Here in Maryland, Hurricane Jeanne isn’t much more than a lot of rain. But the gray skies and rainy weather is starting to get under my skin. I need a blue sky, in a big way right now. Unfortunately, it may be a couple of days before that happens. It’s only Tuesday, but it’s already been a long week.

In an effort to combat this blue funk I feel coming on, I purchased a Yoga DVD. I figure a little yoga my set my inner zen straight again. And if it helps me shed a few pounds, that’ll be fine by me. I went through the routine last night and didn’t have much trouble doing the poses in the 1/4 modified routine. If I can go a week or two with that I’ll move up to the un-modified routine.

I’m also going to get myself to the gym, again. I need to get my blood flowing. I had to take about two months off due to my damn gimpy knee. Thanks, to a new prescription of Celebrex, the knee is manageable if not great. I ought to be handle everything.

My picks for Week 3 were a respectable 10-4, bring the total for the season up to 30-16. KC’s inability to win is the biggest surprise to me. And honestly, with their lack of defense, I think they run a very good chance of going 0-4 after playing the Ravens next Monday.

My fantasy Team squeaked out another win, bring their record up to a winning 2-1. The difference was Terry Glenn’s TD. Thrown to him by fullback Ritchie Anderson. I love plays like that.

Finally, the Ravens looked good this weekend, even with several starters out. Kyle Boller played smart and managed the game well, but he will have to spend some time with running backs coach if want to keep scrambling like that. He needs to learn how to carry the ball and avoid those costly fumbles. Jamal Lewis was back with vengeance and the defense was solid. If the team continues to play this well, there are few teams in the league who can beat them.

I have made several changes to the blog recently. The most noticeable is that I got a new template. I had outgrown the old template. Too much stuff shoved into the sidebar. I had thought I would try to make my own. Writing CSS didn’t seem too hard. And it isn’t that hard really, but getting it to work at multiple resolutions in different browsers and with blogger, that is a little more challenging. Luckily, I found a template out there that was almost exactly what I had been trying to make. With just a few tweaks I had just what I wanted.

I also had moved from blogspot to blogcafe back in August. I’m very happy with their hosting. I get more control over the site and its still free.
I’ve also added some ads. I hope they don’t offend too much. Go ahead and click on one for fun;) or not.

I am looking for some feedback on the site (appearance or otherwise) feel free to leave comments. I may or may not act on them. Since I am still my own best audience my opinions are going get much more weight.

I got some new hiking boots yesterday. They are pretty fancy but still need some breaking in. I’ll be wearing them around for a while to break them in. The real test will be in about month. I have a 25 mile backpacking trip planned. I can’t wait.

My parting thought to you is an article about Cyberextortion. Can you imagine, “That’s a nice web site you’ve got there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.”

That’s just plain creepy!

I was checking the stats on ye old blog here and I found that no one is reading it. Which is what I always find. However, people are finding it. To my surprise, at least 3 people had found their way here by running a Google search on “Illuminanti” limiting it to sites in English. I’m third in the results. Amazing. Unfortunately for those seekers of information on the Illuminanti, all I have is a passing reference to them in a post that talks about, among other things, the book Angels and Demons. I feel bad about that, so I will attempt to be of some help to those wishing to find out about the Illuminanti. Here is thumbnail sketch of what I know about the Illuminanti. At the bottom of the post are several links for more information.

The Illuminanti are a super secret organization that control … well … everything. They are responsible for the American Revolution in 1776 as well as the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. They are controlled by 5 secret masters, but even the most powerful Illuminatus never know the Identity of more than one of them. They control the Swiss Banks, the media, the Republicans, the Democrats to name a few.

If you’ve never heard of the Illuminanti, you must be thinking, “If they are so powerful, and have done all of this stuff how come I’ve never heard of them.”

Well, that’s just the way they want it. Most of the people who are doing the work of the Illuminanti, don’t even know. How could that be? Well, look at the Masons. A secret but harmless organization, right. Wrong, the Mason are actually a “farm system” for the Illuminanti. Not all Mason are Illuminantus, but they may be receiving direction from Higher Ranking Masons who are.

You may be thinking, “That’s insane. How about some proof geek-boy!”

Proof. Easy. Just pull out a one dollar bill. Turn it over. Observe the Great Seal of the United States. On the front of it the seal is an eagle. Well that makes sense, but on the Reverse, is a pyramid, with a shining eye coming out of it. Weird. In school you may have learned that the pyramid represents the young United States being built, and that the pyramid was incomplete, because the nation is always growing and the eye represents a benevolent god watching over the young nation. Maybe. Or it could be this. The Hierarchical Orders of the Masons (and perhaps the Illuminanti) is organized as a pyramid. And the Eye? The symbol of Illumination. The sign of the Illuminanti’s control and knowledge of everything. How did that get on the Great Seal? That’s easy. Most of the Founding Father were Masons. As a matter of fact, most of our Presidents have been Masons.

The Illuminanti were above ground for a time. Adam Weishaupt founded the Bavarian Order of the Illuminanti May 1, 1776. It attracted many prominent Europeans to become Members, including Mozart. Having gathered a good base to work from Weishaupt, allowed the Bavarian government to disband the Order of the Illuminanti. Of course, it wasn’t really disbanded it just went deep underground.

You may be thinking now, “If these guys are so smart and so powerful, how is so much information available.”

That’s the true genius of the Illuminanti. What better way to convince the masses you don’t exist, than to allow a bunch of crack pots to offer up proof that you do. We ignore the proof because it comes from those who are crazy or mix it with their own agenda.

If you want more information check out these sites. Be warned some are more credible than others. And some are down right offensive in the views. I link to them not because I support or agree with any of them, but to help you gather more information on this subject.

http://www.rotten.com/library/conspiracy/illuminati/
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/All_Seeing_Eye.htm
http://www.masonicinfo.com/illuminati.htm
http://www.holygrail-church.fsnet.co.uk/The%20Illuminati.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/truth_is/symbolismondollarbill.html
http://www.geocities.com/theawakeningnews/Religion-Great_Seal_Dollar_Bill.html
http://www.benbest.com/history/bavarian.html
http://atheism.about.com/library/weekly/aa092299b.htm
http://www.officialnewworldorder.com/html/The_Illuminati/the_illuminati.html
http://www.dccsa.com/greatjoy/Illumin8.htm
http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/illumin.htm

For a more common sense answer read this. And if you were interested in a fun fictional read about the Illuminanti Check out The Illuminantus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.

There you have it. All you never wanted to know about the Illuminanti!

Another Week, another Round Of NFL Picks.

Sunday, Sep 26, 2004
1:00 PM Houston (0-2) vs. Kansas City (0-2) The Chiefs Out Shoot the Texans
1:00 PM Chicago (1-1) vs. Minnesota (1-1) The Vikes Handle Da Bears
1:00 PM New Orleans (1-1) vs. St. Louis (1-1) Rams Exploit the Saints
1:00 PM Jacksonville (2-0) vs. Tennessee (1-1) Titans bounce back this week
1:00 PM Cleveland (1-1) vs. New York NYG (1-1) NY Football Giants win
1:00 PM Pittsburgh (1-1) vs. Miami (0-2) Steelers get their shot at a screwed up Miami Franchise — Steelers Win
1:00 PM Arizona (0-2) vs. Atlanta (2-0) Mike Vick and the Falcons beat up on the Cards
1:00 PM Baltimore (1-1) vs. Cincinnati (1-1) Ravens D welcomes Carson Palmer to the NFL - Ravens win
1:00 PM Philadelphia (2-0) vs. Detroit (2-0) I’m Picking Philly but the Lions are looking good
4:05 PM San Diego (1-1) vs. Denver (1-1) Broncos have no problem beat the Bolts
4:15 PM San Francisco (0-2) vs. Seattle (2-0) ‘hawks beat 9ers
4:15 PM Green Bay (1-1) vs. Indianapolis (1-1) Talk about a tough way to start the season … but the Colts win their Home Opener (hopefully on the legs on Dominic Rhodes)
8:30 PM Tampa Bay (0-2) vs. Oakland (1-1) Oakland gets to Pay Gruden Back for Super Bowls Humiliation-Raiders win
Monday, Sep 27, 2004
9:00 PM Dallas (1-1) vs. Washington (1-1) ‘Skins Wins (this one will be ugly)

On the fantasy front, my Charm City Bruiser (1-1) face the Hope Village Heros (2-0). I still have Running back problems, but I’ve gambled on Dominic Rhodes. He’s been very active this season anyhow and with the Edge being a little gimpy I’m hoping he gets even more carries this weekend. I’ve dumped Dallas as my defense and picked up Detroit. Currently they are the number 1 ranked D. Who knew? Also it helps a lot that the owner of the Hope Village Heros seems to have an interesting strategy for dealing with bye weeks. He leaves the guys in. Instead of try to rotate guys on and off the bench and chancing putting guys on waiver to make room, he just takes his lumps. The good news is all three of his Wide Receivers are on bye. Which is fine by me, I need all the help I can get to win.

Once more, I’ve been gifted 6 invites. In order to get them to people who want them I’ve posted an offer at gmailswap.com offering an invite just for reading my blog. I really do want people to read this blog so increased traffic is probably the best bet. It just seems simple enough to me. You really want a gmail account, I really want traffic to my blog … it doesn’t cost anybody anything. What could be better? If you like what you read or are intrigued or you hate it but you want to come back for me … then that’s even better. Post a comment and you get the invite as long as they are available to me.

Sorry folks. I’m all out of invites. When and if Google (in their infinite wisdom) grants me more invites I’ll post it.

Blogging is great. It should be no surprise that I think so. I put a fair amount of time and energy in to it. Of all the people I know, the person that I think would enjoy have a blog of their own is my 80 something year old grandmother. I am aware that she is a bit outside of the normal demographic for this kind of thing, but I think she would be great. Why? Well, because she has for many years worked very hard to send emails to all of her family; her children, grandchildren, cousins, 1st, 2nd and many times removed. In these emails she goes to great length to update everyone on not only on what she and my grandfather are up to, but on what everyone has been up to. No small task. I have 2nd cousins once removed that I have never met and likely never will, but they know about my accomplishments and I know about theirs. All because my grandmother efforts. It seems to me that blog would be the perfect forum for this communication. Not only would it give her a centralized location to work from, no more worrying about keeping an up to date list of email addresses but all of the readers would now be able to leave comments that the others could read.

I tried to explain this to my mother. It didn’t go well. I think she believes that only geeks like me can keep a blog. She was also worried she would get out of the loop because she is not one to surf the internet. I attempted to show her an RSS Reader so that she could see how easy it could be to keep up with reading a blog. Just subscribe and check for updates. As easy as checking for email. She wasn’t impressed. Well, at least I tried. Boy, if you can’t get your own mother interested in your blog you are probably in trouble.

I think I will send an email to my grandmother tonight and try to explain the basic idea to her. Who knows maybe she’ll be successful and will link to me! ;)

People are dying in Iraq. Soldiers are dying. Iraqis are dying. And people that are over there to do a job or help out in Iraq are having their heads removed from their bodies. Its grisly. Its terrible. And apparently its no big deal. Bush and Kerry are busy with a put-down contest. Bush’s response the last beheading:

“These killers want to shake our will. They want to determine the fate of the Iraqi people. We will not allow these thugs and terrorists to decide your fate and to decide our fate”

I am glad that we will not allow it. I’d be real interested in hearing our plan for preventing this from happening again. I’ve search the web, but I can’t find anything like a plan. Nothing that details what steps will we take to bring stability to Iraq and make it safe.

What about John Kerry, he’s a serious and thoughtful guy. Surely, he has a plan or at least some insightful comment about these beheadings. No. I don’t see them either, but he was busy with David Letterman, so maybe it slipped his mind.

What is the matter with us. Why is this not our number one priority. People are getting their heads cut off and videos of it are posted on the internet. And all our country can do is talk about it on cable news. Right now this what the networks are talking about:

Foxnews: Dan Rather, CBS and Memogate
CNN: Dan Rather, CBS and Memogate
MSNBC: The Upcoming Debates

Maybe its just me, but I think that people getting brutally murdered by terrorist in the country that we are occupying is more significant than what Bush did in Alabama in 1972. Or whether or not 60 Minutes was irresponsible. But we’d rather not hear about that, it is uncomfortable, unpleasant.

Are we that self absorbed? Are we that irresponsible?

I hope not. Of course, i am guilty of some that also. I’ve dedicated more space to football than Iraq in this blog. But then again I’m just a geek who has nothing better to do than post my random thoughts on the internet for no one to read.

My fantasy team, The Charm City Bruisers, won 54-50 this week. Bringing our record up to 1 and 1. My picks were also more successful this week; I got 11 right. For the Season I am 20 -12, which is respectable. Heck, it’s better than all of the experts over CBS Sportsline.

I want to personally say right here, how disgusted I am with Joey Porter.

If you are a Ravens fan or happened to see the Ravens-Steelers game yesterday, you may understand what I’m talking about. In case you didn’t, I’ll explain.

During the game, Todd Heap’s leg got pinned under another player and hurt his ankle pretty bad. The Ravens were running the two minute drill and Heap being the true tough guy that he is, did not want to cost his team a time out so he hobbled himself back to the line of scrimmage knowing that Boller was just going to spike the ball. He got himself there, but was obviously in pain, he couldn’t put any weight on his leg. He had both hands down on the turf to hold himself up. Joey Porter, linebacker for the Steelers, lined up across from Heap. When the ball was snapped, the ball was spiked, and Porter launched himself into the injured Tight End, knocking back and right off his feet.

I understand that the Steelers and Ravens are bitter rivals, and I understand that the players take these games very personally. But to hit an injured player, for no reason, is deplorable. I know that it was a legal hit, Heap was lined up. But its not as thought the Ravens were actually running a play. It was a mindless blow from a very small man. He says he did it because maybe Heap was faking it, in order to trick him. He says he’s seen that lots of times. I don’t even know what to say about that.

I believe in Karma and I believe that Joey Porter just put a huge hurting on his Karma wheel. But I don’t feel sorry for him. If were to run into him on the street, I’d have tell him, “Nice Job, Joey Porter, Way to hit a man when he was down.”

Ranting about the right wing that is. The Right Wing Nut Jobs once again have used the time tested strategy of repeating a lie again and again to make more true. This time the lie in question is the supposed invalidity of the documents CBS used to cite that Dubya wasn’t were he was supposed to be in the Guard in Alabama. These guys claim that the documents cannot be authentic because the fonts in them were not in use at the time. I do not know about the authenticity of those documents, but those who claim that these fonts and superscript feature were not available at the time seem to have it wrong. It seems that these fonts were available at the time. Don’t take my word for read here and here.

What do I know about fonts and typefaces and superscripts? Well … Nothing. But it seems that this issue is not as cut and dry and these Right Wing Nut Jobs want to make it out as. I do not know what Dubya was doing in the 1970’s and I really don’t care. I don’t think they could dig up enough dirt about his past to make a difference at this point. What I am getting very sick of is misinformation spreading again in to the main stream media simply by force of repetition.

And the worst part of all… where are the issues. We are debating whether Kerry got hurt enough for a Purple Heart or whether Bush took a physical. Who Cares? How about debating about a strategy for Iraq or an economic plan or a policy for dealing with terrorism. What the hell is wrong with us, we’re debating typesets on memos about events from over 30 years ago. And this is just what the Right wants, the longer we worry about these meaningless things, the less time we have to look at the real issues and they know the president is in real trouble if that ever happens.

We are on the eve of week 2 in the NFL which means another week of fantasy football and more picks.

First with the picks:

Sunday, Sep 19, 2004
Cleveland (1-0) vs. Dallas (0-1) Cowboys Win
Chicago (0-1) vs. Green Bay (1-0) The Packers own the Bears and they win again tomorrow
Carolina (0-1) vs. Kansas City (0-1) The Chiefs win at home
San Francisco (0-1) vs. New Orleans (0-1) Saints Win
Washington (1-0) vs. New York NYG (0-1) Clinton Portis is the difference - Skins win
Denver (1-0) vs. Jacksonville (1-0) Broncos win
Houston (0-1) vs. Detroit (1-0) Lions win
St. Louis (1-0) vs. Atlanta (1-0) Mike Vick and the falcons win
Pittsburgh (1-0) vs. Baltimore (0-1) Ravens D at Home is too much for Duce and the Steelers
Seattle (1-0) vs. Tampa Bay (0-1) ‘Hawks win it (especially if Shaun Alexander is healthy)
New England (1-0) vs. Arizona (0-1) The Pats haven’t lost since week 4- 2003 season, they will not change their winning ways in Arizona
Buffalo (0-1) vs. Oakland (0-1) Raiders win
New York NYJ (1-0) vs. San Diego (1-0) J-E-T-S win
Indianapolis (0-1) vs. Tennessee (1-0) Colts win this week
Miami (0-1) vs. Cincinnati (0-1) The Bengals win
Monday, Sep 20, 2004
Minnesota (1-0) vs. Philadelphia (1-0) Vikings win in a shoot out — I’ll see your TO and raise you one Randy Moss

My fantasy team has had a rough week. First Charles Rogers is out for the season. We brought in Tai Streets as free agent. He should step up for Lions to take Roger’s place and he and the Mooch have history. If he doesn’t cut it I still have Terry Glenn and Marcus Robinson on the bench. They both looked good in week 1 but I need to see more before I make either of those guys starters. Then at the last minute I found out that Stephen Davis needs knee surgery. I cut the bum. Neither of my bench warmers, Willis McGahee or William Green, are ready for primetime. So I had no choice to bring a veteran and hope he can hold up. Who to pick? None other than old Catch-22 Emmitt Smith. I have to admit that I’m not feeling very confident having to make this many adjustments this early in the season. This we face the Rented Mules led by Daunte Culpepper this week. It could be a long day tomorrow and an even longer Monday Night.

Yesterday was B.B. King’s Birthday. The self proclaimed King of Blues is one of my personal favorites. The man is a legend. I like the story (one of several versions) of why his guitar is named Lucille. He claims that the apartment he was living in caught fire, and he only had time to save one thing. He had to choose between his guitar and his girlfriend. He named the guitar in her memory. His music is incredible. Many of his songs are well known, but my favorite is Hummingbird. I heard that song for the first time when I was a freshman in college. My buddy Vic played it for me. Vic was interesting character. He loved the blues and Elvis. We spent many a night drinking Thunderbird (in a paper bag!) and listening to the blues. Why Thunderbird? Why in a paper bag? Well I’m not exactly sure. (And if you are not familiar with Thunderbird it is the wine of choice amongst winos who know.) Vic felt that there was something special about that. Picture, if you will, two white college kids, sitting in a dorm room with lights dimmed. Both of them chain smoking while listening to the blues. Exchanging shouts of “what’s the word?” “Thunderbird!” “What’s the price?” A dollar twice!” The thought of it brings a smile to my face even though I don’t smoke or drink anymore and I haven’t seen Vic in over a decade. Vic introduced me to Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker (the best bluesman you’ve never heard of) and, of course, B.B. King. And the blues are still a big part of me. So Happy 79th B.B. King and here’s to you Vic where ever you are!

It’s funny how things get twisted around. As I talk to people at work and elsewhere about family life as it comes up. I find myself feeling guilty. Why? Because it seems that most people are unhappy with their marriages. I am not. I couldn’t be happier with my marriage. I won’t get all yucky by going in to that, but I’m truly happy. As I find myself in conversations where folk go on about how their ex is doing them in or how that can’t stand to be around their spouse I fell as though I can’t participate. What I am supposed to say? Gee guys, my wife and I have lots of funny together. That would be like rubbing their noses in it. So I stay quiet and end up feeling a little guilty that I have something they do not. But I can live with that :)

There has been a lot of talk about this reliever for Texas pitching the chair in to the stands, and what is acceptable fan behavior. Its this simple, Frank Francisco has no excuse for his behavior. None. On the other hand, fans are rude. In every game, at every stadium, there are fans behaving like buffoons embarrassing themselves and everyone around them. I hate to take my children to sporting events for just that reason. How twisted is that? I’d like to blame this behavior on the beer flowing at these events, but that’s only part of the problem. What it comes down to is this, as a culture we have lowered our standards. Just walk into any retail store, its almost impossible to get a sales person to pay attention to you. It makes me cringe every time a waitress tells me sorry about the wait we are understaffed. That’s not customer service, don’t tell me about your problems, just smile and say here’s your dinner and I’d probably wouldn’t have even thought about the wait. But customer service is no longer part of the job, we’ve lowered our standards.

Mozilla has just released Firefox 1.0. If you aren’t happy with IE you might want to give it a try. I just downloaded it and so far so good. One noticeable improvement over previous versions — I can now listen online to ESPN radio.com with out having to use IE. There is also a feature that identifies when a page has RSS feeds available but the “live” bookmarks that go with that seem to be hit or miss.

Once more, I’ve been gifted 6 invites. In order to get them to people who want them I’ve posted an offer at gmailswap.com offering an invite for a link back to my blog. I really do want people to read this blog so increased traffic is probably the best bet. I’m not trying to be coy with my invites, I wanted one too much for that. It just seems simple enough to me. You really want a gmail account, I really want traffic to my blog … it doesn’t cost anybody anything. What could be better?

Not a good football weekend at all. The Charm City Bruisers were defeated 51-47 by RestoreTheRoarin04. The season ending injury to Charles Rogers might have been the difference. As for my picks I got 9 right. Not setting the world on fire but we’ll see how the season shapes up.

I had a fun weekend if you don’t count that sorry excuse of a football game. On Saturday my wife and I took my brother and sister-in-law for an old fashioned train ride. It was a blast. We got to ride in a dining car while the steam locomotive pulled us through the mountains of Western Maryland. When you think about how important the railroad was to the history of our country, it’s just cool to get a feel for what it was like back then. And the scenery was breath taking.

That night my father and I went fishing for catfish. And lo and behold, I caught one. Only 11 inches or so but worth keeping. Pretty cool. I’m happy to actually catch a fish this year, but those things are creepy.

For the football festivities on Sunday I made Suicide wings with Suicide sauce I had bought at the bar that is the home of the original Buffalo Wings. We had been to Buffalo in May and I had been saving it for football season. I also made some very hot chili, spiced with jalepenos, red chilis, and a dose of Dave’s Insanity Sauce. Good stuff! Not a bad way to keep your mind off the game.

It is a bad feeling to wait all this time for the beginning of the football season just to have your team lose. I’ll take comfort in the fact that the fans of half the teams in the NFL feel the same way I do, right now. I won’t go in to the details of the game, but I will make a couple of points.

1. Contrary to what I’ve been hearing, I think Boller looked OK. Consider his first game last season, the Steelers blitzed the hell out of him. He looked like a deer in the headlights for most of the game. Sunday, he stood in the pocket , for the most part, and he threw the ball well enough. But more importantly, he didn’t ever looked confused.
2. Too much credit its being given to the Brown’s defense for holding Jamal to 57 yards. There are two factors that contributed to that. First, perennial Pro-Bowler, Jonathan Odgen was out with a sprained knee. Second, Brian Billick hates to run the ball. That may seem counter-intuitive if you are only looking at the stats, but it is true. Sure he does have Jamal run a lot, but is not want he wants. That is what happened Sunday, Billick knew that Cleveland would pack 8 or 9 in the box, leaving the receiver in Man to Man coverage. So he tried to exploit it. Great plan, unless you have a inexperienced quarterback and a underachieving receiving corps.
3. The Ravens’ Special Teams sucked. They stunk. Too many penalties, short punts, a kick off out of bounds. The Ravens offense needs good field position to have a chance to score points and the Special Teams Unit did everything they could to give up field position.

The good news is that there are still 15 games left to play, and like all the sports radio guys keep saying, here in Baltimore, the last 4 teams to go to the SuperBowl lost in week 1.

Yes I still haven’t got rid of my invites. There are 6 of them. They will probably go quick now, because I poste a link to this blog on gmailswap.com. Heres the deal to get an invite here all you have to do. Drop me a comment with a way to contact you. I’ll send an email just to make sure you’re still interested (and to make sure you’re for real … I’m just funny like that.) When you reply I’ll send the invite.

If you came via gmailswap give the blog a read. If you like it, link to it or tell some one about it … if you don’t like it, keep it to yourself. I will update this post to show how many invites I have.

Ok. I’m all out of invites. If your still looking. Good luck. Try gmailswap.com or geevite or search Feedster there are plenty of other blogs out there offering up invites.

Football Season officially starts tomorrow. For the record I predict that the Baltimore Ravens will defeat the Seattle Seahawks in the Superbowl. For whatever that’s worth. I’ve never picked that correctly, but its fun to try. And hey this year if I do get it right, it will be documented. Just for fun I am going to put my weekly picks on here. We can keep score.

Indianapolis (12-4) vs. New England (14-2)— Colts win (but it will be close)
Arizona (4-12) vs. St. Louis (12-4)—Rams win
Detroit (5-11) vs. Chicago (7-9)—Lions win
San Diego (4-12) vs. Houston (5-11)—Texans win
Seattle (10-6) vs. New Orleans (8-8)—Seahawks win
Oakland (4-12) vs. Pittsburgh (6-10)—Raiders win
Tampa Bay (7-9) vs. Washington (5-11)—Bucs win
Jacksonville (5-11) vs. Buffalo (6-10)—Jags win
Baltimore (10-6) vs. Cleveland (5-11)—Ravens win … duh
Tennessee (12-4) vs. Miami (10-6)—Titans win (Miami will have a tough season)
Cincinnati (8-8) vs. New York NYJ (6-10)— J-E-T-S win (I’ll take Chad Pennington over Carson Palmer anyday)
Atlanta (5-11) vs. San Francisco (7-9) —Falcons win
Dallas (10-6) vs. Minnesota (9-7)—Vikings win
New York NYG (4-12) vs. Philadelphia (12-4)—Iggles win
Kansas City (13-3) vs. Denver (10-6)—Chiefs win
Green Bay (10-6) vs. Carolina (11-5)—Panthers win

Wow … Now that I look at it I’ve picked 10 road teams to win this week. That seems unlikely, but I stand by the picks, at least until I’m proven wrong. You may have noticed I didn’t address the spread. That’s because I don’t gamble and I love the game I want to know who wins not who beat the odds. If you gamble … I wouldn’t risk your money on my predictions. I’ll post my results on Tuesday as well as the results of my fantasy team … The Charm City Bruisers. I am so ready for this … Football season truly is the best time of the year.

I’m taking this Web Authoring class and we’re learning some neat ASP.NET stuff. So, of course, I want to try it out at home. But I cannot get my IIS 5.1 to run the ASP.NET scripts. When I load the pages on the browser I get a beautiful

“Server Application Error — The server has encountered an error while loading an application during the processing of your request. Please refer to the event log for more detail information. Please contact the server administrator for assistance.”

I’ve searched the internet, called my professor and everything says I have it set up correctly. I’ve read numerous postings on the web including this, and this, and even this, and this, but none of them seem to address my problem completely. If I was one of those grumpy Microsoft haters, I’d be blaming SP2 for all these problems. While I’m not ruling that out, I’m not sure what the problem is. I’m going to try to set up the other PC to work, but that’s not a great answer either. I mean I don’t want to work on the 533 MHz machine when I could use the 3.0 GHz machine.
So far I’ve put about 5 hours into this problem and I’m more than a little frustrated. The point of this class isn’t troubleshooting it’s programming. If anyone out there has some insight in this problem, I’d love to hear it.

I went on vacation as advertised. And things were for most part nice. Went fishing, but saw no evidence of actual fish. Which was OK with me. I don’t really like to eat fish. My motivation is more to play with my fishing gear and spend time by the water more than actually catch a fish. Speaking of gear, I bought myself a new reel while I was out there. I am very happy with it. Now that I have added the reel to my rod, I’m doing very well at not catching any fish. We took the kids to play miniature golf and that was fun, but I think that one of the levels of hell consists of just missing your putts on a mini golf course. The only damper on the trip was that there had been a sewage leak in to the lake a couple weeks back. I know … Yuck. Of course, all obvious signs of it were long since cleared up, but the water was still deemed unsafe for prolonged contact to the skin. In other words, no swimming. On Sunday, they re-tested and said the lake was now safe. My parents and my 11 year old enjoyed a swim. For some reason, my wife and I decided to skip it.

I’m happy to hear that Bill Clinton is doing well after his quadruple bypass surgery. During this election season, it seems more evident than ever how great he was as president. The whole Monica thing was ugly to be sure, but compared to the messes this country is looking at now it really doesn’t seem that bad.

onegoodmove has several video clips of The Daily Show’s RNC Coverage. This is good stuff. Check them out. And I’m going to have to start watching The Daily Show more often.

I’m back up to 6 GMail Invites. I can’t give them away fast enough. If you want one drop me a comment with a way to contact you. I’ll send an email just to make sure you’re still interested (and to make sure you’re for real … I’m just funny like that.) When you reply I’ll send the invite. If you know some one who wants one send them this way.

I finished my week, like I began it: working on our new wireless infrastructure. But Thursday and Friday, I finally had some breakthroughs. I figured why we couldn’t the laptops to authenticate using 802.1x — It was because we had upgraded them to Windows XP SP2 since we had tested them. So, we decided to move forward simply using WEP. No problem, except that I was only able to get the handhelds to connect sporadically. My line of work can challenging, even frustrating, but the problem I am not supposed to have is things that sometimes work and sometimes don’t. Computer equipment is very consistent. If you can figure out how something works, you should be able to make it work again. Well after several hours of banging my head against the wall trying to figure it out, I had begun to realize that it wasn’t WEP, it was only connecting sporadically, with or without encryption. Friday Morning, I finally figured it out. Of the Access Points, 6 have the latest firmware (2.0.37,) 1 has the previous firmware (2.0.34.) The handhelds only communicate with the Access Point with Firmware 2.0.34. With the mystery solved, I put all of the access points back to version 2.0.34 and now all I have to do is get all of the handhelds configured and this project is in the bag. If your still reading … I know what you are thinking: Wow, that is really fascinating! Allow me to respond. What part of geek didn’t you understand ;)

I’ll take a night off on the RNC. I heard Dubya talk, same ole song and dance. Nothing new to cover and nothing I didn’t expect.

Kobe’s off the hook. I’m not sure how I feel about it either. I think most people have said all through this process that, only two people really know what happened that night, but I was hoping that this trial shed some light on Kobe’s actions. Now, we have nothing. No verdict, no evidence. People will believe what they want to. All I can say is, I hope he was innocent of the charges made. It would make me sick to my stomach if I knew that he was out there living the superstar lifestyle after committing that kind of crime.

O’s won again. Why do I think I might be the only person who cares? I’m a fan. I can’t help it.

I spent all day at work trying to get our Wi Fi Infrastructure set up. The trick is this; we have to get our Intermec Handheld Terminals on the same infrastructure as the other Wi Fi Devices (Laptops and such) and at the same time have some level of security. The Plan is to implant 802.1x security for devices that support WPA. Devices (like the handhelds) that do not support WPA will use WEP encryption. I had a lot of trouble to getting the handheld to use the WEP key. Finally, we got it going. I then tried to authenticate a laptop using 802.1x, it would authenticate to Radius Server without any trouble, but it couldn’t negotiate an IP Address from the DHCP server for some reason. I’m stumped. I’ll be back at tomorrow, we need this up by week’s end. If you have thoughts or suggestion, I’d be happy to hear them.

I just finished my first homework assignment. Just a basic review of HTML. Ordered Lists, Tables, Links. Kind of fun. For extra credit he had us use an external style sheet. I’d never done much with CSS, just things to screw up this blog really. It’s actually not too complicated. Hopefully we’ll get more in to style sheets in the class. I might actually be able to customize this blog the way I want it.

I finished Angels and Demons today and I loved it. TO me it was better than The DaVinci Code, but that may be because I have always been fascinated with the Illuminanti. They were both good books and I highly recommend them. The DaVinci Code is better packaged for mass consumption, but I thought the “twist” in Angels and Demons was incredible.

The O’s won again and have reclaimed 3rd place in the AL East. Hopefully they will end on a positive note.