The engineer and his wife (told from Edward's perspective, so to speak)

A few weeks ago, my wife posted an experience on her blog titled "The engineer and his wife" (yes, that makes me the engineer). I thought I would take a few minutes and tell the real story. So here goes...

I arrive home from work just as my lovely wife was finishing preparing dinner. She had made French Toast (I love having breakfast for dinner). As I came into the kitchen my daughter, Riley, was just opening the microwave door to take out the orange juice that she had thawed. There was a pretty good mess in the bottom of the microwave because the orange juice had bubbled over to top of the can.

As I saw this, I said, "How long did you put that in for?" The wife immediately jumped in and came to Riley's defense saying that she was just following instructions and that she better have put a paper towel down under the can because the orange juice ALWAYS overflows when thawed in the microwave. She also informed me that she ALWAYS puts it in for 3 minutes on power 7. I then asked if she had ever considered putting it in for less time or at a lower power so that it doesn't bubble over and make a mess. I also let her know that I have always done it for 2-1/2 minutes on power 7 and it has never bubbled over.

At that point, the wife, who was sitting at the table with her back to me, threw her head back and started to laugh as she realized that she had never considered the less time or lower power options and had just resigned herself to having to clean up a mess each time orange juice needed to be thawed. I'll agree with her post that I then "burst into ridiculous laughter" which lasted for quite some time but was appropriate given the situation.

PS -- Sometimes people are "doing it wrong"....

Utah deserves to be the National Champion...

Currently, there is one undefeated team in the country. Utah is 13-0. There are also five, one-loss teams (highlighted in red). In the chart below, if a team beat another team, they show up one level above them in the chart. As you can see, all five one-loss teams fall beneath teams that were beat by Utah. Seems pretty powerful to me. Utah did everything that was asked of them and there is a direct link to ALL one-loss teams.



Of course, a real playoff where people earned spots in the tournament through their play on the field as opposed to being anointed based on who votes for them would be preferable. But otherwise, my vote goes to Utah.

U.S. Fiscal Crisis

Take a little time and watch these videos and look at the presentation. They will rightfully scare you.

60 Minutes, 11 min. 26 sec. from July 8, 2007
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2534935n

2 min. 50 sec.
http://www.gao.gov/media/video/numbers/windows/morethannumbers.wmv

11 min. 19 sec.
http://www.gao.gov/media/video/fiscal/windows/amfiscal.wmv

GAO Presentation
http://gao.gov/cghome/d08465cg.pdf

Here’s an excerpt from the following article (http://townhall.com/columnists/TerryPaulson/2008/11/02/democracies_die_when_liberty_gives_way_to_dependence?page=full&comments=true )

"…ponder the words of the Scottish jurist and historian, Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler. Over 200 years ago, he provided a chilling observation on the fall of the Athenian Republic. America has been a beacon of liberty and hope for our citizens and the world for over 230 years. But Tytler warned of the natural rise and fall of every democracy:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence; from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again into bondage.” "

What stage do you think we are in? Especially when you see this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI

Global Warming = Power and Money

I got an email from a friend last week asking me to check out Gristmill - a site devoted to the environment. The specific section I was directed to was the one on skeptics -- you know, those kooks who don't believe global warming exists. Anyway, the timing was remarkable because in the past week, I finally sat down and read all 35 articles that have been posted on Climate change: The Deniers (I encourage you to do the same – start with #25 and then go back to #1. #25 is the one where the author gives the background behind the series). Essentially, this is a guy who started out doing some reporting on the fringe few who didn’t believe that global warming was a done deal and ended up writing 35 articles about it. After reading all of it, the main thing I came away from it with is the fact that the “science isn’t settled” as Gore and others (including Gristmill) would have you believe. It doesn’t mean it’s not happening, but given a rigorous application of the scientific method, it certainly hasn’t been proved either. I haven't yet worked my way through the volumes of information on Gristmill, but I did click into a couple of the articles. Maybe I’m jaded (of course I am, we all have a bias, but the extremes on both sides refuse to admit they have one), but comments like this bother me, “If we require unanimity before being confident, well, we can't be sure the earth isn't hollow either.” It’s tantamount to saying, “If you don’t believe what we are telling you, you’re an idiot….” I prefer someone who presents facts. They can state their opinion of the facts, but don’t bully or insult me into believing what you are telling me.

At this point, here's what I believe:

1. The earth is a living organism. It is in a constant state of change. Always has been and always will be. I think it is incredibly egocentric for us to think that the earth is at its perfect state right now and that we need to try and keep anything from changing.
2. At the end of the day, it’s about power and money. He who controls this debate, has both the money and the power. The left is very adept at using fear to scare everyone into being willing to spend (be taxed) Billions and Billions even though the science isn’t settled. And then, several years from now, they can all say, “ya, but just think how bad it would have been if we hadn’t spent all that money.” There are not double blind trials, there are politically motivated people and organizations funding scientists to find the ‘right’ answer….and they do find the ‘right’ answer because they want more funding next year.
3. I believe that we should be drilling and using the resources we currently have to keep the cost of living down.
4. I believe that we should protect the environment, but not to the extremes, and not to the detriment of our economy or our citizen’s livelihoods. There has to be a balance, and I don’t hear that perspective very often…at least not in the media.
5. I believe that we should be taxing gas to fund alternative/renewable energy sources (wind/wave/solar/nuclear etc.). It should also be funding true research, without a predetermined outcome. Within the next 50-100 years, we should be off fossil fuels.

So there you have it. Thoughts?

Division 1 College Football Playoff vs. BCS

For years, I have been wanting desperately for Division 1 College Football to collectively pull their heads out and settle the National Championship on the field instead of by arbitrary votes. I've felt this way since the 1990 and 1991 seasons where the voting systems produced consecutive years of split National Championships. In 1991, I destinctly remember reading an article about how there were several voters on the east coast who hadn't even seen the Washington Huskies play a single game...and yet they were casting votes as to who should be the national champion. In that year, the Huskies had to share the National Championship with the Miami Hurricanes. Well, I came across an article a couple of weeks ago that was spot on, well, almost. Take a minute and read his article:

The Wetzel plan
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! SportsNovember 27, 2007

Like I said, his article was almost spot on. I couldn't resist replying to his article. Here is my reply:

Hi Dan,

I loved your article 'The Wetzel Plan'. It is almost identical to what I have been telling anyone who would listen for years. I only have a couple of suggestions for you.

I believe that the seedings have to be more systematic than relying on the polls. I believe that the five at-large bids should be the 12-16 seeds. If they argue, I'd respond by telling them to win their conference next year. (And when Notre Dame complains, I'd tell them to join a conference). I don't care if a team from a 'less important' conference gets a higher seed than the number two team from one of the 'power conferences'. There should be some benefit for winning your conference and being able to play at home is the right way to go. The number two teams should have to go on the road against champions from other conferences. Even in this scenario, three conference champions will still have to go on the road. I believe there are some pretty sophisticated ways of ranking the different conferences against each other. I would rather have a computer system that seeds the teams than voters or a selection committee who in all likelihood hasn't even seen some of the teams play. Another possibility for the seedings would be to do it based on the previous year. If a team from your conference won it all last year, then your conference gets the number one seed this year. In your sample bracket, you have an at-large Kansas hosting an undefeated Hawaii. That shouldn't happen. The only way Hawaii should be on the road is to play another conference champion from a stronger conference. The same logic holds true for BYU and Georgia.

A couple of other thoughts. In order to keep some of the other bowls afloat, if that's even desired, I would allow the eight teams that lose in the first round of the playoffs to be invited to bowl games. That means you really only remove eight teams from the bowl picture so four bowls at most fall by the wayside. As for schedules, all teams should complete their regular season by the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This allows the four rounds to happen in December and spill into the first few days of January while still accommodating the holidays and allowing for a bye week or two.

I think the key to making this happen is to show the BCS conference commissioners that they will actually generate more revenue from a playoff.

My First Blog

Right up front I will admit that I am not a talented writer. It takes me way too long to write anything that makes sense. So, I am not going to use my blog to keep a 'Blournal' (Blog-Journal) as others do. That would take way too much time and effort. Neither of which I have to give. My plan for my blog is to share my thoughts about things I care about...some more passionately than others. Hopefully, I will be able to make people think, persuade a few, and at least generate some intersting comments. I hope you enjoy.

PS - The name of my blog is a reference from a movie, can anyone name the movie?