For those of you who haven’t heard of Rulon Gardner, he’s the survivor of truly a most unreal combination of incidents. First, let’s talk about the good. He’s an Olympic Gold Medalist from Wyoming. He was certainly not the favorite to win Gold, but pulled off a stunning upset in 2000. I remember hearing about it and thinking it was pretty sweet to see. Four years later, he won the Bronze medal and retired. All in all, an impressive career.
Now, let’s get on to the strange. This dude has survived some messed up stuff. First, when he was very young he survived an arrow injury that very nearly punctured vital organs. Then he got lost on a snow mobile trek into the wilderness and ended up being stranded over night in freezing weather. This resulted in the loss of a toe on his foot. Actually, it’s a lot worse than that. Doctors said that if he was anything other than a giant of a man with Olympic sized muscles to produce heat and keep his core body temperature up then he would have died. He spent the whole night gritting his teeth through the pain of trying to stand up on nearly frozen solid feet. After that, he was involved in a motorcycle accident where he was thrown off his bike and survived with no serious injuries.
Of course, the story doesn’t end there. He’s recently survived a plane crash, from which he swam in 44 degree weather for an hour or so to get to shore where he spent another night out in the freezing cold. Naturally, he survived. Is this man lucky or unlucky? Either way, it’s unbelievable. I am starting to get this feeling about him. It’s kinda like Steve Irwin at this point. You just knew he wasn’t going to die of natural causes. I guess we’ll see what happens next.
This is a follow up to a previous post on the subject. It seems that Apple has settled with Cisco regarding their dispute over the iPhone tradename. Basically, they are each going to allow one another to use the name. I think this isn’t the last we’ll hear about it. In particular, if Apple’s iPhone takes off like the iPod did, I don’t think they will really like the fact that Cisco has rights to that name. It’s possible that they would buy full rights to the name from Cisco at a later date, but if they were going to do that they should have just kept pursuing their legal action this time around.
For those of you who don’t know, I’m a big fan of ice cream. In particular, my three current favorite flavors are Gobfather, Sticky Toffee Pudding and Mayan Chocolate in that order.
While two of my three current favorites are Haagen Dazs, I love Ben and Jerry’s concepts behind their flavors. When I want to try something new, it’s usually a Ben and Jerry’s flavor. They make ice cream more fun, which is saying a lot because ice cream is already pretty freaking cool. (pardon the pun) For example, their tagline for Gobfather is: The flavor you can’t refuse. It’s true by the way. I can’t refuse it.
Well, they just came out with a new flavor that I will most certainly be trying at my next opportunity: Americone Dream. This is based on Stephen Colbert’s Colbert Report character. All of Stephen’s proceeds are going to a variety of charaties. What could be better than that? You get ice cream. You get to laugh at the absurdity of politics. You get the warm and fuzzy feeling of having donated to charity. It’s a win-win situation. At least, that’s what I’m going to tell myself when I’m grocery shopping. 
It appears that Apple, Inc has settled with Apple Corps. This was an issue I mentioned in a previous post. I’m curious about what the details of the settlement might be. I would imagine that it’s pretty significant and probably breaks into the 10+ million range.
It’s almost hard to believe that I’m actually writing this, but the Colts have won the Superbowl! I’m obviously over-joyed at this, but at the same time I’m still just stunned they actually won. In particular, I’m stunned with the way they won. I keep thinking of all the years where the Colts were just horrible and the years they were knocking on the door, but unable to get it to open. It’s the first championship for an Indianapolis area sports team in my lifetime. I would have loved to be able to go downtown and celebrate.
Peyton Manning won the MVP award, which I suppose I don’t have a problem with, but it certainly wasn’t as if he was the only player who played well. Personally, I think I would have picked either Dominic Rhodes or Joseph Addai. The MVP of one game of football is a bit distorted anyhow. Football really is a team game. It would have been hard for Addai to get that many catches or Rhodes to get those yards were it not for everyone else on the field. Besides, at least we got the MVP this time. The Colts won Superbowl V, but the MVP went to a player on the losing team.
Now the question becomes, “What about next year?” It may be a cliche, but the NFL really is a Not For Long league. Dungy appears to be coming back. I am really not too worried about the players. Bill Polian is a great GM. John Clayton’s article breaks down some probables heading into the off-season. For now though, I just want to enjoy this win.