I saw these posted on someone else’s site and had to share them here too:
Stephen Bautista Visits
We had a visit from musician Stephen Bautista in church last Sunday. He travels around the country with his 7 kids and wife in a van and camping trailer playing music for churches in our synod. Various traveling musicians have come through before, but Stephen was in a class of his own. I heard lots of people commenting on how good he was. He’s still playing at other churches in the area so consider stopping in to hear him play. Everything is posted on his website at http://www.stephenbautista.com
Stephen played a bunch of songs during the service and then gave a mini-concert during the time slot normally occupied by Bible class and Sunday School. I recorded that concert and posted it on YouTube. The audio isn’t great, but if you like it, he has two albums you can buy and is working on a third. Both albums are on Xbox Music and Spotify so I’m guessing they’re available on iTunes, etc too. And of course you can buy music and get more info on his website.
Tracing Waterways
On a hike through the mountains in the Pacific Northwest, you’ll often cross some streams flowing down the mountain. Where do they start? How do they make their way to the ocean? There’s a tool from nationalatlas.gov that can answer these questions. You click on any point in a river and trace it upstream and downstream. It’s neat to see how differently a raindrop could flow if it lands just a couple hundred yards east or west. One is a quick trip to the Puget sound while another might be a more roundabout trip into the Columbia River and then out into the Pacific on the border between Washington and Oregon.
Fantasy Football – Week 2
Naturally 50% of the teams won in the first week and this week, 50% of those teams won again leaving us with two undefeated teams: Andy and Logan. Both of those undefeated teams play the two teams that haven’t won a game yet (Dad and Austin) so we’ll see if they can keep their streak going or succumb to an upset.
Now on to the weekly awards:
- Highest Team Score: Tim had 154.46 (Previous record, Week 1: Luke had 151.22)
- Lowest Team Score: I had 87.42 (Previous record, Week 1: Dad had 87.89)
- Biggest Blowout: Andy beat me by 56.55. (Record, Week 1: Ben beat Dad by 62.37)
- Closest Win: Logan beat Luke by 7.1. (Record, Week 1: Logan beat Tim by 0.89)
- Highest Scoring Player: Aaron Rodgers had 42.90 for Tim. (Record, Week1: Peyton Manning had 60.28 for Andy.)
Stats mostly via TMQ:
- Tim owns the two top scoring players this week: Aaron Rodgers and Michael Vick.
- Baltimore has won 11 straight versus Cleveland.
- Peyton Manning is 3-0 versus Eli Manning.
- At 7:08 Eastern on Sept. 15, the Jacksonville Jaguars became the final NFL team to score a touchdown in the new season.
- San Diego, which won at Philadelphia, is now the favorite to win the Super Bowl. The Eagles’ four most recent home-opener opponents, the Saints, Packers, Giants and Ravens, all won the Super Bowl that season.
- At New England, Geno Smith’s passer rating was 27.6, below the 39.6 an NFL quarterback receives if every pass is incomplete.
- The Giants, who committed 21 turnovers in 16 games in 2012, have committed 9 in two games in 2013.
- Detroit, which just lost at Arizona, has not won a game in that state since 1993. Sunday the Lions travel to Washington, D.C., where they have never won — 21 consecutive road losses versus the Washington team.
SiriusXM Review
When we bought our Ford Escape six months ago, it came with a free trial of SiriusXM radio. We loved not having commercials, but overall we didn’t feel like the service was worth it. I was disappointed in the sound quality and it cut out a LOT around our home in Seattle. Maybe we’re on the edge of the satellite coverage? I understand it losing a signal under a bridge sometimes, but it would lose it in the trees along 522 up to Monroe and with nothing overhead at the same spot on 405 at 124th St every single time. But even with all that, the ability to listen to music without commercials and without connecting another device was really nice. Plus it also feeds traffic data into our navigation system which is handy.
When the free trial was up, they called to try to get us to continue. They walked through a number of deals culminating in $0.99 for one month and I said no. We kind of wished that we had said yes to that last deal so clearly it did still hold some value for us.
A few days later, we got an offer in the mail for $30 for 6 months. It’s normally $15/month so that’s a pretty great deal. We decided to go for it with the intention of cancelling again unless we can get a similar good deal. $15/month seems a bit crazy considering I pay $10/month for access to Netflix streaming and $10/month for access to millions of songs on Xbox Music.
Wild Ride
After the first 26 races in the NASCAR season, 12 drivers are chosen to compete in the “Chase” which basically is NASCAR’s 10 race version of playoffs. The specifics of how those drivers are chosen are a bit tricky but basically it’s the top 10 drivers in points and then two wild cards. My favorite driver, Ryan Newman, was right on the bubble for the last wild card position. Lap by lap the standings would change and he’d move in and out of the chase. With the race winding down, Newman was driving his heart out and had pulled into the lead. A victory would have guaranteed that he beat out Martin Truex, Jr for a spot in the chase. With just a few laps remaining, Truex’s teammate Clint Bowyer was told over the radio that Newman was going to win the race. Then they asked Bowyer, who had poison oak on his hand, how his hand was feeling. “Is your arm starting to hurt? I bet it’s hot in there. Itch it.” At that point, Bowyer spun bringing out a caution. After the pit stops, Newman was no longer in the lead, didn’t win, and Truex got into the Chase on a tie-breaker with Newman.
NASCAR cracked down incredibly hard on Michael Waltrip racing which owns both the Bowyer and Truex cards. Investigations revealed they had also played games to help Joey Logano in his points standings. Truex was kicked out of the chase and Newman was put in.
Getting into the chase based on a penalty isn’t the super strong year fans want for Newman, but it’s great to see justice done and fun to see him in the Chase. This is his last year with Steward Haas racing before he moves to the vacant Jeff Burton ride with Richard Childress in the 2014 season. (I lost a lot of respect for Tony Stewart when he fired Newman to hire hot-headed, whiny Kurt Busch but that’s a topic for another blog post.)
My 21st Birthday
Happy Birthday to me! This is an extra special year with the 50% increase in family size (by count, not by weight.) Our little man continues to grow strong and healthy, go to sleep easily at night, and generally be a happy guy. It’s the best birthday present I could get! My parents are also out for a visit. It’s the first time they’ve been able to spend a birthday with me in quite a long time.
P.S. If you don’t understand how this is my 21st birthday, tell a programmer I was born in 1980 and let them figure it out.
Fantasy Football – Week 1
Welcome to another season of fantasy football! We have the same group of guys as last year. The season got off to a rocky start with difficulty scheduling the live draft. In the end only Andy, Logan and I live drafted, but it’s doubtful that makes any difference. Next year I’ll have everyone who wants to participate help pick the date and time of the draft.
Week 1 was a dramatic start to the season. Peyton Manning tied the NFL record for 7 TDs, Danny Trevathan dropped the ball before getting to the goal line, and Chip Kelly brought a little duck to the life of the Eagles. Despite my failed ability to schedule a DVR and watch the Seahawks game, they did pull out a victory. This could be a great year for them…
Now on to the weekly awards:
- Highest Team Score: Luke had 151.22
- Lowest Team Score: Dad had 87.89
- Biggest Blowout: Ben beat Dad by 62.37. This blew away last year’s record too. Sorry Dad!… sort of.
- Closest Win: Logan beat Tim by 0.89
- Highest Scoring Player: Peyton Manning had 60.28 for Andy. This is higher than last year’s record.
- Deadbeat: None!
Stats mostly via TMQ:
- Since Jan. 2012 in the playoffs, Green Bay is 0-5 versus the Giants and Forty Niners, 12-3 versus all other teams.
- Terrelle Pyror had 329 of the Raiders’ 372 offensive yards.
- The Browns (2.0) are 1-14 in openers.
- At 1:59 p.m. Eastern on Sept. 8, 2013, the Oakland Raiders scored their first rushing touchdown since October 2012.
- Green Bay has gone 44 regular season games without a 100-yard rusher.
- Andrew Luck has appeared in 18 NFL games, and has already led seven fourth-quarter comeback victories.
British Accents
If you watch a movie set in England before the mid-1700s and the actors are speaking with a British accent, feel free to annoy your fellow movie watchers and point out that the accents are not historically accurate. What we think of today as a British accent didn’t exist back then. They spoke pretty much like we do in America now. The British accent was created by rich people in England who wanted to distinguish themselves from commoners. And since Boston and New York City in America had similar deposits of rich people with connections to England, they picked up some of the accent too (dropping the R’s.) I’m not sure who sits around at a party and decides to stop saying a letter to sound more cool, but hey, stranger things have happened!
Thanks to KenC for posting the article in Live Science about this.
Reading Your Email
I believe there are definitely some reasons to be disturbed by this news and to call my representatives to make my feelings known. However, as with most popular news stories, there are people arguing the same side as me but who I completely disagree with. Those people say they are appalled that someone was reading their email or their web traffic. Their email is private! Umm… what? Even if the NSA wasn’t reading your email, you know who can read it? Your email provider, your ISP and countless other people along the route. Not only CAN they read it, but they DO. How else can Gmail serve up those contextual ads based on words that are in your email? How else can they filter out spam? How else can they sell information they glean about you to advertisers and other businesses? And even if THEY aren’t reading your email for some reason, I assure you that China, Russia and other countries are. There’s nothing difficult or illegal about the technology since it’s all sent across the Internet unencrypted. It’s trivial to read it.
Now if you want to call for changes in the scope of the NSA’s powers, create better oversight and transparency, or stop the government from using their web snooping to profile citizens, then that’s fine. But please don’t muddy the waters by being surprised that someone is reading your email.
On a related note, there’s an excellent open letter from a guy named Ben Adida to President Obama which makes some fantastic points about this whole debacle. He does a wonderful job of communicating his point logically without letting emotion ruin the argument. Here’s my favorite quote from the letter, but please go read the whole thing: