This has been quite the week for Columbia, South Carolina!Let's get to it...
Michael Phelps. Maybe you've heard of him. He seemed to forget that people carry cameras around with them and decided to pass the peace pipe around while visiting the University of South Carolina in November. And now he may be charged by the Richland County Sheriff. A couple of friends emailed me to ask how I could allow this to happen under my watchful eye at USC. "Allow it to happen?" I'm just glad I wasn't photographed at the party (it happened on my birthday, after all)! OK, settle down—I have an alibi. I was in Florida at a conference when Mr. Phelps swam over to Gamecock Country.
Impending Snow Showers. A local weatherman at WIS-10 of Columbia said on his blog to expect a blizzard at the start of the week. We had some snow a couple weeks ago, but not this week. It caused quite a flurry in the community: everyone raided the stores for a Four Alarm French Toast Emergency (you know, eggs, bread, and milk). It was cold this week but the snow lasted for about 20 minutes on Wednesday.
While You're Looking to the Skies... A skydiving instructor made his final dive while taking a man on his first dive in Chester, South Carolina. Wow. What a story.
Speaking of Final Flights, Goodbye Spirit. Discount airline Spirit Airlines arrived to Columbia, South Carolina last spring. I flew on it twice, once to Lima, Perú (for $401!) in May and again with the family to Ft. Lauderdale (for $9 each way per ticket!) in September for a surprise get-away. Each flight was worse than one before. It was horrible but at least it was cheap. Now, they're taking their final flight from Columbia a year after arriving on their first.
Speaking of Finality. Steve Spurrier, head coach of the USC Gamecocks football team, promised a recruit that he could wear #2 when he came to USC. Only problem is that #2 was retired in 1987 to honor Sterling Sharpe. I would ask, "Hey, Steve, how would you like your Florida #11 to be unretired for someone else to wear?" but I already found the answer. (But, really, what's the point of "retiring" a number if, well, you're not going to leave it "retired"?)
Andy Card and the White House Dress Code. Today, Andy Card, University of South Carolina alumnus and former Chief of Staff for President Bush, got bent out of shape because President Obama (gasp!) takes his jacket off in the Oval Office. Personally, I would rather have a president who owns up to his mistakes who shows his shirtsleeves than a president who dresses up to send his nation to war on false pretenses. But that's just me.
Confederates Need to Be Remembered Too. Apparently, flying the Confederate Flag in front of the State House isn't enough. A bill under consideration in the General Assembly would require counties to give county employees Confederate Memorial Day off. (It was actually introduced by Robert Ford, a black Democrat from Charleston, as a means to "force South Carolinians to reflect on the state’s history.")
Speaking of Which. Katon Dawson, South Carolina GOP chairman, came in second place for national GOP chairman to Michael Steele, who happens to be African-American. Dawson had to resign from his country club in South Carolina to save face while running for the GOP national chairmanship. Why? That country club is still Whites-only. (Well, it just recently changed its policy.)
Almost Done. Of course, there's always fun stuff going on in the state capital of South
Carolina, especially at the State House, as the State Newspaper editorialists like to point out. There's also the new motto for Columbia, "Famously Hot." (See what someone had to say about that—scroll down to "Fun with Slogans.")A Final Note About Columbia, South Carolina. Have you noticed that I've mentioned Columbia, South Carolina, the Gamecocks, or other related local items of interest more than a few times? Well, I had to try a little experiment. You may have noticed the little map on this blog, which indicates where people are visiting from around the world. If you click on it you can find out what the most "locally relevant" and "popular" blogs are for Columbia, South Carolina. They use algorithms to determine which blogs qualify as for these two categories and assign a score. So, even though some may think I envy popular blogs, I don't. (Really, I don't; I'll talk about why I blog in a later post.) But I did think it would be fun to test the algorithm for "local relevance" by infusing this post with as much South Caroliniana as possible. We'll see if it works.
But even still, it was fun to have a look at the fun stuff going on in the Palmetto State, my new home state. I'm sure I could do the same with my former home states—the Granite State, the Keystone State, and the Beehive State—though somehow I think I might be able to have the most fun with the latter.
UPDATE (2/7/08 @ 8:20 a.m.): Apparently, this experiment hasn't worked so far. The "local
relevance" algorithm ain't workin'! My score is "1." One? That means this post has practically nothing to do with Columbia, South Carolina. Hmmm...I'm not sure how many more times I could have insert the right keywords! A true (in the slang of the intertubes), "LOL" moment.UPDATE (2/9/09 @ 8:31 a.m.): Status unchanged. This blog post still has practically nothing to say about Columbia! It was a fun little experiment. I still like the map showing where people are comin' in from for a quick read on this modest blog so many thanks to FEEDJIT for that.
