Another look later:

You can see the setup and the shadow of a dedicated dad, showing strong desire to teach his kids science, despite their little interest:

Although I felt lucky to be able to watch the eclipse unfold right in front of my eyes, these guys probably had a better view:

For truly amazing eclipse photos, of course, Google is your friend.

Some national parks don’t charge an entrance fee, but others do. However, every year those parks that usually charge a fee will be open for free on given days. For 2012, the fee-free days are listed below:

• January 14-16 (Martin Luther King Jr. weekend)
• April 21-29 (National Park Week)
• June 9 (Get Outdoors Day)
• September 29 (National Public Lands Day)
• November 10-12 (Veterans Day weekend)

You can check every year’s popular names, dating all the way back to 1880! You can also check the popularity of a given name. Enter it in the text box and specify the number of years you want to see, you will get each year’s ranking over that period of time. Pretty cool!

Disclaimer: I didn’t write it – just translated it into English.

If you don’t go to the bar a lot, or haven’t paid attention to this particular word, you would think it should be pronounced, well, pint. Just like hint, lint, mint, tint …… the words that don’t end with a vowel (a, e, i, o, u) or y.

In reality, it is supposed to be pronounced \pnt\, like pine, dine, fine or line, with a t at the end instead of e.

I’m just glad I said it in front of a small crowd, even though a very nice colleague pointed it out right there and then Everyone got a good laugh out of it. Actually I appreciated that. Just like proof reading, sometimes it is hard to catch your own mistakes, however obvious it may seem afterwards.

While we are at it, one pint is 16 U.S. fluid ounces, equivalent to about 473 ml, which looks like this:

The Super Bowl has been played since 1967. Given Pro Football’s draft mechanism – worst performing teams get better chances at landing next year’s top talent – you would expect a more leveling playground. But in the end, the few franchises that won multiple championships are still strong contenders (Steelers, Patriots, Cowboys, for example), while some are struggling year after year.

The World Cup has also been dominated by only a few teams (countries) that continue to do well. But it is a bit more understandable. The World Cup is held once every four years, so the chance of winning one is small to begin with. There is no governing organization to determine which country should pick the next super star, regardless of their past success (or the lack of). So in large part, it depends on a country’s tradition and culture, and usually takes generations to build a strong soccer team that can compete on the world’s stage.

Anyway, below is what I digged up online: NFL teams who never won a Super Bowl as of today. Hopefully your team isn’t on the list – mine is.

NFL Teams — Super Bowl Win/Loss
Atlanta Falcons 0-1
Buffalo Bills 0-4
Detroit Lions 0-0
Minnesota Vikings 0-4
Philadelphia Eagles 0-2
San Diego Chargers 0-1
Cincinnati Bengals 0-2
Cleveland Browns 0-0
Houston Texans 0-0
Seattle Seahawks 0-1
Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals 0-1
Carolina Panthers 0-1
Jacksonville Jaguars 0-0
Tennessee Oilers-Titans 0-1

imroad.com, or

immiroad.com

There you go…a mighty 15 seconds saved from your busy schedule. Google Analytics is telling me that visitors from iPhone, Blackberry or Android have been growing rapidly over the last year, so hopefully that 15 seconds will add up.

Next step is to make our site look prettier in those tiny browsers – but you have to wait a little while for this one.

I took the picture on a beautiful July 4th afternoon. You can see blue sky and palm trees in the background, traffic lights that happened to be green at the time, and a gas station located conveniently nearby. What a fitting image for Immigration Road!

Now, can anyone guess where this road is?

For one month, however, ESPN is changing priorities. All 64 world cup matches will be aired live and in high definition on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. In addition, most games will also be shown on ESPN360.com. For people who work in an office with a door, this is great news Even if you can’t (or don’t dare to) catch live broadcasts, DVR is your friend. If you still miss an important match, it looks like the sports network will replay selected games throughout the month. It helps that the NBA season will be over, and NFL hasn’t started, but as soccer fans living in the U.S., we still appreciate ESPN’s rather comprehensive coverage of soccer’s biggest tournament.

This is the TV schedule:

The frustration with the federal government’s failure to deal with the issue of illegal immigration resulted in passage of a flawed [Arizona] state law. However intended, the result of passing this law is that our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law are being called into question, and Arizona’s already struggling economy will suffer even further setbacks at a time when the state can ill-afford them.

The political gesture also caught the attention of President Obama. Speaking to a crowd in the Rose Garden for a Cinco de Mayo reception,

“I know that a lot of you would rather be watching tonight’s game — the Spurs against ‘Los Suns’ from Phoenix,” Obama said. He also added that “I want to begin work this year, and I want Democrats and Republicans to work with me — because we’ve got to stay true to who we are, a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.”

San Antonio might have done the same if they had enough time to make “Los Spurs” jerseys, according to coach Gregg Popovich.

NBA commisioner David Stern supported the move. And the NBA Players Association not only backed the Suns, but released an even stronger statement criticizing the nation’s toughest immigration law:

“The recent passage of the new immigration law in Arizona is disappointing and disturbing,” said Billy Hunter, executive director of the NBAPA. “The National Basketball Players Association strongly supports the repeal or immediate modification of this legislation. Any attempt to encourage, tolerate or legalize racial profiling is offensive and incompatible with basic notions of fairness and equal protection. A law that unfairly targets one group is ultimately a threat to all.

The Lakers, of course, have been doing their part even before Arizona’s immigration law, by calling themselves “Los Angeles” Lakers.

The surprising move is part of a campaign to bring Google’s 1GB ultra speedy broadband Internet into the Agency. Alejandro Mayorkas, USCIS Director, explained during the formal proclamation:

In order to provide high-speed immigration services, we must have high-speed internet services.

His agency, often criticized for being slow and inefficient, has unveiled a slew of changes in recent months in order to improve its public image. Backlog reduction is apparently an important part of the plan, but according to GAO, the effort has been hindered by spotty internet connections available to adjudication officers.

Sometimes I sent a request for evidence, but it took five months to leave our system!

An immigration officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss internal issues with the media, told AF reporters.

USCIS must fight to win a seat in Google’s broadband experiement, which will introduce internet connections 100 times faster than current standard. The pilot project is open to only a few participants, however. By changing its name to Google!, especially with the addition of an exclamation mark, USCIS hopes to increase its chances.

Update April 1, 2010:
USCIS just learned that Google officially changed its name also, to Topeka. Given that immigration is a federal matter, USCIS has decided to put the name change plan on hold, i.e. in pending status, indefinitely.

Check it out! The ad is super simple, in typical Google style, but is quite clever and fun.

Now you’ve seen the video, “where did you get the idea about an immigrant?” you might ask. Well, it is all my interpretation, based on the fact that he searched for “study abroad,” had to fly to Paris, and looked for advice on “long-distance” relationship. I’m sure the Googler who created this video didn’t have immigration in his mind, but it is actually a beautiful cross-border love story that usually involves not-so-beautiful immigration processes. By the way, if the guy were French and the girl in California, he’d be spending more time searching for green card help than chocolate shops.

I-485
	I-485 is a busy freeway: most people in the U.S. choose this route to get their green card. Unfortunately it has a speed limit of 10mph.
Speed Limit
	0mph speed limit doesn’t make much sense, but if you are travelling on the Immigration Highway, don’t be surprised if you see it more than once.
Stop Sign
	Stop right there, and wait for further instructions. Department of Labor once put up a huge stop sign so that they could “centralize” all labor certification applications; it only took a couple years before traffic was moving again.
Road Closed
	If you pick the wrong route, or have a late start, you will see the road closed sign eventually. You need to find an alternative as soon as possible.
Traffic Lights
	The Department of State uses traffic lights (aka visa bulletin) to control who gets to proceed, and who has to stay. Unlike regular traffic signals, a red light here could last 10 years or more.
Road Condition
	Slippery
	Bumpy
	Flooded
No Honking!
	Nobody would listen anyway, why bother?
Directions
	USCIS sometimes gives out better, less confusing instructions, but not always.
Car Pool
	If you married a U.S. citizen and the two of you are travelling together, you can take the carpool lane. There are multiple check points though, and people who get caught with only a dummy on the passenger seat will get into trouble.
Toll Booth Ahead
	Every road is a toll road. Journey to green card is expensive.
Welcome!
	You have reached your destination.

All images used in this post are in the public domain, or licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 (Wikimedia Commons)