New Residence and pumpkin pie?!?

Thanks to the helping hands last Saturday, all of the major stuff of mine was moved to my new place. Its a 5 bed room 2 bath house that measures 3,000 square feet. The house sits on a corner lot which gives this place a huge yard, so Thor has a large, fenced back yard to play in.

Slowly everything is coming together. Phone service was up when I moved in. Cable was set up today so now I get clear tv reception and I can browse the web again.

A wall had been torn down between two bedrooms which looked bad and made an unevenly large room. Not really with the help of BJD, but more like BJD with my assistance has since began putting the wall back into place. The studs are up and paneling is in place on my side of the wall with a couple nails in it for a little hold.

While the wall is exposed, Shanon and I are going to run coax and ethernet into this wall to do it nicely. Its probably overkill to do it that way but I would rather do a job right than to have it done sloppily (and possibly cause me to lose my deposit).

I paid a visit to my former landlord to give her a check for the last bit of bills and she wanted to show me what she has been doing to my old room. When she flicked on the light, I was assaulted by a huge orange glow. The room is very much orange. Very much pumpkin orange. It really makes you feel like its Halloween and pumkin pie time.

iPhone 3G followup

I did a little number crunching after I heard what was said about the iPhone on stage. Jobs said it would be "half-price", but I noticed it actually costs more. Here is my breakdown.

Old 8GB iPhone costed $399. Add on $60 per month for 450 minutes of voice and the unlimited data plan (manditory for the iPhone). Then with a 2 year agreement (since you are required to sign a 2yr contract with AT&T to get the iPhone 3G) it would total $1,839.

New iPhone 3g 8GB will cost $199. Add $70 for the basic monthly voice plan and unlimited data (no word if the 450 minutes is still the norm here). Again with a 2 year agreement it will cost $1,879. Which is $40 more over the life of your contract and neither total includes fees or taxes).

Users who are classified as 'Business users' have a minimum monthly service plan of $85. That extra money gets you the ability to get email via Exchange.

Plus, in order to thwart the hackers, the new iPhone must be activated in stores instead of the comfort of your home and it will not be available to purchase at launch.

*This should clarify the previous post that noted the $199 price of the 8GB iPhone 3G being 'after rebate'. Rather they make it manditory for you to get an AT&T account (if you do not already have one) and pay the extra $10/month to recoup that 'discount'.

Lacking Inspiration lately

The title says it all, I have been lacking inspiration to blog lately. No football news to speak of much, I'm not that fond of baseball (its not like USA is a real contender this year anyway), and the NBA sucks.

But I do have a couple things to write about, hence the blog post. First, USA had the ground breaking for the new Student Center at the corner of Stadium Blvd. and Old Shell Road. This has displaced the 'old shack' and the oozeball courts. Well rest assured, oozeball will continue in a different location. It will be located between the JagTran building and The Grove. Also, it will be expanded from four courts to five now.

At the groundbreaking, I got an autograph from Coach Jones and a photo with him and the photo can be seen below.
Over the last few days I have started using Twitter. Its a pretty cool way to keep up with people since each 'tweet' is limited to about 140 characters. So you don't get the blabbering like with a bad blog post. I don't have it update me via sms because another friend of mine gets text messages every 25.2 seconds from twitter updates.

Also, I took some time to update my webpage at the school of CIS. Its nothing special but its my page. Thanks to Jeremy who made the template for the ACM website and allowed me to use it for my page as well with some modification. I plan to make more changes to it along the way.

Sweet 16 2008

The field of 64 have been whittled down to 16. So, who was upset? #2 Duke and #2 Georgetown were upset in the second round. Memphis, Tennessee, Texas, Stanford and UCLA all had close games.

Some of the interesting match-ups in the sweet 16. Michigan State and Memphis because Memphis still has some questions to answer about how they will respond against a good team where free throws could be the deciding factor. UCLA and Western Kentucky interests me because WKU is a Sun Belt team taking on a #1 seed. Wisconsin and Davidson, can Davidson's dream stay alive or will Wisconsin be the one to dash their hopes.

NCAA Round 1 Complete

The field is set for round 2 of the NCAA tournament with some surprising faces completing upset bids. #10 Davidson upset #7 Gonzaga to start off the day of upsets. While Matt, Shanon, Big Joe Duke and I were waiting to be seated at Bob Baumhower's Wings, we watched #12 Western Kentucky force overtime with #5 Drake.

While seated we then got to watch Western Kentucky fall behind and then catch back up. After trading some free throws, WKU was down by one point with 5.7 seconds left. The coach drew up a good play, Ty Rogers would inbound the ball to a player. Ty would trail him down the court drawing the focus to him then passed it to Ty a few feet behind him. Ty got the shot off and nailed the 3 pointer to upset Drake in overtime 101-99.

We were hoping that South would pull an upset but the outside shooting for Butler was too much. I hope the NCAA Committee do not think that it was a bad idea to invite USA because Butler is pretty good.

#13 San Diego upset #4 UConn in overtime so Sunday will see a matchup of #12 and #13 seeds.

The battle between the #8 and #9 seeds is typically a toss up, but I had a feeling Pelphrey would lead Arkansas over Indiana due to all of the problems Indiana has had coming down the stretch.

Then rounding out the day of upsets was #12 Villanova beating #5 Clemson. Which also sets up another match between seeds 12 and 13 in Villanova and Siena.

Well, this ends the great season that the Jaguars had. Unfortunately we have to wait several months before we get to see how the Jags look next season, but on the bright side only two players were seniors. However those two seniors really meant alot to this team.

Go Western Kentucky. At least make it to the sweet 16.

Half way through round one

Well, the first 16 games of round one was completed today with the winners advancing to play this weekend. No big upsets yet. #2 seed Duke avoided an huge upset by squeaking out a close game with 15 seed Belmont.

South Alabama takes on Butler tomorrow in Birmingham. Since I'm a cheap college student I didn't spring for tickets to the game so instead a small group of us are going to congregate at Bob Baumhauer's Wings Restaurant to eat, drink, and cheer on the Jags. Come join us!

Go Jags!

Jones adds more coaches to football staff

Coach Jones has announced the hiring of a couple coaches for the football program at USA. The first announced was former Auburn quarterback and Mobile native Dameyune Craig as running backs coach at USA. He was most recently the quarterbacks coach at Tuskegee.

The second hire was former Texas A&M offensive coordinator Les Koenning, Jr to fill the same duties at USA. He has 27 years of experience with all but one of them at the collegiate level. The last 10 years he has been coordinating offenses and calling plays starting in 1998 at Duke, before going to Houston in 1999, TCU in 2000 and at Alabama from 2001 through 2003 under former Alabama coach Dennis Franchione when he left for Texas A&M with Franchione.

Koenning has coached teams to 9 bowl games including three straight with A&M, and in 2000 TCU participated in the GMAC Bowl in Mobile.

The third hire was former Prattville HS Head Coach Bill Clark as assistant head coach. In addition he will coordinate the defense and coach linebackers. He spent the last nine years with Prattville where he was the two-time Alabama Class 6A defending champions. His last two teams won 30 consecutive games and the 2007 team ranked #2 in the nation according to USA Today's national high school poll. His overall record at Prattville was 107-11 with his last regular season loss dating back to the second week of the season in 2002.

So, Coach Jones has swept onto campus to thunderous applause and he is continuing this momentum with some good hires for South Alabama.

Now if we can only get an overhaul to the USA Sports website I would be much more happy.
usajaguars.com

A tale of two parties

Well, McCain secured the number of delegates needed to become the Republican party's presidential nominee last night. With that, Huckabee conceded and ended his bid for the nomination. Though I still have my Ron Paul stickers in my vehicle window and the yard sign is still up.

I was tuning into AM 710 today hoping to catch 'The Ultimate Sports Show' only to find out that it was yanked because of low numbers. It has been replaced by 'The Schnitt Show', which gave me a bit of a laugh due to the name. But he started saying how McCain wasn't his first, second, or third (maybe even fourth) choice on the Republican side but he stated that McCain was for lower spending, less taxes and so forth unlike Bush. Well, if you are for lowering taxes you had better lower spending. I cannot spend more than I make in a years time for more than a very short time. Else the bank will come knock on my door.

On the other side, the democrats are in the midst of a huge battle between Clinton and Obama, which is really polarizing that party. She has ended his 12 state winning spree and tighted up the gap in the delegate count. What can be said though, is Obama cannot seal the deal. He has had chance after chance and just can't put her away. Even after outspending her 2-to-1.

But here was a video Schnitt linked to from his page that has a song that his show made about Obama.


External Link Here

Since I know some of you read my posts through some sort of RSS Reader and some of those readers do not display embedded videos, I will start adding hyperlinks to the videos along with the embedded videos.

Guess who is ranked 28th in the nation...

The USA Jaguars Mens basketball team, thats who. Unfortunately, they are ranked higher than the Crimson Tide but thats not here nor there.

But the Jags have finished up a great regular season with a record of 25-5, a perfect 16-0 at home in the Mitchell Center and winning the Sun Belt Conference Regular Season Championship. With this they will be seeded #1 when the SBC Tournament starts later this week. They get a first round bye and will face the winner of the first round pairing of Denver(9) at New Orleans(8) on Sunday at 12:30pm.

Mom may be coming down this weekend and if she does I will take her to the game on Sunday to let her take in the scenery. If anyone else would like to go, let me know.

Latest Jags Football update

Athletic Director Joe Gottfried would like to name the first head coach for USA by early February but the list of people who have been interviewed is fairly impressive. So far he had met with Alabama's defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, Auburn running back coach Eddie Gran, Clemson wide receivers coach Dabo Swinney, Clemson defensive coordinator Vic Koenning, South Florida assistant head coach Dan McCarney, Birmingham Southern head coach Joey Jones, Tulane coach Chris Scelfo and former Southern Miss coach Jeff Bower.

Whoever would be the first head coach, they would have a pretty decent situation to start up a football program. If you look at the local area, its very rich with football prospects. The florida panhandle, southern Georgia, southern Alabama, southern Mississippi and over to New Orleans areas has lots of good players. There is Ladd-Peebles stadium which seats over 40,000 with artificial turf for home games. Plus the sun belt conference isn't that bad of a conference.

Gottfried should widdle down the list to 3-5 soon and probably will announce a hire in early February. It will be interesting to see who is hired.

Football round: November 4th 2007

Well, Alabama did most of the things needed to win the game but one. They could not prevent turning over the ball. They could have capitalized on a couple other things but did not. It was a good game and shows that the team is farther ahead of schedule than previously predicted.

I watched some of the Notre Dame/Navy game as well yesterday. Tied at 28 inside your placekickers range and you go for it on 4th and 8 is grounds to be fired over. Especially when your team is already 1-7, your team has not lost to this foe in 43 years, and its a service academy. You're paid to give your team a chance to win games but he clearly gave that game away. I don't care if its a rebuilding year or not, I don't care if you have a 6 year contract, I don't care what excuses you want to make. That is stupid. They may have to pray for divine intervention to win against typical cupcakes Air Force and Duke.

So, who looks good enough to win the National Championship? Ohio State looks good, it just depends on the outcome of their game with Michigan. Oregon looked good knocking off USC and Arizona State. Oklahoma looks good but I don't think they what it takes to win it all. LSU will stumble and this years 'cardiac team' will come up a little short at some point. Kansas is undefeated but do they have what it takes to win against a big team? I don't think so.

This season is heating up and will be fun to watch down the stretch.

Four weeks in and things look pretty good...

Well, its been four weeks of games in the college football season and stuff seems to be going pretty well in Tuscaloosa. Alabama is 3-1 when they could have been 4-0 or 2-2 (if Shula was still coach). After allowing 28 points given up to Arkansas to give them the lead late in the game, Bama comes back to win with mere seconds left with a touchdown pass to Caddell. The defense could not stop the running back duo of Arkansas until the last series (granted McFadden didn't play the last series).

However, last weekend Alabama lost to a better team in Georgia. But, they showed something that has been lacking in Tuscaloosa for several years. While Georgia was a the better team, Alabama played them close and could have come out on top pretty easily. They played up to a better team and gave them a run for their money.

This loss was probably better for Alabama than a win. Why? Well, sportswriters and fans suddenly had heightened expectations. Some were talking about being 8-0 when LSU comes to town. Some were even talking 14-0 with a 13th national championship. This got those peoples unreal expectations out the clouds and back down to earth. Alabama still has some work to do. They don't have the talent to play with the top 5 teams in the nation week in and week out. However, we are well on our way to getting back to that place again.

The other team in the state (for those who cannot discern what I am talking about ask me sometime) is not playing too well. They are now 2-2 with losses to South Florida and Mississippi State which should have been pretty easy wins. But those fans puffed out their chests that 'they are back'. Well, that has yet to be seen. At halftime, they were only up 21-20 on New Mexico State (another cupcake). Plus they have some big games against at Florida, at LSU, and at Arkansas. So, unless things turn around I see possibly a 7-5 record at the end of the regular season.

Notre Dame. What else can I say. They are 0-4 with little signs of life and the urgent need for a team period. They are seriously looking at losing the first 8 games. After those first 8 games, they have Navy, Air Force, Duke and Stanford. Well, typically Navy, Air Force and Duke would be considered easy, cupcake games but with this team those games are not easy games and could be nail biters. Possibly, at best, this team could be 3-9 at the end of the season.

College Football Week 2

Well, two weeks into the season and I’m happy with the direction Alabama is going. They are playing with an attention to detail that they haven’t had in several seasons. The receivers are throwing blocks down field for other receivers and running backs. The special teams are doing good too with long returns and good blocking.

I know they haven’t played a team of the caliber of LSU or Florida but Vanderbilt is not your typical Vanderbilt team of the last 10 or 15 years. They have some big play makers, a good defense, and a hunger to be better.

Our offensive line is strong. John Parker Wilson is throwing the ball well and spreading it around to many different players. Plus our Freshman running back has rushed for over 100 yards in the first two games including some long runs like the run to start the Western Carolina game for a TD.

No one thought in the pre-season that Michigan would be winless in their first two home games. Especially, a loss to former division I-AA Appalachian State (they renamed the division to something else). Notre Dame on the other hand was a prediction I gave before the season and not to rile up Vicki. They lost a lot of talent and I don’t know how long its going to be before they are back to the level of play they had last season.

They have a bad offensive line and have a hard time moving the ball consistently. Their defense is on the field too long and has a hard time getting pressure on the quarterback. They are starting a freshman at quarterback after using all three quarterbacks last week against Georgia Tech.

Auburn played a very sloppy game against Kansas State and didn’t deserve to the win but you have to hand it to them for pulling it out. But during the week, I told people to watch out for a possible upset on the plains when South Florida comes knocking. South Florida played them very tough and had several chances to win the game in regulation. But their placekicker missed 3 field goals and had a fourth blocked, but he came through when it mattered most.

In the overtime period, Auburn gained only 2 yards on a run that was followed by two incomplete passes and settled for a field goal. But South Florida had some deception still to pull. After a couple play action runs by the quarterback and running back, they finally put the ball up in the air for a 14 yard TD pass to end the game. So, Auburn falls out of the AP and Coaches Top 25 with this loss.

Next week, Alabama hosts Arkansas at Bryant-Denny Stadium, Auburn hosts Mississippi State and Notre Dame travels to Michigan for the battle of the winless teams. I guess the good thing to say about this game is that at least one team will come out with a win.

Visiting the family

Well, Thursday morning I left out going home to see the family and such missing Picklefish this week :( Oh well, sometimes you just miss out on stuff. The drive was uneventful, no wrecks and very minimal slow downs from construction. On the way I was listening to an audio book given to me by Tammy. Its the first book in the Dresden Files series. Although I haven't finished it yet, I can tell you it has been very enjoyable. The best part is that James Marsters (Spike from Buffy and Angel) is the voice talent.

Thor was quite excited to see mom as usual. She loves to give him doggie treats. Actually, right now as I'm writing this he is on the bed falling asleep with his head on a mound of stuff resembling a pillow and curled up next to my Alabama comforter.

Some people in the ACM wants to get involved in a contest Google is hosting where you make a 3D representation of your school and submit it to them. The winners get a paid trip to Google with all kinds of goodies. I think I will try to help some with this :) Hopefully, in the coming months you will be able to look at USA in 3D using Google Earth!

Mardi Gras was a great time downtown with BJD and others. I watched a guy get arrested, one carted off in an ambulance with supposed head injuries (don't ask me), and a guy falling off of a float during the Order of Myth's parade. Plus....um......I got to see a girl flash the float for throws.... WOOOOO!!!!!

Peace out