Lindsey Jacobs, 18, of Los Alamos suffered critical injuries from a car crash Nov. 6 in Oregon.

She remains in serious condition at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland.

The accident occurred at approximately 2:38 p.m. when the Lexus sport utility vehicle driven by Margaret Allen, 20, from Orlando, Fl. and carrying Jacobs and two other passengers, was enroute to Eugene for an environmental convention, according to news reports.

The Lexus was westbound on Interstate 84 when Allen exited onto Highway 730 to look for fuel.

While driving toward Irrigon, Allen reportedly decided to turn around and head back toward Interstate 84.

She pulled onto the south side of the highway and attempted a u-turn when her SUV was struck in the driver side by an eastbound commercial truck driven by a 47-year-old Hermiston, Ore. man.

Allen and a male passenger, Khoa Nguyen, 20, from Tacoma, Wash., were able to get out of the vehicle on their own with minor injuries.

Jacobs and Katie Radosevic, 18, from Arizona had to be extricated by fire department personnel.

All four occupants of the Lexus were transported by ambulance to Good Shepard Hospital in Hermiston.

Jacobs and Radosevic were then transferred by air ambulance to Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland.

Radosevic suffered serious injuries and Jacobs suffered critical injuries, according to reports.

The driver of the truck was not injured.

Jacobs is a 2009 Los Alamos High School graduate studying at Whitman College.

She is the daughter of Elaine and Brian Jacobs.

During a brief telephone call Sunday evening, Elaine said her daughter was improving.

She and her husband did not immediately call back with additional information.

This photo is from my  visit to Oujda, a city on the eastern Moroccan-Algerian border. The photograph was taken of a migrant camp on the city’s outskirts. I wrote about Oujda last March:

This border city is both the point of arrival, and often the place of departure as well. Deportees from Rabat, Casablanca and the rest of Morocco are bused here. At night, government security officials march deported migrants into the desert, to the Algerian border. There, they are abandoned, and told to walk into Algeria. Often, the Algerian military is waiting on the other side. As one Moroccan put it, the migrants are like “ping-pong balls,” bounced back and forth between two feuding nations. Most eventually end up back in Oujda, a place as hellish as the bandit-filled desert just outside the city.

Far from Oujda’s central district, 2,000 sub-Saharan migrants live in makeshift refugee camps, dubbed tranquillos. Some camps are permanent, while others move around to reduce the likelihood of police raids. Shelter is primitive: Blue tarps provide minimal cover, and most sleep on the bare ground. At night, migrants trek to the nearby university, where sympathetic students give them water.

Employment isn’t a possibility for sub-Saharan migrants stranded in Oujda. The unemployment rate is well above the nationwide average of 9 percent. With no way to work, begging is often the only alternative. For those who fall ill, there is little recourse. Police monitor the hospitals, arresting anyone without proper identity papers before treatment is administered. Similarly, they tightly control the highways, train lines and bus routes. Even within Oujda, taxi drivers often refuse to pick up sub-Saharans, for fear of being pulled over by local law enforcement. Travel by foot is the most practical, and often only, way to leave the city.

Whitman Magazine

This photo was taken at Merchant’s Coffee in Walla Walla. It features Whitman College’s elegantly designed art and literary magazine, the Blue Moon.

From Whitman College’s latest theatrical production, Frenzy for Two.  My freshmen year roommate makes a convincing soldier.

From Whitman College’s latest theatrical production, Frenzy for Two.

Last Friday, Whitman College’s chapter of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority put on the Mr. Whitman talent contest.  The competition was the capstone to a fundraiser for a NGO located in Honduras. Eight senior men (one from each of the four fraternities, in addition to four independents) competed in three different categories: formal wear, swimsuit, and talent. Above, one of the contestants decided that his formal wear was a little too restrictive.

From Whitman College’s latest theatrical production, Romeo and Juliet.

This photograph is from the spring of 2007. Enthralled with Whitman and the Walla Walla countryside in my freshmen year, I went out with a few friends to have fun in the wheat fields. The Whitman College Admission’s department never cared for this image, but I rather like it.

This weekend, the Whitman Theater Department is putting on The Instant Play Festival. Writers are given a prompt, and within twenty-four hours the show is performed for an audience. The process is brutal and rewarding for all involved. Here, one of the directors gives stage directions during a rehearsal.

DA7900 proofs from our mold will be arriving on Thursday afternoon next week. We are doing two small sample runs in Bordeaux Gold and Paris Pink and those parts will go on bikes for testing to make certain that the fit is perfect and the function is just what we want, and then we will be able to go into production some time shortly after that. End of June – finally – should be when the parts become available. A batch of the pink hoods will be heading across the pond so that we can finally get the Rapha-Condor team supplied with Hudz for their race and training bikes. 

We’ll post shots of the new DA7900 Enhancement Brake Hoods as soon as we have them installed on some levers… They’re gonna be sweet…

Also of note: The Whitman College Cycling Team tallied up their third National Title in six years just up in Fort Collins, CO a month ago. I got an email and letter from the team letting us know about their success. Whitman is part of Hudz’ open sponsorship for collegiate teams (we will sponsor any collegiate team that asks for it and provide pro-deal pricing for all members) and we have been very happy to be able to supply them this year, and hopefully for years to come.

Senior French horn player Kathryn is choosing between Belmont University, Juilliard, University of Texas at Austin, Eastman School of Music, USC, NYU Tisch Recording Arts Program, Boston University, Northwestern, University of Miami, McGill, Peabody, DePaul, Manhattan School of Music, Eastman, and New England Conservatory.   Wow.  Once the initial shock of that list settles in you start wondering something.  How did she have the time to apply and audition at all of those schools?!?

Well, we help our students.  We offer a structure to help students hone and polish their auditions, do great applications.  The writing teachers help with essays.  The music teachers make sure the auditions are great and that the player is poised, professional and ready to respond to whatever obstacles are thrown at them.  The transportation coordinator helps book travel so that our students can go to whatever audition they want to go to.  Our faculty invites schools to hold auditions on our campus so that students don’t have to travel.  Academic faculty think of creative ways to give assignments so that students can earn credit in classes while students are on the other side of the country playing for the Juilliard faculty.

We work as a team and the results show it!  I’ll attach the complete and final list of college acceptances here.  If you’re out there in the world wondering whether we’re still accepting applications for next year, the answer is yes!  We’re ready to add your acceptances to this list.

Alfred University
American Academy of Dramatic Art, Los Angeles
American Academy of Dramatic Art, New York
Arizona State University
Art Center College of Design
ArtEZ Dance Academy, Arnhem, The Netherlands
Bard College
Belmont University
Bennington College
Berklee College of Music
Birmingham City University (UK)
Boston Conservatory
Boston University
Brandeis University
California State University, Fullerton
California State University, Northridge
California Institute of the Arts
California Lutheran University
Carnegie Mellon University
Chapman University
Cleveland Institute of Music
Codarts, Rotterdam Dance Academy, The Netherlands
College of Santa Fe
Columbia College Chicago
Cornish College of the Arts
Denison University
DePaul University
Dominican University of California
Drew University
Eckerd College
Elmira College
Eugene Lang College-The New School for Liberal Arts
Florida State University
Fordham University
Hampshire College
Hawaii Pacific University
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Humboldt State University
Illinois Weslsyan University
Indiana University
John Cabot University
Johns Hopkins University, Peabody Institute
The Juilliard School
Lesley University
Lewis and Clark College
Lindenwood University
London Contemporary Dance School (United Kingdom)
Long Island University, Brooklyn
Longy School of Music
Los Angeles Film School
Lynn University
Manhattan College
Manhattan School of Music
Manhattanville College
Mannes College The New School for Music
Maryland Institute College of Art
McGill University
Muhlenberg College
New England Conservatory
The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music
New World School of the Arts
New York Institute of Technology BA/DO Program
New York University, Tisch School of the Arts
Northern Arizona University
Northwestern University
Oberlin College Conservatory of Music
Pace University
Pacific Northwest College of Art
Palucca Schule, Dresden, Germany
Parsons, The New School for Design
Pennsylvania State University
Pitzer College
Point Park
Pratt Institute
Randolph College
Rhode Island School of Design
Rice University
Richmond, The American University of London
Ringling College of Art and Design
Rollins College
Roosevelt University Chicago College of Performing Arts
Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Conservatory
San Francisco State University
Sarah Lawrence College
Savannah College of Art and Design
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston
School of Visual Arts
Smith College
Southern Methodist University
Southern Oregon University
State University of New York, College at Purchase
State University of New York, Stony Brook
Stephens College
Suffolk University
Syracuse University
Texas Christian University
University of California, Davis
University of California, Irvine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Riverside
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Cruz
University College London, Slade School of Fine Art
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Denver – Lamont School of Music
University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
University of Missouri, Columbia
University of Missouri, Kansas City
University of New Mexico
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
University of North Carolina School of the Arts
University of Northern Colorado
University of Oklahoma
University of Oregon
University of Portland
University of Puget Sound
University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music
University of Southern California, College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences
University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music
University of Texas at Austin
University of the Arts, London Central St.Martins
University of the Arts, London, London College of Fashion
University of Jacksonville
University of Miami
University of New England
University of Puget Sound
University of Southern California, School of Theatre
University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music
University of Utah
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Vancouver Film School
Warren Wilson College
Webster University
Whitman College
Zacky Gordon Film Institute

Check out this amazing article written by some friends of mine at Whitman College.  It is a beautifully elegant metaphor of international climate negotiations described through keg cups.  Ah, college.

http://whitmanpioneer.com/op-ed/2009/04/23/copenhagen-protocol-explained-through-keg-cups/

Enjoy!

Here’s a post I made to a facebook groups concerned about the longevity of the Whitman Ski team:

“Some of the best people I know at Whitman came FOR the ski team. for the reasons that multiple people have already stated, this is a bad move, Whitman. I may not race, but the benefits that Whitman gets from such a successful group of athletes is unquestionable. Whitman skiing is often the only thing that people outside the PNW know about Whitman. Removal of the ski team suprises me even more considering George Bridges’ agenda set out @ http://www.whitman.edu/content/president/

He says:

“The new President will be expected to help Whitman become even more national
in its outlook and reputation, and do so without sacrificing the College’s
powerful regional identity and its distinctive liberal arts niche . . . Enhancing Whitman’s national stature would enrich the critical mix of students
and faculty on campus and would attract qualified students and faculty from a
broader spectrum of locations and influences . . . help graduates . . . [and] broaden sources of funding.”

I understand the endowment took a hit, but would someone who attends the meeting Wednesday please ask him to reconcile his agenda and his actions?”

Now, online exclusive, here’s what I really think:

Things to do today:

-    Worry about getting a job
-    Worry about choosing a major
-    Worry about whether or not Whitman is ‘getting its name out there.’
-    Think about what Whitman could be using its 200 grand annual savings on, other than skiing. I think about 10 kids really benefit from that huge expense, and my personal rate of return on the existence of the ski-team’s existence isn’t that large. Really, the coach is a dick, I have to hear my friends complaining about it all the time. So, I think my real beef with the removal of the ski team is that it represents (to me) the loss of one of Whitman’s only advertising sreams through the several competitions per year where Whitman skiers rep the school by showing up with Whitman written on their ski suits and whatever else they wear with those body suits. What i mean by that second part is that our advertising return from the ski team is pretty small. Even if the team partakes in some aprés antics (i’m a skier too) and removes some clothing along the way, odds are, that their skier bums aren’t emblazoned with “Whitman skiing,” so our advertising dollars are only put to use on the ski hill.

Contrary to what I intimated about the ski team’s role in attracting diverse members of our community: The skiers on the team are the most whitebread/wonderbread kids I’ve met at Whitman—meaning that they are exactly like me. They are from vermont and new hampshire, ski raced all winter with their white bretheren, and spent their summers behind the counter in a white-serving mountaineer shop. Sign me up! They are just like me! Bouncing ideas about world domination off of someone like that is like playing tennis with a wall…they throw the idea right back at you like they thought of it in the first place—the collective entitlement makes me want to scream.

So, while I was ranting, my little mind was thinking: what can we do with that money that will no longer pay for ski-vacations to Alaska during exams? We should think about what to do with that money (alternative allocation) to increase our advertising returns on the same $$. I think I’ve shown that advertising is really the only reason that I want the ski team around, so all we have to do is find a better way to advertise.

With the same 200 grand, we could:
1.    Hug each other until we’re tired, and then spend the rest on back massages at the Marcus Whitman.
2.    Think super-hard until the rest of the country finds out how difficult 4.0 at Whitman College is. Then spend the rest of the money on books for the library.
3.    Find it within ourselves to explain to everyone we meet what Whitman College is. [oh! We already do that? Scratch that one]… No it is not named after Walt, though I wish it were. No it is not a seminary. I can’t even remember where it is, though I’ve had to tell everyone I’ve ever met.
4.    Spend the money on a full-time advertising consultant. Perhaps Eliot Okantey [after he graduates though] . . . he would be pretty good, and his voice is pretty effective for shouting from rooftops. This would be about 65,000/year. He would spend the rest of his time and money (200,000 got 25 smelly ski teamers all over the place during the ski season. Hopefully Eliot can make it go pretty far). He would spend his time visiting highschools, taking to kids about college, doing performance art to bring attention to Walla Walla’s leading college. Show the country that Whitman is second to Pomona, has dope white kids there, and debates pretty well, also, we represented Iraq against prez bush, or was it Afghanistan? Eliot would be pretty good at repping the school, and it would save me time getting to know my neighbor on airplanes if they already knew something about Whitman college. How would Eliot get this done?
a.    Perhaps a team of mice or freshman enlisted to blog nonstop about Whitman (that’s real talk…I think that would be a brilliant plan). Blog advertising on a huge scale is the wave of the future. Anytime someone searches “Whitman” on Google, whether it is Walt or whatever, they should hit on a million different, creative, seemingly unaffiliated blogs about life at Whitman, not only the bubble, but about other things, like parties, fishing, skiing, and the things that make Whitman what it is.
b.    Wherever groups of people gather, Eliot could barge in and make stump speeches about the wonderful combination of liberal arts, sciences, and wine country. This could take places in churches, funerals, family dinners, subways in New York, or fancy restaurants…pretty much anywhere.

Moral of my story: Screw the ski team. All I care about is making a dent in national ignorance about our school. I know some hippies will reply that it doesn’t matter, but each and every American capitalist at the school knows that tuition pays for education, and a stamp on a transcript that means something. I know how hard and amazing Whitman is. It’s time that the whole world knew. If removing the ski team is one step on that path, screw it.

If, however, GB plans to save that money outright ie.put it back in the endowment (which I think he does), I don’t agree with the removal of the ski team. However naked they are during the aprés ski turpitude, “Whitman Skiing” is still emblazoned on their jacket, wherever it comes to rest after its removal.

Welcome to the www.NegMeg.com NEG Meg The Series episode archive.

“a monkey could drive this train”

Margaret “Meg” Whitman comment on eBay,
while she was eBay CEO and President.

Margaret Cushing “Meg” Whitman
Born August 4 1956

• “President and Chief Executive Officer of eBay from March 1998 to March 2008.”

eBay Hacked, Cracked  & Hijacked, But Denies All
February 19 2007

• “came just weeks after North American CEO Bill Cobb announced new fraud fighting measures and policy changes to the site”
• Comments

Stirring Up the Cubicles at eBay
Brad Stone, February 21 2007

• “Mr. Donahoe, 46, is a deputy to eBay’s chief executive, Meg Whitman, 50, and, many people in the industry say, her likely successor when she ultimately steps down.”
• ““All our businesses need to do well, but John’s success and the success of Marketplaces is absolutely essential to the company,” said Ms. Whitman, who met Mr. Donahoe when they were consultants working in the San Francisco office of Bain & Company in the early 1980s.”
• “eBay stock has dropped by half from an early 2005 high”

Is Vladuz the Good Guy?
February 26 2007

• “Now two weeks into the latest bombardment of Vladuz related listings, management is looking like an impotent cowboy with a black hat”
• Comments

The Vladuz Style of eBay Auction Hacking Continues!
March 18 2007

eBay Getting into Micro-Finance through Purchase of MicroPlace
Ina Steiner, March 30 2007

• “eBay has purchased an organization called MicroPlace”
• “eBay’s Chief Marketing Officer Gary Briggs” “A third point to bring up is MicroPlace, which a group that we purchased that is making microfinance loans available to the developing world in particular, and we think – particularly as it relates to PayPal”

Antitrust Lawsuit Filed against eBay over PayPal, Payments Policies
Ina Steiner, April 6 2007

• “Michael Malone filed an antitrust class-action lawsuit against eBay this week under the Sherman Act, alleging eBay “utilizes its nationwide monopoly of the on-line auction market to monopolize the available forms of payment that sellers can use on eBay.” eBay controls which payment methods sellers may advertise in their listings”

eBay’s Payment Policies Spark Two Antitrust Lawsuits
Ina Steiner, May 4 2007

• “Two antitrust lawsuits were filed against eBay in April 2007 and have been assigned to the same judge because they are related, according to court filings. The plaintiffs in both parties have complained of eBay’s practices with regard to its online payment service PayPal. The same judge had presided over a PayPal-related class-action lawsuit that was filed in 2002.”
• “The Justice Department gave the green light to eBay’s acquisition of PayPal in 2002, despite the fact that PayPal itself had complained to the government about eBay’s practices after the auction marketplace had acquired the BillPoint payment service. ”
• “Both antitrust lawsuits are assigned to Judge Fogel in the US District Court, Northern District of California.”
• “The Court finds that Malone v. eBay Inc., Case No. 07-01882-JF and Farmer, et al. v. Ebay, Inc., Case No. C-07-02209 are related actions and such cases are hereby consolidated into Malone v. eBay Inc., Case No. 07-01882-JF, and are referred to herein as the Consolidated Action.”

Meg Whitman at TiEcon
TiEcon, May 17 2007

• [Meg Whitman] “We also think about very disruptive ideas that could disrupt our core business, or we could disrupt other major segments of the economy. And many times those very disruptive innovations will come from outside eBay”
• [Meg Whitman] “We have no sales force.”
• [Meg Whitman] “Failure is okay.”

EBay reshapes itself as an easier, cooler place
June 15 2007

• ““Our user experience has always been fantastic, but it didn’t keep up, in my view, as well as it should have,” CEO Meg Whitman said in an interview Friday on the sidelines of the “eBay Live”user celebration in Boston. You will see more changes to eBay’s buyer experience in the next 12 months than you probably have seen in the past three or four years.”"
• “Other moves make eBay more like typical e-commerce sites, such as last year’s birth of eBay Express”
• “eBay’s 2005 purchase of Skype, an Internet calling service, for $4.1 billion”
• “”reignite the core,” in the words of Bill Cobb”

EBay Moves to Recharge Its Auctions
Bob Tedeschi, June 18 2007

• “In 1998, eBay’s chief executive, Meg Whitman, changed the background color of the site’s home page from gray to white. Rather than simply switching colors overnight, though, Ms. Whitman directed eBay’s engineers to bleach the gray over the course of 30 days. At the end of the month, the company asked users if they noticed anything different. No one did.”
• “700,000 sellers who rely on eBay for their livelihoods”
• ““We have to make sure our old users stay with us, but we’re going to be more bold around product changes than we’ve been in the past,” Ms. Whitman said in an interview last week in Boston at eBay Live, an annual conference for the site’s sellers. “I think people expect more from eBay.””
• “Analysts said sellers were moving to other places on the Web in search of buyers who had grown weary of an overwhelming array of product choices on eBay.”
• [Meg Whitman] “We’re optimistic that the changes will translate to accelerated growth and help us change the trajectory of our two largest markets, U.S. and Germany”

Reaping profit in study, sweat
Robert Gavin and Sacha Pfeiffer, June 26 2007

• “Maximizing the financial return to investors can mean slashing jobs, closing plants, and moving production overseas. While Bain Capital helped expand companies that created jobs, the firm also engaged in some of the business’s harsher practices.”
• “Companies like Bain Capital typically cash out of their investments in three to five years, and ”usually have less of a stake in the community, in terms of employment, service on nonprofit boards, your physical and environmental impact,” {Ross} Gittell says. ”The objective is: make money for investors. It’s not to maximize jobs.””
• “Through Ampad, Bain bought several other office supply makers, borrowing heavily each time. By 1999, Ampad’s debt reached nearly $400 million, up from $11 million in 1993, according to government filings.”
• “Bain Capital didn’t escape Ampad’s eventual bankruptcy unscathed. It held about one-third of Ampad’s shares, which became worthless. But while as many as 185 workers near Buffalo lost jobs in a 1999 plant closing, Bain Capital and its investors ultimately made more than $100 million on the deal.”

EBay Chief Spurs Growth on PayPal, Beats Google Unit (Update2)
Danny King, July 6 2007

• “PayPal, bought by EBay for $1.5 billion in 2002″
• “”PayPal is a huge home run,” Whitman, EBay’s chief executive officer”
• “Shares of EBay rose $1.12, or 3.5 percent, to $33.39″

EBay Profit is Up 50%; Listings Off
Brad Stone, July 19 2007

• “Ms. Whitman said that her efforts to improve the user’s experience should address these problems.  “In the next six months,”she said, “you will see more changes to eBay than you have in the last two or three years, whether that is an improved search experience or fun things that make the site better, like Bid Assistant, which allows you to bid on more than one item without worrying that you will end up buying five iPods by mistake.”"
• “EBay started Kijiji overseas in 2005.  “We’ve had a great relationship with Craigslist, and we have learned a lot from them,” Ms. Whitman said. “We felt this market was large and diverse enough to support many players. We don’t think of new offerings as competitive, we think of them as better and more choices for consumers. We think there is an opportunity to stake out a slightly different buyer.”"

Blasphemy at eBay
Adam Lashinsky, July 23 2007

• “Last month, eBay temporarily stopped buying keyword advertising on Google, the Web’s largest search engine. EBay said the suspension did not have had significant effect on its bottom line. “We learned a great deal from that test, “Ms. Whitman said. “It actually had no impact on the financials of the quarter, and we learned a lot about where we want to spend money and where we think we can save money on Internet marketing.”"
• Comments

Mitt’s equity army
David S. Bernstein, August 10 2007

• “One such example is Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay — and one of the Romney campaign’s national finance chairs. Whitman worked with Romney at Bain & Company before going to work for Disney and then Keds. In 1995, when Bain Capital bought florist chain FTD, Romney installed Whitman as CEO. She left after just 18 months, with stocks, salary, and bonuses worth well more than a million dollars —even though, as she has conceded in interviews, she did not come close to successfully putting the company on the right track.”
• “Bain Capital’s record shows the same treatment for many companies: slashing jobs, benefits, research-and-development budgets, and other items to show quick profitability before selling or taking the company’s stock public.”

Romney’s Old Ties To Firm Pay Off
John Solomon and Matthew Mosk, August 14 2007

• “Another fundraiser is eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, who worked as a vice president at Bain before getting top jobs at Stride Rite shoes and the FTD florist service, which Bain targeted for investment.”

The Ruination of eBay
crazeenydriver, September 22 2007

ebaY Major Hack Attack! User’s Data Posted On Ebay T&S
Cappynonymous, September 25 2007

• Comments

Intimidating eBay Lawyer snoyce@ebay.com ME Page Hacked By Vladuz
Doc, September 28 2007 (?)

• “Now In An Apparent Show Of Power That He Can Pick And Hack Anyone’s eBay Account He Chooses, Vladuz Posts Mr Noyce’s Personal Details On His ME Page!”
• “This Really Makes Rob Chestnut’s Trust And Safety Department Look Like A Bunch Of Keystone Cops! But It Has Been Rumored Rob Is On Sabbatical, And Will Not Be Returning To eBay!”

Web 2.0 Summit: Meg Whitman, eBay
Bobbie Johnson, October 18 2007

• [Meg Whitman] “”If we were a retailer – which we’re not – we’d be the fifth or sixth largest in the world. But as your core business begins to slow down, you go right back to where you started, which is customers. how do you reinvent your core business to meet the needs of customers. We’re actually in a reinvention of some of the core flows, . We have made more changes to the site in the last three or six months than we have in the last three years.”"
• [Meg Whitman] “”We have about 1.6m people worldwide who make their living selling on eBay. There are always people who made their business. The casual sellers represent about 50% of the gross merchandise volume and about 95% of the sellers. We look at the number of users we have, which has slowed but it’s still going up.”"
• [Meg Whitman] “”We began to see PayPal becoming the effective way to pay on eBay. It’s now 85-90% of payments.”"
• [Meg Whitman] “”We know that we were only here because of a disruptive innovation.”"
• [Meg Whitman] “”The vast majority of people – less than 1/100th of one percent cause problems.”"
• [Meg Whitman] “”Etsy.com? “It’s a cute little company, I like what they’ve done. We need to do everything we can to invite those sellers onto eBay – we just launched eBay Neighbourhoods”"

EBAY Launches MicroPlace.com
ONLY EBAY, October 24 2007

• “After acquiring the company in June 2006, EBAY have launched MicroPlace”
• “Meg Whitman was talking about entering the social lending business as far back as this speach in June 2006.”

Whois Vladuz eBay’s Hacker
liamssoft, October 25 2007

• “Sources in the hacking community say that he claims to be listening in on some meetings held by eBay chief executive Meg Whitman.”
• “2004, someone calling themselves Vladuz was selling a set of PHP files designed to create phishing sites that would collect eBay data”
• “observers think the hacks Vladuz has pulled off reveal a much deeper problem at the auction giant”

eBay jumps into microfinancing
Yi-Wyn Yet, October 26 2007

• “The site, which had been in development when eBay (EBAY) acquired MicroPlace in June 2006″
• “EBay’s interest in microfinance was established by company founder Pierre Omidyar.”
• “eBay executive Matt Bannick, who spearheaded the purchase of MicroPlace, left the company in March to run Omidyar Network”

eBay Launches Microfinance Loan Site
October 29 2007

• “EBay’s newly launched MicroPlace lets users make loans through PayPal”

The Dangerous Wealth of the Ivy League
Business Week, November 29 2007

• “It’s only fitting that Whitman College, Princeton’s new student residence, is named for eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman, because it’s a billionaire’s mansion in the form of a dorm. After Whitman (Class of ‘77) pledged $30 million, administrators tore up their budget and gave architect Demetri Porphyrios virtual carte blanche. Each student room has triple-glazed mahogany casement windows made of leaded glass. The dining hall boasts a 35-foot ceiling gabled in oak and a “state of the art servery.” By the time the 10-building complex in the Collegiate Gothic style opened in August, it had cost Princeton $136 million, or $272,000 for each of the 500 undergraduates who will live there. ”

EBAY: Time For CEO Meg Whitman to Go?
Henry Blodget, December 6 2007

• “We will not be the first to suggest that Meg may have gotten a bit more credit than she deserved for that”
• “I go out there and meet with Meg and it’s all I can do to avoid shorting it as I walk out the door.”

Should eBay CEO Meg Whitman Step Down?
Ina Steiner, December 6 2007

• “Whitman did some things badly. Giving users inadequate customer service was one. And denial of fraud was another.”
• Comments

Yes, Amazon SHOULD Buy eBay
Henry Blodget, December 17 2007

• “eBay’s mismanagement and lack of attention to its user interface have finally caught up to it, punishing its market value.”
• “until eBay’s CEO situation is resolved, the concept is probably moot. (There is no way the companies will merge with Meg still at the helm, as her immediate departure thereafter would leave no interpretation possible other than that she had been unceremoniously dumped).”

The Depth of eBay’s Problems 1: Disappointed Buyers
Saul Hansell, December 17 2007

• “The outpouring of rage at eBay was of the sort we don’t see here for anything other than cellphone companies. The company is clearly getting hit by both buyers and sellers.”
• “As a former middle manager at eBay, I can attest to the company’s ghastly approach to customer support…. If it’s a matter of managing expectations, then eBay should rename their customer support something more appropriate like, “Endless obstacle course of red tape and runaround where you rarely if ever get to talk to a human.” — Ann Cummins”

The Depth of eBay’s Problems 2: Angry Sellers
Saul Hansell, December 17 2007

• ““EBay’s relations with sellers over the last few years have deteriorated and are, at best, poor right now,” Mr.  Wingo said. ”
• “Given the depth of the anger against the company”

eBay Users Vent Rage To NYT
Henry Blodget, December 17 2007

• “eBay, meanwhile, now seems to have alienated not only Wall Street but the folks who create all of its business value.”
• “Meanwhile, as frustrated eBay shareholders, we reiterate our suggestion that it’s time for Meg Whitman to go.”

Face Time With Meg Whitman
Charles Fishman, December 19 2007

• “Husband, Griffith Harsh, a neurosurgeon at Stanford; two sons, ages 13 and 16″
• [Meg Whitman] “(laughing) I took calculus, chemistry, and physics my first year. I survived. But I didn’t enjoy it. Of course, chemistry, calculus, and physics have nothing to do with being a doctor, but if you’re 17 years old, you think, This is what being a doctor is going to be about. After that, I had to find something else to do. I began selling advertising for a magazine that was published by Princeton undergrads. It was more fun than physics.”
• [Meg Whitman] “I bought Beanie Babies when one of my sons was very much into Beanie Babies. And I sold children’s books that we didn’t need anymore. It was great. Here was a book that you didn’t need, and you might get $6 or $8 for it. Next, we bought Pokémon cards. Then we sold Pokémon cards. Sort of the round-trip on Pokémon cards. And the latest thing I’ve been buying on the site has been a lot of fly-fishing equipment.”
• “How does the slowdown in the U.S. economy affect eBay?”  [Meg Whitman] “Our hypothesis is that in a slowdown, eBay actually benefits. And that’s because buyers still want the things that they want. Consumer electronics, computers, whatever. Yet people will become more value-oriented. At the same time, I think that we will actually see an increase in sellers. You may get gifts that you don’t necessarily want, things you don’t use anymore — things that you can sell on eBay and raise some cash.”

:::

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Consistently a dominant force in the Pacific Northwest Collegiate Lacrosse League (PNCLL), the Whitman men have gone to their division playoffs every year since 1995. In a preseason poll, the team was ranked second in their league, which is made up of smaller schools in the Pacific Northwest who have men’s club lacrosse programs.

http://whitmanpioneer.com/sports/2009/02/12/through-their-eyes-lacrosse-gains-popularity-on-campus/

While neither program has become a varsity sport, the presence of the teams on campus and their role in the Whitman athletic scene is not to be belittled.

“The only thing that really separates us from varsity sports is the fact that our sport is not sanctioned by the school,” said sophomore Sunn Kim about the men’s team. “Other than that, we begin practice at 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and end when our coach [David Schmitz] decides to end practice.”

The student-coached women’s team also has daily practices, which junior captain Hailey Flanigan said become more intense each year. Much of this has to do with the influx of experienced players in the program.

“We used to get only seven people showing up to practice,” Flanigan said. “This year we’ve been getting 26.”

These numbers, indicative of the growth of the sport, mean the Whitman women can select a traveling team to play at away tournaments. This selection will be based primarily off of commitment.

“We want to privilege people who are dedicated,” Flanigan said.

The men’s team currently boasts 21 players, but welcomes players who are interested in the sport to come out and play.

Consistently a dominant force in the Pacific Northwest Collegiate Lacrosse League (PNCLL), the Whitman men have gone to their division playoffs every year since 1995. In a preseason poll, the team was ranked second in their league, which is made up of smaller schools in the Pacific Northwest who have men’s club lacrosse programs. The teams play games most weekends, similar to varsity sports.

Kim says that there is a possibility of lacrosse becoming a varsity sport here at Whitman, but the process will take a few more years.
“In order to become a Division III team we would need all the teams in our division to add lacrosse as a varsity sport,” explained Kim.

Leora, Center Stage, originally uploaded by foolscircle.

One of my first photo assignments after I got my D100 was to photograph a party being thrown by the Multicultural Club on Whitman’s campus. While I was there, I decided to try an experiment with my friend Leora: I had her stand near the rotating dance light and not move for about two seconds while I snapped off a couple of low-speed shots.

I don’t know why, but I’ve always been particularly fond of this result.

Mary Beth Marklein is a great reporter on the college communication scene for USA Today but I am not impressed with the NRCCUA list she shared recently:

1. Lawrence University
2. Pennsylvania College of Technology
3. LeTourneau University
4. University of New England
5. Bellarmine University
6. Wayne State University
7. Gonzaga University
8. Saint Vincent College and Seminary
9. Lakeland College
10. Newberry College

Admissions usability? Design? Use of media? I didn’t see a single site on this list that felt strong to me in these areas.

Here are my top 3 at the moment:

1. Keck Graduate Institute – “Hybrid” microsite – Congratulations to Lipman Hearne for putting together a fast-loading, well-designed, site that integrates video effectively using Flash technology. Intuitive to navigate, very hip look, and consistently invites alums and student advisors to leave their friends’ name and email address.

2. Whitman College – terrific college website with great variety but unity of design. Lots of flash, very responsive, though there is little to no video. Excellent photography and goes a long way toward establishing the feel of a rich intellectual community.

3. Rice University – just released new university website with very nice interactive flash interface leading to interesting tie-ins between Rice history and current trends. Dock them for using Windows media and a clunky html interface for the archival video clips they show.

I looked at a couple of dozen sites in the last few days and could not find one beside the Keck Graduate Institute site that used basic Flash video, integrated into the page, to show video clips. My own informal search supports what Mary Beth reports, that according to the National Research Center for College & University Admissions, “the level of student satisfaction has been declining”. Students want more interactivity, including contact with both admissions people and students already on campus. Ease of communication with real people in the admissions office via IM is another hot button.

Of the minority of college sites that I found to offer rich media, most have long wait times, multiple formats to choose from, and clunky interfaces. It’s not that hard! My guess is we’re looking at a pattern of IT sluggishness here. Often, this seems to manifest itself in movies that require downloading, require Real or WMV plugins, or are hosted by separate servers. It’s actually quite easy to have flash movies begin streaming with 5 seconds, playable through any browser or on any computer, and integrated into the design of the page. For example, a really cool iPhone jukebox interface is as easy as falling off a log.

What college sites have you found that look great, are responsive, and use flash or video effectively?

Please comment with your nominations!

My friend Jim asked me to email a friend of his who was in Spokane, but was looking for a job, and was interviewing in Walla Walla. He wanted to know “how did it *feel* to live there?” S0, I wrote a pretty good encapsulation of my six years there, and thought that I would post it here for friends and family that have never been there…

Well, compared to Spokane and Seattle it feels slow. Leisurely. Uncomplicated. For now. This is not a bad thing. It took me a while to get used to it, though, especially if you are used to validating yourself and how important you are because you are rushing around like a nutcake, in horrible traffic, with the latest of everything (technical, clothes, whatever) like everyone else. People have time for each other. Strangers talk to you out of the blue in the grocery store. People smile at you when they walk by on the walking path. I started to savor my long, lazy Saturdays in which I did nothing more complicated than have coffee and a natter with a friend at her house, or walk to the library or hike around Bennington Lake. If you are active, you can walk, bicycle, or motorcycle anywhere. Lots of long hot summer days (with rolling dust storms), very few icy, cold snowy winter days. The colors of the ripe yellow summer wheat, the blue sky, and green hills in the summer are something you won’t see on the wet side. The wet side doesn’t have the Columbia Gorge, the Oregon Trail, high desert, deer hunting and amazing Lewis and Clark geological bluffs within an hour. I became fond of watching rodeo. I bought some boots at the New York Store on Isaacs Ave, and the guy waited on me like I was a princess. **Friendly** describes Walla Walla. Oregon is 11 miles away.

It can be hard to break into anyone’s social circle; things and people are mostly traditional, and long-memoried. I was there for 6 years, and lots of people were just starting to think of me as other than “the new person” by the end of that time. I volunteered for things, but they never seemed to work out, mostly because people didn’t show up to tell me what to do, or because of communication misunderstandings, or whatever. I realized after a while this might be because a lot of these activities have been done for so long by these same people, over and over together, they assume that everyone already knows what to do. After a time, though, I made great friends who invited me over for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the occasional dinner and glass(es) of wine. Kids can’t believe that I wondered what to do my first summer as faculty there, since I got it off from the community college. After all, there’s harvest! You can always make money driving the truck, after all. There’s a little theatre, art galleries, an adorable little boutiquey downtown, Whitman College, (not the seventh day adventist Walla Walla College, and not the Community College, WWCC, where I worked) mom and pop building supply and hardware stores, and things like the yearly Lion’s Club Crab Feed and the Catholic High School Sausage Fest. It was hard for a middle aged single woman like me to have a dating life, especially not having children; if you have children, however, you’re immediately in with the mommy sect. Most guys were married with family lives, or I quickly found out why they weren’t.

Lots of awesome wineries; lots of fancy tasting rooms, but my favorite is Rulo Winery, on Pranger Road, off of Old Milton Highway. Vicki and her husband make awesome Syrah, Chardonnay, Viognier, and a white called “Combine” that’s my favorite. They taste it off a card table in their warehouse; outside is lots of metal scuplture from the locally famous Walla Walla Foundry. Lots of big-city retired baby boomers are moving there, and these rushing around big city attitudes can irk people who’ve been there for generations. Roads into Walla Walla are being widened, and the secret is out, after getting written up in several national magazines. Go now, if you’re going. I’m afraid that in 2 years, you’ll be up to your armpits in Pottery Barns, Crate and Barrels, and Sur La Tables. “Luxury Condominiums” are already being built across from the Farmer’s Coop and Gas Station next to the renovated historic Marcus Whitman hotel.

Aqua and Kabe, originally uploaded by foolscircle.

Photo Details:
Camera: Nikon D100
F-Stop: f/5.6
Focal Length: 38 mm
Exposure Bias: 0.00
Shutter Speed: 1/90
ISO: 200

Can we be honest? For just one second? OK, here goes: I generally hate taking portraits. It’s because I’m simply not a people person.

Really.

I swear.

It isn’t because people will often assume they know more about lighting and poses and start trying to take over the photo shoot. Surprisingly, this rarely occurs when I’m taking head shots; I largely suspect it’s due to theatre people being terrified that I’ll become vindictive and make them look fat. Some of the most problematic shoots can be high school portraits, during which parents can sometimes get more than a little bossy and start telling you exactly how everything needs to go. I’ve generally come up with a solution in the form of a verbal contract explaining how it works: you provide your kid’s wardrobe and chose the location of the shoot (because you have a general idea of how you want the pictures to look), I take the photos and arrange where/how the kid will pose (because I have a general idea of how photography, y’know, works). You’d be amazed at how easy portrait shoots can go, provided you’ve laid down some ground rules.

My favorite portraits are usually those that my friends ask me to take, partially because everything’s so laid back during those sessions and partially because they trust me to make them look good. The nice thing about shooting pictures of friends is that I know what they’re like, which means I can generally find an environment that is as comfortable and fun for them to pose in as it is for me to shoot in. If you have a chance, hang out with your subject for an hour or so and just get to know them a little better. Oftentimes, this will make them a little more comfortable with you as both a person and a photographer; this will generally make for a much more rewarding photo shoot. For this example, we’re going to use my friends Aqua and Kabe as models.

Essentially, Aqua (the guy) wanted to get a portrait of he and his girlfriend in their new leather jackets. I liked the lines on the jackets, so I decided to pose them somewhere where there were other horizontal that would enhance the linear visual without overpowering it.

*Side note*
Don’t choose a location more interesting than your subject. It never works out.

Both Aqua’s and Kabe’s outfits contrasted nicely with the brick and glass background. For the most part, I just sauntered around them and took pictures of them being cute and holding each other. Kabe was feeling kind of self-concious, I guess, and wouldn’t look directly at the camera, so I played it up by having her look at Aqua instead.

After approximately 20 minutes of subjecting them to my lens’s scrutiny, I managed to capture this moment and fell in love with it. I cropped it down so it had a tighter, more polished feel, and the end result was the image at the top.