Happy birthday to mom!

We here at Lynne and Matt Blog Inc., Ltd., would like to wish our No. 1, most devoted reader a very, very happy birthday!

Mom - Thanks for always being there for us; thanks for always listening to us; thanks for always being excited for us; thanks for always encouraging us; thanks for telling Matt that he should do summer running before his freshman year of high school. You were right!
There are so many fun things happening and we're glad we get to share them with you!
Love,
Lynne and Matt

p.s. Oh yeah, and thanks for letting Matt wear a cool hat, even when he was little.

Book review- His Excellency: George Washington

Matt thought he’d offer up some modest reviews of the books he’s reading, in case anyone is interested in some recommendations or warnings. Plus, it’s always nice to have a post-book discussion, right Oprah?
First up: His Excellency: George Washington, by Joseph J. Ellis, 275 pages.

Sometime during the last election, I set a life goal to read a book about every president. I had just finished reading Barack Obama’s Socialist Manifesto, Dreams From My Father, and realized that reading a book on each president’s would give me an interesting look at U.S. history. (A bit of personality-driven, I realize, but fun.)
I don’t remember picking His Excellency: George Washington for any particular reason – maybe I read a review in a newspaper or something. But whatever lead me to it, I found the right book.
Like Lincoln , Washington has become more symbol than human being. His life is so epic that it’s sometimes hard to believe he walked on solid Earth. The book works to chip away at that feeling. Washington is shown as person who had faults (including a nasty temper and a cheap streak) and amazing vision - he was a man who consciously shaped his times.
The book is agonizingly sparse in two areas I desperately wanted to know more about: Why did Washington break away from the British Army, where he was a decorated and respected soldier, to join up with the American revolutionaries? And, second, what were his thoughts during the Constitutional Convention, as the very foundations of this nation’s political and judicial systems were being negotiated?
I’m not going to hold those as strikes against His Excellency. In fact, the premise of the book is that you can only go so far into Washington ’s psyche because he prided himself on his reserve. He was not Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson and we’re all probably better off for it. Washington knew his place in history, even at the time, and he went so far as to ask that his letters to Martha Washington be burned and other personal correspondence be destroyed.
So, the great insights we get into John Adams’ tumultuous feelings about America ’s beginnings (used for David McCullough’s biography) are muted in here. I suppose there’s just an upper limit to how much we’ll ever know about Washington ’s feelings on issues that were both personal and historic. And that probably says something about the guy.
Anyhow, the book is a fast read (that’s a compliment) with crisp writing that covers Washington’s days fighting the Indians for the British up to his last days in Mount Vernon. As the author notes, the book is not meant to be an exhaustive scholarly history of Washington – other books do that – but rather a readable, biography of a fascinating person. The book accomplishes that goal. It touches on the “fun” parts of Washington (the cherry tree, the silver dollar), but gives its real weight to the wash of U.S. history that was happening around, and because of, the man.
I thought the best part of the book was the chapters on the Revolutionary War, probably because that was Washington ’s finest hour. He was leader and soldier. Truly, the world would never be the same.
My only other criticism is that I think the book went out of its way to finesse Washington ’s position on slavery. But overall, I highly recommend this one.
So, for me it’s two presidents down and 41 to go. (I don’t think I’ll read about Grover Cleveland twice.) William Henry Harrison may only be a pamphlet. I’m not sure if I should continue on in order or jump all over. What do you think?
And after I read 5,001 Things to Know About Rutherford B. Hayes Before You Die, Luke says he’ll learn me how to throw a curveball.
One last note: I never realized that Washington had no children of his own with Martha, who was a widower. Father of our country, indeed.

Good book for: People who want to learn more about Washington the man, not Washington the furniture. History fans.
Avoid this book if: You’re not interested in George Washington. You’re looking for an in-depth scholarly evaluation of President No. 1.

The Marathon Men

Well, after years of running onto the field and trying to steal the football during the game, Matt finally made the big screen at Memorial Stadium for the right reasons. He ran a marathon under four hours. Sort of.

Matt has run the Chicago Marathon seven times. The first year, he ran 3:46. The second year, he ran 3:59. Since, then he never got close to breaking four hours. Three years ago - the last time he ran Chicago - he ran 4:10. Way in the back of his head, Matt thought maybe one day he'd be able to break four hours again. Finally, Matt figured out how. Run it as a relay.

Matt, Eric (The Big M) and Bruce ran the first Illinois Marathon and did pretty darn well. As a relay, they ran 3:45, which is 45 minutes faster than they thought they could run. And it's a little more impressive considering they only have three friends. See, the relay was supposed to be a four-man relay. But no one can stand to be around these guys.

Instead, Eric ran the first leg, Matt the second, Bruce the third, and then all three ran the last leg. (Team The EngEconJournIBs was 48th of 189 relays.) The race was pretty cool, especially if you went to Illinois. It ran through downtown Champaign, right down the center of Green Street and finished on the 50-yard line at Memorial Stadium - hence the picture on the scoreboard. (look closely)

Matt was happy with his run.

He ran his 6.9 mile leg in about 50 minutes, which utterly surprised him.

Of course, he could barely walk the next day and Lynne had to carry his jellybeans to him.

Now here's the challenge: Matt is making a "31" in the picture shown above.

Can you figure out why? Because Matt can't remember what that is supposed to signify. But he sure looks super cool.

Smell you later, The Facebook

So, Matt quit The Facebook like a month or two ago. No one noticed, which is not all that surprising because Matt was a very inactive Facebooker. But then, people seemed to suddenly realize he was gone this last week and were wondering why. Their reaction seemed to indicate The Facebook quitting behavior was the equivalent of mild insanity.
So, if you actually dare, or actually care, below are his reasons. And, remember, this is a man who once ranted for five years about the value cards at grocery stores. You see how far that got him. Matt's only posting this so no one thinks they were de-friended, and because people were asking.



There are several reasons Matt quit The Facebook, but let's start with the things he liked: Matt liked seeing photos of friends, their kids, their activities and other things he wouldn't normally get a chance to see. He also liked checking in with a few old friends.
And...that's about it.
So, one of the problems was that Matt didn’t really get a lot out of The Facebook.

On to the dislikes:
- Matt didn’t like that he couldn’t control what was being posted on his page. Of course, the interconnectivity is the selling point for most people, but it annoyed Matt. People that Matt worked with would come up and say, “Hey I saw that stupid hat you wore on Christmas.” And Matt didn’t even know it had been posted. But there it was. Matt could not control what came out, when. That's why all the comments on the blog are moderated. Matt is a content dictator.

- Second reason. Matt had trouble with work sources friending me. Potentially, that could lead to good stories. (One of the mayoral candidates had a facebook page for her campaign.) But what if Matt friends one source and not another? Or unfriends a source? Matt could have denied all requests, but even that got tricky. Just the possibility of answering a question about The Facebook with a source was so beyond stupid Matt didn’t want to deal with it.

- Third: Poking. That is stupid. It's just playing to our most base qualities in life. Boo poking.

- Four. Many, many will debate this but Matt does a fair job of keeping in touch with people. He calls them, arranges visits or emails every once in a great while. But some of the people friending Matt were clearly just collecting friends because Matt had never even heard of them.

- Fifth. The Facebook has a lot of applications and games that are addictive time wasters. Matt's not claiming they weren’t fun or interesting, but he’d rather waste his time reading a book, watching a movie, writing letters to Jimmy Carter, building the perfect Fantasy Baseball team or running.

- Finally, Matt started to get uncomfortable after reading about The Facebook’s policy on owning the information on the personal pages. The thought they could sell that information or use it in an advertising campaign really made Matt sick to my stomach. And don't believe all the hype that The Facebook is the same as Google, where the corporate motto is "Don't be evil." The Facebook can get sold. And The Facebook CEO would like to own a jet. Don't be fooled by these new companies: they want to make money, as much as possible. They only have your interests at heart as much as it keeps them profitable. The blog probably has some of the same possibilities, but Matt takes the chance here because he can control content.

So, there you go. The Facebook is no more and it was not killed by my parent's friends. It was killed by the very mechanism that make it so popular. How ironic. Now, about those FreshValue cards...

Happy opening day!

Remind me again: why don't they play all the games for the first two weeks on the West Coast and in Texas?

Well, whatever; Go Mets!

Did you remember to get milk at the miscellaneous food store?

So, Matt got a call Monday afternoon from a number he didn't recognize. Thinking it was the washer and dryer delivery people (hooray for clean clothes!), Matt answered.

It was MasterCard. They - or at least a computer voice - said they had picked up a suspicious charge on Matt's account. The charge was for $1.68.

Matt verified that he still had his credit card and that he had not charged $1.68. Then they started to ask for all this information and Matt freaked out, told the guy he'd have to hang up and call back. Paranoid much?

Matt appreciated that MasterCard caught the charge, and they caught it fast. The charge was made at just after noon and they called by 3 p.m. on a charge of less than $2. That's pretty impressive. OK, very impressive.

Anyhow, after talking to the credit card people Matt got his card canceled and got a new one, etc., etc., etc. But Matt wanted to know: who made this fraudulent and miniscule charge?
The credit card company said the charge only showed "miscellaneous food store" in Chicago, Illinois. No phone number, no company name, no street address. (Which is probably why it got flagged.)

But Matt wanted to know more. Mainly, he wanted to know if he had gone to the wrong internet site or the wrong store. But the credit card company couldn't help, which was a bit frustrating. How can Matt avoid this in the future, if he doesn't know what went wrong in the first place?

Sorry, no can do, MasterCard said.

So, instead, Matt consoled himself with thoughts of random people at the Miscellaneous Grocery Store and Emporium. It probably wouldn't take too long to shop at MGS&E. You would just head straight to the check out counter. They would hand you a bag of miscellaneous groceries. Then you'd get home and find out what's for dinner.

"Hey honey, we're having pancakes, lime ice cream and a Seventeen Magazine tonight!"

Big news

We have breaking news: Lynne was recently attacked by a large, wicker ant.

Fortunately, Lynne was able to defend herself. She defeated the ant using a combination of karate, peanut butter and fiscal responsibility.

The Ant could not be reached for comment.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.