Nathan's Occasional Blog

Best part of this story: she named it “Bruce”!

Eleven-year-old Brenna Dinkel of Wasilla, Alaska has a big head. No, she’s not conceited; she has a big head of cabbage. Her cabbage, named Bruce, weighed in at a whopping 73.4 pounds, winning the Giant Cabbage Weigh-Off competition at the Alaska State Fair.
Link to Eleven-year-old wins Alaskan State Fair contest

Oh yeah.  THE FUBAR!

Hampton’s performance wasn’t all good, however. He completed only two of six passes for six yards, the lowest amount allowed by East Carolina since Nov. 1, 1969 when it held Furman to zero yards.

Source: ESPN.com – NCF – Recap

Alicea and I went to East Carolina University in Greenville, NC.  Both of us were in the marching band and both are avid college football fans.  ECU had some great seasons while we were in school.  We even beat Miami (not Ohio) when they were in their prime in the late 90’s.  ECU has been absolutely horrible ever since.

It was with (not so) great anticipation that I checked the ECU score tonight.  They lost – go figure.  Navy beat them 28 to 23.  Not a bad showing as at least it didn’t get away from them.

So I read the description of the game and saw the Pirates allowed only 6 passing yards all game.  HOLY CRAP!  It can’t be all the defense’s doing, but that’s a great effort on pass defense.

Then I saw this: “His play spearheaded a 403-yard effort on the ground for Navy…”  Four-hundred and three yards allowed on the ground.  So I’m guessing ECU played with 1, maybe 2 guys on the defensive line with everybody else playing linebacker or safety.  It’s the new thing – the 1-5-5 defense!

<sigh> Can we go back to the days of Jeff Blake or David Garrard?  Back when ECU was actually a contender for the top 25 rankings and a shoe-in for a bowl appearance?

Good grief.  I can’t believe that church’s actually think that “social networking” is going to make a big difference on their congregation.  I would counter that most folks look for a religious experience OFFLINE.  My favorite part of the weekend is when I turn off my phone before the service starts.

Just another example of the “me too” ideas of church marketing (sorry “communications”) people these days.  No originality.  Crappy content.

I tried to get a screenshot of Yahweh Mail from Bruce Almighty, but I couldn’t get a good screenshot from Windows Media Player.  Go see the trailer.  🙂

Link to God’s MySpace: MyChurch.org | News.blog | CNET News.com

I must confess that I was at the Mariners game with the Angels last night.  Some of the folks I’ll be working with at my new company offered me a ticket for the “offsite strategy planning meeting”.  We had a good time talking tech … and commenting on the game.  Oh, the M’s lost (figures).

Contrary to Kristin’s comments that we should be 100% behind our players at all times with fervent exhilaration, no matter how bad they’re playing, I’m still not happy with them … yes – the players.  Oh, and the management isn’t winning me back either.

Here’s the deal, Kristin: we’re paying Joel Pinero $4.8 MILLION this year (see here and here) to give opponents the chance to play tee-ball.  Joel was a great pitcher for his first few years in the majors.  This year, and last, he sucks.  The numbers don’t lie (see below).  For 2006 JP has the highest ERA of any pitcher on the team (for players appearing in more than 3 games).  He’s got less than half the K’s he had in his best year … and we’re only 4 seasons out from that.

So what’s to root for here for a player?  I just can’t get behind that and root with all my might.  Neither could any of the other people sitting near us near first base.

I disagree with Jill’s assertion that Mike and I have “fair-weather fan feelings.”  A true fair-weather fan wouldn’t take the time to write the comments up and have a discussion about the team’s inadequacies because they simply don’t care when the team is floundering.  We’re different: we care but we’re disillusioned to the point that it hurts to watch.  It’s the same reason I can’t watch replays of knee injuries – too many bad memories of my own personal suffering.

I was pleasantly surprise to see the M’s take 5 of 6 from the Yankees and Red Sox, and very happy to see them win a series against a division opponent in the Angels.  Heck I was happy to see them win a single game against a division opponent!  🙂

I really do hope the M’s can salvage the season and go out on a good note.  I’d love to see them move Ichiro to 3rd or 4th in the lineup and just tell him to be a slugger.  If he wanted to Ichi could easily hit 25 homers a year.

I’d also like to see Ichiro get traded to a good team so he could win a World Series, because I don’t the the M’s owners and management are serious about contending.  Just don’t trade him in the middle of August out of the blue like you did to Moyer.  I don’t think Seattle will ever forgive the M’s for that.

I don’t have a lot of words for this link to a blog about the birth of a new coworker’s child.  Read it if you can (I will tonight from the beginning).

I’ve got email working for my new job early and got a message about the daughter of one of the staffers who’s had a lot of trouble with a heart defect.  I haven’t read a ton, but it looks like their daughter was born on July 2nd and needed a heart transplant.

I’ve got teary eyes just thinking about how blessed and lucky we were with Kaitlyn and Alicea’s ordeal (KC 9 weeks early @ 2.5 pounds with a mom who was “touch and go” for at least 36 hours).

While Kaitlyn was in NICU for 5 weeks, we were lucky enough to not lose any of our neighbors (yay!).  I don’t know what I would do if things turned out differently.

Link to this heart broken

The video’s pretty lame, but the musical arrangement is pretty sweet!  Watch this one in a different browser window … then continue your merry way on the Internet and cover up the video.  Much more enjoyable that way.  🙂

Link to YouTube – The Simpsons vs Star Trek

 Alicea and I drove home today and noticed there’s soccer practice going on in the big park at the top of our street.  We could see all the kids on the field from the main road.

When we turned into our neighborhood (the park is on the corner) Alicea and I absolutely died laughing.  It was so funny I went back up the street and took some pictures.

EVERY VEHICLE IN THE PARKING LOT WAS A SUV OR MINIVAN!

Link to Containership Power Strip – Gizmodo

Unlike Omar, I’ve never been a big fan of Costco.  Ask I always say to Alicea, where the heck are we supposed to put 270 rolls of toilet paper?  🙂

It seems that Omar discovered that Costco sells contact lenses, for DIRT CHEAP!  We’ve been getting lenses from 1-800-CONTACTS too, but no more.  Thanks Omar!