P-dub out

The Bengals have released wide receiver Peter Warrick. He's been injured for most of the past two years, so I don't really have a problem with their decision EXCEPT that my Bengals jersey is a Warrick jersey. Therefore, I now have two obsolete Bengals jerseys--Warrick and Jeff Blake. Oh well, I can say that it is a "throwback" jersey now. Those are cool, right?

Fantasy football

It's less than 24 hours until the annual fantasy football draft, and I am VERY unprepared. Due to some changes in our scoring system, quarterbacks are more valuable than they have been in previous years. The big question is...should I draft Bret Favre ahead of Kyle just to tick him off? I probably won't, but boy is it tempting!

As always, we have a theme for team names. This year's theme is TV shows (we had to come up with a team name that is related to football and a TV show). My team is "Sacks in the City." There are several good ones. My favorites:

1. "Marvin Lewis Can't Lose": Parker Lewis was a short-lived but great show. Sort of a Ferris Bueller knock-off, but very entertaining.

2. "Two Yards Under": I've actually never seen "Six Feet Under" since I don't have cable. Clever name, though.

3. "The Red Zone Diaries": Again, never saw "The Red Shoe Diaries" as it wasn't on network TV. But a good name.

Others include: "4 TDs No Extra Points" (adds up to "24"), "Extreme Team Makeover", "F Troop" (which Kyle said he will change to "FU Troop" if I draft Favre), "The Highlight Zone", "Fear Factor", and "Ty Law and Order" (Ty Law is a cornerback for the NY Jets).

SHIFT bike

Goodbye training wheels. The new SHIFT bike, the concept of some students at Purdue University, makes them obsolete. The rear "tires" act like a tricycle at slow speeds, but when the rider speeds up they merge into a single bike tire. Pretty clever concept!

Broken Flowers

Steve and I were discussing our weekends this morning and both mentioned we had seen movies. I saw The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (in 3-d) with the kids. It pretty much lived up to my very low expectations, but the kids enjoyed it. Steve saw Broken Flowers, the new movie starring Bill Murray. After hearing his description, I'm actually sort of glad I saw Shark Boy. An online review for BF reads "...a wonderful collaboration between two unique talents, Broken Flowers perhaps isn’t for casual mainstream tastes, but it speaks eloquently to what’s broken in all of us." In other words...BORING! It sounded scarily similar to Lost in Translation, which tops my list of the BOTTOM 5 MOVIES OF ALL TIME...

1. Lost in Translation: The one good thing I can say about this movie is that it was only 102 minutes long, so less than 2 hours of my life was stolen from me. At no point did this movie make me laugh, or cry, or feel anything whatsoever.

2. The Royal Tenenbaums: Look at the cast of this one and you would think it can't miss. You'd be wrong. An interesting group of characters, but the complete lack of plot destroys any chance at entertainment.

3. Four Weddings and a Funeral: I'm probably judging this one unfairly because, in my opinion, Hugh Grant is the most obnoxious man on the planet. Of the four or five Hugh Grant movies I've endured, this is the worst.

4. The Great Outdoors: I don't really remember anything specific about this movie. I just know that I am the cheapest (most frugal, that is) person that I know and this is the only movie during which I walked out of the movie theater before it was over because it was so bad.

5. I can think of plenty of movies I didn't enjoy, but I can't think of any that were on the same level as these "classics". However, having a "bottom 4" seems odd so I will make my number 5 Broken Flowers, even though I haven't seen it (and probably never will).

As a side note, a professional wrestler from Cincinnati called "Shark Boy" has filed a lawsuit against the creators of The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl. I'll keep you posted. :)

Black

Just finished reading Black by Ted Dekker. It is the first of a three-book series. I don't know exactly how to describe the book--a Christian adventure/science fiction novel similar to those of Frank Peretti. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next two in the series, Red and White.

Also, my friend Gary (of Jagged Doctrine) did the soundtrack that goes along with the series. Very good stuff--check it out! Go to Dekker's Web site and click "The Circle" to hear some samples.

War! What is it good for?

Found a cute little Website that tells you what song was #1 on the charts on any particular day. "War" by Edwin Star was #1 on the day I was born. I think this one was remade by Springsteen, too. For Annette it was "Close to You" by the Carpenters.

Digital photos

I had just ordered digital prints from Shutterfly a couple of days ago. Today I ran across Winkflash, a photo site that charges only 12 cents a print plus 99 cent shipping. Anyone else heard of them? There is an online promotion code P3C6M4S2--get 50 4x6 photo prints for $1 shipped on your first order from Winkflash. I'll be curious to see how good the quality is.

I also found a very highly rated one called York Photo. Also 12 cents a print, but a little more expensive on the shipping.

Marketing Genius

This future NHL star should do endorsments for Canon, Olympus, or any other camera company besides Fuji. He's a natural!

Pavement drawings

These are pretty darn amazing! Check it out! I'd love to see them in person to see if the effect is as good as in a picture.

Rename-It!

Ever needed to rename a batch of files with Windows? It's a pain! I used to find myself going back to a DOS prompt if I needed to rename a bunch of files. But now there's an easier way. A very cool open-source utility called Rename-It! allows you to rename a batch of files quickly and easily. I'm sure it will save me a bunch of time!

Open source software

Ever since I found out about Synergy (a free, open-source piece of software that works just as well as the $70 one I bought) I've been researching other open-source software. There is some good stuff out there. Some of the best is located on the TheOpenCD.org. There is a free sound editor (very similar to CoolEdit), a free PDF maker (like Acrobat), a free HTML editor (similar to DreamWeaver), free zip/unzip software (like WinZip), and much more. I've just played with them a bit, but so far I'm impressed.

PookMail

Don't want to give out a real e-mail address when you order something online? Use Pookmail instead. You can create a temporary (24-hour) e-mail address. Get your confirmation e-mail and then don't worry about getting a bunch of spam for the rest of your life. What a good idea!

SimpleViewer

I've been looking around for free photo gallery software to use on various Web sites. I just found one I really like called SimpleViewer. It makes a Flash gallery of your pictures that is simple (hence the name) and looks good. Click here to see it in action on the Windwood Web site that I do. Click here to see more about the program and download it.

First day of school

We just put the kids on the bus for their first day of school. Ben is going into 4th grade and Chris into 2nd. Maria will be starting her final year of preschool after Labor Day. Click the photo to see more.

As a side note, Ben's class has 29 students in it. To anyone who reads this, vote YES on the upcoming levy ballot. The state has cut funding, and we need it desperately. A lot of misinformation is being spread against the levy. For example, some claim that teachers received a 10% raise. This is a joke! A new building was opened, and the overall district payroll went up by 10% BECAUSE THERE WERE MORE TEACHERS. Individual teachers' salaries went up by a measly 1%, and administrators got no raise whatsoever. Don't believe all that you hear without investigating the facts.

Part of the reason we moved to West Chester was the great schools. While I know there are still a lot of excellent teachers in the district, I'm afraid we are going to start losing them if levies continue to fail. Way back when it might have been no problem to have 30 kids in a class. Times have changed--and so is the property value of your house every time the levy fails.

Huggy bear

The big news here in Cincinnati is the firing of UC basketball coach Bob Huggins. Personally, I have never been a Bob Huggins fan. I find him too negative, immature, and generally someone I don't think I'd get along with.

I remember turning on the radio one day to WLW and Huggins was doing a post-game interview, talking about how badly his team played. They stunk on offense, they stunk on defense, etc. After the interview, the announcer came on and said "...and that's it from here at the Shu, where UC has beaten..." some team by about 35 points. Talk about Mr. Negative.

That being said, I think the firing of Huggins is a shame and a black mark against the school. They waited until after recruiting and selling lots of tickets, after making it seem like Huggins would be finishing out his contract. They are moving to the Big East, and their shady ways will make it very hard for them to get a good coach to come here. And I do believe, despite his negativism, that Huggins was a great coach and a great mentor to the type of kids he typically recruited.

On the bright side, with Huggins and Motta gone, maybe Miami University basketball will become the premiere program here in the Cincy area!

Vacation

I've been enjoying a much-needed week off from work this week. We decided to do a "hometown" vacation as opposed to traveling a long distance. So far we've celebrated my dad's 73rd birthday, been to the pool, the Beach (the local one), and GameWorks. In addition, I participated in a doubles tennis tournament at the swim club. We just got back from our one jaunt out of the immediate area--we spent 2 days at Mammoth Cave National Park in KY. We had a great time hiking the trails and especially enjoyed the caves and their 54 degree temperature! Click the photo to see the complete set of Mammoth Cave pics.

Rugby

The other highlight of the Bengals game--a rugby match at halftime. Never seen one before. Man, they're brutal! It makes football players look like wimps.

Preseason opener

Attended the Bengals preseason opener vs. the New England Patriots tonight. They lost, but that's not too big a deal in a preseason game. Rudi ran very well, and Chris Perry looked much better. Other than a couple of very weak deep throws, Carson played fairly well. Once the 2nd and 3rd team defense came in, things got a little ugly though. Hopefully it will be an injury-free season so not too many of those guys play.

The best part was the seats. Jason got a free pair of club seats (face value of $200). Very nice, cushioned, 50-yard line, nice air-conditioned lounge, waitresses to bring you food. I could get used to that (although at $200 a pop, I'm sure I won't).

Baseball humor

I'm usually not a big Conan O'Brien fan, but this is pretty funny.

Synergy

Jim Hopkins told me about a very cool piece of open-source software called Synergy. The software allows you to share a single keyboard and mouse over multiple computers. I set up my office so I am using one keyboard with a Windows XP, Windows 98, and Mac OS X machine. Geeky, but very cool!

Bengals training camp

Attended Cincinnati Bengals training camp at Georgetown College for the first time with Gary and Hoss. It was interesting seeing how Marvin ran everything. Carson, Chad, and Rudi looked great, as did rookie LB Odell Thurman. Chris Perry was not very impressive--hopefully that will change. Will be going to the first pre-season game with Jason on Friday. Whoodey!

The first post

First, blogging was cool. Then it became outdated and podcasting became cool. That means it's time for me to start blogging, since I'm always a step or two behind the times (as evidenced by my Nintendo 64 and black-and-white tv). I've been inspired by Earl Sod and Kyle Lewis. Anyway, once I have something interesting (to me, anyway) to say, you'll find it here.