,000 miles a year, which is what you need to do to be a Platinum/Premier Executive. I’ve flown over 25,000 a year for the past few years (which is Gold in American, Premier on United). But at FlyerTalk’s web site I learned about the Platinum Challenge. This challenge is unpublished in American’s literature, but basically if you fly a lot in a 90 day period and earn 10,000 points, then you have “proved” your “Platinum-ness” and they give you status. Trip out. When I learned about the challenge last year, I looked at my travel itinerary and saw that I would fly 10,000 miles plus in a 90 day period, but I had to make sure my fare codes were accurate (now I’m in super airline geek territory, talking about fare codes) cuz points are very different from miles. Anyway, long story short, that’s how I got to Platinum, and now Premier Executive, etc. A word to the wise.