Cyber Stalking

I have found a way to embed my Google latitude location in my blog This takes cyber stalking to a whole new level.

No Surprise

This post was also created in Google Wave. Again let me know if you want a Google Wave account.

New Beginnings

My first embedded Google Wave. I wrote this during the Christmas break. Some of you that don't have wave won't be able to see this post. If you want a wave account then shoot me and email.

A lot has happened

So a lot has happened since my last post. I really need to post more often. First thing first, I found out that I can take graduate classes at UMD without being enrolled in the graduate school. I am going to try and take classes next semester.

I got an invitation to tryout a Google Wave preview on Monday and so far it is amazing. It is convenient using a combined Email and IM but it is also an amazing work collaboration tool. Art and I are going to look into developing our own apps. I really believe that this is the future of Email and IM.

I am playing WoW now and thanks to Art and Heather I have raised my Paladin to lvl 60.

Sports

The Redskins finally got a win last week. Hopefully we can make it to .500 this year. If we win out we can make the playoffs. I know that is wishful thinking but I am a Redskins fan I don't know anything else.

My fantasy football teams are struggling. The two in the Yahoo Public League are lost and the one in the Keeper League is fledgling. I did manage to win last week in the Keeper league so right now I am sitting in the last playoff seed. My team has had a lot of injuries though and my Keeper RB's have officially been busts.

First post in a long time

I voted today for Creigh Deeds and every other Democrat running in the Virginia election today. The past few weekends I have gone down to Norfolk to watch my brother play football. He plays for Norfolk State University as a wide receiver. This weekend I am going to my friend Andrew Bell's wedding.

The Redskins have been struggling a lot since the last post. They seem to have lost their direction and there is a lot of confusion in upper level management. There are too many holes to fix and it looks like it will take years in order to fix all of the problems with the team. I just hope that permanent damage hasn't been done to the fan base because of the poor performance on and off the field.

Fantasy has been an equal disaster this year. The difference is though that I can recover much easier in those leagues. I had a tough loss two weeks ago to the worst team in the league and I lost this past week to a strong team. I just want to make the playoffs in that league.

Yea work

I got a job today!! It is not an engineering job but it is something. I am working at a local elementary school with severely disabled students. Hopefully I can make enough money to go back to school. It looks like I am going to need more education in order get the kind of job I really want.

Arthur Schopenhauer, a famous German philosopher, once said that "Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits targets no one else can see." Google Wave came out of the blue for me and it makes the developers of the product and Google look brilliant. This Wave is going to revolutionize the way people communicate with each other over the internet. This product has too many features for me to list, I just suggest that you guys check it out when you get a chance.

Sports

Last weekend was one of the worst sports weekends of my life. The Redskins lost to the Detroit Lions. The same Detroit Lions who lost all of their games last year and was riding a 19 game losing streak into the game. The Skins looked bad on defense and worse on offense. The play calling was uninspired and predictable. We made the Lions look like the Patriots.

What really fumed me were the after game interviews. All of the Redskins players and coaches were down playing the Lions losing streak. They were trying to get us to buy into the notion that the Lions were a "strong" team. There was a noticeable lack of fire in their responses to questions, it didn't seem like anyone was angry about the loss. What was obvious on the field and to all of the fans and journalists was that this team has some major problems, yet the players and coaches seemed to believe that only minor adjustments need to be made.

The Redskins need to wake-up. The players, coaches, and staff need to realize that we are a bad team. We are a not a good football team. We need help. Trying to pass this game off as another loss is a mistake. This loss was a wake-up call. The team needs to reexamine their devotion and needs to play in the next game like a team that is prepared and hungry.

Paper airplanes

I substituted for a special education elementary school teacher today. These sub jobs are usulaly fairly easy to get because when subs hear special education and elementary school they usually have nightmares of paint flying and across classrooms and soiled underpants that need changing. The truth is that this is one of the easiest jobs a sub can get. First, off when you sub for a special education teacher there is a guarentee that you will work with a TA. There are also fewer students in special ed classes than in other classes. 


Well anyway, about an hour after lunch we had a scheduled break time. Students can't focus very well after lunch so this these breaks are crucial to keeping kids from screaming and yelling and fighting. One of the kids started making paper airplanes while I and another teacher were playing dinosaur Bingo with a few other students. In the middle of the game a paper airplane flies across the classroom and whacks me in the head. It hit me so hard it actually made a mark on my cheek. He picked it up and threw it again and it smashed against the chalkboard at the other end of the room. The airplane barely lost any elevation during its flight. We went into the hallway and he threw the airplane again and it went at least 50 feet before it dropped.


This is particularly humbling for me because I am notoriously bad at constructing paper airplanes. If the planes I construct go forward then it is an achievement for me. However, what is even more humbling is that I have participated in ad hoc paper airplane contests with fellow aerospace engineering college students and our paper airplanes fell woefully short of paper airplanes of a elementary student with special educations needs. 


Politics

There was an awesome commercial created by Will Farrell and a few other comedians that sarcastically denounced health care reform because it would hurt insurance executives.


Wendell Potter, an insurance company executive, revealed some of the underhanded efforts taken by this former employer to kill meaningful health care reform. It is absurd to me that many people have protested health care reform when insurance company executives are the overwhelming beneficiary of the status quo. Hopefully, the comedic prowess of Will Farrell and other comedians can convince people of the merits of reform.