March 2008 Archives
I'm back, and the carrier trip was everything I could have hoped for. I'll get into it a little more when I get the pictures uploaded, but one overall feeling that permeated the whole trip: the mind-boggling precision at which these sailors (most of whom are kids, really) perform their jobs, protecting our country and keeping a multimillion dollar machine running.
I took the highway to the Danger Zone, and I came back duly impressed.
As I write this, my duffel bag is packed, and I'm making sure I have the basic essentials ready. I bought extra memory cards and rechargeable batteries for my camera, because I don't want to miss a second of this. And I don't know exactly when I might get to recharge my camera.
A strong bit of luck got me into this situation: I was picked at random to be one of four people at work to fly out to an underway Nimitz-class aircraft carrier and spend the night aboard it. That means a trap landing and a catapult take-off. That means sleeping in a stateroom and watching day and night operations while getting a VIP tour. That means seeing a bit of San Diego as a bookend while I'm at it. It will hopefully not involve me being called into duty to fly a fighter, but I will try my best to pose beside one.
Holy crap, this is going to be awesome!
See you all on Friday!
(I just had a thought: I need to borrow Josh's copy of the Top Gun soundtrack and load it onto my iPod. The trip just wouldn't feel right without it.)
This was the only way I made it through class tonight. Thank goodness the bookstore sells one-ups! (I didn't think they would be allowed to sell shrooms, but go figure.)
I'll be honest: I pay very little attention to college basketball until March. I know I'm not alone in this. It took a few years, but toward the end of my time at Tech, I was known to catch a game or two per season. When we really started being in competitive in the ACC, that was exciting, but I still didn't have the time to watch every game. That doesn't mean that I'm not indignant at VT's NCAA snub! That doesn't mean that I won't fill out a bracket with 15 seeds making it to the Final Four in protest! Mark my words, this is Austin Peay's year, baby! They have jumping people on their webpage, and that means they're exciting!
But in all seriousness, the second year of the Coors Park Bracketology Center is now up in our basement. This year it comes complete with 200% more tournaments! I don't think you can call the CBI a tournament, but Matt still scribbled its bracket out on a piece of notebook paper so it wouldn't get left out. See Matt's Flickr pictures of the setup. I can claim no credit for the ideas or the craftsmanship of the brackets, since Josh handcrafted the NCAA board and Matt made the others, but I can still have collateral coolness by living here.
This year, I was also doing research into bracket scoring strategies for purely hypothetical application in various sociopolitical pool-type settings. I was stunned at the precision that some people use in their brackets! I think that next year, I could really get into coming up with a dorky scoring system that uses Fibonacci sequences and least squares regression. Someone call me up and remind me to do that in 11 months, ok? Seriously.
Ah, there we go. Nothing like an improved, seamless interface to make you want to write again. I've been gone quite a long while, my friends. But you've heard all that before: it's the same reasons as ever (class, work, laziness) with a brand new and *very good* reason (mawwiage) thrown into the mix. All I can really do is reflect that many things have changed since I last took this seriously. For starters, Matthew has started a very well-written blog, which has had time to soak up most of my market share by now. The elusive Rob also started one. The infamous Daryl has re-entered the blogging world to much fanfare, along with the recent resurgence of Josh at BTN. And all the while, Tom was keepin' on trucking with not one but two blogs. I feel like this could be late 2005 again, if it weren't for the constant buzz of the most important U.S. Presidential Election in History swarming around D.C., mixed with the promise of a new ballpark, a new work location, new friends, and beginning a new life with Gina in a few months. And the fact that so many people are having babies now.
I'll close with some foreshadowing. Another reason I wanted to be sure to tune up Ramble On was for a work trip next week that will be a journey of Hobbit-esque proportions. But you'll just have to take my word for it for now... no matter what LeVar Burton says (even the cooler 2000's LeVar).
Hello? Anybody there? This is a dramatically better installation, but I want to be sure I've got it right.
UPDATE: Well, the indexes are working, but the archives aren't. That means comments are hosed for the time being, as well. I'll get that sorted out soon! Thanks for looking at my site with its collective pants down!
UPDATE 3-15-08: Hooray! I fixed most of the other issues. Just a little styling left to do.