Texas Hold Em

Well, my prediction of a good round of Texas Hold Em went out the door today. Didn't really have a very good game, there were a lot of distractions and I just wasn't getting the cards I needed. Other than that it was a pretty good day.

I have taken some pictures of todays events and have placed them on my Picture Site.

I also did a dual podcast today with my sister Kim from Pink Camo. You can either use it by going to her site feed (book mark it while you are there) or you can direct link it from my site HERE. I have also placed Lotties It Is No Secret on my server for anyone who wants to hear the song I was referring to in the podcast.

Hope you have had a good weekend.

Sunday Morning Ramblings

This afternoon, we will enter game 2 of 10 for placement into our Texas Hold Em Tournament. I'm really looking forward to taking everyones money today, it will cover the cost of the new web host that I purchased earlier this week.

I currently stand in seventh place after one round, but this is just for placement and chip count for the final table on the 11th game for the grand prize. I'm feeling pretty good about today, I think I have fine tuned my game over the past few weeks on Party Poker, I had actually won six consecutive tournaments before I lost a heads up yesterday. I had Ace King and was forcing a player to go all in with Ace 2, and wouldn't you know the flop was three deuces to give them four deuces and a king kicker. I lost a heads up to the very first Royal Flush I had ever seen a few weeks ago. I guess if you are going to lose, you should lose in style.

Kim and I may be doing a podcast together prior to the tournament. It is something we have talked about and I think we will probably just sit down and do one this morning. Obviously this is syndicated and if and when it is done she will host it on Pink Camo and I'll also host a copy of it.

I have been running a few ideas through my head the past few days since I purchased web space at GoDaddy. I am still seriously weighing the idea of keeping George-Hall.net at its current location, but maybe doing something a little different with it. Keeping it for its original intent and purpose of using it to market myself professionally. I may turn it into more of a geography site and use that theme and purchase a new domain name for the godaddy account.

A new domain gives me the chance to do other things that I really wanted to avoid at my current host. I am thinking more along the lines of a site powered by PHP rather than a simple static HTML. I'm really wanting to tie in a MySQL database on the back end or maybe switch from a Linux platform to a Windows platform and play around a little bit with ASP.

I have one available name that I have running through my head for the name of the new site and it's ShitzNGiggles.com, but that is an idea and not a purchased name yet. It would be a theme and objective driven site, so before I go any further I would need to have a game plan in place.

I do know I have a very powerful spacious amount of web hosting that I now own and I want to see if I can develop it into something.

Site back up

Wow, hats off to Brian Goldsmith at Mountaineer Hosting for doing a great job in restoring the account back to normal.

I have been thinking about setting up a second domain name for some time, this one would be at my GoDaddy Host. I may just leave George-Hall.net where it is and possibly set up a secondary site that is more for fun rather than business. Not real sure what I am going to do yet, but I have both domain hosts and the price of a new domain name is very minimal.

Either way I have a new powerful host at my disposal. In short at my old site I had a Gigabyte of storage to be able to store files, and I think I was using roughly 500 MB (Half) off the top of my head. At GoDaddy I have 100 Gigabytes at my disposal, so space just became even more irrelevant than ever before. I even have a few more features at GoDaddy that I will integrate into the new site.

If anyone wants to buy a domain name (probably less than $10.00 a year), I'll host the site for you if I know you. Sub domains are free but I request you are semi computer savvy if you want one of these set up.

Anyone got any ideas for a new domain name?

New Host

This will take some time, but I have switched hosts for my website provider. So, I guess the site will be making some changes in the near future, but you may never notice other than not finding my site down as much as it has been.

I have switched to GoDaddy.com

Host Troubles

I am having some serious problems with my webhost. I think they got hacked and are screwing everything up.

It is Friday, how about a little tidbits.

* Today is Friday once again, it means the end of the workweek for most of us and the start of another weekend.

* Kudo's to my Niece Amy , she has really taken to Blogging and has turned into a very active Blogger.She uses her MySpace account to run her Blog and has done a great job of keeping it very active. I read in one of her posts that she has a goal in mind for a post count by a specific date, if you are wondering how many and by when go read her blog and find out yourself.

* I finally got a chance to try CiCi's Pizza earlier this week. I have heard about it for over a year on how inexpensive the pizza buffet is (I think mine was $6.48 for the buffet and an drink). I was impressed, it's a lower quality Pizza, but it will remind you of Pizza Hut's (My favorite) Pan Pizza.

* Talk about a Deja Vu, I was thinking last night that it has been a while since I have heard from Jane. I had an e-mail from her this morning asking me how things are going. Small but strange world.

* The WVU Mountaineers play tonight on ESPN against UCONN in football. It's my High School Football night, but I'll stay home and watch the Mountaineers this evening. We're currently ranked #4 in the AP and Coaches Polls as well as #5 in the BCS.

* Talk about ranked WVU teams, the Women's Soccer team is ranked #6 in the Country and the Men's Soccer Team is ranked 3rd and 4th on the Country. The men's team is really a story when you consider they had some violations this past summer that caused us to fire our previous coach and hire a new coach all just a few short months ago. Quite impressive,WVU has some of the best sports coaches in the country.

* Sunday will be round two of out Texas Hold'Em Tournament. We're moving the game to Sunday Morning to allow Robert some time to hunt tomorrow. He is an avid hunter and has stuck right by Kim through all of her health issues earlier this year, so his vacation time is a little exhausted. Great guy, it just means he may be a little distracted Sunday when I take his money.

* I found out one thing I do not like about the New Blogger, when you spell check it screws your formatting up terribly. Maybe a bug in the programming.

Todays Dominion Post

In todays Dominion Post, there is a nice feature article of the Gospel singing Koon family and how they are coming up close on their 40th anniversary of singing. Aunt Lottie has long passed, but here is one of the last songs that she ever recorded.

It Is No Secret

Saturday evening at 6:00 at Morgantown High there will be a free concert.

The Koon family traveled from 1961-1980 and recorded numerous gospel albums during these years. They used to tour with and open for The Oakridge Boys at one time.

Both New Super Wal-Marts are Open

I have a little bit of downtime this morning at work, there seems to be a network problem with the server in Frostburg, so I am having a little trouble logging on giving me a little downtime until our network administrator gets into the office.

I made a quick trip to the new Super Wal-Mart on 4H Camp road to see what was inside. I think the Super Wal-Mart in Grafton that I traditionally shop at is around 110,000 sq ft store. This one is a 185,000 sq ft store and offers so much more. The store was clean, organized and believe it or not crowded in the early AM. This is a much nicer Super Wal-Mart than the one in Grafton.

On the other side of town we have also opened up a 225,000 sq ft Super Wal-Mart at the University Town Center. I'm completely impressed with the one on my side of town, I can't wait to see the bigger one.

Long Day

I went to my office in Frostburg today, and put in a couple extra hours trying to set up the finalization of a project. It was nice to see everyone again.

After work I stopped off in Amish Country to pick up some Granola for Kim. I got some yogurt flavored pretzels for myself that were quite tasty as a snack on my drive home.

Pam called me this evening and asked if I would be interested in going to Missouri for Moke's graduation at the end of November. I would like to go, but I'm not sure of the timing when it coincides with the delivery date of the project I was finalizing today. We'll have top wait and see.

Tomorrow, Morgantown will be opening both of their new Super Wal-Marts according to todays paper.

US Population nearing 300 Million

The Population of the US is getting closer and closer to 300,000,000 people in our country. The US Census Bureau has a running population clock. At the time of this post we are just under 5,000 people away from 300 Million. Gaining one every 11 seconds . We should reach the 300 Million plateau sometime Tuesday, October 17th.

Happy Birthday Brittany Dae Cummings

I would like to wish my niece Brittany a very happy sweet sixteenth birthday. I have watched this adorable little girl grow up into a very beautiful and intelligent young lady who has taken on some very tough challenges by attending a very hard academic institution.

I have so many memories or the embedded mental sound bytes of her growing up and times and events during her life. It seems like only yesterday I was in the waiting in the hospital waiting room when Ed walked in and said that it was a girl. She has been nothing short of a bundle of joy to watch grow up.

This past weekend she celebrated her sweet sixteenth and her schools homecoming. Kim has been gracious enough to quickly put up the Pictures from Saturday on the web.

If you get a chance today send her an e-mail at brittanydae@yahoo.com and wish the birthday girl a very happy birthday.

Sunday Morning Routine to Change

My Sundays are usually a day when I go through my usual routine of going grocery shopping early on a Sunday Morning. The last few years I have made the 25 or so mile drive down US 119 to the Grafton Super Wal-Mart to do my shopping. I've always liked this store because it was never crowded and it was easy to find what you were looking for.

It was always a nice scenic drive down an old country road, the only times I didn't make the trip was when weather was not being too cooperative and dropped a significant amount of snowfall on the roads.

Today was probably my last visit to the Grafton Super Wal-Mart.

This past week Morgantown opened up it's first Sam's Club in the University Town center and will open a new Super Wal-Mart sometime this week. Next week I will try shopping at Morgantown's first new Super Wal-Mart for a one time deal.

The following week the Super Wal-Mart next to my place will be opening and will be my new local grocery store where I will do the vast majority if not all of my grocery shopping.

I'm going to miss those nice country scenic drives, but I am also really happy that the new Wal-Mart will be a shorter drive than the one at Morgantown Mall.

Homecoming Weekend

It has been Homecoming weekend here in Morgantown and in a few other places. Last night I managed to make it downtown to watch the homecoming parade for WVU. Because of some construction on North High Street, the parade route was altered a little coming down Spruce Street, down Walnut and then onto High Street. I watched the first hour of the parade, but it was running a little long and I left to go to the Morgantown High School game against Parkersburg South. Morgantown won quite handily 33-7.

I left the Morgantown High game at halftime to attend the WVU Men's Basketball teams first practice of the season last night. Surprisingly there were a couple thousand fans who had a similar idea and gave this new group of kids a nice warm welcome by showing up and supporting their team.

We have one of the best college basketball coaches in the country here in Morgantown, so I am very curious to see how his second group of kids will play together and see what kind of a legacy they can leave. These kids will have some big shoes to fill after last seasons departing group. Should be a great year.

Today, WVU just manhandled Syracuse and won 41-17 and gave the fans a nice homecoming win. Quarterback Pat White just stole the show with 15 carries for 247 yards and 4 Touchdowns. We have this other guy named Steve Slaton who had a very quiet 20 carry 163 yard day with one long touchdown run. He's going to have a tough time winning the Heisman Trophy when Pat White puts up numbers like that.

There is one final and most important Homecoming for today, my niece Brittany is celebrating her schools homecoming at Linsley today. I know Kim and Robert went up and are also helping her celebrate her Sweet 16th Birthday (It's Monday) this evening. I'm sure Kim will have a few pictures and a few stories to tell on Pink Camo, so you might want to take a look over there or on her Flicker page for the pictures.

40th Anniversary

I forgot to address this in a previous post, but the Gospel Singing Koon Family will be celebrating their 40th anniversary with an evening of Music for any and all who may be interested.


When: October 21, 2006
Time: 6:00 P.M.
Where: Morgantown High School Auditorium


Admission is free.

College Basketball Practice Starts tonight

We have once again reached that magical time of the week that we all look forward to, Friday and the end of the work week. There are a few things going on today and tonight that may be of some interest to some.

There is supposed to be a Parade tonight in downtown Morgantown for the WVU homecoming. The Football team will take on Syracuse tomorrow and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.

Tonight, there are a few things that are going to be taking place, the Parade downtown, Morgantown High will be playing Parkersburg South in their home coming and the WVU Men's Basketball team will have their first official practice of the season tonight between 9-9:30, depending on when the Volleyball match finished up.

This will be the start of John Beilein's fifth season as the WVU
men's basketball coach and this should be an interesting season. When
he first arrived here he had a big rebuilding job and was named head
coach after letter of intent day, so he had his work cut out for him.

Over the past two seasons the Mountaineers have managed an Elite 8 and Sweet 16 appearances. Quite remarkable group of guys that we have had here
over the past four season.

Now, comes the new group. A new cast of players to replace the magical group that has just graduated. In this group, there is one name that will stand out and that will be Johnnie West. I don't know what he will accomplish on the court, but he is the son of the NBA Logo and formerWVU All-American Jerry West.

I'm not sure what I will be getting into tonight yet, but there are plenty of things to do that is for sure.

Wild Kingdom

Deers, Turkeys, squirrels, birds etc. This is what I saw when I opened my front door this morning. I think they should be named honeysuckle and butterball.

Mountaineer Magazine

Make sure you take out some time this weekend and watch Mountaineer Magazine, they are going to do a segment on Mark Devault's Website. I'm not sure which one of them they are going to focus on (I wonder who produced it), but being that it is football season I'm going to guess they are going to address the Football portion of the site.



This Week: Kelein Dykes

Junior defensive tackle Kelein Dykes has been one of West Virginia's most consistent performers up front in a defense that has ranked among the Big East's best the past two seasons. Be sure to catch his story this weekend on Mountaineer Magazine.

More Magazine
# Sixty years with veteran reporter Mickey Furfari
# Mississippi State highlights
# Syracuse scouting report
# Big East Report
# Mark DeVault web site
# WVU coach Rich Rodriguez

Tune it and see what they have had to say about him, he has put a lot of work into these very unique databases.

The best bread in the world

Tonight, I took some movies and pictures up to Val. She was looking for anyone who would happen to have any of her wedding pictures. I guess she really has none of them and is looking for anyone who might.

On my way back I stopped by Jean's and started talking to her about food obviously. My conversation kept going to Daily Kneads and after you talk about it so long you just have to follow through with something.

I stopped by and picked up a Walnut Wheat and a Blue Cheese Multi-grain and took them up to them.

I think Daily Kneads has a few more customers. If you have never tried it, stop by and get yourself a loaf. It has to be eaten to be appreciated.

Back to work.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it's off to work we go. Yeah, I know everyone hates Monday's and getting back to work including me. However you have to get through it to see another weekend.

Not much happened with me this past weekend, it was kind of boring. The Steelers played again on prime time last night, but they ended up losing their 3rd straight game and their record dropped to 1-3 on the season. I guess Big Ben's off season accident and emergency surgery just before the season has had an impact on this years team. sigh

Pam mentioned everyone needs to take a group trip to the IHOP sometime soon. Get everyone together and everyone meet one morning for breakfast. She said Gary came up with the idea for this past weekend, but it never came to fruition. Sounds like a good idea though.

Alright enough stalling, Hi Ho Hi Ho....

All Kinds of Wildlife up here

As many of you know I live up here on Scott Avenue. I seems like every morning I wake up and go and get a newspaper I open the door and there is a small herd of deer eating acorns from one of the many oak trees that are planted around me. I can always see them right before daybreak and right after sundown.

Now I've seen a flock of about a dozen very good sized wild turkeys that are now getting brave enough to come and get the acorns. It does provide a nice aesthetic feeling every time you open your door.

This morning I am bringing in groceries and acorns were falling like a light rain. I look up and there's a couple dozen what appear to be Blue Jay's knocking them out of the tree.

I'm not complaining, I'm just reflecting on what the alternative could be. Looking gout at a concrete jungle of Detroit steel and Japanese plastic filled with people driving and creating an audible noise pollution. It's nice to be able to open the front door and have so many plants putting out fresh oxygen to just fill your dwelling with good clean air.

I guess my life has changed from ten years ago when I was working sixty hours a week in silicon filled foundry where oxygen never seemed to exist.


The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration.--Claude Monet

Moke's new mailing address

Moke gave Pam a call this evening and gave her a new mailing address.

E-1 McClain, George
A CO 1/48 IN, 3rd Plt
Unit 13
Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo
65473

Weekend Tidbits.

* The Mountaineers play Mississippi State this afternoon, but the game is only available on cable pay per view for $29.99. I don't know what I will be doing for the game, probably listening to it on the radio.

* Kim went to the Springs Festival yesterday, Mom was going to go with her but I understand she had some scheduled rehab fro her knee.

* Jean is in Huntington this weekend with Mickey and Sheila for a reunion.

* Last night the Mountaineer Balloon festival finally managed to get Light Up Night started. The weather hasn't been too cooperative in the last couple of days. However it looks like they will be able to get a few launches off the ground, and with winds permitting it should be a very photo friendly day.

* I managed to find a streaming website that has A complete set of some TV cartoons and a few TV shows on demand.

* I am contemplating either moving my website or just getting another one at GoDaddy.com. This is where my Domain Name is registered, however my webspace is at Mountianeer Hosting. I think I am just going to register a new domain name and keep George-Hall.net as it is, but make it more of a business site to market myself and do a new site for fun fun and games. I have to have some sort of a game plan in place before I do this rather than just doing it from the hip.

* Val has posted that she is looking for any potential Wedding Pictures that anyone might have and she doesn't. If anyone took a camera and has a picture that she may not have, I'm sure she would love to see them.

* I did manage to win the Championship in our Fantasy Baseball League. I usually never make the playoffs against these guys, but I managed to make it into the sixth and final playoff spot and then managed to defeat all three opponents in the playoffs to win the league. Now if I can just get my Fantasy Football Team to follow the baseball teams lead....

Have a good weekend

Template Changes

After finally switching over yesterday to the new Blogger, I finally decided to play around a little bit with the template and give a little feedback. Previously if you wanted to change your template you had to go into the code and actually edit the code itself to make the BLOG appear how you wanted to look.

With the New Blogger there are a few features that I liked and was actually one of the reasons I stayed with the old Blogger and that was to maintain the integrity of all my posts. You will notice that there is a slight color change to the BLOG and some of the elements have changed to make it a little more user friendly on the space. The main thing I like and a big reason why I waited to switch my BLOG over is the was you can now navigate to previous posts. You can use the drop down menu to see the year, or then month of the previous post and it compacts it and lists the number of posts by each month.

I was a little surprised to see that I have in excess of 450 posts in my BLOG. I have tried to keep it as active as possible and interesting, and I think I have achieved my goal and been able to keep it both fresh and interesting to some extent.

The new Blogger allows the user to edit the template much easier. It's written in block code and has their own individual interface for each block. I know how to write HTML, but I welcome the change for those who are in the beginning stages of web design.

Switched Over

A month or so ago Blogger came up with a new blogger. Kim started using the new blogger right away, but I was hesitant in order to keep the entire BLOG in tact and migrate everything together.

Today I finally had the option of Migrating everything over to the new Blogger and have finished this process.

Mountaineer Balloon Festival

Tonight is the unofficial start of the Mountaineer Balloon Festival at Mylan Park. Nothing is really going to happen tonight other than they are going to open up the carnival portion tonight at 4:00. However tomorrow night is one event that I really want to go and see. It will be Light Up Night, that is after the sun goes down and they have a few balloons inflated, then they blow a whistle and everyone turns on the gas and lights up their balloons. It will be a great photo opportunity for any and all who want to go.

Over the next three days there will be six scheduled launches that if weather permitting will happen and just fill the sky with hot air balloons. This year there are forty-one balloons that are scheduled to be at the balloon festival. So, weather permitting it could be a very scenic view to watch for.

Aideon Miner

Trisha Trevillion Miner (Sharon's daughter) recently had a baby and they named him Aidon Miner. Thanks to Lynne Jacobs for the pictures and e-mail and information so that I could share with everyone.






Talking briefly with Lynne this morning, she has informed me what her twin boys are up to. Jim Jr is enrolled at Fairmont State in Business and Aaron is currently working for the county and is wanting to get a job as a Morgantown Fireman.

It was nice to hear from Lynne and receive the good news.

Moke's mailing address

I just got a phone call from Pam and she has supplied me Moke's mailing address at his current basic training location.

PVT. George McClain
A-CO 1-48 N 3rd Plt
Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo
65473

He should be there for the next month or two before he is shipped off to the second phase of his training in Mississippi.

Paper and envelopes are cheap if you don't have any and the price of a postage stamp is $0.37. If anyone needs help with either of these items I will provide them for you, but take a few minutes out sometime in the next few weeks and send him a correspondence. I'm sure he would love to hear from everyone and everyone is curious to see how he is doing with his training.

He's making a big commitment protecting you, make a small commitment and say hello if you get a chance.

Went to the Buckwheat Festival

I went to the Buckwheat festival tonight in Kingwood with Robert, Kim and Brittany. It's the first time that I have went in a few years, so I was really looking forward to eating some good old fashioned Preston County buckwheat cakes.

I was going to go to the UHS game last night, but the thought of Buckwheat cakes was something I couldn't pass on and just had to go.

It was a cold and rainy night and the weather I think was a little less than favorable. I did get to see Mike Haines who I've played softball with for years and Bridget form my Recourse days. She's looking great and has started her own company doing Voc Rehab.

One of the highlights of the night was me taking my camera and not only being able to see the Budweiser Clydesdales, but being able to get a close up picture of one of their asses. It's not too often people talk and brag about getting a close up picture of a horses ass, but I managed to do it.

There was a nice little surprise that Kim got last night. My nephew Randy was there also and stopped by to say hello. She was really glad to see him and I could tell by the way her face lit up when he showed up. I was reading Amy's BLOG yesterday and was trying to keep an eye out for her, but either she wasn't there last night or I couldn't seem to find her, but then again the weather wasn't the best of conditions last night either.

The night culminated with my indigestion from eating so much and a fireworks display.

Happy Birthday Danielle.

Firefox 2.0 Rc 1 has been released.

The next version of Firefox, the release candidate has been released and is available for download. A word of advice, this is a release candidate and not the official release, so many of your current extensions may not, and probably will not, work with this version.

I would advice anyone who is not technically savvy to avoid downloading this version until the bugs are worked out and that more themes and extensions are updated to help support the new release.

I did download it and am currently using it, there are a few new things and such as the spell checker for any online forums or anywhere you can actually type. For example if I misspell a word in my blog it identifies it and underlines sit much in the way that Microsoft Office would do.

They have combined the Themes and Add ons, so if you are one who likes to change themes or add extensions, you will want to go to the Tools menu and select Add-Ons. This will allow you to manage all your themes and extensions.

Go Vote and Help Steve Slaton

ESPN Heisman Trophy Vote. Go help a WVU player out and give him a chance at being WVU's first Heisman Trophy Winner.

WVU Post Game celebration

A file I found on Youtube, this is the WVU locker room after the Louisville game last year that we won in double overtime.

My Monday

I went over and visited my mom this afternoon. She called me around noon and had her computer torn down and wasn't sure if she put it back together correctly. By the time I got over there she had already had it put back together with the exception of the Printer which had a USB 2 connection.

She was having some connection problems with her DSL, but I called Verizon and got it all straightened out and put her back on track. It had been running extremely slow and something just wasn't right. She is back up to speed and everything is running fine now.

This Friday will be Danielle's 17th birthday.

Shuffle up and Deal

The first round of our Texas Hold Em tournament started last night. This was the first of what will be ten games to accumulate a point total before the Championship Round that will be the 11th game.

This tournament should run into next summer before the championship pot is divided in the final round. There is a point system that Robert and Kim has devised and we are going to adhere to. You get one point for everyone you knock out, place placement points for how finish in each tournament. First place gets 11 points, 2nd place gets 10 points 3rd place gets 9 points and so on down the line until the first person to go out is awarded a single point.

The total of these points will be how many chips you start the championship round with to play for the big pot. We do have a game buy in also that awards the nights winner a pretty decent payout for the night.

On the first round of the tournament, Robert played a great game and managed to pull out the first round victory and and knocked out three other player along the line to managed grab an early point lead with 14 points. He and Jeremy Murray went to heads up (final two players) for the final showdown.

Me, I wasn't getting cards all night long and tried to pull a bluff with an all in to steal a pot, however Ron didn't fall for my bluff and took me out midway through the game.

Facing a dilemma tonight

8:00, CBS Survivor starts. I didn't watch last season, but then again I was getting up at 3:00 to go to Frostburg then.

I think they are kind of jumping the shark with the theory this time, maybe I'll watch the first one and make a judgement from there.

Of course Deal or No Deal comes on at 9:00.

Happy Anniversary Kim and Robert

I would like to take this time to wish my sister Kim a very happy third wedding anniversary. She and Robert were married three years ago today, and have either recently or are still on a extended weekend get away with Robert's parents to Smith Mountain Lake, this is their second consecutive trip and the first for Mark and Martha.

If I know Kim, she will soon be sharing pictures form the extended weekend on her site.

Leaving for Basic

Tomorrow, George Ellis McClain, aka Moke, leaves for Missouri and the first phase of his basic training. He will go to Pittsburgh tomorrow morning and then will ship out from there on Thursday Morning for Fort Leonard Wood Missouri for his first phase of Basic Training. He will be there for two months and then ships off to Mississippi for the second phase of his training.

He will have the opportunity to return home for one week in December for the Christmas break, and then he will return to Mississippi for the rest of his training that will end at the end of January.

Moke has said that he will provide a mailing address once he gets there so that everyone will be able to write him. I will post the address on here like I did when Randy was at Camp Dawson so that everyone will have the opportunity to write to him while he is away. His only form of communication will basically be writing and an occasional phone call, but I have a feeling those will be reserved for Pam and George and Angela while he is away.

He is a big strong guy now, I'm waiting to see how lean and lean he will be when he finally returns. I have a funny feeling he is going to do quite well during the next few months.

I know I am very proud of him and what he has become. I don't think anyone could have done a better job than what Pam and George have done in instilling discipline, respect, education and competence in this young man. I once had a Boss, Dr. Jerry Fletcher at the NRAC, who once said the biggest compliment you can give a person is stating the fact that they are competent. Moke has more than earned that respect from me. In think he can and will accomplish anything and everything he sets his mind out to do. Good Luck Moke.


To value his own good opinion, a child has to feel that he is a worthwhile person. He has to have confidence in himself as an individual.--Sidonie Gruenberg

Happy Birthday Calvin

It seems like only yesterday that Calvin was born and Dad was holding him. Maybe this is a little reminder on how fast time flies and how much it should be cherished.

Where have all the years gone, now Calvin is growing up into a fine young man. Yesterday Pam and George had a Pic Nic in honor of his birthday at Krepps Park. Every time I turned around I think Calvin wasn't wasting time worrying about the adults, he was busy having fun being a kid.

He is an adventuresome one, one who hates to be bored. Maybe we can all take a moment and learn from him, and his not wanting to waste any time because he is too busy having fun and enjoying life.

If you would ask me today what Calvin likes, it's an easy answer, he loves to play video games. It's been a pleasure watching this young man grow up, from the times when we taught him all the nasty words to say, even though I don't think Pam and George appreciated that too much. I think the first words to ever come out his mouth though is "Can I play the Sony" when he couldn't;t even hold his eyes open. Once again, he was too busy wanting to live life and have fun than to waste time by sleeping. Sometimes I wish I had one half of his energy.

Happy Birthday Calvin.

A pic nic day

We had a little dual purpose pic nic this afternoon at Krepps Park. Pam and George organized a very nice little get together with a dual purpose. Tomorrow is Calvin's Birthday and Moke is leaving for Basic Training on Wed.

Moke will leave for Missouri Wed and will spend a month there before being shipped to Mississippi after one month to complete his training. He will not be back until Christmas, so he had a few friends stop by for one more day of youth before he has to leave. He seems very focused and has a gameplan even though I tend to ride him a little bit. He's got a big future ahead of him and the next phase of it is getting ready to start.

I will provide any contact information for him once he gets there so people can write to him. I wanted to start doing podcasts so he could possibly hear from people at home, but this is the military and he has to leave his iPod at home.

The other reason for today's festivities was tomorrow is Calvin's Birthday. Calvin had a few friends visit him for his birthday party. The sad part of the day was my screw up, I sorted through the hundred or so pictures that I did manage to take and noticed I didn't get many shots of the Birthday Boy. I did get a few, but I got a little sidetracked.

There was an old family tradition renewed to some extent today. Not only were Randy, Moke and Gary wrestling around, Amy and Gary got into a little bit of a classic old food fight. It's been a long time since I've seen one, so it was nice to see everyone having some fun.

The funny part of the day was me trying to BBQ. I think George got a good laugh, hey what can I say I use a frying pan, a toaster and a microwave. Fortunately George is a BBQ master and did the majority of the BBQing at home and brought it to the park.

Morgantown High Beats #1 East Fairmont

Last night I hooked up with a couple old team mates and long time friends John "Smitty" Smith and Richard "Popeye" Johnson and went to see the Morgantown High Mohigans battle the #1 ranked East Fairmont Bees at East West Stadium in Fairmont.

The evening started out at Nick and Terri's bar, it was a little Deja Vu for Smitty and Popeye, in High School A & H Tavern was a big hang out for our team (Drinking age was 18 then). We met with another old team mate Terry West at the bar and enjoyed a few minutes of old memories before the three of us headed to the stadium. It was nice seeing these guys again, Rich lives near DC and only makes it to town a few times a year. I hadn't seen him in a few years, so it was a nice evening with a few old friends.

It was a great game, and parking wasn't too easy to find. I ended up parking at the corporate office of the Helmick Corp and walked a few blocks to the stadium. East Jumped out to a 6-0 first quarter lead by driving the ball downfield, but seeing how many trick plays they ran during the drive I turned to Smitty and said they blew their load and that was it. They didn't score again and ended the entire game with only 100 yards total offense for a team.

Around mid third quarter the fog started to set in, both teams were throwing the ball downfield and sitting in the stands you lost track of the ball. The play by play announcer got a nice little chuckle when he called one play as covered by "Somebody". Visibility was very poor.

Morgantown managed to run their record to 3-1 on the season by beating East 24-6. It was a nice end to a nice evening with a couple great friends.

Wow, what a game

West Virginia hosted the University of Maryland last night on ESPN's Thursday Night Football. I don't really know how to recall this game, other than simply stating that we kicked the everloving shit out of them 45-24. The score was much closer than the game actually was, after the first quarter of play WVU held a 28-0 lead and Steve Slaton rushed for 149 yards and 2 TD's in the first quarter. How bad was it for Maryland, he would have had 3 TD's, but he fumbled into the endzone and our Brad Palmer jumped on the loose ball for a touchdown.

It was a great night to watch football, this runs our current seasons record to 3-0 and may help us to move up a little bit in the polls.

Rainy Day

I will have to say that I think we have been a little long overdue for a good rainy day, the water table appears to be down and the grass and the trees need a good hearty drink of water.

Outside of my apartment there is an old oak tree. It has been losing it's acorns at a very fast rate, the majority of the acorns have been pretty much undersized. I wonder if this could be as a result of having a pretty dry summer.

Usually during the day while I am working I have my front door wide open and a fan usually blowing out or in to allow for a nice circulation of fresh oxygen into the apartment. Right now there is mild rain outside, and I love the smell of the air after a fresh rainfall. It creates a very aesthetic smell for the senses to enjoy and ease any stress that may be bothering you.



Too bad that all the people who really know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair.--George Burns

What in the heck is going on?

Do you believe this, this is my third Blog entry for today and I think I have set some kind of a new personal record for posts in one single day.

Made a change to my sidebar menu (that's that stuff on the right), I added a couple live feeds to both my and Kim's podcast pages. I have been trying some new software out and wanted to see how it presented itself when published. I like the ease in editing tools, but I have to question the sound quality of my Third Podcast. It sounds a little low on volume, but maybe I just need to do a little more experimentation to it.

I'm really wanting to get this thing set up before Moke takes off and leaves for Basic Training. Angela bought him an iPod for his birthday last month. Maybe he will have the ability to download a few shows while he is gone and we will be able to send him a few messages from home if this is at all possible.

We'll see and hopefully I can get this fine tuned before he leaves and we can give him a little taste of home.

September 11, 2001

Today is the five year anniversary of one of if not the most tragic day that ever occured on American Soil. A few nutcases decided to Hijack four airliners and crashed two of them into the World Trade Centers, One into the Pentagon and won was brought down in PA by a few brave passengers, that flight believed to be headed towards the White House.

It has been five long years and we still have yet to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice for the deaths of so many Americans five years ago.

A night of insomnia

I knew I shouldn't have taken a nap yesterday afternoon. I took a nice long nap and have not been able to manage to get back to sleep,, I guess you could say that this day is filled with a little insomnia.

No big deal though, I've logged into work and am making the most of my sleeplessness by cranking out a few datasets at work. The people in Sterling are either going to love or hate me when they see how much data I've placed on the server overnight.

So, my day should be over early this morning, not that I intended for this to happen, but I was at least able to make the most of it.

Tidbits

* It's Friday, that means the weekend is about ready to start and a time to relax and have some fun.

* Yesterday, Jean called me and told me that Amy was in a car wreck by the nickels bread store four way stop. She said Amy was fine, but that her car was totaled. You can read about her own first hand account on her MySpace BLOG

* Moke went once again yesterday to Pittsburgh to weigh in for the National Guards. He made weight this time and will leave on September 20th for basic training. Not sure where they are going to ship him to, but I will try to get details later on where he is being shipped to for Basic Training.

* Ironically Moke has also got a job with Teletech and is scheduled to start his training on Monday, he should be able to go through his training and then go to basic training if he wants and have his job waiting on him when he gets back.

* Morgantown High School will play football tonight against Fairmont Sr at 7:30 this evening. Of course I will have to force myself to go watch another football game this season.

* Last night, The Pittsburgh Steelers opened the NFL season with a 28-17 opening game win against the Miami Dolphins. I wasn't going to watch the whole game, but one thing led to another and I watched the whole game. I love my Steelers.

* WVU will play tomorrow against Eastern Washington. The game is not on TV, but should be a blow out. I watched Eastern Washington play last week and I have a funny feeling our backups are going to get a good bit of work for this game.

* Congrats go out to my sister Kim for getting her First Podcast set up and published. I updated my podcasts also, so I will probably be adding another sidebar menu for these items.

Start of the NFL season.

The last pitch of the softball season has been thrown, we're at the time of the year where you're not supposed to wear white and WVU is already back in session.

It's time for the 2006 Pittsburgh Steelers to start playing some football for real. Actually being that the Steelers will play the first game of the NFL season tonight against the Monongah native, Nick Saban led Miami Dolphins. The Steelers are the defending Super Bowl Champions and start their march to repeat tonight, however they will be playing without QB Big Ben Roethlisberger and Super Bowl MVP Hines Ward is listed as questionable for tonights game.

Are YOU ready for some football?

Back to work

Well my nice relaxing five day weekend is finally over with and it was that dreaded back to work day that no one ever looks forward to. I was not the least bit surprised to sign into wok and find a decent amount of work waiting on me.

Honestly, I am one of those types of people who would rather be busy than sitting around bored. I would rather be backed into the corner and under the gun than having trouble deciding how to waste time until the day passes.

My long weekend was no where near as event filled as my Fourth of July holiday weekend, but it was a nice one. I managed to go to Nick and Terri's to watch WVU spank Moo Tech on Saturday, drafted a fantasy football team and went to a Morgantown High football game. It was a rainy and wet weekend so that kind of limited my options on things I planned on doing.

Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.-- Albert Einstein

Podcasting

Hi everyone, I have done podcast #2 for george's Journal and have started to set up the feed so you can read it from iTunes. All you have to do is point your iTunes podcast to http://feeds.feedburner.com/George_test and you will have my feed added to your iTunes.

You cna also go directly to the feedburner by going HERE. I will probably add the audio podcast hyperlinks with pictures and options at a future date, but this is my second time around playing with the podcast. My first attempt was editing the soundfile, my second attempt is to set up a site feed that can be loaded into iTunes or any other podcast reader you may choose to use.

For those of you not wanting to play with iTunes and just want to hear it, just go HERE.

I'm a little late on this.

As many of you may recall if you read my blog on July 18th and once again on August 5th I had spoke about an eleven year old singing sensation by the name of Biana Ryan who had just completely wowed the judges on the TV show America's Got Talent.

She won the Million Dollars and here is her final performance



And the announcemnt

Friday Night

Last night I managed to make it to the Morgantown High v Brooke Game. Morgantown bounced back from last week's loss to handedly beat Brooke by a 42-14 score.

The night was cold and rainy, but I couldn't stay away and just had to go. Last and this week I saw Smitty at the game, only this week I managed to get a picture of him. We played together and have attended many games together through the years, and last night was no exception.

In two weeks we are going to meet up with another friend, Rich "Popeye" Johnson, and we are planning on traveling to Fairmont to watch Morgantown take on the East Fairmont Bees. The three of us played together and have attended many games together, but since Rich lives near DC now, it has been a while since we have went together.

A football weekend

The WVU football season is down to being one day away, but many festivities will kick off tonight with Fan Fest at the WVU Mountainlair at 5:00. There is a lot of excitement entering this season, we finished last season ranked #5 and are once again a pre-season top 5 team again. Last year, the team was very young and was a Freshman and Soph dominated team, which means that there is a lot of talent that will not only be here this year but next year and some even beyond that.

There is going to be a video coming out to the 6'6" 240 song Gold N Blue that I think people are going to get really excited about. The video is going to make its debut on the big screen in front of a sold out Mountaineer Field tomorrow, and possibly the network might even pick it up. If you miss it tomorrow, I'm sure you'll get your chance to see it this season if the season goes as anticipated.

We also had our fantasy football draft last night, Phil Kaskey had the traveling trophy available for all of us who have never won it to see. I think I had a pretty good draft, I'm happy with my team to a certain extent. I deviated slightly from my original gameplan with my second round pick because of who was available, but I think I can make a good run with this team.

This is my second of a five day weekend for me, not too sure what I am going to get into tonight. Morgantown High plays Brooke tonight at Pony Lewis field, and there is fanfest at the Mountainlair at 5:00. I haven't decided yet on whether I may make one or both of those events.

I do know that tomorrow I'm going to be watching WVU and Marshall on TV rather than pay the Scalpers price for a ticket.

Extended Weekend

* I have decided to take an extended weekend for what many consider as the last weekend of the summer. I'm taking today and tomorrow off to extend it to a five day weekend.

* We are having our biggest ever fantasy football league draft this afternoon at prime Thyme, so I think I am going to use part of today preparing to compete against eleven fantasy owner fanatics. This is my softball team and this will be a very tough league to win.

* Jean and Rich went to Brownsville yesterday to buy a couple bushels of tomatoes to can today. They were vine picked the day before and I will have to say these were some very good looking and fresh tomatoes.

* I actually stopped down at Nick and Terri's for a few minutes last night. The place just seemed to be hopping and I don't think either one of them had a chance to breath while I was there.

* WVU will be playing Marshall this Saturday, the game will be on television locally so anyone in West Virginia should be able to catch the game if you can not make it.

* We finally got John shipped up and moved out yesterday, it was a day later than he intended and I don't think he anticipated how big this move was going to have to be. He should be back to teaching this morning in North Carolina.

* I have seen where Kim added some neat podcast tools to her BLOG, so I also decided to add them to my sidebar to see how it works out.

Monday's tidbits

* Not a whole lot to say on any one specific subject, so I guess it's time for a tidbits.

* Mondays are the worst day of the week, the weekend is over and you are at the start of working towards another one. Although next Monday won't be bad because it will be a three day weekend.

* I'm losing a friend, former office mate and neighbor this week. John Robard's has accepted a job to teach forestry at South Eastern College in North Carolina. I'll actually be helping pack the rest of his U-Haul today. He was generous enough to give a washer-dryer combo, a sleeper sofa, recliner, fax machine and filing cabinet away to the family that I would like to thank him for. I'm sure it will be put to very good use.

* My sister Kim has introduced me to a new google feature that works very well with the Firefox browser called Google Notebook and Google Calendar. Google is redefining the internet and what it is capable of.

* We will be drafting our fantasy football league this Thursday. It will be a live draft and we have twelve owners this season. This is going to really challenge us because the talent pool will quickly be used and it's going to take some research.

* This will be the start of college football this weekend, WVU will be playing Moo Tech, or Marshall University as they like to be called this coming weekend. It will be the first game of the season for both schools and the first game in a seven game contract between WVU and the WVU wannnabes that will run through 2012.

Spoke too soon

Morgantown loses 21-10. Arrrrgggghhhhhh

Start of Morgantown High's Football season

Tonight at 8:00, Morgantown High School will attempt to win their twenty-ninth consecutive game and start a march for a third consecutive State High School football Championship.

Morgantown High is led by two WVU recruits in QB Charlie Russell and DE Junius Lewis. They also have another player in Dustin Laudermilk who has received a D1 Scholarship offer for next season and possibly one to two more that will come before the end of the season in Derick Long and Seth Neptune.

Morgantown is a very deeply talented team this year and I don't think anyone in the State of West Virginia will be able to stop them this season.

Tonight, Morgantown entertains HD Wilson High School out of Washington DC. Morgantown should win the game quite handedly.

Thinking about doing a team Blog

I have been thinking in the past few weeks of starting one or two new BLOGS. Not one like this, but one or two that has multiple authors and a theme that can be addressed. I one idea for one and one that I may want to do with at least my sister Kim to start off with.

The softball one was a thought I had a few weeks ago and have all the members of the softball team register as bloggers so they can author the blog. I thought it would be nice way for everyone to keep in touch on the team and to be able to make announcements to the team in general for about anything. Birth announcements, or anything that the author chooses to write about. I was thinking about opening it up to anyone associated with the softball team, either past or present and their wives, girlfriends etc.

Last night I approached Kim about potentially doing a theme based BLOG together. We haven't decided on a theme yet, but I think we are both interested in joining into joint project together. Then based on the potential theme invite additional authors based on the theme.

With Kim I have a few potential ideas for themes, but nothing specific.

1. A Texas Hold Em league Blog where all the members of our league we are planning to do this fall will also be team members
2. A Pod-Casting Blog. She is really into this and I think I would like to give her a hand with it. Either for technical support or having my own segment to give the podcast a little variety or something. I think she will become a fulltime podcaster sometime soon one way or another.
   
3. A Links type BLOG. This would allow multiple authors to just basically submit time wasting links the readers could or would enjoy.
   
4. A Family based one, where family members post information about anything.
   
5. One for recipes. I'm not a cook, but this family is loaded with a bunch of great cooks, I thought it could be a nice way to share recipes.
   

I would like to do at least one of these theme based blogs, but it all depends on who the other author or authors we can find that would be an active poster to increase reader interest.

I would still maintain this BLOG, this is about me and what I am doing. It's personalized specific to my feelings and what is going on in my life. The team blog idea is a concept idea that I would like to create an active, theme oriented blog to increase readership.


Stay tuned, I'm hoping I can get at least one of these additional ideas up and running.

Happy Birthday George Ellis McClain

Today is another special day, it is my nephew Moke's 18th birthday, so I would like to extend the heartiest of Birthday Wishes to him.

I know he has been busy working and trying to get down to weight for the National Guard, but I haven't spoke to him in a few days and I'm not sure what the latest is on this, but I know he was only a few pounds from where he needed to be.

He's always been a very bright person with the ability to learn and pick up on things very easily. He is one of those people that if you give him an inch of knowledge, he'll take it a mile and beyond, especially when it comes to computer programs and optimizing it.

Happy Birthday Moke

WVU Starts today

We have entered that time of year again, the time when Morgantown's population doubles, students have money in their pockets and the class of 2010 start to attend their first days of classes.

This is usually the day when you just go to your classes and professors hand out their syllabus for what is going to take place over the next few months until the semesters completion this December.

It's the day when some classes have ass many as 400 kids show up, that is until mid semester when about 50 of them make it to class on a daily basis.

Notebooks will be fresh, students will be walking around with maps trying to figure out where this building or that building is located. Asking sometimes if they are even on he right campus.

The first day of classes at WVU is an event, one that later leads into the evenings festivities. Tonight on the Mountainlair will close it's nights events with a free concert with the band Staind.

Stay clear of downtown today, I'm sure it will be a madhouse.

Happy Birthday Jean

I would like to extend a very hearty birthday wish to Jean, on her birthday today. I called her this morning and got a nice little chance to chat with her. She was mentioning that this is the time of the year that her church sells all that wonderful Slavic food, just to give a heads up to everyone.

AnMal, as many would want to call her has been a very inspirational person to many people in this family. She always has been someone who would bend over backwards to help someone in need. She is also one of the best cooks on the face of the earth.

Happy Birthday Jean.


In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.--Thomas Jefferson

RIP Randy Nels

As some of you know, Randy and Donna Nels have been long time friends of Nick and Terri and have quite often visited them at their home and business for some years. Randy was a postman who had a route around the WVU Football Stadium and Donna is always referred to as the "Pie Lady" for the great pies she makes.

A few weeks ago I was at Terri's, and she had informed me that Randy had been diagnosed with cancer and his health was fading fast. She even said they are wondering if he will make it to Christmas.

It saddened me this morning when I read the morning paper and saw his name listed in the obituaries. He had passed away Wed.

I really enjoyed my discussions with him, he was a die hard Mountaineer fan and new sports. We had numerous discussions on politics, history, sports and computers. He was a very well educated and knowledgeable man. He didn't just form an opinion he knew the history and the basis of his opinion.

I'm really going to miss him as I am sure both Nick and Terri will also.

My thoughts are with Randy's wife Donna and their children on the loss of good guy.

I've been scanning through my pictures to see if I could find one of Randy, the only two I found of him his back was turned or was walking out of a picture. I guess you can never take enough pictures.




A brief candle; both ends burning
An endless mile; a bus wheel turning
A friend to share the lonesome times
A handshake and a sip of wine
So say it loud and let it ring
We are all a part of everything
The future, present and the past
Fly on proud bird
You're free at last.--Charlie Daniels

Violations by Military Recruiters Up Sharply

An article I found on the web that may shed some light on a few things.


Violations by Military Recruiters Up Sharply
Numbers Rose From 2004 to 2005 With Pressure to Meet Goals, GAO Finds

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 15, 2006; Page A05

The number of alleged and substantiated violations by U.S. military recruiters increased by more than 50 percent in one year, a rise that may reflect growing pressure to meet wartime recruiting goals, according to a Government Accountability Office report released yesterday.

Allegations of wrongdoing by military recruitment personnel rose from 4,400 cases in fiscal 2004 to 6,600 cases in fiscal 2005, with substantiated cases increasing from 400 to almost 630, according to the report. The number of cases found to be criminal violations more than doubled, from 33 to 68.

The increase in violations was noted despite a significant decline in the number of people who joined the military. The number of new recruits fell from 250,000 in fiscal 2004 to 215,000 in fiscal 2005, even as recruiting efforts were significantly boosted, according to the GAO report.

The report noted that part of the increase in violations could be due to the Air Force's improved ability to track wrongdoing. But GAO officials concluded that because the Defense Department does not have an appropriate method of tracking violations across all the services, the total is likely to be higher.

"The department . . . is not in a sound position to assure Congress and the general public that it knows the full extent to which recruiter irregularities are occurring," the report says.

Citing internal Defense Department data, the GAO found that about 20 percent of active-duty recruiters believe that irregularities -- such as coercion, concealing information that would disqualify a candidate and falsifying documents, among others -- occur frequently. A majority of recruiters also reported dissatisfaction with their jobs.

The data indicate that irregularities increase around the time of monthly quota deadlines, according to the report.

The recruiting effort has become more difficult, especially for the Army, because new recruits know that they are likely to be deployed in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army officials have said that parents, coaches and advisers -- the "influencers" of recruits -- are less likely to recommend that young men and women join the military because of the wars. The low unemployment rate also means that young people have other options.

To avoid missing its annual goal, as it did last year, the Army deployed more recruiters and increased signing incentives this year, meeting its elevated monthly goals through last month.

Responding to the report, Defense officials wrote that they believe there needs to be a more centralized way of tracking recruitment violations to better assess how to prevent them.

"We certainly agree with the GAO statement that even one incident of recruiter wrongdoing can erode public confidence in DoD's recruiting process," Michael L. Dominguez, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, wrote in a letter dated July 24.

Reps. Victor F. Snyder (D-Ark.) and Fortney "Pete" Stark (D-Calif.), who released the report, said yesterday in a joint statement that the Defense Department needs to develop a better way of monitoring violations.


LINK to article

Season Complete

This has to be one of the saddest parts of the year for me, another softball season has come and gone. We played the 2nd and 3rd games tonight in the best of three series with Franks Place. We managed to pull out a close victory in the second game, forcing a game three. We chose to play game three tonight, and we were handily beaten by a very good hitting team.

This rounds out our year at 16-7 on the year including playoff and when you consider Last Year when we went 20-5, that puts our two year total at 36-12, a second and third place regular season finish and playoffs for both seasons. Not too bad considering we jumped up a level in competition.

In a couple weeks, twelve of us from the softball team will get together and start our fantasy football league. I always lose money in these leagues, but I enjoy competing against these guys as well as being their team mates in softball.

I'm thinking about running around the idea of creating a Prime Thyme Softball Blog and have it so all members can post. It's nice to hear birth announcements and other things. It could be a way for everyone to keep in touch. We'll have to see.

Ouch

Well, the softball playoffs started off last night with us going against Frank's Place, a team we beat 21-4 in the regular season. I don't know where they were hiding all season, but when we showed up to play them last night I was surprised to see the team that I did. This was a stacked team that I would say had a questionable roster, in other words I think these guys loaded up.

It was a hard fought game, but we were on the losing end of a 22-24 game. We made a few mental mistakes and consistantly did so through out the game and even a good offensive game wasn't enough to give us a victory and put us 0-1 in the best of three series.

We play again Thursday night, and we are in a win or go home situation. To advance to the semi-finals, we will need to come out and take the next two games, which we are more than capable of doing.

I was talking to Michael Toth and Tim Bowser last night and their team, Cool Ride, lost a three team tie-breaker to keep them out of the playoffs in their league.

We'll lace em up and try again wed night.

Let it begin

This is the week that Morgantown's population starts to grow and traffic starts to become a real headache. Classes will be starting next Monday at WVU, so the final rounds of orientation and people actually starting to move into the dorms this week will increase our population. Students will be returning this week and I'm sure it will be in full force by this weekend.

I'm sure merchants around town love this time of the year, population increases and kids are just about to receive their student loan allotments. In other words, they have cash in their pockets. Some will be smart and budget their money wisely, others will have it gone by the end of the month if it takes that long.

So it is that time of the year when the students return, the rowdiness will initially be here until after the first week and exams, papers, projects and quizzes start to take priority of the majority of their lives.



Let's Go Mountaineers--The people of West Virginia

A cute little toy

I found this website a little while ago called Goggles that puts you in a flight simulator and lets you fly around in different cites and locations according to the start up menu on the page.

Being a Geographer I just had to take it a step further and set it up for Morgantown. Just click on start rather than naming a starting location and those of you in Morgantown will have a chance to intergrate Goggles and Google Maps and do a fly around in Morgantown. Unfortunately Morgantown while being in the forfront of the GIS world, don't really have the DOQQ's published much beyond the extent of the city (Techinical Jargon basically only GIS nuts will understand so don't worry).

I thought it was a nice little toy and I customized it to Morgantown. You control the plabe with the arrow keys on your keyboard. The Up Button moves the plane up in elevation, and the down key moves it down in elevation, but be carefull gettting too low. LOL The Left and Right keys steer it left and right obviously.


Enjoy

Morgantown High Scrimmage

Went to the Parkersburg v Morgantown High Football scrimmage this afternoon. Here is a little Video of Morgantown High QB and WVU recruit Charlie Russell throwing a touchdown pass to Derek Long.

How about a tidbits entering the weekend.

* Well, let me first start of with saying tonight is BOPARC's last Family Night Under the Stars for the season. They will be playing the movie Dreamer tonight and this rounds out their summer movie schedule.

* Speaking of BOPARC, we had our last regular season game last night before entering Monday Night's playoffs. It was a throw away game, we could neither improve or worsen our post season standings or our third place finish. Throw away is exactly what we did. Wow, did we get hammered. We screwed around and put different people in different positions and played around. I guess the other team decided that it wasn't a throw away game for them and actually beat us pretty badly. We finished 15-5 on the regular season after moving up a level in competition so I can't complain. That puts our regular season record at 31-8 over the past two seasons.

* I have decided to add another sidebar menu on the side of my BLOG. I think with the recent MySpace phenomenon that has been hitting the net, and a couple Nephew's starting their own MySpace page, I added a sidebar menu to ppost links to their sites. I added Moke and Randy's pages to the sidebar menu. If others start doing them, I will add them to the menu.

* Did lunch yesterday with Kim. I dropped her off a copy of some software and we went to lunch at Wings Ole. We had been talking about doing it for the past month, but we just never really got around to it until yesterday.

* Brittany is off to the Beach with Ed to enjoy a little vacation before having to return to school in a few weeks.

* For anyone who may be looking for a job or a new job, Wal Mart and Sam's Club are accepting applications for the two new stores in Morgantown.

Sam's Club is 1-304-296-4792 and they are accepting applications at 40 Commerce Drive in Westover Monday through Friday

Super Wal-Mart is at the University Town Center in the Seneca Center MWF 7:00 AM - 5:00 PM, T & TH 7:00 AM - 7:00 PM and Saturday from 7:00 to 11:00 AM.

They offer health insurance, a 401k, stock purchase plan, profit sharing, discounts and career placement opportunities.

The former CEO of K-Mart, Joseph E. Antonini, started as a stock boy. He's a Morgantown resident.

* Jean went down to Nick and Terri's bar last night to hear this one girl singer.

* Rich's youngest son Mark has just opened up his own reality company on Van Voorhis Rd called Alliance Reality. Mark has been very successful as a Realator and decided to become his own broker. I'll keep everyone updated if and when he gets a website up and running.

* Oh, according to todays paper, a kid that I was friends with and grew up with was named WVU's new Women's Tennis coach. Marc and I were friends and neighbors from first grade through High School. I was always at his place playing with the GI Joes or playing mini ball. I know he had been doing some coaching around the country, it's nice to see a neighborhood kid get the job and for him to get a chance to return home. Marc and I have lost contact since High School, but I have kept tabs on his career through the local sports page. Welcome home Marc. Ironically I found an article written about him....that was written by my right fielder on my softball team.

* For you Football fans, the Steelers play their first Pre-season game this weekend.


A useless life is an early death.--Goethe

A head start on podcasting

As many of you have read, my sister Kim has decided to start doing something called a podcast.

I played around with it a little to see if I could at least get the audio file itself completed and make sure it works.

My First Podcast. Now I need to learn how to do an .RSS feed.

A time waster

I found this today on one of the forums I frequent. Nice little time waster, see if you can beat my score.

Dangerous Dave and Brutal Bob