In case you did not read it, the Hawkeys made ESPN this week. Once again they made the news because some of the players were arrested. It makes the story more interesting because one of them was the coach's son. Again. Yup, second alcohol related charge against him. Wonder how much trouble he will get into once he is LEGAL to drink? My friend (big) Tim pointed out a few years ago that a lot of schools recruit bad students in the name of championships, but Iowa does it and does not even win much.
Here is what (dad) the coach had to say:
It was very disappointing to learn of the behavior of our three players last night," Kirk Ferentz said in a statement. "Short term, all three will be suspended for the remainder of spring practice and they will be expected to fulfill significant community service obligations the next several weekends.
How significant can it be if they can do it on a couple of weekends?
Additional action will be determined at a later point and return to the team will be based on additional criteria."
In other words.. later on after it is out of the news I will yell at them and go back to trying to win a game or 2.
Enough about that.. I will let it go for now and just wait to post more next time they get arrested.
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I just got back from driving the simulator. I had to sign a bunch of papers and then just drove around for about five min. Pretty amazing stuff. They are supposed to call later today if things work out and we can get our schedules to work. Hope it happens.
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Tuesday

Texas says "No" to Vista. That just looks really bad.

Sunday

We went to see Monsters VS Aliens Friday night. Mary and Tim were not really up for it so Aled and I had "geek's night out". The movie was really pretty cute and enjoyable, but the 3D really made it a hoot. There was one scene where Susan (who is now 80 feet tall) is talking to W.R. Monger (Keifer Sutherland) who is flying a jet pack around her.
He was in the foreground and you could have sworn he was hovering above the head of the guy 3 rows up from you. Kind of freaky.

Saturday

Got some random stuff done today. Just some odd jobs that I wanted to get done for a long time. I am told that we are going to get 3-6" of snow over the next day or so. Yea. Great.
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So Microsoft launched the second "Lauren" commercial this weekend. In the first Lauren is given $1K to buy a laptop. She wants a Mac, but can't get one and settles for a HP. The odd thing is that it kind of works and plays along with sweaty Steve's "Apple tax" theme that they have going on right now. But what is odd is that she says that she guesses she is not cool enough to own a Mac. So what she really wants is a Mac? Does that really speak well for the HP? Wait. This is a MS commercial not an HP commercial, but NOWHERE do they mention the operating system. You know.. the "V" word.
The second one is pretty much the same thing. Once again the guy settles on a HP, and once again Vista and MS are not mentioned in his choice.
So MS knows that Vista is crap and the only way the can try to sell it is to promote that the machines that they infest are cheaper.
Ya know... I realize that some people like PC's and some Mac's. If you like PC's better then that is your choice and I am happy for you. But I hate it when people say that PC's are better because they cost less then Macs. I guess that our Honda is WAY better then a Ferrari.
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I was at Menard's today and a guy we getting into his black hemi Challenger. I smiled and said "nice ride". He said "thanks". Then I don't know what possessed me, but I asked a really dumb question: "like it?" WTF? It is a new Challenger. One of 2 in town. It is black. It is a hemi. DUH. He was nice and said it was really fun to drive. But I know he had to be saying to himself, "duh".

Sweet!

I just got a call from the National Driving Simulator. I applied for a study a while back and have not heard from them and thought I did not get picked. Well I may be in. I go in for screening next Wed. and if I pass then I am in.
The study is on the effect of drinking and driving. There will be 3 sessions with various levels of alcohol ingested. You don't know how much you are drinking at the time, but you drink it and then go driving around in the simulator.
I did one other study and just loved it. It is THE most amazing simulator anywhere and it is just a blast to be a part of it.
Here is the kicker. They will pay me $250 to do it. Hell I would pay that just to drive the thing. How often do you get a chance to get paid to get drunk, play an multi million dollar video game, and then get a ride home?
Besides being really hard core geek-fun, it will also be very interesting to see the results too.
So hope that I get in!

The National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS) is the most sophisticated research driving simulator in the world. Developed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the NADS offers high-fidelity, real-time driving simulation. It consists of a large dome in which entire cars and the cabs of trucks and buses can be mounted. The vehicle cabs are equipped electronically and mechanically using instrumentation specific to their make and model.At the same time, the motion system, on which the dome is mounted, will provide 400 square meters of horizontal and longitudinal travel and nearly 360 degrees of rotation in either direction. The effect will be that the driver will feel acceleration, braking and steering cues as if he or she were actually driving a real car, truck or bus.


The latest in visual display technology and a high-fidelity audio system will complete the driving experience. The test subject will be immersed in sight, sound and movement so real that impending crash scenarios can be convincingly presented with no danger to the subject. Vehicle and driver data can be accurately gathered and stored and tests repeated with exactitude. TRW was awarded the construction contract after winning the design competition conducted by NHTSA. TRW assembled a world-class team that incorporated the latest in simulation technology in all aspects of the design for the $50 million project. The team included Dynamic Research, Inc., Evans & Sutherland, I*SIM and MTS Systems.

Wed.

THIS had to hurt. Glad he was not hurt worse or killed in that incident.

Wed.

CRAZY day at work yesterday and so coming home all I wanted to do was get home. I knew there was something I needed. I got home and remembered that Gears of War had new maps coming out that day. I needed to pick up a few Microsoft Points so that I could download them. I jumped in the truck.. over to Kmart.. got the card. Stood at the electronics check out for ten min. Nobody. I got disgusted and threw the card on the floor and walked out of there. That happened to me before and I left them a note on the counter. ATTN: Management. Nobody in your store would help me. If you want to contact me I am at Walmart LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. Yea, I get cranky about this stuff.
Anyhoo... I head over to Wally and get my card.. no check out person. I look around electronics (A.K.A "tronics") and find the tronics woman talking to a customer. They are going back and forth and the customer says, "you're an electronics kind of guy, right?" to me. I say I guess so. So she asks me her question. It seems her friend has this box that lets him skip commercials. I started to explain a DVR to her but she said it was live tv.
Now, I am NOT an expert and there may be some amazing technology that I don't know about.. but that did not seem possible to me.
I told her that her friend had probably recorded a show or had paused it and that allowd him to skip. I also told her that I thought the original Tvio's had a 30 second jump button for that purpose, but the networks had a cow and they removed it. Nope. It was live tv.
I said I don't think that is possible because the signal is not into your house yet. It would be a box that could look into the future and predict what will happen next and then make it for you. It would be like a machine that goes to your mailbox and gets mail that is not even here yet.
OKAY... this is the funny part. The tronics person chimes in and proves me wrong. She said that it could be possible because the people on the east coast are not seeing the show at the same time as us, so maybe it is showing you what they are seeing.
I started to explain ... No the show is going out at the same time, but our clocks.... Then I stopped and said, "Can I just get this rung up"