Beavers and Snow all around

2006-12-29T19:21:00.000-08:00

Great season by the beavers. After the start and how disappointing that was, I'm amazed and pleased to watch this team. Riley and the team turned my opinion around. I will say I wasn't sure about him as the head coach early in the season because of the WAY the team played on the field, but I never went to the games hoping Moore would get hurt or hoping we'd lose a game. I think that's pathetic. We're all entitled to our opinion, but we should support the team fully when we're playing. If you don't, stay home. People behind me were hoping Moore would get hurt of that we'd lose every game so that Riley would get fired. I would never do that and can't understand the fans that pay to come to the games to do that. Makes no sense at all. I'm not innocent in having doubts and bad thoughts, but I was ready and waiting for the turn-around. After the WSU game, I was very frustrated. I was truly hoping he'd turn it around, but I had serious doubts. I still cheered them on. I always will. Hell, I sat through the Pettibone era. I went to every home game I could. THAT was frustrating. Sat through the bad to see the good, will sit through the bad to see the good again.

I'm happy for Riley, he's one of the good guys. He deserves this, more than anyone else. He turned around the program a long time ago. He's proved he can turn around a season. I hope they give him a long contract extension. I think he'll show loyalty and stay in Corvallis for the long run.

I'll eat crow, Riley and Moore are warriors and deserve all the praise in the world. Big Hip-Hip-Hooray to both of them!

Link of the moment: OSU Beavers

Bowl bound baby!

2006-11-19T17:56:00.000-08:00

OSU is bowl eligible after beating Stanford. That's not saying much, but a win is a win. After the first 5 games no one thought we'd win 5 games. So with 2 games left we can win 9 games, and possibly a 10th. I'll say I didn't think Riley could turn him around, but he did and that earns a lot of respect! He got those kids to believe in themselves and the system. In hind sight, he made the right move in not benching moore. He's been huge for OSU.

Next up: UO in the Civil War!!!

Link of the moment: Mt. Bachelor

macs on my mind

2006-10-11T07:22:00.000-07:00

I'm looking at buying a macbook pro at the end of this month. I've never really wanted a mac, but after playing on my aunts and actually listening to a friend of mine, I decided it might not be a bad idea. The final push was apple using intel chips. I'm really excited about it. I'll never give up my desktop PC, but for my laptop I think it's a good idea. So we'll see how it works!!!

Oh on another note, my previous blog about firing mike riley has gotten a lot of comments. Let me clarify my opinion. I'm still going to go and cheer the team on, because I'm loyal to the program. I still don't think riley is the right man for the job. I think we need someone with the attitude that fits the program. Everyone thinks OSU plays hard and borderline dirty, so we need a coach that can play into that, because we're always going to have that stigma. My thought is we look at pat hill. I think he'd be perfect. I don't think we should even consider getting dennis erickson back. We don't need another retread coach. I think being a retread coach killed any chance of riley succeeding here. And one other thing, I hate hearing the boos directed at the players at the games. That doesn't help a thing. It probably makes it worse in fact.

OK, off my soapbox.

Link of the moment: apple

ahhhhh, government employment

2006-09-23T16:34:00.000-07:00

Crazy week here. I started a new job with the State of Oregon. It's kind of nice to be working with them. You get really nice perks I find out. All the paid holidays and plenty of vacation and sick leave. It's going to be weird to have insurance again for the first time in 7 years really. I won't really have to worry about getting hurt snowboarding or anything like that.

Then I got news that one of my best friends got married without telling any of us. Crazy eloping fool. And on top of all of this, my other best friend is breaking up with his girlfriend and we all figured that they'd be desgustingly happy in marriage soon. Life is definetly odd.

It'll be nice when things settle down and life gets back to "normal."

Keep Mike Riley!!!

2006-09-17T16:23:00.000-07:00

Should OSU fire Mike Riley? Yes. I've defended him for far too long, but he needs to go. He just isn't tough enough. He holds onto the status quo too long. Matt Moore needs to be benched and Sean Canfield needs his chance. Riley won't do that though, he needs to go. Period.

Update:
I was wrong, Riley has proved to us all he's deserving of the head coaching position, and Matt Moore is just a stud for turning his season around. Apologizes for any bad thoughts. I never booed the team though. Shame on those who did. GO BEAVS

Home Sweet Home

2006-07-31T20:05:00.000-07:00

Back home. We got the word that we could go back home today at 6PM. So it's nice to be back and settled in. Now I can go back to work. Ya, getting up at 5:30 am is fun....not! Oh well, it's a paycheck. That's all I can say.

Link of the Moment: IGN

Fire!

2006-07-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

We were evacuated from our home yesterday at 4PM due to the Black Crater Fire outside of Sisters, OR. The fire is about 2.5 miles from my house, which is too close for my comfort. According to reports, good progress has been made to rob the fire of fuel. The reports sounded a lot more optomistic today than they did yesterday. The weather should help them out today with higher humidity levels and lower temperatures. We'll just have to wait and see what comes out of this. Worse comes to worse, we have to rebuild our home. There is insurance for that. So no worries on that end. I'm actually less stressed out today than I was yesterday. It was the waiting and not knowing what was going to happen that was killing me. Hopefully they get the fire under more control and can let us back into our homes.

Link of the Moment: Nugget Newspaper

golf balls and window boxes

2006-07-17T19:53:00.000-07:00

Got nailed by a golf ball two inches from my important parts the other day. I was upset for a couple seconds and then realized everything was intact, so no harm, no foul! It was actually humorous looking back on it.

Greg is pretty aggrevated tonight. He's putting in a window box for the kitchen. So we can have some plants in it year round. Good idea, but he's not getting anything square, so it's frustrating. All construction is when you do it yourself.

Found my snowboarding bindings at a local shop in Bend...finally!! I thought I had found the best deal on the internet at a site, but this local shop is almost $30 cheaper. I almost crapped my pants! Not going to complain though.

Link of the moment: Flow

National Champs

2006-06-27T19:08:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe the Beavers won a National Championship, but I never thought it'd be in baseball of all things!!!! I would of thought our basketball program would of came around before this, or some other sport, crew, softball, gymnastics, etc. Happy days though! I was speachless when it happened. I just couldn't believe it. Congrats to Pat Casey and the OSU Beavers!!

It's been really hot here in Central Oregon otherwise. 90+ since Saturday I think. We're supposed to be getting thunderstorms the next couple of days. That's really bad news. It's dry out and lightening means fire for us! Hopefully it's not bad though. Don't need anymore close fires!

2006-06-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

This is my new and first niece. Her name is Eva Marie!!! She was born on March 30, 2006. She is a sweetheart! And I'm sure she's going to cause my sister all sorts of fits! What comes around goes around. I plan on spoiling her as much as possible as an uncle! That's what uncles are for afterall!!!

is it summer yet?

2006-05-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

3 days in the 80's and now I'm ready for summer. I guess I shouldn't get too wound up over it because it'll be cool here very quickly. That's just the way it goes here. Hot, cold, hot, cold. You also can't get up and hike in the mountains yet, so I REALLY shouldn't get that excited about anything.

I've rediscovered the library. I'm getting to listen to a lot of music I like but wouldn't necessarily buy. So that's really quite cool.

Flint is getting almost full grown now. He's probably near 80 pounds. He'll put on just a few more pounds and he'll be done. He sure is really active. And is stubborn as any dog I've ever seen. We've basically broke him of chasing deer though, and that's very good. Now if he would just stop eating deer scat, I'd be really happy!!!

2006-04-05T11:28:00.000-07:00

Microsoft finally updated their backward compatibility list for the Xbox 360. I'm happy about the fact that they did it, but I'm not happy about the number of games they added. They only added three games. I guess it's a step in the right direction. Hopefully this means they'll be adding more titles in the future. I don't think they're going to move fast though. Games that come out with new titles each year probably won't be added either. Like sports games, they'd want you to buy the new version instead of keeping the old version, I guess that makes sense financially for them. Oh well!!!

Another rainy day here. Spring is here, the snow is gone. Time to think about summer and getting outside for hiking and such. Ok, so I'm jumping the gun a bit.

My sister had her daughter on March 30th. Her name is Eva Marie. Just a cute little baby. We are so proud of her!!!

march madness or march sadness?

2006-03-24T09:13:00.000-08:00

After watching the college basketball season and some of the teams this year, I was excited about the tournament this year. There are a lot of teams that I know nothing about, and some I know a lot about. I was looking forward to seeing Gonzaga make a run in the tournament, and at least they made it to the Sweet 16. I've watched Duke throughout the season, and they're maddingly inconsistent, but were playing well through the tournament. I have to ask myself how a team like Bradley got into the Sweet 16 at all after they got dismantled by Memphis last night. The only thing I can come up with is the officiating. This small conference teams(as well as some large conference teams) that know they have little chance of making it anywhere play helter skelter defense. They bump, grab, set illegal screens. Worse yet, they know they can get away with it. There's been a track record of officials, especially in the first 2-3 rounds swallowing their whistles and "letting them play." This just equates to letting teams that have above average defenses kill teams with decent offenses. At times they even beat teams with great offenses. I know, I know the players and coaches should adjust accordingly and make free throws, play harder defense, etc. etc. etc. My point is should they have to? If the refs have been calling games one way all season long, shouldn't they be consistent in the post-season as well. A blocking foul is still a blocking foul. I do understand not calling a ticky-tack loose ball foul to put a team at the line to win the game with .2 seconds left(refer to the Baylor-Tennessee women's game a couple years back). Watching the Duke-LSU game last night, LSU got away with several no-calls on blocks which really threw off and intimidated the Duke offense. The refs set the tone early saying you're not going to get the call down low unless it's blatant. It gave LSU free reign. It's exactly how Bradley got into the Sweet 16. The refs shouldn't be obvious in the game, either by making too many calls, or by not making enough calls. It's a fine line. I hope the NCAA addresses this.

Xbox360...Finally!

2006-03-05T10:27:00.000-08:00

I finally got my Xbox360 after a couple months of waiting. I'm super impressed with it. A couple of small features make it really nice. Apple and MS have buried the hatchet and allowed the ipod to connect to the 360 and play aac files. So you can listen to your music during gameplay. That's a spiffy feature. You can also connect to your home computer and play videos, view pictures, and play music through your xbox. As of yet you can only play aac files off your ipod and not off your computer, which is odd. I'm not sure why they won't allow aac off your computer library yet. Maybe we should count our lucky stars that you can even listen to aac files off your ipod.

One thing that does get me is that you can only play certain original xbox games on the 360. Rumor has it that MS isn't going to port anymore of the original xbox games over the 360 either. Oh well, that's only an issue for about a year or so anyway. Then 360 will be standard and no one will care about the whole backwards compatibility issue.

I do have to give a little shout out to Untitled. He made an xbox360tracker utitily. It goes and checks the inventory of BestBuy and Circuit City's near you. When they have 360's in stock it alerts you, by pop-up on your system tray, through email, or through sms text to your cell phone. Pretty slick utility and it works! Friday it said there were xb0x's in stock at the local BestBuy. I walked in 45 minutes later and bought myself an xbox360! It was a very cool little deal. Anyway, check it out if you're still waiting for that ever elusive xbox360.

RIAA says ripping of CD's illegal

2006-02-16T10:31:00.000-08:00

The RIAA recently testified in front of the US Supreme Court during the Grokster Case. During the case RIAA said that ripping music(importing music from YOUR CD's to YOUR computer) was "perfectly lawful." Now it seems they have changed their tune and have taken the stance that ripping music to your computer and then to your MP3 player is illegal. That'll come as a shock to the millions of MP3 player owner that currently do this and for the most part do it with music they buy themselves. It seems like the RIAA will do whatever it takes to make even more money for the gigantic music labels at the cost of us the consumer. Most of us have converted to using legitimate music download services such as iTunes. I will admit that I will use limewire or such to download a rare track that I just can't get on iTunes. But that's a very rare occurance for the most part. I really doubt this is anything more than the RIAA putting this word out there in plans of doing something else. Kind of like when the FBI charges someone with 30 charges in order to get them to plea down to the 5 charges they wanted to charge them with in the first place. It just seems that when you buy something like a CD, you have the right to make backups of it if you want, and that includes putting it on a computer, MP3 player or another CD as long as it stays in your possession and not someone elses.

Snowboarding and quail hunting

2006-02-14T17:45:00.000-08:00

Went snowboarding today. God I love tightwad Tuesday up at Hoodoo. $16 to board today. It was actually really good considering they hadn't had snow for like 2 weeks and they had 4 days or so above freezing. So under the powder they got last night and today was ICE and more ICE. Wasn't too much fun off the runs. I had a blast anyway. Had to buy new goggles, no big deal though. My old ones were, well old!

I think it's funny that everyone is freaking out on Cheney for shooting his hunting partner. Accidents like that happen everyday and no one says anything. I actuality it's almost more the other guys fault for coming up behind them without saying anything. Especially when those quail scatter like they do. Give the guy a break, and I don't like Cheney at all. This wasn't really his fault. Lay off.

Flint is huge

2006-02-13T16:56:00.000-08:00

Ok, Flint is the funniest puppy I've seen. He's already 50 pounds but still thinks he's a lap dog. He'll just let you pick him up and he's content to sit there in your lap just like this. He'll even climb up in the recliner to lay on you. It's really quite funny to see.

I almost got an Xbox 360 yesterday, and am now happy I didn't. I heard that they're going to have a price drop on them when the PS3 comes out. So we'll see, it's not like I'm in a mad rush to get one even if I could get my hands on the one I want. I would of had to get the core system yesterday, and that's not really what I wanted. So I'll just save up for one and get it then!!! Not a big deal.

Post-Superbowl musings

2006-02-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

Well, the Steelers did it! And now the Seahawks whining begins. They claim they got jobbed by the refs, that's a load of crap. The simple fact is they missed 2 field goals, failed to complete drives in Pittsburgh territory and had terrible clock management/coaching. Holmgren is a great coached, but he got out-coached during that game. Seattle has a great chance of returning to the Superbowl next year, Pittsburgh doesn't. They have a tough schedule next year.

I'm just happy as a clam though. Steelers are World Champs...nuff said.

Pre-Superbowl musings

2006-02-04T14:16:00.000-08:00

So I'm a huge minority here in Oregon being a Steeler fan. I had a friend get all defensive because I wouldn't bet on the game. I just feel that makes the game too stressful and I get all worked up about it when I bet on it. So I just don't do it. I just like to enjoy the game. It's not that I don't like the Seahawks either, so it'll be cool if they win. It's just hard to have faith in a team that hasn't had a playoff win coming into this season for something like 20 years. I still think the fact that it's probably Jerome Bettis' last game and in his hometown will play huge for the Steelers. Bill Cowher has proved in 3 games this year he can coach the big game too. I don't think he'll let the players down. It'll be a good game regardless.

TGIF

2006-02-03T19:51:00.000-08:00

I think I'm really tired because I didn't ever realize it was really friday till I got home sheesh! I watched part of the State of the Union speech last night(I tivo'd it). The guy really needs a speech coach. Or he needs to fire his current one. He just sounds dumb. Maybe it's just that I don't like much about him, or his agenda.

I really want to get a new ipod, but that'll come in a couple years. Mine works just fine, it's just not color. One thing I would like to get is an RF remote control for it. Would be nice to hide it in the car and be able to change songs. Like putting it in the glove box. That would be great.

iTunes gizmo and now playing on my website

2006-01-31T09:20:00.000-08:00

After much work I finally found and got a "now playing" image on my website for iTunes. This little tool posts the current song and relevant info to a small xml file on your computer and can ftp it to your server as well. Then the problem became how to get it on my website. I wasn't real familiar with php scripting, so I searched more and some more and some more and finally found a flash app to use. It took a while to get it configured right, but it basically takes the info from the xml file and grabs the album art from either amazon.com or iTunes and puts it on your website. It seems to be working well, except I'm not sure it's updating like it should. I have it set to update the song info every two minutes within the flash settings, but I have yet to see it update. It does update on page refresh though, so maybe that's a solution. I could just set the page to refresh every two minutes on it's own. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Update: The flash app is updating like it is supposed to. Woohoo!

2006-01-29T19:09:00.000-08:00

Finally got my webpage more or less completed. Had major hassles between me not having the file names correct and not having the server set up right. But after much frustration and some work over the weekend, I have a working webpage! It was a lot easier than I remember it actually.

It snowed here today, then melted. I can't believe the local ski hill I go to has over 100 inches now. They haven't had anywhere near that since I've lived here. So I'm going to have to get up there finally this year! I know I'm a big lazy turd. Was watching the winter xgames today and realized those guys are just insane. I don't think I'd survive one run down the hill the way they ride. Of course I'd just end up falling on the only ice spot on the entire hill and bruise my tailbone again. Dork.

No ground-breaking thoughts today. It's a lazy sunday. Adios

Day 1

2006-01-28T15:20:00.000-08:00

Well I'm not entirely sure what to write here yet. This is the first blog I've done. Just wanted to get it up and running, so there will be more later as you could guess for yourself!!!!