Long flight home

I did a little looking around on the internet for flights from Boise, ID, to Honolulu, HI, and I could really find flights shorter than 13 hours. Not an easy flight, but it might not be to difficult because at the end you will emerge in the tropics, get leied, and relax on the beach. Even though he is probably taking a shorter, chartered flight right now, I think Timmy Chang's flight could be a lot longer after the University of Hawai'i quarterback and teammates lost to Boise State 69-3 last night. Near the end of the game Chang threw his 4th interception of the night, breaking the dubious NCAA record for career interceptions thrown with 74.

But his record breaking should be much more enjoyable next week at home against Louisiana Tech. Boise State, known for their offense having been the highest scoring team in the nation the last four years, showed up last night on the defensive side of the ball, holding Chang to only 227 yards passing, leaving him 14 yards short of BYU quarterback Ty Detmer's NCAA career record of 15,031 yards with five games and the possibility of a bowl game remaining.

Chang's record will be very difficult to break because of a few quirks of Chang's career. He played in 10 games, starting 9, in his freshman year in 2000. His team was only 3-6 in the games he started, but he threw for 3041 yards and 19 TDs, winning the WAC Freshman of the Year.

In 2001, he played in only 3 games before suffering a season ending wrist injury. His petition to the NCAA for a medical redshirt was granted, and so he was given an extra year of eligibility. However, the 1100 yards in those 3 games still count.

He has been the starter since except for missing a couple of games with an injury in 2003. He threw for 4474 yards in 2002, 4199 in 2003, and 2204 through 7 games this season.

The NCAA regular season is 11 games long. Well, it's usually 11. In 1999, the NCAA decided that if there were 14 Saturdays between the start of the season (Labor Day weekend) and the end of the regular season (the last Saturday in November with a few acceptions like the Army-Navy game) then the regular season would be 12 games. This happened both 2002 and 2003, but it will not happen again until 2008, 2013, 2014, and 2019. Thus, Chang would get two extra games for this reason.

Now, the fact that he plays for Hawai'i is a factor here, too. The Rainbow Warriors will really rack up the frequent flier points since the closest D-IA opponent for them is probably San Jose State, which is about 2400 miles from Honolulu. Due to the difficult logistics of playing a game in Hawai'i, the NCAA allows teams that play a game in Hawai'i to play an extra game. Many schools, like Northwestern and Michigan State this year, will schedule an end of the season trip in December to get away from the coming winter. Or a couple of years ago when Alabama was on probation and wasn't allowed to go to a bowl game, they just scheduled an extra game at the end of the season at Hawai'i. But this acception also applies to Hawai'i itself, and so Chang's team gets an extra game every year.

One small thing that factors in also is a recent change in NCAA record keeping to allow stats from bowl games to count in the career stats. This allows Chang to count his two bowl games and a third if they can go to one this year, but they'll need to turn it around as they are 3-4. Strangely, the rule change is not retroactive, and so Detmer, who played from 1988-1991, does not get to count his 1175 yards from his four bowl games.* However, Chang should probably pass this augmented total too.

Chang's could be very difficult to record to break, unless Hawai'i gets a freshman starter in 2012, that is.

*--Detmer's bowl games were interesting. After intering the came at halftime his freshman year in the 1988 Freedom Bowl against Colorado, he lead the Cougars from behind to win 20-17. The next three years he played in the Holiday Bowl but never won. In 1989, he set Holiday Bowl records by completing 42 passes for 576 yards, but his team lost to Penn State 50-39. The next year against Texas A&M was not a good game for Detmer. In a prime example of the Sports Illustrated cover jinx, the Heisman Trophy winner separated his left shoulder in the second quarter, but returned in the next series, only to separate his right shoulder in the third quarter, from which he could not return, leaving him with only 120 yards as the Aggies beat BYU 65-14. Detmer's career ended with the 1991 Holiday Bowl, in which he threw for 350 yards but ended his career with an interception in the 13-13 tie against Iowa.

Ohio

Perhaps is would be a good thing to go ahead an familiarize ourselves with the members of the Ohio state goverment before next week.

Republican Governor Bob Taft is in the middle of his second term. His father and his grandfather were both US Senators, which I guess means the family is in a slow decline, as his great-grandfather was president and chief justice of the United States.

Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell has served as mayor of Cincinnati, an undersecretary in the US Housing and Urban Development, and ambassador to the UN Human Rights Commission, as well as becoming the first African-American elected to statewide office in Ohio in 1994, when he was elected state treasury. He's on the board of directors of the National Taxpayers Union. His office oversees the elections and the relevant recount proceedures are found here.


The seven members of the Supreme Court of Ohio are elected. I concluded that 2 seemed like Democrats and 2 seemed like Republicans, with three undecided. Justice Francis E. Sweeney played football with the Ottawa Rough Riders from 1956-58.

While there are numerous reasons to wonder about the Ohio election, one that caught my eye today was how at least two counties--Franklin (that's Columbus) and Mahoning (that's Youngstown)--have more registered voters than people over the age of 18 living in the county. (I do not know how people living overseas (or overlake as it were) are accounted for in this.) On the other hand, the number of registered voters in Hamilton County (that's Cincinnati) as actually declined from 2000 to 2004 by more than 65,000 voters.

In the middle of the World Series, I can understand a brief cut away interview with an actor who's a fan of one of the teams (and who just happens to have a new series debuting next week on FOX). I mean, this is the World Series. This is when people who don't like baseball watch baseball and we've got to keep them entertained. However, FOX just interviewed Leon. Yeah, I do find the Leon Budweiser commercials to be very entertaining, but this is way to far.

I'm Lost 1.1 The Pilot

Tonight I start an occasional series of posts about Lost, the new show on ABC. But in keeping with the spirit of the show, I will be cryptic and discuss only a very specific topic in each episode, ignoring a lot of stuff.

A guy wakes up the middle of Hollywood. He's well dressed, but we don't know why. Maybe he's the president, no he's too young. Maybe he's going to a wedding. We don't know. We just know he's overdressed. Oh, and there's a dog.

Producing a TV show is definitely a group effort. Scores of people work dilligently and get no credit, although to be honest, few people actually read the credits anyway, and so everyone's hard work is overlooked. With this in mind, I'll ignore the other producers and co-creators and focus on J.J. Abrams.

He runs into the fray. Ideas are being pitched left and right. Some of them are good, some are bad. Some of each group make it into production. The success of Survivor has been a mixed bag. Yeah it's led to stuff that's cheap for the networks to make, but it leaves us hollow. It's ephemeral. But it was hot, and it was on a desert island. "It's time for a scripted show on an island. Oh, but they don't leave by getting voted off...."

I can't say that I've seen any of his first TV show Felicity, but I remember someone I knew liked it, and so maybe I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

The network is in deep trouble. They need help, stat. Luckily someone who knows what he's doing shows up. He can save the day. If he could only crossover event with Housewives. It seems unlikely, and ergo all the more probable.

But this is the guy who made Alias. Well, there is no Jennifer Garner on the island, and she's who kills Alias. (No Garner yet anyway. Did we ever figure out where her lost years went? The show just started, and so we haven't met everyone yet.), and so maybe it can work after all.

We will be deadly series on the microscale. We will be lol absurd on the macroscale. This can work, I know it. But why doesn't it?

He co-wrote the screenplay for Armaggedon. But that was (mis)directed by Michael Bay, (or something tells me he would prefer *M*I*C*H*E*A*L* *B*A*Y*!!!!) and maybe it's not a good thing to judge him by.

But yet I like the show. It takes me away from it all. Well, no not from it all-- I've got problems with the show. But it makes me want to watch it, not every show can do that.

Apples, oranges, pineapples, grapes, raspberries, etc.

If you thought the 24-hour news networks had a lot of time to fill, ESPN may have a tougher time since they have at least four different networks, plus their website, to fill with content, which must come from just (well, loosely interpreted) the sports world, which the news networks must also cover. Are these difficult to compare? I'll leave that for another time.

However, to fill that space available for content, ESPN, like the news networks, creates their own stuff, which often takes the form of a few guys sitting around a bar, but with numbers attached to quantify their argument. One such thing is their effort to determine which is the most difficult sport, where 60 sports are ranked by some arbitrary measure to conclude that boxing is the most difficult and that fishing is the least difficult.

The Nader Effect

Ralph Nader was on The Connection a couple of weeks ago, and even if you don't agree with him, you have say that an hour with him on the radio is interesting. He made a couple of points that I hadn't thought about.

1) He said that most of the polls this year say that his presence on the ballot actually hurts George Bush more than it hurts John Kerry. At first that seemed a little wrong, but sure enough, this meta-poll agrees, with Bush up by 3.1% over Kerry when Nader is on the ballot, but in head-to-head with Kerry, Bush is up by 3.7%. Of the six different polls that listed both the three-way and the head-to-head, two say Bush gets an advantage if Nader is not around, two say that Kerry gains ground, and two shows an even split. I found it interesting that in the FOX News poll and in the TIPP poll, Bush actually goes down when Nader is not on the ballot. When people have the option of voting for Nader, FOX says 49% will vote for Bush, but only 48% will if they do not have the option of Nader.

2) The other thing Nader said that struck me I don't have independent verification for, but it is interesting nonetheless. When asked if he felt guilty for luring Democrats away from Al Gore in 2000, Nader said that if you were concerned about Democrats defecting in 2000, then you should actually blame George Bush, since for every one registered Democrat that voted for Nader in 2000, there were ten registered Democrats who voted for George Bush. Actually I just found a George Will column and handful of blogs that cite 8 million registered Democrats who voted for Nader in 2000, including 250,000 in Florida. Nader got a total of 2.8 million votes and 97,488 in Florida.

Flu Shots

A Harvard School of Public Health press release says this:

The latest national poll conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health Project on the Public and Biological Security finds that a significant number of Americans at high risk of serious complications from the flu have not gotten a flu vaccine this season. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highly recommends the vaccine for certain high-risk groups including people with chronic illnesses, children between the ages of six and 23 months, and people aged 65 and over. Nearly half (47%) of people with chronic illnesses have not had a flu vaccination in the past three months. In addition, more than three-fourths (78%) of parents report that their children ages six to 23 months have not received a flu vaccine so far this season. This is the case even though the vaccine recommendation for these young children is widely known by Americans (74%).

The date of this press release is December 23, 2003!

This year, British inspectors prevented Chiron from delivering any of its 48 million doses of this year's flu vaccine, leave the US with a little more than half of its expected number, which was about 100 million doses. But we have a population of a little under 300 million people. Why was there supposed to be only one dose of vaccine for every three of us? Well, most of us don't get one. Last year, approximately 12 million doses were thrown away because they went unused. (Each year's flu vaccine is different to account for different strains.)

Is it possible that by creating this hype and rationing that the total number of seniors who get a flu shot will actually go up? There are less than 40 million people in the US over 65, and last year 73% of them got flu shots. So something like 60 million people under 65 last year got flu shots, and as Havard reports the at risk people weren't getting them. Could the shortage of vaccines this year actually save lives (ignoring people like the woman in California who died waiting in line to get her shot of course)? If seniors got flu shots at the same rate as last year, that would still leave nearly 25 million doses for people who are at risk. I guess there may be more total cases of the flu attributable to the vaccine shortage this year, but the increase would be skewed toward those who better able to fight off the infection.

There is of course a factor unknown to me--the number of people who are like my mother, healthy but who get one early in the year anyway.

Iowa 6, Penn State 4

Penn State scored exactly 4 points in their (American) football game on Saturday. This is amazing. As glad as I am to see this odd final score, I'm not sure if I would have actually wanted to watch this game.

Penn State took an early 2-0 lead when on the first possession of the game, Iowa's long snapped the ball over the head of the punter, who then kicked it out of the endzone for the Nittany Lions first safety.

Penn State's second safety came with 8 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter when Iowa intentionally took a safety when forced to punt from their own 1 yard line, trading two points for much better field position.

Penn State missed field goals of 25 and 51 yards , completed only 9 passes while throwing 4 interceptions, and had only 147 total yards (51 rushing, 96 passing). On the bright side, they only lost 1 of their 3 fumbles.

Infinite Cat Project

I'm totally fascinated by the Infinite Cat Project, which is in the words of its creator "simply, cats regarding cats regarding cats in an electronic melieu." It's a list of pictures of cats defined recursively as follows. The first picture is a cat looking at a flower. For N>1, the Nth picture is of a cat looking at a computer screen with an image of the (N-1)th picture.

Dernier "Hot Dog" des Expos

The last Hot Dog sold at a Montreal Expos' game can be yours if you want cough up over $785 (Canadian, 626USD).

Absentee Ballot

It's just a short AP article, but it's got a great line in it:

"U.S. astronauts, most of whom live around Houston, won the right to vote from space under a Texas bill signed into law by then-Gov. George W. Bush."


This bill enacted in 1997, can be found in Volume 22, Number 70 of Texas Registry on page 11.

The Admiral's New Clothes (ANC)

I can't see them, but that's because their camouflaged. The Navy's Task Force Uniform (TFU) today introduced the "concept uniform" of the new Navy Working Uniform (NWU) for a round of on-ship testing. Picture here and story here. Somewhat contradicting the idea of a "uniform" the NWU will have several options, including various types of pockets, a tuck or no-tuck shirt, and my favorite the "no-shine boot" option.

Oh, I can't resist, it's sad that there is no bare midriff option, which any navel uniform should have.

While they wait for the results or their ready-to-wear (RTW) line, I guess TFU will get to work on the Naval Haute Couture (NHC).

Saturday Night's Dream

I woke up this morning in the midst of a fascinating dream. I had never had the classic being-on-stage-and-not-knowing-my-lines dream, but this one was a variant of it. After trying to make some sense of what happened, here's my conclusion:

I seemed to be playing some type of monk or priest or friar in Star Wars: Episode 3. The first couple of scenes went well, meaning I did know my lines. There was a scene where I was watching a cigar-chomping Magic Johnson torture R2-D2 and C-3PO, and I had to try to stop him, but I was unsuccessful. Then I had a scene where Chewbacca and I put together the information that each of us had to unlock the mystery. I became annoyed at Chewbacca because it was obvious that he had not seen either Episode 1 or 2. Then the not knowing my lines came up. I don't think I ever was actually in a scene where I didn't know my lines, but I knew I had no idea what my lines in the next scene were, and I didn't know when it would start filming. I was frantically running around trying to find a script, but I couldn't ask anyone because then they would know that I didn't know my lines.

Never have to go there again

On Thursday, I roamed through South Carolina visiting 8 counties for the first time and leaving me with only Lancaster County unvisited. Then on Friday with my highpointing done, on my way back home, I decided to swing down a pick up Lancaster County, meaning I have now been to all 46 counties in South Carolina, and that I never have to go there again.

I've had some good times in the Palmetto State. From the relaxing beaches of Hilton Head Island to the dank, dark good times in Stumphouse Tunnel, there are good things to do there. I'll probably return to Charleston at some point and go to Ft. Sumter, and I'd like go visit my friends Greg and April again, but now having been to both the highest and lowest points and all the counties, any return visit will be strictly voluntary.

And if I get a hankering to go visit the tacky tourist beach of Myrtle Beach (The closest Medieval Times to me is there.) or South of the Border or Maurice's BBQ, I can still go. I just don't have to.

Das Huddlehaus

The faux Alpine village of Helen, Georgia, is just going too far. Unfortunately, I did not get a pic of the half-timbered store with then Confederate flag memorabilia flying from under its ornate eaves, but I think this picture of the town's Huddle House sums it up.

I know it's too far, but not in which direction

TNT on Friday night will bring us the NASCAR SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 300. The race at Charlotte's Lowe's Motorspeedway promises to be "the most family friendly race in NASCAR history." Let's hope that potty-mouth Dale Earnhardt, Jr., doesn't win. Or maybe we should hope that he does win because we know what he sounds like win he does win. Will a network risk interviewing him regardless of how he does at the risk of him saying something that will get him fined?

National Registry of Historic Websites

John just reminded me of the Washington Redskins effect of on whether or not the incumbent party will win the presidential election, and when I tried to connect the unincumbent party with the Redskins' opponents in those games after I saw that in 2000, incumbent Al Gore's homestate Tennessee Titans lost to the Redskins, and in 1980, incumbent VP Walter Mondale's homestate Minnesota Vikings lost to the Redskins. However, I was unable to connect Bob Dole's running mate Jack Kemp to the Indianapolis Colts. Kemp played quarterback for the Buffalo Bills among other teams, but not the Colts. His son Jeff was also an NFL quarterback, but he didn't play for the Colts either. (Son Jimmy quarterbacked in the CFL.)

Thus, I did not find the connection I was looking for, but in my search I did discover that the first ever website for a Republican presidential nominee was at www.dole96.com. It is being kept alive by someone not connected to Bob Dole, most likely a Libertarian.

Is there some sort of National Registry of Historic Websites? There have to be many sites that would be important for a short period of time, and then fade into oblivion, allowing the domain to become unclaimed. Shouldn't there be some authority to take over an maintain these sites? Perhaps the Library of Congress?

No respect

So how are we supposed to mark the passing of Rodney Dangerfield? Does he get respect or not? I never really thought he was all that funny, and so I don't feel bad not giving him any respect. If you base your career on not getting respect, don't be surprised if people don't give it to you. But on the other hand, a comic who's staple is his "Let me tell you how respected I am" routine probably won't be to popular.

However, I did like his guest starring performance on The Simpsons as Larry Burns, Mr. Burns's boorish, long-lost son, who said, "Let me tell you, I get no regard. No regard, I tell you." That I can respect.