P.S. In the technical world

I had not seen anyone use p.s. (post script, for those not verse in
this antiquated abbreviation) in quite some time. I understand the use
of it and I understand it's purpose in hand written or even typed
letters where adding the thought into the letter would require going
back and rewriting the entire letter. What I can not understand is the
use of P.S. In todays technological world where inserting a thought
simply requires moving a cursor and maybe reorganizing some sentence
struture to accomodate the new thought. I suppose there is a place for
it as a punchline, a tongue-in-cheek joke between friends, but
certainly not used in a professional environment. Furthermore, if you
do insist on giving a nod to history and using P.S. In a professional
letter or e-mail at the very least make certain you emply it
correctly. A post script comes at the end of the letter after your
closing. To place a post script after the main body and before the
formal closing simply means you do not know what you are doing. This
is not a thought that occured after the fact, but simply a thought
that occured towards the end of the letter/e-mail; don't be lazy write
a new paragraph and include a the thought. I understand with the
signature block in e-mails that you are not ever real putting your own
formal closing to the message, all that means is that any true post
script would have to come after you sent the e-mail and would be
contained in a follow up message. In short i see no point to post
scripts in today's technological world outside of a joke (this
sentence is a perfect example since I added it after the fact, but
before making the post). Maybe I am just being too stubborn on this,
please if you think I am wrong please share your thoughts and explain
your take.

Kirby

Democrats Good, Republicans Baaaaaad

If that subject line reminds you of the Animal Farm the intent is intentional. Now in general I do not consider myself committed to any one party and I am a big proponent of needed a viable third party in our current political system in order to prevent any one party from gaining a stranglehold on the house and senate and possibly even the presidency so that they can force their agenda through with a total disregard for other opinions. A third party, in my opinion would force all parties to seek common ground and work together towards the ultimate goal in such a way that they can satisfy the most people. This is not what I set out to write about so I will shift gears here and get onto topic.

As I was driving into work this morning the news station I was listening to began discussing the war of words going on between Rush Limbaugh and President Barrack Obama. Just in case you have not been keeping up with this sort of stuff last week Rush Limbaugh made waves by saying “I want him to fail”, the him that Rush was referring to was of course Obama. The media types immediately latched onto this and the headlines read “Rush Limbaugh wants Obama to fail” or several similar variations. Of course what most of the headlines left out and many of the reports themselves did to is the context of Limbaugh’s statement. What Limbaugh actually said was:

If he is going to implement a far-left agenda... Look, I think it's already decided: a $2 trillion in stimulus? The growth of government? I think the intent here is to create as many dependant Americans as possible looking to government for their hope and salvation. If he gets nationalized health care, I mean, it's over, Sean. We're never going to roll that back. That's the end of America as we have known it, because that's then going to set the stage for everything being government owned, operated, or provided. Why would I want that to succeed? I don't believe in that. I know that's not how this country is going to be great in the future; it's not what made this country great. So I shamelessly say, "No! I want him to fail." If his agenda is a far-left collectivism -- some people say socialism -- as a conservative heartfelt, deeply, why would I want socialism to succeed?


When taken in context I think a rational person would understand that what Limbaugh is saying is that he does not want Obama to be successful in implementing policy and programs that he feels are not the right things to pursue. Many have accused Limbaugh of being un-American and wanting America to fail because of these statements. The hard truth is that Limbaugh made these statements not because he wants America to fail but because he wants America to succeed and he feels that Obama’s plans, which many are calling socialism, are not the way to make America succeed. I am not really sure how this makes him un-American, I mean after all wasn’t part of the founding of America and on of the major debating points of our founding fathers how much control the federal government had. There were those that believed in a large federal government and those that thought a large federal government would be the equivalent of trading a tryant several thousand miles away for one in your own back yard. I would say that Rush’s willingness to step outside the box and state his opinion that the wildly popular Obama might not have the best plan for our country is inherently American and is part of what makes this country so great.

This brings me back to my point that on the radio today they mentioned that Obama had responded to Limbaugh’s statement by saying that the republics in DC should not listen to Rush because, “You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done.” Now I will say that President Obama is correct, you can not just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done, getting things done require action. I am not talking about action like shutting down a detainment facility without giving any thought of what you are going to do with the detainees, or spending hundreds of billions of tax payers money in order to spark the economy. Those types of actions are easy because they are based off of emotion and lack little substance. Now at this point I want to say that I am not against Obama, I hope that he does a lot of good for this country and I agree with some of what he has done and I expect he will do some great things. I said from day one that he strikes me as the type of president that will honestly listen to people with pinions different than his own (though this little spat with Limbaugh would suggest otherwise). Now back to the topic, as I was saying in order to get things done you must take action and not just sit idly by listening to a conservative radio show and let the democrats push their agenda and then wonder what happened. Of course I do not think that is what President Obama meant. I think he meant that you should lot listen to what Rush is saying to you, you should not ask the tough questions, you should not listen to any opinion that is different than mine. Instead you should ignore the fact that pouring money in to the banks did not stop the bleeding in November when every Politian was pushing the bailout to win votes, ignore the fact that the bailout of the big three is doing nothing to stimulate their businesses. What Obama wants the republicans to do is stop listening to Rush and sign his economic stimulus package so he can take tax payer’s money and pour it back into failing businesses to stimulate the economy. Honestly is anyone thinking this thing through?

Of course Limbaugh had to respond to President Obama’s statement and say that Obama must want him to fail if he is telling the republicans to stop listening to him. Now honestly Limbaugh probably would have been better off without this statement, but what do you expect from a radio show hosts that makes a living by getting people worked up. Now on to the real point of this tirade, on the radio this morning the reporter offering up this information followed it up by saying, “I thought this is the time to put away childish things” stealing directly from Obama’s inauguration speech; they then said that while Rush is “entitled to his conservative opinions” he really should “be getting along and working together to get the economy back on track”. Now excuse me for being less informed than our non-biased media, but isn’t the point of our country and political system that you do not have to just accept thepopular opinion especially when you feel strongly that it is the wrong way to go. What I am noticing is a disturbing trend right now that everything that the democrats touch is golden in the eyes of the media (and therefore by default the general public) and anyone that disagrees is bad and evil and is simply being childish. I guess it is only childish when it stands in the way of the democrats getting their way, but when the roles are reversed it is the right thing to do.

On a sidebar I also heard on the radio the other day where they were interviewing people and getting their opinion about Obama’s first week in office. They asked one man how much time he thought we needed to give Obama before we begin really analyzing or criticizing how he was doing. He responded and said and I quote, “I think by the end of his first term we should have a pretty good idea of how he is doing”. Let’s hope it does not take 4 years for us to learn if Obama can do this job.

Healthy Eats

So I am trying to continue eating healthy and to be honest it has been somewhat tough since the start of the holidays because of time mainly. It takes time to do the shopping and it takes time to cook and I just have not had a lot of that recently.  Anyway I have made up my mind to put the effort in once again so since I had not posted for a while I thought I would document the occasion with a photo of dinner this evening.  So here it is ladies and gentlemen, my delicious meal tonight.

Salad Ingredients:

Baby Spinach

Grated baby carrots

sliced red onion

sliced red pepper

blue cheese crumbles

grilled chicken (seasoned with garlic, cayenne pepper, and oregano)

topped with homemade raspberry vinaigrette.

Well here is hoping I can keep it up.

Why Utah is #1

No team in the country has more wins than Utah.

Every team in the country has more losses.

Those two statements alone should be enough to end the debate about who is #1 in college football, and yet I sit here the day after the BCS National Title game unfulfilled. Florida has been named the National Champions by the BCS and they earned it by beating Oklahoma last night in the National Championship game. Florida was also voted #1 in the country by the AP voters today and this is where I take exception to things.

Florida, the national champions, finished the season 13-1. The one loss Florida had was against Ole Miss at home by 1 point, the same Ole Miss team that went on to beat Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl 47-34. That is the Texas Tech team that beat Texas and tied Oklahoma for the division title. Ultimately Florida had to beat the #1 ranked, and undefeated, Alabama Crimson Tide 31-20 in order to overcome that loss and play in the championship game. Remember that because it will come into play later. So now that the final rankings are out We can see that Florida beat #5 OU, #6 Alabama, #13 UGA, #21 FSU while losing to #14 Mississippi.

USC who finished Ranked #3 in the country feels they were slighted out of the national championship game since they had the same number of losses as the two teams playing for the national championship. USC can blame part of their exclusion from the game on their conference not wanting to have 12 teams and a conference championship game. While UF and OU were both playing for their conference title in an extra game against a quality opponent USC was sitting at home hoping for both of those teams to lose. USC could not make the argument they had the same record as the two teams playing for the national championship because they did not play as many games, instead they were relegated to claiming they had the same number of losses as the two teams playing and that is a weak argument. In the end USC finished the season with the same number of losses as the national champion and 1 less win. They did finish the season with wins over #8 Penn State, #9 Ohio State, #10 Oregon and a loss to #18 Oregon State at Oregon State. Despite all of the ridicule USC took for playing in a lesser conference than the SEC and Big 12, they finished with an impressive resume.

Texas finished the season Ranked #4 but complain they were slighted out of the national title game by the pollsters. Ironically they may have that slight to thank for finishing the season ranked above OU. I for one think they should have been playing the conference championship game after all they did finish with the same record and beat the Sooners head-to-head on a neutral field. Their lone loss came at the hands of in-state rivals and fellow division champs Texas Tech at Texas Tech. Despite this, I think things would have played out exactly the same with UT winning the Big 12, playing UF and losing (based on their performance against The Ohio State University I can not see them making a better showing against UF than OU did) and then finishing the season ranked below Oklahoma. Bottom line I think the three top teams in the Big 12 were evenly matched and they all would have fallen to the Gators in the Miami. Texas did finish the season with wins over #5 OU, #9 Ohio State, #16 Oklahoma State, #19 Missouri and a loss to #12 Texas Tech. They finished the season with an identical record as USC and finished exactly where they belong behind UF and USC.

Now before I discuss Utah in detail I want to take a look at the conference they play in. The Utes do not have the luxury of playing in a conference that the BCS deems worthy of an automatic bid so they have an uphill battle because no matter how the conference does that year their teams have to go undefeated just to get an invite to the BCS, Lord only knows what it would take to get a title shot. This year the Mountain West went 1-0 against the Big Ten, 6-1 against the Pac 10, 1-3 against the Big 12 and 1-0 against the SEC before the bowl games. Don’t look now, but that is a .750 winning percentage against the big boys. The conference had a 3-2 record this season which is a higher winning percentage than the ACC, the Big Ten or the mighty Big 12 had. Those numbers are pretty darn respectable, not that anyone noticed. Now the only reason I went into the conference performance is because it is necessary to understand what Utah did this year. Utah did not win a bad conference, in fact they had the same percentage of conference teams make the top 25 as the SEC and a higher percentage of teams make the top 25 than the Pac 10, ACC, and Big East. The MWC finished the season with as many teams in the top 10 as the SEC, Big 12, Pac 10, and Big Ten. This year of all years you have to acknowledge the MWC as a legitimate conference.

Now that brings us to the topic of this post and the Utah Utes who finished the season ranked #2 behind UF. Similar to both USC they play in a conference that does not have a conference championship so they only played in 12 games before the bowl game. Unlike USC the Utes could make the claim that despite not having a conference championship they had the same number of wins as both teams playing in the national championship game. Utah did what they needed to do during the regular season and won every game they played and for that they were rewarded with the opportunity to travel to Louisiana to play Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and not play in the BCS National Championship game. This is the same Alabama team that finished their regular season undefeated and ranked #1 five weeks in a row. The same Alabama team that, at that time, had the same record as both teams playing in the BCS National Championship game. All Utah did was go into the Sugar Bowl and beat Alabama 31-17, the same Alabama team that Florida had to beat 31-20 in order to get a shot at the national title. After the conclusion of the season Utah finished a perfect 13-0 with wins over #6 Alabama, #7 TCU, #18 Oregon State (the same team that beat USC), and #25 BYU.

Utah was denied a chance at the BCS National Championship game the day the final BCS Rankings came out. A Ranking system that relies heavily on voters to express their opinions of who is the best team in the country. Voters that take their responsibility so seriously some admitted the first and only time they saw an undefeated Utah play was in the Sugar Bowl, after the final rankings. Voters that take things so seriously that some coaches relegate that responsibility to assistants. That left things to the Media, the so called experts of college football. The same football gurus that even after Utah solidly beat Alabama laughed them off because they don’t play in a real conference. All you can ask is that the teams go out and play the games they are scheduled to play. Normally that should be enough, but in this fouled up system that is only a small part of what does matter. The AP voters had a chance to do the right thing and vote the only undefeated team #1, instead they did what everyone expected them to do and went along with public Opinion.

Only one team won every game they played in the BCS division of college football this year. That team is Utah and that is the reason Utah is #1.

What's going on?

Well on the off chance that you are subscribed to this blog you have gotten several emails tonight about "updates". the truth is this is the first "new" post. I let this blog die sometime ago when I started doing a blog on my own website, but that came to an end a few months ago when my computer died. Bottom line is I am in the process of rebuilding my website and I have decided to revive this blog and try to get this blog and my website to work jointly (wish me luck on that). I have been recreating all of my blog posts from my website over to this blog, so unless you are really bored you can ignore all those crazy update e-mails.

Great ending

So despite my post this AM I felt the need to make another post and share my wonderful ending to the weekend. After Leaving Jeff and Danilles place this afternoon/evening I head over to Troy’s for dinner. As I am pulling through Manassas I notice a noise coming from somewhere in the driveline of the Jeep. We decide to take Troy’s car to dinner so I pull into a nearby spot. Now admittedly I did not park in one of the two visitor’s spots for his building, but that is largely due to the fact that the spots were taken and I figure that being as we are only going to dinner I am safe. After enjoying a dinner we head back to the condo only to notice that my jeep is no longer there. Assuming that the jeep has been towed we set out to locate the towing company. This proved to be no easy task since the complex apparently decided it was not necessary to post this info around the complex. After a long while I finally call the police and they confirm the jeep was towed and give me the info. I really love the stupid parking rules and enforcement they have here.

The misadventures of Jeff and John

Does the picture look familiar?

It’s Deja Vu all over again!

So my friend Jeff just purchased and “new” vehicle. Well it is new to him anyway. The biggest problem with this vehicle is the location. It was in Pulaski, TN. Feeling sympathetic for Jeff (not something I am prone to do) I volunteered to ride along with him on the drive down to pick it up and bring it home. We set out on Friday morning driving his dad’s truck and towing a neighbor’s trailer. Things seem to be going good for a while, but let me tell you that is a LOOOOONG drive.

Before I proceed let me give you a background story. A friend at work came by my desk earlier this week and we are chatting and he mentions he is heading to Nashville for the weekend. I mention I am passing by Nashville on my way to Pulaski and we move on. Thursday at work my phone rings and it is Sean. I answer and he asks if I am still heading to Nashville this weekend. I say I am am and he asks for a favor. Apparently his roomie forgot his wallet here in DC when they took off so he asks if I mind getting the wallet and bringing it down to TN. I tell him I do not mind but he has to convince the Apartment complex to let me in. for those of you who have eveer stayed in an apartment you know this is near impossible. Using all of his manly grace he convinces them and I am able to get the wallet. I will not go into details because that is not the point of the blog.

Back to the story....

So we are cruising along and I decide to call Sean to work out plans to meet to give him the wallet. While working out the plans we realize the GPS is taking us a route that completely bypasses Nashville which is where Sean is at. furthermore we discover that if we do go through Nashville 2 things are going to happen. First we will arrive at the same time Sean is suppose to pick up his girlfriend at the airport. Second, we will arrive right at rush hour. One thing I did want to do is go by and see the double arch bridge on the Natchez-Trace from the road beneath the bridge (what can I say I am a dorky bridge engineer). I punch in the location of the bridge as a via point on our trip to Pulaski and the GPS is kind enough to recalculate our optimal route which now takes us past the Nashville airport and around the Nashville by-pass. I tell Sean I will call him when we get close to the airport, but we are not taking that trailer through the airport traffic. As we get closer (about 15 minutes out) I call Sean and as fate would have it he is at the airport picking up his girlfriend. We make plans for an alternate location to meet and go on about the trip. Then as if planned comes the rush hour traffic. This must have slowed Sean down more than us because he calls just as we are getting on I-65 to say they just found a place off the second exit on I-65. We make the drop (in traffic) and head back out. fortunately the optimal route to the bridge takes us on back roads and we are able to avoid traffic. We arrive at the bridge and to my disappointment the time of day and the surroundings make for very poor photos, but I do my best and we are on our way.

We finally arrive in Pulaski about 1 hour after the original plan. We load up the trailer and begin the trek home. I tell Jeff I can go as far as he feels like driving that night, so we take off. We get back to I-40 and decide we are both hungry and he is tired so we find a nice exit with a waffle house and a Hampton Inn. After dinner we head to the Hampton Inn to see about lodging. After much miscommunication we end up with 2 smoking rooms instead of the 1 nonsmoking with double beds we had hoped for.

Next morning we get ready to head out only to find it is raining which I anticipate making the trip fun. we get back on the interstate and the weather clears for a bit and we are cruising along until we decide to seek out a sonic for lunch. Again the GPS is useful and locates one about 1 hour away just a little off the interstate. we head there for lunch and enjoy a good sonic lunch . Since I do not get sonic often I decide to get a slush after the meal and I notice they have happy hour specials with all drinks for 1/2 price 2-4 pm everyday. Since it is 1:50 we decide to wait till 2:00. At 2:02 I proceed to order my creamslush and the total comes to $2.08, I pay and realize it is not half price. No biggie I will mention it to the girl when she brings it back and get $1 back. I take another look on the menu and realize the creamslushes are the one drink not included in the special. All that waiting and nothing.

We head back out and Jeff is driving an looks down at the trailer brake and sees no light. We pull over to check the connection and realize that at some point the cable has dragged and torn to the point we do not have a connection to the trailer any longer. with about half the trip yet to drive we look up a carquest on the GPS and thy fortunately have one replacement plug. We head over there and lose a good hour in the parking lot making a field repair to the trailer. the kick is even after the field repair we are down to only one light on the trailer working. Tired and ready to hit the road we admit defeat and and head back out thankful we at least got the brakes working.

the next half of the trip is spent driving through complete down pours mixed with patches of light rain. We finally pull up to Jeff’s House at 9:00 pm, a mere 13 hours after we left that morning. Next comes the fun of unloading the trailer in the rain. For those of you unaware, trying to stop a vehicle on a metal trailer in the rain with bad brakes is near impossible, fortunately driver, trailer, vehicle and spotter are all ok.

Heading Home

I am sitting in the Airport after a week spent traveling along the Natchez-Trace Parking as part of work. The trip started in Tupelo, MS and ended in Nashville, TN and the northern most end of the parkway. I have now had the experience to travel almost half of the parkway and I must say it was a very enjoyable trip. The time of year could not have been better as the temperatures were in thr upper 60’s and lower 70’s, the sun was out the whole time, the dogwoods were in bloom and the bugs were not out. Despite how nice the trip was it will be nice to get back home and be able to do things on my own schedule again. Of course the fun part of the project is now over as I already have the Project Manager asking me when I am going to get started and how long it is going to take. Oh joy!