Texans Win!

Fun game to watch today because the Browns played so badly that the game was never really in question. Quite a relief to finally win a road game after 8 tries.

The Texans have 2 pro bowl players: Mario Williams (best defensive end I've seen this year - he is relentless) and Andre Johnson (leads the NFL in receiving yardage). But, no playoffs this year. I would love to see them go on a run though and get some momentum for next year. They are close, but they need a little more depth and help in the defensive backfield.


Mario was awesome again today.


Big time grab on the first drive for a TD by Walter.

I am loving DirecTV so far. Great reception. Super options for recording shows, huge hard drive for HD recording, and I have TONS of channels. I am loving NFL Network HD, NHL Network HD, Versus HD, ESPNNews HD, Big Ten Network HD. I didn't have any of them before and it makes sports so much more fun to watch. And I am only scratching the surface on what it has to offer.

I did have to tweak my HD system a bit. The installer did not set it up optimally. I had to go in and setup the receiver to use native format (740p, 1080i or 1080p) and display it on my tv. Luckily my TV can receive and show all formats. But, the DirecTV box was not setup to do that. So the quality of the picture looked crappy and all stretched out. Plus, I hate standard def tv that is stretched across the screen. I want to see it in the highest quality possible. So I got that setup with the black bars on the side (my TV does not leave shadow marks so I am cool there).

Super happy with the purchase. Could not be any more pleased at this point. :)

DirecTV

Just got my DirecTV installed. HD in the living room and standard in the beddroom. Very happy so far. Ton more channels for about the same cost as our old cable. :)

I'll let you know what I think of it after I check out the options and watch the Penn State win the Big Ten Championship. :)

TV Interview

Here is my interview on our cable educational access channel about AVID.


AVID Interview from fordee on Vimeo.

TV Nerves

In July I was recorded in an interview by our school district for their television program. I was told it would be on in August, but tonight I saw that it is finally about to air. My segment is next... and I am very nervous sitting here watching it. Almost the exact feeling I had just before I walked up to do the interview.

Strange how you relive the same nerves. And I am nervous about what I am about to say... but, I have already said it. So I guess the cat is out of the bag!

I'm recording it and I'll post it here sometime this week.

My fingers and toes are crossed that I don't sound too stupid. I talked about our AVID program and tutoring.

Bearded Letterman Returns

Letterman is back! Sitting here watching it on TiVo. Dave is just the best.

He's the only late night show with writers, because he negociated a separate deal with the Writer's guild to get it done. I refuse to watch the other shows because they have not taken care of their writers.

I hand it to Letterman. He paid his staff while the strike was going on and then took care of business to get everyone back. Awesome stuff.

Doesn't the bearded Letterman look like Phil Jackson?

Journeyman

Check it out. Great stuff.

Kevin McKidd - great actor. Loved him in Rome. Almost cried when he died. Now I almost cried after I realized, "Hey! I love this new show and dude is back!" Very cool.

LOVED THIS SHOW. Watched it tonight on my DVR.
Journeyman on NBC

Football Season Returns!

Well, I am an excited guy. I love fall because of football. It is also a great time of year because it is a time of beginnings. School begins and everything is new. Football begins and even my Texans have a chance... sort of. :)

Fantasy Football drafting has begun and our family league has it's draft on Sunday. It is a great league this year. We have a couple of my friends that have played before along with new friends from work. Three of the ladies that worked with Norma and I last year at AHS are all joined up. That is going to be a lot of fun to see them duel.

My team names this year are the Duez Dragons (in my $60 auction league live draft in Nacagdoches, TX) and the Texas T-Rex. Both team names are for Aidan and his favorite animals. I even worked up a logo for the auction league:


It is going to be a lot of fun this year to play fantasy football and watch the games on our new big screen HDTV. Tonight's game with the Cowboys and Colts was just beautiful to watch. Also we began watching Hard Knocks on HBO HD. The show details the life of the NFL player in training camp. This year's team is the Kansas City Chiefs. Very interesting stuff and a lot of fun to watch in HD.

Football is back! Woo Hoo!

We are Simpsonized!

Me after being "Simpsonized" @ Simsponized.com:


Norma after being "Simpsonized":


Pretty cool how it works. The site is usually swamped, but I had them email the photo rendering when finished and that helped. Pretty funny! But, also accurate. We realized that we would have to teach at the Springfield Elementary School though, because there is no high school in Springfield (as far as I have ever seen!). :)

Wow, what a day!

Last night I finally made my purchase of the 'dream machine' tv. Circuit City: Samsung 56" DLP HDTV HL-T5687 S LED Light Engine No interest for 36 months. I even played hard ball on the warranty and would not budge off 2 years... so they took $200 off the price for me to have a 4 year warranty. I was really excited that I didn't just roll over when the dude says, "Would you like a 4 year warranty, it's a great deal!" the first 3 times. Finally he caved and took $200 off. I didn't expect that!

So this morning began the odyssey of getting the TV home. To my dismay Circuit City did not have delivery on this item. (Which I don't understand for the life of me) This was one of the longest days I have had in a long, long time. This morning I woke up ready to rent a truck and drive to the Circuit City in North Shore to pick up my new tv. And the adventure began...

I had ordered it online and it was all set for pickup. Since I do not have a truck I decided to call UHaul and get a van. No dice. They don't have any this side of Houston. So I search around for rental SUVs or Trucks. No place near here has any trucks. Then I remembered the airport would have some. But, that was an adventure. Not having ever rented a car in my hometown, I learned a thing or two.

First, we have the Taj Mahal of rental car places. It is about 5 miles south of the airport and if you were flying in you would have to take a shuttle. It is really sparkly and knew in the joint. I went with Enterprise, because I have always had good service with them. As we drove up to the place a downpour erupted. I should have realized that that point, I was in trouble on this day.

But, when I got to the lot to get my vehicle the attendant was real chummy. I explained that I was picking up a big screen tv today. "Oh wow, I just got a 56" Samsung DLP the other day," he said. I looked at him with real wide eyes like, yeah... this is my day. He understands me. I was on my way to get the very same tv. So he leads me to the car and we pass a Toyota Rav-4 he looks in the back and says, "This should be perfect." Then looks at the paperwork and realizes I had reserved a bigger vehicle. So down the row we went to a Tundra. Look in the back and there they were... fold up chairs. :( Still though the dude said, "It'll fit."

So off to North Shore I drive. Very excited. I also purchase a stand for the TV that I would have to assemble, but we needed one. I pull the truck up, they wheel out the tv and stand. No dice. There is no way it would have fit. The fold up chairs took up at least 2 feet of the width of the back of the truck. A few curse words later and I am back down the road to IAH and Enterprise to exchange this thing for that Rav-4 that would have been perfect all along!

Luckily (and to their credit) the people at Enterprise were great and let me exchange. So off I went to Circuit City. The entire way I was sweating bullets... "Will it fit?"

Here's how tight it was:

You talk about a happy camper! I was so pumped. Now it was off to pick up Chinese for lunch and then the HD PVR cable box from our cable company. As soon as we ate we ran the rental car back. Aidan was sound asleep by the time we got home - around 2:30. It was then I realized, I just spent about 5 hours getting this damn thing home!

It took a good hour and a 1/2 for me to assemble the stand. It is not big. But, so many screws. I love the look of it and it came together pretty well. So I tested out all the components and I am super glad that I can still use my Onkoyo receiver with the system. I have it hooked up like this right now:

HD PVR Cable Box --> Video Out through HDMI to TV, Sound Out through Optical to the receiver.
DVD --> Composite Video Cables to the TV, Sound Out through R/L analog video cables.

My plan is to purchase an upconverting DVD so that the regular DVDs we have will be close to 1080P resolution. When I do that I will use Optical Out for the sound to the receiver and HDMI out to the TV for the video. That will be sweet.

This has been a real education for me. I have burned my brain in ever spare moment on it over the past month or so. It has all worked out perfectly and I am super happy at this point. Now it is time to finally enjoy 300 with Norma. Better make some coffee first, it was a LONG day!

The finished product!

Must See for "Lost" Fans

This is really neat. According to the author:

I thought it would be interesting to show all of the different perspectives shown of the plane crashing. So I've edited the viewpoint from inside the plane along with Desmond not pressing the button and The Others watching from the ground. Each sequence doesn't line up perfectly and run alongside with the exact same timings, so please excuse some creative manipulation of some events which was necessary so that as a sequence it at least made some sense.

The End for Battlestar Galactica

The end is near for one of my very favorite shows on TV: Battlestar Galactica.

The ending of this year's show really surprised me. They showed the "final four" cylons and it shocked me. The whole "All Along the Watchtower" song thing was odd and strange... but, it worked in the end. Although the "Starbuck Vision" in the end was strange. Is there really only one race of humans? Did the Cylons actually create the human race in the beginning of time? Or what twisted idea are the writers coming up with???

One more season and BSG will be finished!

Blogcritics Article on BSG End.
Bye-bye BSG.

It’s true, after months of rumor and speculation, hand-wringing among fans, statements from stars Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff, Battlestar Galactica producers and the Sci-Fi Channel have announced that the upcoming 22 episode season will be the end of the series.

This not-so-surprising revelation was issued in a press release from NBC-Universal (the parent company of Sci-Fi). The release states that the choice to end the series at this point is that of Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, executive producers of the series.

"This show was always meant to have a beginning, a middle and finally, an end. Over the course of the last year, the story and the characters have been moving strongly toward that end and we've decided to listen to those internal voices and conclude the show on our own terms," stated Eick and Moore in the press release.

Sci Fi Channel had previously stated that they were looking at possible spin-off of Battlestar Galactica, entitled Caprica, which would focus on events that led up to those described in BSG. The press release did not mention anything about the future plans of this series.

A special two-hour episode entitled “Razor” will kick off the fourth season in November of this year. The rest of the season will then air beginning in early 2008.

--
track the comments on this entry at co.mments.com

30 Years Ago!

Star Wars.

I am 37. So when the movie came out I was only 7. But, boy did it influence me. Even today when teaching about WWII and Hitler... of course, I mention the "Storm Troopers" and "Darth Vader" (Adolf himself!). I can't wait to watch the History Channel's The Legacy Revealed on Memorial Day.

A time Far, Far Away... but, the memories will always live on. I can't wait for my son to experience the greatest movie villain of all time - Vader. And maybe the greatest underdog hero of all time - Young Skywalker - Luke. I wonder what age it will be when he discovers all the dvds that we have and starts to want to watch them instead of "The Wonder Pets?"

Has any movie ever captured it's spirit better in it's soundtrack? In those awesome sound effects when those Empire ships cruise through space (there is no sound in space, right? still didn't matter - it was cool!).

You gotta love it. I am feeling old though!

My birthday was this week. Monday. I didn't write about it because I had a MONSTER headache that night and went to bed early. It was a nice birthday though. I got cookies and cupcakes from my kids (I have no idea how they found out it was my birthday) and some really cool cards. One girl brought in a BYU pennnant as a present for me. I put college pennants up above my assignment board and she wanted to add her favorite school to the display. I put them there so that when they look up on that board to see what we are doing for the day or to see the assignment, they will remember why they are doing all this hard work. Really nice present because I will put it up each year.

I also got the coolest hand made card EVER from one of my favorite students. It was simply meticulous and totally well done. It's hard to even explain it was that nice.

Today I finished packing up my room. I go in tomorrow morning and will get the last signatures on my sign out form and turn in my grades. I'll put the last boxes in my car and it's cruise home for the summer! Kinda stinks going in on a Saturday morning, but it will be great to be all finished.

Hard to believe our first year is all over!
--
track the comments on this entry at co.mments.com

A Frackin Awesome Machine

This is great: I love Battlestar Galactica: "A New Crew in Town"
--
track the comments on this entry at co.mments.com

Jack Bauer - Sacrificed in January?

The new trailer for 24:

24 Trailer dot com

Can't wait for January! A bearded Jack returns.


--
track the comments on this entry at co.mments.com