The fireworks display going on at the Avery Ranch Golf Course is on July 3rd again this year. It will coincide with the first annual Avery Ranch Independence Day Golf tournament. The tournament is sponsored by the Avery Ranch Social Committee, Avery Ranch Golf Club and business partners. There’s more information about the golf tournament at http://www.hoagolf.com/
The fireworks should start around 9:15, and are visible from all around Avery Ranch, including at the Golf Course and Main Amenity Center. There’s a great view from our driveway though, so we’ll just stay home. 
While I was at Austin Commons checking out the location of the Dunkin Donuts, I noticed that there’s also a Freebirds World Burrito shop under construction in the same strip mall.
My friend Arvin text messaged me today to say that there will be a new Dunkin Donuts opening in about 8 weeks in the new strip mall at Kramer and Burnet in NW Austin. I’ll have to take a drive down that way later on to check it out…
woohoo!
Update: I took a picture of the storefront in the Austin Commons strip mall with a drive-through on the side that is supposed to be where the new Dunkin Donuts will be located. It’s right next to Firehouse subs.
We participated as a group in the Goodwill GreenWorks program yesterday. GreenWorks is an effort to recycle 100% of computer waste. I think there were 15 of us, IBM Extreme Blue interns, alumni and staff who spent two hours yesterday at the Austin GoodWill Computer Center de-manufacturing donated computers to be resold or recycled.
More information about the program here.
COLUMBIA, S.C. – A group that advocates separation of church and state filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to prevent South Carolina from becoming the first state to create “I Believe” license plates.
The group contends that South Carolina’s government is endorsing Christianity by allowing the plates, which would include a cross superimposed on a stained glass window.
AP via Yahoo News
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Yay California. But still… with progress comes retribution and so there’s this advice from the LA Times:
Gay couples are emphasizing low-key weddings
Images from gay weddings, said Lorri L. Jean, chief executive of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, could be used by opponents in a campaign designed to persuade California voters that gays and lesbians should not have the right to marry. Those getting married, she cautioned, should never lose sight of what they might be supplying to the other side.
The first legal same-sex marriages in California were performed Monday night, and thousands more gay couples are expected to flood into clerks’ offices in the coming weeks to obtain marriage licenses. It’s all happening with both sides keenly aware that in less than five months, voters will decide whether to amend the state Constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman only.
IBM Internships Map Out IT Priorities
By Deb Perelman
2008-06-11
The company wants IT professionals who are savvy in green, Web 2.0 and virtual-world technologies.
If its internship programs are any indication, IBM already knows what it wants to see in an IT department in the next five years: pros savvy in green IT, Web 2.0 and virtual-world technologies.
These are IBM’s three focal areas for the summer 2008 season of its most competitive internship program, Extreme Blue.
Read the rest at eWeek.com.
California high court clears way for same-sex marriages starting June 17
By Howard Mintz
Mercury News
Article Launched: 06/04/2008 09:22:47 AM PDT
The California Supreme Court today rejected a bid to freeze last month’s ruling legalizing gay marriage, paving the way for same-sex couples to begin walking down the aisle as soon as June 17.
Moving swiftly to remove legal uncertainty, the court turned a way a request from gay marriage foes to stay the ruling until after the November election, when voters will consider a ballot measure that would change the state Constitution to again outlaw same-sex weddings. The secretary of state earlier this week qualified the initiative for the November ballot.
Read on…
I stopped off at Taco Cabana on the way home for dinner tonight, and since I still had my badge on from work, I used it to get the 10% discount TC offers to local high-tech company employees. Only one smallish problem with getting the discount… it seems they must have upgraded to a new POS terminal and the cashier wasn’t sure how to enter the discount. He called over a manager who punched in a few keys, and took the 54 cent discount off my bill. The problem? Look at the receipt…
Senior Citizen Discount? sigh…
This post showed up in my RSS feed reader today, so I had to go check it out… Gallery: The World’s Most Impressive Subways.
We’ve been on 7 of the 10 subway systems they list there, so I told Nhut we need to plan trips to the three cities we haven’t been to; Moscow, Hong Kong and Bilbao.
From some of the comments it sounds like Singapore and Hong Kong’s MRT are similar, and we’ve been to Singapore and ridden the MRT there. It was really nice… the cars and the stations were clean (No Durians), and you got cell phone reception everywhere on the system which was nice.
From AP:
AP tally: Obama clinches Democratic nomination
By DAVID ESPO and STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writers 9 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – Barack Obama clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, becoming the first black candidate to lead a major party into a campaign for the White House. Vanquished rival Hillary Rodham Clinton swiftly signaled an interest in joining the ticket as his running mate.
Obama arranged a victory celebration in St. Paul, Minn., at the site of this summer’s Republican National Convention — an in-your-face gesture to Sen. John McCain, who will be his opponent in the race to become the nation’s 44th president.
The 46-year-old Obama outlasted Clinton in a historic campaign that sparked record turnouts in primary after primary, yet exposed deep racial and gender divisions within the party.
In a campaign of surprises, Clinton’s comments about joining the ticket rated high.
According to one participant in an afternoon conference call among Clinton and members of the New York congressional delegation, Rep. Nydia Velazquez said she believed the best way for Obama to win over Hispanics and members of other key voting blocs would be to take the former first lady as his running mate.
“I am open to it,” Clinton replied, if it would help the party’s prospects in November, said the participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the call was a private matter.
The Dunkin’ Donuts at 12200 Research Blvd (183) was open for business this morning after being closed for a couple months for renovations. I stopped in on my way to work to grab some coffee and a bagel and check it out.
They had a couple of umbrella tables out on the sidewalk in front of the store, and the layout inside had a lot more customer seating area and way more room than the old layout to accommodate the line of people that was there. While I was waiting in line, there were some folks from the Boston area reminiscing about Dunkin’ Donuts in Dorchester. 
I didn’t see any of the old crew working in the store, but there were way more staff there today than I had ever seen before, and it looked like some Dunkin Brands company folks greeting customers at the door. The coffee and bagel were good, as usual. The renovation was long overdue, the previous storefront was seriously dated.
My dad sent me a reprint of this post over at thestironline.com, which basically trashes Barack Obama for several reasons, not the least of which is the claim that he’s a big government liberal.
That reminded me of a post I read over at Firedoglake earlier this year, “It’s Not Your Money“.
It’s Not Your Money
By: Ian Welsh Saturday February 9, 2008 4:00 pm
You also didn’t earn most of it.
It seems like every time I discuss taxation, some libertarian will waltz in and say “it’s my money and I don’t see why the government should be able to take it.”
So let’s run through why, no, it isn’t your money.
Read on…
