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Football Pool - July 31, 2006
I'll be hosting my football pool over at Roto Mojo again this year. It is a "pick'em" type of pool, where you simply pick 12 games, ranking the teams from 12 to 1 (no point spread), and get that many points if they win. $60 entry fee - everybody's invited.
Easy game you say? The catch is that you pick one game as a "bonus". If your team wins you get double the assigned points. Miss it and get negative assigned points. 2nd catch is that the team you pick against has to have a .500 or better record - no getting rich by betting against the 49ers each week.
I'm going to institute a tie-breaker this year that you can choose to play or not. The first tie breaker is the number of games picked correctly. 10 for 12 with 85 points beats 9 for 12 with 85 points. That's always the way it's been. This year, I'm going to allow you to pick the games you are not assigning points to (usually 4 or 5 games) and record those picks. The one who picks the most games correctly wins the second tie-breaker. If you choose to not pick those games you'll get a zero and lose the tie-breaker to someone who did.
Just about all fees are returned back to players in winnings. Each week the high scorer gets $75. Depending on the number of players, we'll probably pay the top 20 scorers at the end of the season. First place got $500 last year.
Registration is open. Go to the site and sign up for this year's league. If you played last year than you simply need to login. If you are new there is a registration form. The Smack Exchange is open. The NFL schedule is not in but will be finalized this week. Other than a few minor tweaks, the sites ready to go.
Flying - July 31, 2006
I don't think it's a secret that I've always wanted to learn how to fly. Due to varying combinations of time, money, family, I've never explored it further than dreaming. I love going to airports, and try to make a monthly trip to our local airpark for their monthly pancake breakfast fly-in.
I'm always interested in pilot stories - either amateur of professional. I've recently just run across (via ORBlogs -a consolidation of blogs written by Oregonians) a blog written by a professional pilot - Ancient Pelican and have been browsing his archives.
Today he wrote and entry titled Bad Day at the Office. As you might guess, it's a fabulous story of a challenging day in the cockpit of his airplane. And I would suppose that for a professional pilot, a challenging day in the cockpit, is not a good day.
This is a great story.
Smiling in the Rain - June 20, 2005
We've been having some interesting weather the last few days. Dazzlingly beautiful with thunderstorms in the afternoon. On Saturday a storm came through that was really impressive. It started with a barrage of HUGE raindrops - the kind that you can hear hitting your car. Then came a short bout of hail - probably lima bean sized - before really opening up with the rain. Likely the hardest I've ever seen it rain here.
When it was getting started, Garrett put on his rain coat and rain boots and stood out in the rain. Then he got out his bike and rode about the neighborhood, with a a huge smile.
NFL Championship Games - January 21, 2005
Another round of Football pools have come around the office for this weekend's big games. I love these things - especially here at work because they are low dough ($2 per square), I know a lot of the folks on the grid, and it provides some additional interest in watching the games.
I'm in two pools, both the 10x10 pick-a-square type of game where you put your name in a square. When the grid is full, the numbers are then picked at random, and using the last digit of the team's score, it maps to a square on the grid. I've got two squares in the AFC game, and 1 for the NFC game.
- Patriots 7, Steelers 3 - by far my best chance at a winner.
- Patriots 9, Steelers 9 - not a very likely combination - 9 is easy, but 19, 29, and 39 are very unlikely scores unless something unusual happens (missed PAT, safety, 2pt conversion). The good news is that special to this pool, any person who paired up on their numbers are instant winners of $4!
- Falcons 9, Eagles 7 - not a bad combo for a low scoring game - 9 to 7, 17 to 9 - after that the likelihood of a winner goes down.
Payoffs - Besides the instant wins, $20 for end of 1st quarter, $25 at halftime, $35 for end of 3rd quarter, and $80 for the final. Considering my instant win, I'm in this thing for $2 total. Now let's see if I win.
UPDATE: - Like Yukon Cornelius, "Nothin' - absolutely nothin'."
I've Beat the Heat - Now I Can Sleep - July 22, 2004
It's been pretty hot here, pushing into the mid-90's. That may not seem too bad for you desert dwellers and Californians, but for an Oregonian, specifically a Willamette Valley dweller - that's pretty hot. With upstairs bedrooms, an undersized A/C, and all too efficient home insulation combine to make nighttime sleeping more difficult. I've even resorted to sleeping on the couch downstairs a couple of times because it's so hot up there.
The air conditioner we installed a couple of years ago does keep the house relatively cool during the day downstairs. With the thermostat downstairs, the temperature upstairs is ignored, making it a good 5-10 degrees warmer.
At night, I find it silly to run the air conditioner when the outside temp drops to below the thermostat setting (nighttime lows are in the upper 50s to lower 60s). Opening windows is ok, and by morning the house can be quite cool. But at bedtime, the nightly breezes are not strong enough, or not blowing in the right direction to make a difference. Table top fans are noisy, and there is only one of us that likes the blowing wind on them - me, so that's out.
So I installed a "Whole House Fan" (30", belt drive, 5700cfm). The fan installs in the ceiling and sucks air from the house, into the attic. Ideally, you run it when the temperature outside falls below your inside temperature, with a few windows open. It sucks the air from outside in, the air in the house is blown to the attic, and out through the roof vents.
After having it working for a few days, I can say that I'm very happy with the results. About 6 or 7pm we turn off the A/C, turn on the fan and open a few windows. Standing by a window you can physically feel the cool outside air coming in. After less than an hour, the upstairs temperature has dropped 5-10 degrees, and sleeping upstairs is no longer an issue. It's even to the point where the blanket and sheet are actually used rather than discarded at my feet. It is not the quietest thing - although if we had to you could sleep through it - but we only keep it on for a few hours and the whole house is significantly cooled off.
I wouldn't say that installation was a snap, nor was it particularly difficult or required any special tools. I took my time and made sure that I got it right. I spent lots of time in the attic, lots of time balancing on the upstairs landing banister leaning over a 20ft drop, and lots of time with my arms over my head - none of which are very pleasant, and sometimes downright frightening.
The only thing I didn't do quite right was buy the right size attic joist replacements - I just bought 2x4s initially. When I looked up there, I knew I needed bigger, so I went back and bought 2x6's. Only when I went to measure did I realized I had 2x8 joists up there! DOH! With only 4 or 5 trips back to the home store for more supplies, I built the frame, tapped into the smoke detector power connection, bought a replacement ceiling fan switch with the pull chain (instead of the two position wall switch), and WHOOSH - it works! Love it!
I've beat the heat, now if we could only get the kids to sleep earlier.....
Slow Re-Boot - June 21, 2004
After being out of town on a two week family vacation roadtrip, I don't think it is unusual to feel a little out of sorts when returning to the workplace. Our trip, while being a series of long drives through wide open (read: boring) spaces, was good, it was primarily without "real" internet access as Mom doesn't have broadband access - only 28k dial up via AOL. As an 8 hour per day internet technology junky, it felt a little odd to be without it.
Sidebar: I think that if you ever want to be cured of an internet addiction, try 28k dial up via AOL - I had no desire to get on the net after two tries.
With no blogs to read - I didn't have the patience to wait for the pages to load, no access to mojomark.com - neither email nor web page (server crashed within 24 hours of leaving town - DOH!), I was forced to absorb the world the old-fashioned way - mainstream media. Fortunately, the coverage of President Reagan's death dominated the airwaves, so there was little news to be found. While I'm no news junky, I find that I don't have the patience to have the world presented to me in "their" time. I missed MY internet. I missed my blogs, and somehow, I will need to talk Mom into getting DSL if she wants me to come back to her place on vacation again.
So I'm back in work clothes today, with uncomfortable shoes, fluorescent lighting, cubicles as far as the eye can see, a 21 inch monitor and glorious T1 internet access. Thankfully, while I was gone from the working world, there were no blowups, no impending disasters, and as I return to the workplace, nothing "in-process" that I must get immediately working on. There are only 3 newly approved projects on my to-do list, which has allowed a "soft landing" on day 1 back to work. I'm trying to get back up to speed. Really, I am.
But honestly, all I can think about right now is going home early.
Play Structuring - May 04, 2004
I spent almost all day this past Saturday with a couple of friends contructing a play structure for Garrett's friend Theo:
It is a "Sunray Swing Set 2004 by Rainbow Play Systems" that Hillary bought at Costco.
We started about 9am and finished with everything except the swing hardware by 4:30. It really turned out nice and I was very envious of Theo's yard that could accomodate such a beast. The kids really loved playing on it and it was fun to see them up in the "clubhouse" trading secrets. Unfortunately, we don't have the space in the yard or I think we'd have one too. I hope that the trees in the backyard flesh out enough to build a nice treehouse. I used to love the weak one I had as a kid.
Classic Critics - April 21, 2004
I caught the beginning of NPR's Performance Today show this morning, as I was late for work. The first piece was going to be a Vivaldi Concerto (Violin Concerto, RV 177). Host Fred Child introduced the piece saying that several volumes of Vivaldi's work were lost (I think he said about 500 pieces), and only discovered 170 years later - sitting in a library in Turin. Child tells us that when they were discovered, composer Igor Stravinsky apparently didn't enjoy Vivaldi's work. In fact he was quoted as saying that "he didn't write 500 concerto's, he wrote 1 concerto 500 times."
This made me think about what musicians in 150 years might think of music and musicians in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Will the Rap artists in the 23rd century look back and think that Tupac and Nortorious B-I-G were genius? Or will it be looked upon as crap? Will there even be "Rap Artists" in the 23rd Century?
I'm glad THAT's over - April 16, 2004
Finally, the taxman cometh, and he certainly did taketh away..... about an extra $3,400 worth (1,900 fed, 1,500 state). UGH. I had a feeling that the big refund I got last year would not materialize, and that an additional payout would not be a surprise. That's one of the reasons I'd put it off until yesterday.
Late last summer, I divested myself from all my company stock that I had either purchased or received via stock options. With that sale I made a tidy profit, not life altering, but a nice bonus. I figured at that time it would be a nice severance for my impending layoff. Fortunately, the layoff never happened. But the recoil from the sale hit me yesterday.
Most of the profit from the options were included in my ordinary income - so throughout the data entry process, the TurboTax indicator never showed anything other than "Tax Due". But through the "creative writing" process that is my tax return, I had got the "Tax Due" amount down to about $900. That is until I remembered that the Employee Stock Purchase plan shares I sold were not included in my W2. Uh oh. With that addition, the "Tax Due" more than doubled.
After a few minutes considering the effect and inherent risk to more aggressive "creative writing," I decided that it's better to have a profit and pay taxes on it, than to have no profit at all. So Print, Sign, Procure Funds, Stamp & Mail - its over - back to normal life.
But you know, despite writing a check to the feds for $1900, when they ask that question about contributing an additional $3 for the presidential election fund, I can't seem to bring myself to check that box. Who does? Why?
Oh My Aching Back - October 17, 2003
It's been a tough week at MojoMark. Monday we received a package we ordered about 4 weeks ago which required assembly (more on that later). I spent the evening assembling and when complete, found my lower back quite sore. About 3:30 am, it was debilitating.
I stayed home from work on Tuesday and Wednesday, primarily in bed with heat on the affected area. The typical at home drug cocktail of Advil/Aleve did help some, but it was marginal in my ability to get around.
I was better enough Thursday to get to work, but even today I'm still walking like Frankenstein in an effort to not make that 1 movement that will send the shooting pain through my body.
Timing is poor given that the Lovely Wife is leaving for her "Weekend at the Beach with the Girls" trip. She leaves Saturday morning and I will be in control of the short ones for about 36 hours. However, with a suspect spine, I'm certain that the level of "control" will be nominal. I hope the VCR doesn't overheat.
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