... BALLS.
It is 4th-and-1 in overtime and the other team has already kicked a field goal. The safe choice would be to kick and tie it up again. If you go for it and don't get a first down, it is game over -- you lose. Most coaches would kick. But our coach plays to win. After the game, he said "If we can't get half a yard, then we probably didn't deserve to win." Huge gamble. Very ballsy. Our guys came through just fine. Got the first down, and one play later we were in the end zone with the winning touchdown.
For the record, if the Georgia game is anything like this, my head will explode.
The game had an exciting start to set the stage for the big finish. A pair of F-18 fighter jets buzzed the stadium after the National Anthem was played. They were lower than any flyover that I've ever seen. Very cool. Take a look:
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
"Slogged through, Aug '90"
I like used books. There is nothing wrong with buying new books, and I do this from time to time, but I also like to wander through the second hand bookshops to search for hidden treasure. Like the time I happened upon a no nonsense ultrasound study guide just as I had started studying for my board exam and needed to refresh my memory. It turned out to be an excellent resource, and was a bargain at 50 cents. It was marked down from $1 because the cover was ripped. Found it at the Rancho Coastal Thrift Shop in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California. How random is that? Out of curiosity, I looked it up online. Out of print and difficult to find, the only copy I could locate was priced at around $60.
New books are pretty, but sterile. No dog-eared corners or torn covers. No broken spines or yellowed pages. No bookshop stamps or annotations. Some used books have the previous owner's name written inside the cover, or a library stamp, or maybe something that the used book shop put there. If you're lucky there might be something more. I enjoy those random snippets that people sometimes scribe there. It might be where they got the book, or when, or who gave it to them. Maybe an opinion about the contents, or a verse of poetry. You never know what you'll find in a book that has been around and changed hands. Like this -- I am reading The Fall of Hyperion for the second time since it was purchased from a used bookstore years ago. A Mr. H. M. Moore, Jr. left a note on the inside cover:
Slogged through
Aug '90
New books are pretty, but sterile. No dog-eared corners or torn covers. No broken spines or yellowed pages. No bookshop stamps or annotations. Some used books have the previous owner's name written inside the cover, or a library stamp, or maybe something that the used book shop put there. If you're lucky there might be something more. I enjoy those random snippets that people sometimes scribe there. It might be where they got the book, or when, or who gave it to them. Maybe an opinion about the contents, or a verse of poetry. You never know what you'll find in a book that has been around and changed hands. Like this -- I am reading The Fall of Hyperion for the second time since it was purchased from a used bookstore years ago. A Mr. H. M. Moore, Jr. left a note on the inside cover:
Slogged through
Aug '90
Monday, November 02, 2009
Nickeled and Dimed
I'm in Chicago on a business trip. Had to pay $15 to check my suitcase on the flight. The very expensive hotel I'm in charges for wireless internet access. Cheaper hotels usually give you wireless for free, along with breakfast. (Right now, I am using the free wi-fi at the convention hall.) I skipped the expensive breakfast at the expensive hotel and grabbed some tea and banana bread from Starbucks. My 16 ounce hot tea costs more than a 12 ounce tea, but they both only use only one tea bag. The vending machines for Chicago's rail system do not accept credit cards, and they don't give back change. I will have to hunt around for correct change next time. You also don't get a receipt, which will complicate my expense reporting. My employer wants proof of every little thing to a ridiculous degree, so I guess I will try taping the used transit card to my paperwork and see if that satisfies the corporate overlords. If nothing else, now I can say I've ridden the 'L'.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Singing Pumpkins, Flying Cats
Hope your Halloween is less soggy than ours. I feel sorry for the kids slogging around in the rain tonight. The wet weather won't bother us -- we'll be inside watching football. Go Jackets!
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Plastic Parts
Cheap, yes. And light. But not always the best idea. Two examples spring to mind.
Case #1 - the hated vacuum cleaner
We have 100% wood floors in our house, with a few area rugs. We also have an upright vacuum cleaner that got good reviews on Consumer Reports. It works great on the area rugs we have (all three of them) and would be excellent on wall-to-wall, since it is self propelled on carpets. But since we have lots of wood surface to clean, and it is big and bulky and hard to maneuver, and quite possibly a danger for scratching the floors, I end up using the attachments quite often to clean the wood floors. The wand attaches via a plastic nub on the nozzle that interlocks into a slot on the accessory. A soft plastic nub. Which wore down to nothing approximately six months after the warranty ran out. So I end up having to bend over to hold the floor cleaning attachment at the midpoint junction so that it stays attached to the hose (sort of) and get a huge cramp in my hand and it still falls out every few minutes. And did I mention that all those plastic parts somehow did not prevent that vacuum from weighing about twenty five pounds? Fail, and Fail.
Case #2 - the rolling cooler that no longer rolls
The rolling cooler is, in theory, a great idea. We have a definite need for such a device. Our football parking area is a long way from where our friends host the tailgate party (they donate lots more dough than we do, thus the premium parking for them). We used to carry our big assed cooler in by PDM carrying it in his arms. It doesn't really have handles so you have to make do. Not fun. So for Christmas, I got us a large capacity rolling cooler. And it worked great, for about a quarter of a mile, on the first day we used it. Until one of the wheels fell off. Upon closer inspection, the problem was that the metal axle got very hot from friction and melted right through the fracking plastic housing that attached it to the bottom of the cooler. Bad design, fellas. It is not rocket science to figure out that the axle would heat up. So why use a plastic with a low melting point?!? Maybe they should have used whatever the suitcase companies use, because those rollers work fairly well. Probably because they aren't PLASTIC. What kind of rolling distance did they use in their design calculations? Ten feet? You don't need a rolling cooler if you park right next to the picnic table. I would have designed it for at least a mile.
Buyer beware. Look out for plastic. Because it is NOT looking out for you.
Case #1 - the hated vacuum cleaner
We have 100% wood floors in our house, with a few area rugs. We also have an upright vacuum cleaner that got good reviews on Consumer Reports. It works great on the area rugs we have (all three of them) and would be excellent on wall-to-wall, since it is self propelled on carpets. But since we have lots of wood surface to clean, and it is big and bulky and hard to maneuver, and quite possibly a danger for scratching the floors, I end up using the attachments quite often to clean the wood floors. The wand attaches via a plastic nub on the nozzle that interlocks into a slot on the accessory. A soft plastic nub. Which wore down to nothing approximately six months after the warranty ran out. So I end up having to bend over to hold the floor cleaning attachment at the midpoint junction so that it stays attached to the hose (sort of) and get a huge cramp in my hand and it still falls out every few minutes. And did I mention that all those plastic parts somehow did not prevent that vacuum from weighing about twenty five pounds? Fail, and Fail.
Case #2 - the rolling cooler that no longer rolls
The rolling cooler is, in theory, a great idea. We have a definite need for such a device. Our football parking area is a long way from where our friends host the tailgate party (they donate lots more dough than we do, thus the premium parking for them). We used to carry our big assed cooler in by PDM carrying it in his arms. It doesn't really have handles so you have to make do. Not fun. So for Christmas, I got us a large capacity rolling cooler. And it worked great, for about a quarter of a mile, on the first day we used it. Until one of the wheels fell off. Upon closer inspection, the problem was that the metal axle got very hot from friction and melted right through the fracking plastic housing that attached it to the bottom of the cooler. Bad design, fellas. It is not rocket science to figure out that the axle would heat up. So why use a plastic with a low melting point?!? Maybe they should have used whatever the suitcase companies use, because those rollers work fairly well. Probably because they aren't PLASTIC. What kind of rolling distance did they use in their design calculations? Ten feet? You don't need a rolling cooler if you park right next to the picnic table. I would have designed it for at least a mile.
Buyer beware. Look out for plastic. Because it is NOT looking out for you.
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