First Rays Playoff Game!

I know most of you don't care, but we went to Game 1 of the ALDS between the Rays and the White Sox. This was important because it was the first Rays playoff game in their somewhat short history. It was a pretty spectacular game, and the Rays won 6-4 with the help of the soon to be AL rookie of the year Evan Longoria hitting 2 home runs in his first 2 at-bats. I'll be at the game tonight as well, cheering for the Rays. If they win this series, and the Red Sox beat the Angels in theirs, I may actually get to see the Red Sox in a playoff series in person for the first time! Here's some pics of the crowd and the giant flag from the pre-game.

Wow! Talk about silence...

This blog appears to go into a vegetative state when the Gators lose a game.

Cheer up Gator fans! One lose doesn't destroy your season. Have you forgotten that y'all won a National title with one loss? Remember that going undefeated in the SEC actually hurts your chances of playing for a title.

Your Tebow man-crushs and stalker tendencies will return soon enough, and you can continue to sleep soundly knowing that you do not have Auburn's offense or FSU's coaching staff.

Those in the middle always get squeezed

I have to say I for one am not looking forward to the ass raping I am about to receive. 700 billion divided by the approximately 150 million of us who pay taxes equates to a little less than $4700 a person. The price tag is high, but not too hard a pill to swallow, but the act which causes the bile to rise up into the back of my throat is that there is no lesson learned. Consequence for actions is a great motivator, one finger in the light socket and a child learns that this is not a wise decision. Everyone gets a pass in this one, clearing a path to grander more calculated levels of financial malevolence. Let it all burn, let consequence take its rightful place and you will see a stronger financial system where common sense is the norm instead of the aberration. If we continue to throw good money after bad to buy something we know is worthless, we deserve the consequences.

I have some concerns about the vagueness of the plan and the fact that not all facets are being considered.

After the federal goverment buys said debt, are they in fact the owner of the house represented by the debt? If said house is in foreclosure, is the federal goverment on the hook to maintain it? What will the federal goverment do with said properties it owns? Will they make it goverment housing? If they own the property, and they are not interested in turning a profit because they are not business, and they do not rely on revenue generated to fund their operations, will they sell these properties at a loss in effect resetting the property values to whatever arbitrary level they deem acceptable? If the property values are significantly harmed, what will happen to the responsible people in the neighborhood, who paid their mortgages, won't this be adding insult to injury?

Who am I?

Who am I?

I am known for being a political reformer.

I cleaned up the Republican Party, uncovering corruption and graft.

I was mayor of my home town.

I went after corruption within the police force.

I have a large family and some question if I should be in government with young children to raise.

I love to hunt.

I hunt moose.

I hunt other big game.

I hunt wolves.

I was Governor of my state...but...

After less than two years as governor I was chosen as the Vice Presidential candidate.

Now you know who I am!

Theodore Roosevelt! – Of Course!

The Office

Don't forget to watch it tonight. If you aren't going to be around, DVR it. If you dont have a DVR, what are you waiting on?

Rory Zinna

Esquire....

Our fantasy land made up of all our different professions is now ruined with the addition of a lawyer.

Congrats Rory!

The Deafening Silence

UF 30 - UT 6
LSU 26 - AUB 21
WF 12 - FSU 3
GOD 2 - Louisiana 0

Positives; Auburn found the endzone against a talented defense, BBQ is still delicious, Bobby Bowden can return to his nap, I got to watch Fulmer summon his gravy bucket with which to drown his sorrows. The best part is that your hopes were reawakened only to have them crushed in such spectacular fashion. Sometimes the world is so full of beauty I can barely contain it.

Birthday

Happy Birthday Dinky!  

AIG and Football

Well looks like it was a good decision on my part to leave AIG. At the time I was struggling with leaving a big well established firm to a smaller firm one that might fold due to the economy. Well luckily I made the right choice. I am also partly stunned the fed bailed them out.

Anyway looking forward to FSU first real test this weekend or for that matter the first ranked team any of our teams have played yet. I have high hopes for this weekend I have been drinking the Jimbo Fisher cool aid that is for sure.

Predictions:

FSU 30 Wake 17

UF 35 Tenn 24

Aub 10 LSU 17

A few more great FL pics to share....

And my top 3, in no particular order......

We're Back!

We're back from the honeymoon and we had a fantastic time! As it turns out, following the hurricane around the Caribbean gave us great weather; I think it rained for about half an hour very late one night, otherwise, it was sunny with a nice breeze. The only downside was not making it to Grand Cayman. Their port was closed and it was too dangerous to use tender boats. The first two pictures are from Labadee, Haiti, which is basically an island off of Haiti that is owned by Royal Caribbean. The last picture was taken in Cozumel, where we did some shopping and got some lunch at a great restaurant. They had the hottest house salsa I've ever had! We also made port in Motego Bay, Jamaica, but I took those pictures with a waterproof camera so I don't have any to show. The ship was great as well. We caught all the shows (including an ice show!) and of course had an awesome dinner every night.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, here's Nick leading the Soulja Boy at the reception... (from a personal camera, if the professional video is better I may swap it out)

Its the end of the world!

Will this be the next y2k?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,420062,00.html

Excellent

Well you knew this picture would get on the blog sooner or later. A truly glorious end to a great party. Allie and I couldn't have had a better time with everyone. I have some other random pictures that I uploaded here. Everyone please post what they have also. I know there were lots of good group pictures taken.

Eric and Christina, thanks again for a wonderful weekend and we wish you all the best together. Be sure to post some pictures of your cruise ship sailing through the hurricane.

master of the master

So I have nearly finished my upstairs cabling. The following is from the wiring of my master bedroom. Due to my ridiculously stupid attic, I ended up pulling the baseboards up and routing behind them.

Here is the first run poking through the back of my master bedroom wall.

The pulled up baseboard then continues through a closet and into the hallway.

A shot from down the hallway shows the extent of the removed baseboard.

Here the cable has made the long journey through the trough.

A close-up of the start.

And of the end (where it disappears is up into an interior wall where I have attic access).

One side of the tunnel I had to make behind the door frame.

And the other side of said tunnel.

Here's a shot of the near-finished product. Here I have just loosely put the baseboards back into place. What remains is to fix them into place (using friend's nail gun), caulk, and paint. The remainder of the finish work will have to wait until we get back from FL.

And finally the finished plate.

All that remains is the plate in the living room downstairs. Luckily, this drop was a good proving ground and a similar technique will let me do the downstairs without too much more effort.

I am also happy to report that as of right now, I have no reason to ever go back into my attic. That is unless I decide to completely fill that sweat-box with blown-in insulation :).

Our First 5-K!

Amanda and I ran our first 5-K race in the Canes Cross Country Classic this past Labor Day. I did some mild training for about a month, and Amanda did next to no training, but she manages a damn gym, so she doesn't need any training. We ran it at a blistering 12 minute mile pace, finishing somewhere around 400th place. My next goal is to run the Gasparilla 5-K in 25 minutes this coming February.

On the Storm

We have survived our first Louisiana hurricane, and right now I am in the safest city on earth because we evacuated our entire city. I have to say when I agreed to help with the evacuation I am glad I was on this end, where the drunks and crackheads got one last shot of whatever they were on before we put them on a bus. I have never seen so many drunks at 6am since college. If the city could stay like this forever I do believe we would win the award for greatest place on Earth, because from what I understand Mickey likes the nose candy so suck it disney land. The evacuation plan was to go to the ghetto with city buses and tell everyone to get in, some people didn't even know there was a storm coming, they just thought it might be nice to ride a bus. Jilly my dog enjoyed the storm because the frisbees flew on their own without me having to throw them to her. I may post some pictures tomorrow when I go out on storm surveys, but I am going to try and work like crazy so they release me for Eric's wedding. Cristina may have to assist bringing all the evacuee's home, but I tried to convince her to pull a southpark and make flyers that shreveport has the best crack, and some of the people decide to stay. I did get to watch the Gator Game before the craziness broke loose and I must say we look pretty scary.

cabling update

we got four more drops done today (two plates on either side of my back bedroom)... this is about the extent of the drops that are done in a reasonable amount of work (i.e. up through wall, across attic, down into patch-panel). the four remaining will take a bit more work... the last two upstairs are in the master bedroom which -- in k.b. home's infinite wisdom -- is completely sealed off from the rest of the house. there is essentially attic space above my master that i cannot get to. the final two drops will be downstairs in the living room. the main challenge here is the downstairs part. more updates to come (hopefully)...

HOOOORAAAAY

For college football starting today and NFL starting next Thursday!!!!!!!!

GO NOLES AND BROWNIES BABY!!!!!!!

NICK>>>>>rory

Nick D

Mmm, Beer!

Just bottled my second batch of homebrew beer, this time it's a British Pale Ale, the most popular beer in the world! Hopefully *fingers crossed* it will be ready to drink when you guys get to town so you can give it a try.

Registered

Eric,
Where are you registered?

and it begins...

Started my latest home project which is wiring my house with CAT-5e for Gigabit home network. The final network will have a total of 12 drops in 6 rooms. A buddy of mine who has a house in the same subdivision (same floorplan) went halfsy's w/ me on materials and labor. My house is the guinea pig.

Here's the access to the devil's den. Crawling around the attic in the dead of summer in Tucson isn't exactly fun but it has to be done.


Here's the first drop we did. Picked up everything from www.firefold.com. All told damage was $102 per person which is a far cry from what it would cost to get someone to do this for me. Plus, where's the fun in that?!


Keystone jacks on the first drop. These little guys make finishing the wires a breeze.


The first jack buttoned up. The jacks lie flush with the plate and everything looks beautiful :).


A little snap down one direction of the devil's den.


and the other direction. Not much sense of scale in these pictures but it is hella tight.


The second plate in the loft. Opposite wall from the first. This one went super easy.


This is the one place where I had to cut the drywall. The attic access stops right at the leftmost stud. So we had to drop down into the wall and punch through to where we had cut the hole for the master plate. I kept the drywall pieces and I'll end up re-screwing them back in and patching around them once everything is done.


Close up of four drops making their way through the drilled studs.


An intermediate shot of the master panel.


This is where all the drops are run. This master panel will then serve as my patch panel where I intend to run two subnets. One subnet will be my regular internet access and will have my xbox, laptop, and one nic of my desktop. The second subnet will host my MythTV frontends and backends.

Well that's what we accomplished the first day... will try to remember to snap more pics as more progress is made.

I figured y'all would like this.

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Expert Angler

This past week I spent some time on the Jersey shore with Allie and her family. Logan is always posting his pictures of giant whales caught on his boat, so I couldn't think of a more appropriate place to post this. We only caught little tiny fish but it was a lot of fun and I drank a lot of beers in 4 hours. Isn't that what fishing is all about?

To Groomsmen, RE: Rides

I've been asked a few times about getting to the wedding, and more importantly, getting back from the reception. Since I need all of the groomsmen together before the wedding to get ready and take pictures, I think it would be best for me to pick all of you up in the morning and take you up to Christina's brother's house to get ready. That way I'll have my car up there to head out after the wedding, and no one will be stuck there drunk with a car. After the ceremony, we'll take the limo to the reception. Following the reception, the worst case is you catch a ride home with your families, at the mercy of when they want to leave. A better situation in my opinion is if one of you can convince your date to be a DD, drive a large suv type car up there, and drive everyone back to NW B-town. I think that's a pretty solid plan... feel free to post suggestions.

PS - Let me know if you've been fitted for your tux in the comments.