I read somewhere that Mack Browns biggest mistake was not redshirting Chris Simms. I think it was a mistake, but not his biggest. His biggest, was either 1) Going after the block on a punt late in the 4th quarter against Colorado, or 2) Not pulling Chris Simms sooner in that same game. Think abou this, had Brown redshirted Simms, we'd have two more years of him, and we might still have had to watch Simms instead of Applewhite this season.
Hook 'em
Consider the following games with BCS implications:
Miami at Virginia Tech
Tennessee at Florida
Oregon State at Oregon
And best of all - Colorado vs. Texas
Honestly, as much as I enjoyed seeing CU stick it to Nebraska, I would have preferred Texas vs Nebraska in the Big 12 Title Game. Not only is it fun to beat the Cornhuskers, but beating them would have likely propelled Texas into the #2 spot in the BCS - even without Miami or Florida losing.
Oh well, you take what you get, and right now things are looking pretty good for my beloved Longhorns.
Hook'em and Beat The Hell Out Of CU!
Very fitting.
Places to get it cheap
Oh, and I had forgotten how much I enjoy a high-speed connection...the instant gratification of it all...yes!
I will have highspeed internet there and might be relocating the server to our new location. So, FYI, there could be some downtime in the next couple of weeks.
F*ck the pollsters. Give me a playoff system.
Texas should check in at #7 in both polls...I don't think they will jump Florida, but that was a dominating performance of a very good Colorado team - on national TV.
Now that Oregon has a loss, I will root for them to knock off UCLA. Also time to root for Nebraska as they face ou next this Saturday. I still hold out hope for Texas and a national title. A longshot, I know, but you never know. ou loses to Nebraska, UCLA loses to Oregon, Virginia Tech or Miami lose at the hand of the other, Florida faces 4 top 20 teams in their final 5 games. So, with a little help, the season could wind down with Texas worked their way into the Big 12 Title game against an undefeated or one loss Nebraska game (assuming they beat ou, they still must face CU and K-State). Most likely one other team will be undefeated - Miami or Virginia Tech. Let's say Texas beats Nebraska in the Big 12 Title game, they would be a front runner of a group of 3 or 4 one loss teams to face the lone undefeated team in the Rose Bowl. It could happen.
Kansas State loses to ou by 1 point.
Kansas State loses to Colorado by 10 points
Texas loses to ou by 4 points (I don't count the final touchdown).
Colorado loses to Texas by 34.
Further, how the hell does Baylor score 17 points on ou, when Texas could muster only 3?
It's really too bad that there is no playoff system in Division 1A college football, because I would love to see a rematch of Texas and ou at the end of the season.
Updated 1/25/2004:
(For you land thieves that means what follows is new.)
I guess I need to clarify what I mean by “I don't count the final touchdown.” I am sure you all have heard someone say “meaningless points,” right? You know, points scored at the end of a game, distorting how close (or not) the game really was. The final turnover in that game was obviously critical to the outcome, and for land thieves everywhere, the touchdown was icing on the cake. In other words, Texas lost, but it wasn't a game played like a double digit loss. If you still don't get it, then forget -- I can't help you.
After watching ou choke away a shot at the national title with loses to two teams that Texas beat in the 2003 calendar year, I am once again puzzled by outcome of recent Texas ou games, especially the most recent.
One last thing, I am always ready for a rematch. I am sure land thieves understand the feeling, since they seem to be on the short end more often than not against Texas. What is ou's all-time record against Texas these days? Something like 38-55-5? Good thing for those four in a row to make it look a little more respectable.
The tables always turn. I am sure that how ou fans feel now is similar to how they felt in the late 80's. The question is, do they remember how they felt most years from 1989-1999?
First, a little background information. My father-in-law's house has a broadband connection through their cable provider. I have my own IP address with them for when I visit, so that I can get online using my laptop. Within 15 minutes, I had configured the Router so that it was now being treated by the ISP as though it was my laptop (it was connected), connected my laptop to the built-in switch via CAT5 and surfed the Internet through the router, and had then configured the wireless LAN and the wireless card in my laptop to talk with each other. Done. That fast. So no more cables running through my in-law's house as I move from one room to another with my laptop...I am untethered, and I love it!
By the way, I bought the device for eventual use in my own place, not specifically for use at the in-laws.
I am building a web site/content management framework, but in the meantime, I have these other systems to support. What to do, what to do? I know what to do...finish the framework and the use it in every site I have. Easier said than done. I need to add features and functionality now, not in a month or two.
The sites...
It seems as though a ZDNet writer received some information about an error message that a reader ran into on a Microsoft site and decided to write an article about it. The article, titled "Microsoft.com error reveals IDs, passwords", unfairly attempts to shoot down Microsoft and the .NET technologies. It takes a friend of the author to save the article by pointing out that this error has nothing to do with problems inherent to .NET, it has to do with a programmer putting code into production that should not have been.
The code was left in debug mode which exposes lots of nice details to developers when errors occur, details that should never be seen by the general public. Aside from the debug mode issue, the error was caused by a variable not being declared. Why didn't this pop up in testing? The error prone code should never have made it into production. Perhaps I should apply for that job with Microsoft that was recently posted on one of the many job boards.
Do deaf people talk to themselves, and if so, do those that know sign language sign to themselves?
I was at Barnes & Noble the other night and a guy who is at least hearing impaired (he had hearing aids behind both ears) was standing at a display rack looking at stuff and signing. There was no one else around for him to be signing to, so that is where the question comes from.
Beat The Hell Out Of ou!
Hook'em!
July 19th, 2001, the day before my son's first birthday. Some family members were already in town for the special day, more family members were scheduled to arrive later in the day. It was to be a happy time, a good time. It was to be a time of family coming together to celebrate the 1st birthday of the first member of the next generation. How quickly things change.
I had recently completed a project and had taken to working from home while between projects. On this day, I was at home with family - mom, step-dad, wife, and son. Sometime in the late morning on July 19th, 2001, I received a phone call from my boss. This in of itself was not unusual. After all, he would regularly call for one reason or another, and typically it was to tell me that I was going onto another project at a client location 1-2 hours drive from home...not a call that I enjoyed receiving. On this day, however, when the phone rang and my wife answered, I knew immediately who it was and that it was not going to be a pleasant call. There had been a layoff and I had been let go. On the bright side, I would be paid through the end of July (yippee! that makes all the difference in the world...).
So there I was, freshly unemployed with family in from out of town and more arriving later that day. I was shocked, I was mad -- I didn't know what to do. Ok, the obvious thing to do was get a new job, but that wasn't going to happen that day or even that week. In the meantime, how do I deal with all these people around? How do I deal with friends and family at the house on the Saturday for the big birthday party? When do I get to deal with the emotions that I was sure to have from being laid off? I had to be strong, for my wife's sake. She didn't need the stress. I had to be happy, after all, I didn't want to ruin the party. At the same time, I needed to grieve and be pissed off.
That afternoon, as more family was arriving, I took a short bike ride to blow some steam. I rode as hard and as fast as I could. I don't know that it helped. In the following days and weeks I held the emotions in as they were nonproductive in my search for a new job. Within a couple of weeks I had an interview with a company in Texas. Within a week after the interview I had a job offer. Within two weeks of the offer I was getting ready to go to Texas to work. I had still not let my emotions over losing my job out. Some might argue that I didn't need to at this point, because I had another job. Either way, they stayed bottled up inside. Additionally, I was now feeling the stress of trying to sell our almost new house, moving and starting a new job. Resentment and new anger were building over the fact that I had to leave my home in Colorado for this job. I was angry that I would no longer be in Colorado, I was mad that I was not going to enjoy my house that we had lived in for less than 6 months. Still, the emotions stayed bottled up inside.
Then September 11th happens. I have grieved, I've been sad, I've cried, and now I am angry. I am angry because now I am fearful. I am not afraid of dying, I am not afraid of war. I am afraid for those that I love, especially those who are so young and innocent. I am afraid of the world that my son will grow up to know -- a world of terror, a world of hatred, a world of war, a world of fear. I fear that one day my wife will head off to work and my son to school and that it will be the last I see of them.
That pisses me off.
We are currently living in a friends apartment in SW Fort Worth while we sell our house in Colorado. Our friend has not been staying at the apartment for quite some time and had disconnected cable and phone service. Thinking that we won't be here for long, I have decided not to turn these services back on. Only problem with that is, no Internet connection for me. I have purchased a wirless network card for my laptop and service from MobileStar so that I can at least go to Starbucks and other locations and get a high-speed connection. The service is great, but it is not at home, and that had me thinking about seeing if any neighbors had a high-speed connection that they'd be willing to share wirelessly.
Oh, by the way, I am in Austin attending Microsoft's .Net Developer Training. So far so good...lot's of information to digest.
The personal tales that are being shown on TV are sometimes too much. I can't handle such sadness.
I woke up each of the last two mornings hoping to turn on the TV and hear that we have blown some of these "terrorist friendly" countries to hell.
I am now sitting in Terminal E at DFW Airport waiting for my flight to Denver and surfing via my MobileStar Wireless connection.
Anyway, going to Denver tonight, moving the household over the weekend.
This is sooo sweet.
I've been here for a week now and started my new job this past Wednesday. So far, so good, I suppose...perhaps a bit boring. The people are great, a real nice group, but I don't know that I am going to enjoy the job itself, of course I am only a few days in and you can't base anything on such a short period of time.
Hook'em! - I've been waiting for what seems like forever for the college football season to begin. Finally, last night, Texas opened their season against New Mexico State with a 41-7 victory. Of course there were some rough spots in the opener, but all in all they looked good, especially Cedric Benson.
Based on this, I would have to say that the offense is simply going to crush opposing defenses because the Horns defense is supposed to be very good this year, especially at linebacker and in the secondary.
What is not uncertain is that I will be working again come next week, what is uncertain is just exactly where that will be (odds are on Fort Worth, Tx, but I am pulling for the longshot, Dallas).
What is much less certain is how long I will be working in another state before I am able to finally settle down there - we have to sell the house and all first.
So what, you say? Well the Blogger API pretty much falls in line with the stuff I've been doing over at metaStash.com, that is, Web Services.
To follow up on the 'so what' theme, this means that blogging can be done from your own application, be it on the desktop or a website. Me, I am posting this from my own web page.
So it seems that I could have an opportunity to work in Olympia. Anyone know anything about this town or the area?
This will be an interesting case to follow, even though it is taking place in Korea. One question...do they really have an 8-story apartment? No wonder they are so skinny.
This hits a bit too close to home. It is looking more and more like we will be packing up and heading back to Texas. The job market here in Colorado is dead. How I wish I had been part of the earlier layoffs...the ones where they gave 2 months severance, AND the job market was still decent. Now when the market totally sucks ass, you get a token couple of days and a swift kick in the hind quarters.
Lance Armstrong has just become the 5th cyclist ever to win 3 straight Tour de France's, and the second American to win a total of 3 Tour's.
Too bad OLN wasn't able to carry today's stage into Paris live. Oh well, you can bet that I will be watching the coverage on CBS at 2 PM EST today.
If you know someone looking to hire a developer with Microsoft-centric skills (VB, ASP, COM/COM+, SQL Server, ADO, CDO, XML, XSLT, HTML, Javascript, etc), let me know.
So back to the things I am doing...there is metaStash, and <c@chedCode> Technology Group and this super secret thing that the CCTG is building.
So I am staying busy.
So what's new with you? Hey, that sounds like fun.
Me? Well, we went camping this weekend in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Yeah, it was a good time. We did your typical camping thing...you know, hiking and roasting marshmallows and stuff.
No, Jacob didn't go...he stayed with his Great Aunt for the weekend, I hear they had a blast.
Yes, of course, I took pictures. I'll post them soon.
Do me a favor, click on this. Now look in your address bar...see that? default.aspx? That means that this page is now an ASP.NET page. Also, the "Places I Visit" list to the left...it is generated using the web service that I wrote yesterday. If you are toying with ASP.NET and want to use my web service, drop me a line.
.net is gonna be big...
In the very near future, my little web site will become a dot net site...that is ASP.NET. I recently wrote a web service that exposes the bookmarks and links from metaStash so that users can use this data within their own applications - more on this later. Anyway, I want to be able to use my links from metaStash on my own website, so that was the inspiration for the web service.
Yes, I should be working instead of playing.
Hmmm.
The family (Gidgit and Jacob) is back from their brief stay in Dallas. Evidently they had a good time.
Me? I stayed in Colorado, enjoyed the quiet, except for around 10:00 PM Saturday night when I called the police due to some overly excited Colorado Avalanche fans who thought that it would be cool to shoot off fireworks in the middle of our street. Now I am not normally such a party pooper, but when the consequences of someone's actions could affect my own personal property, that is where I draw the line. Never saw the police though.
Did I mention how much I hate my job? I wonder if my employer has come across my site yet? Probably not.
Are you a developer? Would you like to be a part of our developer co-op? If so drop me a line at bryan at daneman dot com.
What does this co-op do? I don't know, that's why we need you. Actually, the co-op, also known as c@chedCode Technology Group, has been formed to help bring developer's together to share information and idea's, brainstorm, collaborate on projects, etc. The Group is just starting out, so why not help get us going.
Not quite.
On top of making a 100+ mile roundtrip commute everyday, I am filling in for a co-worker who is on vacation.
No big deal, right?
Wrong.
You see, I had just a couple of days of "transition" and I am supposed to step in and not miss a beat, when the person working on this has had 2+ months to get up to speed. Did I mention that this involves a product that is practically beta, is full of bugs, and has little documentation? What a headache! I am considering finding another job just to get off of this project.
Ugh! There is that pain in my ass again.
I tool is only useful if it gets used. I guess that Blogger is not useful for me. That, or my website is not useful to me, or anyone else for that matter.
In my pursuit to do something useful, I have created what is for me, the most useful too around, metaStash. It is a handy little web app that lets users Stash all kinds of useful data as they surf the web. This useful data is then stored in a centralized, web based repository for easy retrieval later. Try it, use it, love it, but most importantly, StashIt!.
Now, on to more mundane things...
We will finally be getting our new Dell PowerEdge Server up and running and online this coming weekend. This server, along with several older ones will provide hosting services to a number of sites in the future, including Daneman.com, Daneman.org, metaStash.com, cachedCode.com, and some other domains that I have yet to purchase.
I am telling you (if there is a you) just in case you experience downtime this weekend for any of the above mentioned sites.
Jacob is changing every day. He now has 6 teeth that are either in or have broken through. He crawls, he pulls up on things, he basically has a grand time.
Got to run. See ya!