Tribute to Billy Jean King by Bill Clinton tonight

Text of tribute to Billy Jean King by President Bill Clinton at the BNP Paribas tennis event tonight at Madison Square Garden and on HBO.

Ladies and Gentleman, when I watch the video on Billy Jean a few moments ago, I realized that I am one of the relatively few people in this audience old enough to remember what it was like when she beat Bobby Riggs the first time.

For young people here it's almost unimaginable that well into my late 20's and earlly 30's there were millions of young women all across American who couldn't play sports or pursue dreams that were thought to be the private providence of boys.

There are now thousands of women competitors at the very top of their sports, not just tennis but others, all across the world, who once couldn't even play. That was before Billy Jean King.

And now I can say that she's done alot not only to help women pursue their tennis dreams but other dreams, well beyond athletics. She has probably done more than any woman in the world to empower women and to educate men.

Even though it was 36 years ago, I still remmber Bobby Riggs standing there and I felt bad for poor old Bobby having to be the stand-in for all of us adults who just didn't get it until she won.

And since then she's helped to educate us all by empowering members of the GLBT community. And that time she didn't even have to beat anybody. She just had to be herself. Who she was.

Billy Jean, I think you know the person in my family who would like most to be her paying tribute to you tonight, is in the Middle East trying to make peace. But she wanted me to tell you how much you mean to her. How you tried to help her put those 18 million cracks in the last glass ceiling. And how grateful she is to you.

Let me just say one thing in closing that I want you all to think about. We have a new president and a gifted team. And they're trying to get our nation and the world on the right track, toward peace and prosperity. In the mean while there are people all over American and all over the world who are feeling at sea tonight. Successful men and women in New York who worked hard and have good educadtions who've now lost their jobs. Older people who have lost their retirement. And all over the world people on the margins of society, especially working mothers and their little children, who don't know where it's all going.

I'd like to say for them tonight, they should think about Billy Jean King. They should think about being who you are. Doing it as best you can. And never giving in. And realizing that to me, she proved once again that the beauty, the dignity, the meaning of life is available to anyone with enough heart to make the journey. So tonight, for all of you who are a little down and a little worried, remember, if you have the heart of a champion, if you have the heart of Billy Jean King, you can belong, you can prevail. Thank you my friend and God bless you.
---

UI News Service photos

> Here is a collection of photos by the University of Iowa News
> Service that includes some stunning campus flood pictures.
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/uinews

View from Paris Las Vegas

Trying the email-to-blog with attachment from GMail as Yahoo doesn't
seem to be working.

View

My iPhone has some problems completing the email send with a photo attached, when connected only to the AT&T Edge network. It reports to me that message delivery fails, but then proceeds to try a half-dozen or more times. Hence the mess you see below. Hopefully that won't be too hard to clean-up via the uPhone ( my only device while traveling). This is the view out our Harrah's Paeis Las Vegas room. The glass could use a good cleaning, but the view of the tower & Bellagio fountains was spectacular.

Fwd: In Taos

Well, we made it to Taos. It wasn't quite as long a drive as we'd thought, but there were a couple of delays/distractions.

First was a road construction delay just 15 minutes into our drive out of Durango today. That lasted 50 minutes.

Then we saw a motorcycle accident scene about 45 minutes from Taos. Nothing gory, but the cyclist was still on the ground just off one of those tight turns high up in the mountains. The first law enforcement car was on the scene and just about to stop traffic as we went by for the hospital-helicopter overhead to land. It looked like the Harley driver, a heavier, older gent, may just have lost control in the corner, maybe coming into it too fast. Sobering.

As we neared Taos the Earthpark, semi-buried homes in the desert sagebrush, piqued our attention. I Goodled it and found they are open for tours and available for rental. No thanks.

The other big surprise for our acrophobic driver behind the wheel as we neared wholistic Taos was the Rio Grande river suspension bridge: 658 feet high, and the 2nd tallest in the U.S. Yikes!

LOTS of neat shops to explore. Did I mention how much teens & tweens just love shopping, with their parents!? Ha!

Two nights here, then onto Albrquerque..

Fly or drive?

Whoops!

I tried to send a blog update via my iPhone and the text didn't make it.

I thought it was ironic, Doot, that you're planning a visit to Albuquerque this summer.  We've pretty much settled on a southwest USA family vacation this summer.

The big dilemma was whether to fly or drive.  I calculated ~61 hours of driving time round trip, versus 7 hours flying time and maybe ~20 hours time driving a rental car.

I'm really excited about recreating the Griswold's Wallyworld odyssey.  Highlights surely will be the Grand Canyon, national parks in Utah, visiting the wife's sister & family, and VEGAS baby!

Your answer to question #18 (vacation) prompted me to write.

Another season

With the official start of the holiday gift-giving season just a few days ahead (the big day after Thanksgiving kick-off), I pause, ever so briefly, and find myself all too ready to submit to go with it yet again this year.

Looking at my Amazon.com wish list for the first time in a while, recently, I see that it is neglected and stale, with stuff put there almost a year ago that, yeah, it might be nice to have, but what was I thinking?

In the past I'd often use my Amazon.com wish list just to track, say, books that I might like to read sometime but not necessarily own.  It seems a more responsible way than actually buying the book as a commitment to read it sometime in the future (as I used to do in college).

Anywho (whenever I use that word, it never seems the same as Tea Leoni in The Family Man), the wishlist also tracks some big-ticket items that are truly more wished-for items than something I'd actually expect to get or purchase near-term.  Say, oh, something like a big screen TV, (or this one, if you're feeling lavishly charitable; don't care which, surprise me!) or a ('nother) really nice lens for my camera (or a new camera, yeah...).

But this year a new item is going on the list (follow-me down the consumerist rabbit hole, kay?): an in-car satellite television receiver & antenna.  It lets backseat passengers watch live TV as you're moving down the road.  Similar to what RV's have had available, but instead of a large R2D2 antenna on top, in-car uses phased-array technology to scale down the antenna to the size of a large, flat, pizza-box, mounted on your van or SUV roof rack.

These things are just now getting some main-stream media attention.  You may have seen them in the Chrysler/Jeep ads (the Sirius Backseat TV).  DirectTV also has their KVH models, and a Google search (Love that Google!) reveals that our residential satellite provider, DishNetwork, supposedly showed their MobileDish product at the January '07 Consumer Electronics Show, and supposedly officially announced it in a May Echostar (Dish parent) press release.

Funny, the press release says to call DishNetwork's toll-free number for more information, so I did.  Maybe it was because it was the weekend, or maybe because the product isn't ready yet (no mention at all on dishnetwork.com), the call center person knew nothing about it.

(Not only that, but I was told I had to go through a local installer.  Ok, give me a phone number of one near me.  Alas, nothing nearby.  Try another city?  Ok, how about Chicago?  Sorry, no installers near-by that city either.  C'mon, you cannot be serious (Sirius?)).

Finally I was told try Radio Shack.  So I checked their web storefront, no mention of MobileDish there either, but just to be sure I also called their toll-free sales line, but struck out again.

It was at this point my SO suggested that I was more consumed by the fact that it was something that was officially launched in May and, one would expect, should be available by now.  It's precisely because it isn't available that adds to the attraction, or pursuit of it, for me.

Maybe so.  But it'd still be cool to have for that up-coming road trip.  And supposedly you get your local channels, too.  Maybe I should cool my jets and just wait.  If it isn't ready there must be a reason.

And, as with the iPhone, perhaps the 2nd generation will have desirable features, like DVR capabilities.  And with volume shipments (expected to sell 386,000 units by 2011, said one of the manufacturer reps in an on-line video interview & demonstration), the price should come down.

I should add that we are otherwise EXTREMELY happy DishNetwork customers.  Not just because they've carried TheTennisChannel, but for the reliability of the home DVR's, the price (at least compared to cable).  We tend to stick with what's worked for us (coming up on eight years for Dish, been with Sprint cellular since '94, American Express since '86...).

The other stocking stuffer idea I had was an iPod adapter for our minivan.  Of course ours doesn't have the auxiliary audio-in for MP3 players, like so many new vehicles seem to have now.  But an add-on kits are available, and much cheaper than the mobile-sats.

For now, though, I'm going to keep the list to a minimum and focus on the holiday before us, and reflect on how especially thankful I am to be healthy and able to resume my tennis regimen after my hiatus from a back injury earlier this year.  And thankful that I found a  local coffee shop offering 100% Kona coffee brew (and that they opened a new shop near my office).  And so much more.

Grandpa got another computer

Maybe I'll just post every time my dear old Dad gets a new computer.  I ought to be able to keep up that frequency.

I have to admit to a bit of performance anxiety, not being able to keep up blog posting with the same frequency as dear, younger Sis.  How she does it I don't know, but I am encouraged by her entertaining and often inspiring (on many levels) posts.  What the hey, let's give it a shot.

A month ago Dad finally got up his gumption (is that a word?) and bought another new PC.  Last time the purchase was for Mom.  This one is for him.

It's so nice there is still local computer shops around that can tailor their business to folks who like the personal touch and who stand behind their products.

If you've ever bought a new car, and then suffered getting that first door ding, you know the look Dad had the first time two freebie software programs were loaded, didn't get along very well, and rendered his new PC dysfunctional.

Well the nice folks at the local PC shop where he bought it took mercy and reloaded Windows XP for no charge.  That, and a three-year warranty, a weekly radio call-in show ("Now, I've got Windows Millennium Edition, do you think I should upgrade or wait for the next version?"  Agghhh!).  Seriously, the show is good, but some of the callers....

Anywho, I think I'll make a strong recommendation to our pastor, who asked for assistance for a new PC.  They are surprisingly well built (the local PC shop's PCs).  Heck, if I weren't so enamored of my Macintoshes (thank you thank you thank you for Spaces in Leopard!!), that'd be my next choice for my own machine.

I wonder if the hunt for the new PC for him was as much fun as it appeared to be last time for Mom's PC.  The enjoyment often comes more from the hunt, seeking deals, comparing specs...

Well, it's going on a 17 hour day for me today (early morning at work).  'Will check in again soon.

Summer 2007 gallery

Hi,

We hope to restart our postings this summer, attempting to chronicle daily. We'll see how far that goes.

Highlights today were:
- picking out fabric with Mommy for our summer projects (incl. camp)
- more chipmunk reditions (no torture, more like witness protection)
- inviting a friend over (thanks K.S.!)
- retirement party for a colleague of M.'s
- dinner at the new Coralville iHop (O.K. but nothing to write in your blog about, oh well)

And of course, best of all, is starting our blog. Hopefully we'll also soon have a picture-a-day to help us with our compositions

Tomorrow we're anticipating some possible sever weather. Time to batten down the hatches (how do you do that anyway? Ask a Navy man? Or Google to the rescue!)