American Idol

I usually don't watch American Idol once the competition starts, but I love to watch when the auditions are taking place. This is where the fun is, when you see the William Hung's and people with, well even less singing talent than I do and that is making a statement.

There were a few good human interest stories last night, and we even got to see a soft side of Simon on a few of them. He needs to knock that crap off, people expect him to be a butthead.

It is on again tonight and I can't miss it. This and the finals are usually the only shows I watch, the finals to see who wins and the auditions because they are basically the most entertaining.

I'll be watching again tonight.

You never know what you are going to see on talent shows. You could see another Paul Potts or Bianca Ryan, people in a matter of seconds you know they were going to walk away with the competition. Of course these were different shows, but shows Simon created just as well.

Tuesdays Tidbits

* I am long overdue to do a tidbits, and after talking with Kim yesterday I thought that maybe it's time for a tidbits.

* As I mentioned this weekend, Trish will be going in to have her baby on the 25th of this month. It is going to be a girl, but I forgot to ask her if she had a name picked out.

* I went out this morning to get a morning paper and it is cold and snowing. Is it groundhogs day yet? Phil, can we work out some kind of a deal this year so softball season can get here a little sooner?

* Last week BOPARC put out it's summer schedule for the year, I have a copy of it and will post the under the stars schedule in the future as a reminder. Movies that will be shown this year include: Shrek the Third, Surf's Up, TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Nancy Drew, Unaccompanied Minors, Evan Almighty, Bee Movie, Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (which is currently playing in local theaters)and Mr. bean's Holiday. Should be a good season to take a blanket or a lawn chair to Hazel Ruby McQuain Park.

* Data has been slow the last few days, I have been waiting on a set of QAQC guidelines at work before I can do any quality control checks at work. I don't mind the break, but it makes the day drag on forever.

* I have been fortunate to come into contact with an old friend that to be honest I have thought about through the years. She was someone I considered a pretty good friend years ago and we just lost touch when our lives took different paths. I'm actually pretty excited about having a chance to talk with her.

* I see Mom is now an iPoding podcast listener. Kim loaned her one of hers and set it up for her to download and listen to a few podcasts that they have similar interests on and can talk about with each other.

* Speaking of Podcasting, my old neighbor who is teaching GIS at Southeastern Community College may be getting involved with the College and iPodU to do a Remote Sensing class on iTunes. I just may have to give that podcast a listen.



What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.-- Aristotle

It's a small world

It's nice to find long lost friends, even if it was some strange circumstance that made it happen.

I'm just in a good mood and decided to post that.

It's a back to work kind of Monday

Another week of work us upon us and the dull drums are apon us once again. Remembering the weekend and dreading the next four to five days and what we may have to deal with and come upon.

On the WVU coaching search front, Charlie Taaffe has announced he will stay as the Head Coach at Hamilton in the Candian Football League rather than accepting a job as the Offensive Coordinator at West Virginia University.

Steve Slaton has announced that he is deciding to forgo his Senior Year and enter the NFL draft this April. He will always be remembered as one of my favorites to ever wear the Blue and Gold. WVU will replace him with Noel Devine next season.

The Men's Basketball team defeated Syracuse 81-61 yesterday, ironically it was the first win against the Orange since Feb 17, 2001 when Gale Catlett was our head coach. Syracuse was a team John Beilein never beat.

Speaking of basketball, the Women's team ran their record to 12-3 with a 56-50 win against Big East rival Notre Dame.

Is it Softball yet?

Went out to dinner last night.

I was getting ready to go out and get something to eat last night and I started thinking that I hadn't spoken to Trish in a few months, so I decided to give her a call and invite her out for dinner. Like I said it has been a few months since I had talked to her and she is about due, so I thought I would call.

I took her out to Garfield's and we had a nice dinner and BS session. She is going to have a girl and she is going in on the 25th of this month and they are going to induce labor. She had some really neat 3d ultrasound images that look like the DR went into the womb and took a photograph. Amazing what the new technology is like today.

I tried calamari (squid) for the first time last night, it's not bad. Tasted like popcorn shrimp to tell you the truth.

It was a good catch up type of evening.

Doc Holiday Officially announced

Bill Stewart officially named Doc Holiday as the Associate Head Coach today at a teleconference at 11:00 this morning. He has reportedly signed a 5 year, $2 Million contract ($400,000 a Year). Surprisingly, this contract is about equal to Rich Rodriguez's first contract at WVU, as a head coach.

Bill Stewart is making about $1 Million less a year than Rich Rod was, but unlike his predecessor, he is about WE (meaning his assistants and taking care of them) than he is I (like Rich was, big pay raised for himself rather than his assistants). This staff is really starting to shape up as a first class staff. There will be two more hires for the staff plus and Strength and Conditioning Coach. Stewart is interviewing people in all levels, from the pro's to High Schools to find the best candidates for Offensive Line Coach and Offensive Coordinator. A couple names that have surfaced are Dave Johnson for Offensive Line Coach and Charlie Taaffe for Offensive Coordinator. There are other names being thrown around such as Bill Legg, Herb Hand and Chip Kelly. These are just the names that are being thrown around, nothing offered officially yet.

Official Hiring News

Ok, earlier today there were three official hires named for the WVU coaching staff.

Steve Dunlap was the first new coach named. It is believed he will be coaching the linebackers. He was the Defensive Coordinator in 1996 when WVU had the #1 ranked defense in the country.

Dave Lockwood was also named as an assistant coach. He played for Don Nehlen in the late 80's and was on Rich Fraudriguez's first staff in 2001.

Chris Beatty is the third coach officially named today. He is a young Running Back's coach from Northern Illinois who was a very successful High School coach in Virginia. This hire intrigues me considering that Bill Stewart gave Mike Tomlin his start. Something tell me this is a gem of a hire, one that will be a household name in a few years.

There is one other announcement that will take place at 11:00 tomorrow when Doc Holiday will officially be announced as the associate head coach. Doc has been the recruiting coordinator and associate head coach at the University of Florida. Up until last week, U of F were the defending National Champions and have the current Heisman trophy winner.

There will be a few more hires to come, no rumors at this time. We still need to name an Offensive Coordinator, an Offensive Line Coach and a Strength and Conditioning coach.

All three positions that need filled have solid candidates, but nothing confirmed yet. This staff may be stronger than the one that just left.

Happy Birthday Sandra Irene Bell

Today is January 11, and today is my Mother's birthday and I would like to extend to her a very Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday Mom.

WVU coaching search update.

Bill Stewart said he would shock the nation with his hires, and it looks like he may just have done that so far. None of these are official until they clear background checks, so WVU will not make any official announcements until then.

Starting off will be the hiring of an Associate Head Coach. Doc Holiday has been hired as the associate Head Coach, a position he held with the former reining NCAA Champion Florida Gators. Florida also has the current Heisman Trophy winner. Doc will be coordinating recruiting and coaching the Wide Receivers. Doc is, was and always has been a very aggressive recruiter in the nations hotbed for recruits. Now, he's coming home.

Coming home to help Jeff Casteel with the defense and coaching the linebackers will be Steve Dunlap. When he was previously at WVU and coaching the defense, WVU had the #1 ranked defense in the country in 1996.

Coaching the Defensive backs and also returning home will be Dave Lockwood. Dave played at WVU in the late 80's and was an assistant coach here for one year in 2001 before leaving to go to Notre Dame.

A couple previous coaches will remain, Jeff Casteel and Bill Kirelawich were already on the staff and did not follow traitor Fraudriguez to Michigan.

There will be other announcements in the next few days, but these are the first confirmed but not officially announced hires. Stay tuned.

Mom's wireless internet

I went over yesterday and hooked up Mom's wireless internet and moved her computer station into the living room. Of course Window's Vista was not cooperating initially and caused me a few headaches. We eventually got it configured and left it as an open signal. There are only two others who can steal her signal, one being upstairs and the other being next door. I could have secured it, but it would have more problems down the road for me. Mom wanted it opened up also, that way there are two signals in the house and can be used in two locations.

I stopped down at the bar after that to drop off a few more print outs for Contracts Nick has to do for his work.

This morning I have data, but I have to transfer 1.2 Gigabytes of data to my local computer for the Mosiac to work on so I can do a proper QAQC check on a Major World City. This should be interesting once I get everything transfered. I will arguably have the worlds most complete and up to date datasets of a Major World City on my computer if I would add a previous set of data with it. If you know me you probably know the city, it's just best I don't name it on a BLOG.

It is Thursday and since I worked this past weekend, I'm looking forward to having a couple of days away from the computer.

Some new WVU coaching rumors.

I have been scanning the globe trying to find out any potential replacements for the WVU Football staff, and this is what I have come up with.

The Strength and Conditioning coach may be Marcus Kinney. Rumor has it he wants the job and has ties to the program.

There is a string rumor that we may have an associate head coach with that position being offered to Doc Holiday. He was one of the early favorites to be named the head coach, and there was a rumor he was one of the early favorites in the search and it was believed he may have even been offered the job initially. This could be big.

I have heard two names for the Offensive Coordinator's position, Herb Hand and Bill Legg are two names that keep popping up.

this coaching staff might shape up quite nicely, Stewart has already been given the "Go Get Them" from the administration.

A Great Fiesta Bowl Video

The kid who did this video is still in High School.

Monday again

Where did my weekend go? Oh, I forgot there wasn't one this week. It's thrown my schedule off a little, usually I do my laundry first thing on Monday morning while I'm setting up things to do at work, I was an hour into the day before I realized, "Oh, it's Monday".

Other than that today shouldn't be that eventful, I know the weather is going to be really nice today so maybe if I get a chance I'll head down to rails to trails. Softball is just a few months away and it's time to get ready.

Speaking of Softball, we will have an interim coach this season, our coach has indicated that Michigan is offering him a lot more money than we are to coach their team. I guess he is following the lead of John Beilein and Rich Fraudriguez. Kevin is going to have to do another parody song if he comes back this season. He's talking about retiring, but he has been going to the HIT center, so maybe we'll retain our Third Baseman (if his wife lets him play)

Oh well, back to work on another Monday, enjoy your workweek.

Weekend so far

I had to work yesterday and today to complete a project and provide data to our President by tomorrow. after working a good deal yesterday and wrapping it up with a few hours this morning, I delivered what they needed for his meeting with a client tomorrow. It's done and delivered.

I have managed to start filling up my iPod, even though I have a long way to go to actually fill it up. I have 671 songs, enough for 2 straight days of playback continuously without a repeat and I am still a long ways from halfway on capacity. I have used 3.1 GB and still have 4.2 GB to go. That is a lot of Music and a lot of computer time filling out metadata so that it can effectively use all of its features.

As many of you know, I am a poster at Blue and Gold News, and am actually one of the Top 10 all time posters for this site. Yesterday we were blessed (and it was confirmed) that Mr Ken Kendrick, the WVU alum who owns the Arizona Diamondbacks and has been bashing WVU the past month, decided to stop by and defend himself. Needless to say, he has enraged quite a few of the Mountaineer faithful and they have let him know it. We actually had a poster in the Athletic Department confirm it was Mr. Kendrick by calling him, and it was confirmed it it/was Ken Kendrick. The board has been entertaining to say the least.

The weather is starting to warm up a little bit, maybe I should start getting active again. Grocery shopping today I didn't buy any fall fatty type foods, I bought my spring fruits and vegetables. I've added quite a few pound and softball is right around the corner, so it is time to start getting ready.

Hope everyone has enjoyed their weekend.

So much for a short weekend.

I thought this was going to be a typical two day weekend, but it looks like this is going to be a no day weekend for me. Our President needs some totals on datasets that I have been putting together on Monday. However this is a time consuming process, so I have the pleasure of volunteering to work this weekend.

Oh well, I have had a couple back to back four day weekends and I am at home, so it's not that bad. I'll still be able to watch the Steelers play today and I'm not really doing anything that I wouldn't be doing anyways.

We'll deliver what they need, make a few extra dollars in the process and not really do anything different than I would have normally done. I should eb working both days this weekend, although how much I work is up to me.

Big Ole Hairy Friday

It is once again that time of the week that we all look forward to, where the work ceases and the entertainment begins. It is once again the weekend!!! Of course this will seem like a short weekend for me being that is only going to be two days.

I don't have too much planned for this weekend. The Pittsburgh Steelers will start their post season this weekend with a playoff game against Jacksonville. This worries me as the Steelers have not traditionally matched up well against the Jaguars. It will be the first playoff game for first year Steelers coach Mike Tomlin.

Ironically something I learned yesterday was that new WVU football coach Bill Stewart hired Mike Tomlin in his first coaching job while at VMI back in the mid 90's. Nice little tidbit of information.

I have been busy the past couple of days setting up music on my new iPod. I have had to clean up my collection and fill out quite a bit of metadata for the iPod to be able to use all of its capabilities. This has been done to take advantage of the coverflow feature of the new iPods. You look at the album covers and scroll through them until you find the album you are looking for. It's a nice little user friendly feature that makes it easy for even the worst of computer users. However like I said there is some prep work on my part to get it to work properly.

The good news for the weekend is that it is supposed to warm up a little.

Have a great weekend.

The Challenge for 2008

Last year I challenged quite a few BLOGGERS to a post challenge. Each one had a certain number of posts that they had to meet for the year. My Sister Kim openly accepted her challenge of 100 posts for the calender year 2007. She met and beat that challenge and asked me to raise the bar for 2008.

So, I was thinking in 2008 of where I could raise the bar to where she could still meet the challenge, but still have time to come up with quality content. It is hard sometimes coming up with new material all of the time. Last year I did in excess of 400 BLOG posts.

I see Kim is off to a solid start in 2008. I WAS going to double the challenge to 200 posts for 2008, but since her recent activity decided to raise the bar a little higher.

Kim, your challenge for 2008 is 225 Blog posts during the 2008 calender year. It is a number you can easily obtain, and if you meet it it will give you something to reflect on for 2008. This is an easy number to get, just be steady and don't get sidetracked.

You have your challenge.

Bill Stewart Named WVU Football Coach

West Virginia University ended its coaching search earlier today when interim coach Bill Stewart was officially offered the Job as West Virginia's next football coach.

Coach Stewart has earned the job and had the complete support of all the players. Bill's contract is for $4 Million over five years. Ironically Rich Fraudriguez's buyout that he has to pay the University ALSO equals $4 Million. So, thank you Rich Fraud for leaving and paying for our coach for the next five years.

Coach Stewart is from New Martinsville and a native West Virginia, only this one has a little integrity unlike the classless idiot who just left.

I fully support this decision to hire Bill Stewart. Good Luck Coach and Thank You.

Fiesta Bowl Champions

WOW, What a game. West Virginia who came into the game as an 8 point underdog against arguably one of the hottest teams in the country BEAT Oklahoma 48-28 to Capture the BCS Fiesta Bowl Championship.

Interim Coach Bill Stewart had this team ready to play and play they did. This is arguably the biggest Bowl Win in School History. Patrick White was named the games Most Valuable Player.

With all the speculation the past few weeks about who should be the next WVU Football Head Coach, I think we already have him in Bill Stewart.

Congrats on an 11-2 Season and a Fiesta Bowl Championship.

Do you believe this crap

Have I ever mentioned that I hate snow. I wake up this morning and go out to get a newspaper and what do I see? SNOW!!! ARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!

I'm ready for the spring, bring on Phil and let's get this season over with. Give me warm weather, shorts and sandals. Keep your snow on the ground, heavy winter clothes and boots, keep your treacherous roads and driving conditions. Give me a softball friendly type of environment.

What a way to start 2008.