I’m not sure if UNC collapsed or if Georgetown rallied really well, but regardless of the method, the outcome is the same: the Tar Heels failed to make their 17th Final Four. I really didn’t think they would lose a fast paced game that favors their style, but they couldn’t close out regulation and just didn’t hit any shots in OT until the game was already lost. I suppose I don’t mind the loss considering they won the national championship in 2005, but when college basketball teams change as much as they do from year to year it is a shame that they couldn’t capitalize on the really excellent team they had.
I hesitate to mention this because it’s not directly related to the team, but the UNC student, Jason Ray, died in the hospital. Ray played Rameses, the Tar Heel mascot and was hit by a car while in New Jersey for the NCAA Tournament.
I know that things like this happen all the time and only some of them make the news. Usually this happens when it’s someone famous or under strange circumstances. I think about the people I knew that died when I was in high school, how much I’ve changed and grown since then and how much life they had in front of them.
So while it is unfortunate that UNC didn’t make the Final Four, I have found myself not as upset as I thought I would be. There are certainly bigger things in life. Plus, with the Colts winning the Superbowl this year, how could I really complain?
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.
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.
Yes folks, the Colts are headed to the Superbowl. Obviously, I’m overjoyed at this.
The game was an instant classic. It’s something I certainly want to see again, and I typically don’t like re-watching sporting events. There’s something that gets lost when you know what’s going to happen, but there was just too much going on in this one to pick it up with only one viewing. At one point this game was all but over and the Pats appeared to have a virtual lock on keeping the dream alive for yet another Superbowl. I know there’s another game to be played yet, but getting past the Patriots certainly feels like something worth celebrating.
Now, that last game could be disappointing. I remember the Pacers finally getting to the NBA Finals only to get beat 4-2 by the Lakers. I definitely don’t want to see that happen to the Colts. There are a few reasons that something like this could happen. The Bears for one. Peyton’s possible thumb injury for two. I’ll go ahead and add Nick Harper’s ankle injury for three. Harper has been outstanding for the last several years and I would really, really like to have him back for a game as big as the Superbowl.
I’m looking forward to the coaching match up. There’s been a couple of interesting mentor - pupil match ups over the years, but this one certainly stands to be a good one. Lovie Smith will be getting a big pay increase regardless of the outcome and Tony Dungy will have a chance to silence his critics and win the championship he probably deserved to win in Tampa Bay. Either one would be a credit to the league in victory.
Of course, I wanted to save the best for last. Finally, Bill Simmons had to write the article I’ve wanted to read for years.
Well folks, I think we’re in for a real treat. Yesterday, the Colts beat Baltimore despite the very inhospitable environment at their ancestral home. Today, the Pats beat San Diego on the road. This sets up a truly awesome AFC Championship game in Indianapolis.
The Colts beat Baltimore in an unusual display of defense. The passing game wasn’t great, but it was enough. Actually, the game was reminiscent of Tony Dungy’s time in Tampa Bay. This is the second game in a row where the defense has really kept the Colts in the game despite their offensive struggles. The NFL isn’t really a league where you can turn it on and off, so I think some of the early series against the Patriots are going to be even more critical.
Tomlinson had an outstanding game with 123 yards and 2 TDs, but it wasn’t enough for the Chargers. Rivers wasn’t exactly confused by the Patriots, but he certainly didn’t play well. He had a completion percentage less than 50%, an interception and a fumble. He looked composed when it mattered though and got the team in position for a FG to tie the game as time expired. Unfortunately for San Diego, Kaeding missed it.
This sets up a huge rivalry game for the chance to go to the Superbowl: Brady - Manning. Patriots - Colts. One game to go…
The Colts won! Amazingly, our defense set all kinds of franchise records against Kansas City. Bob Sanders was back and the whole defense just felt different. They were tackling on the first touch. They were getting pressure on Trent Green every time he dropped back to pass. They just looked like a totally different crew than we had out there all year long. I’m not sure if it was Tony Dungy’s cool confidence in them all season long, the return of Bob Sanders, the hype given to the game or something else, but whatever it was, I hope we take it with us to Baltimore.
The game was a bit nerve wracking despite the defensive play. Peyton Manning played well but had three interceptions. (If it’s possible to play well and still have three interceptions…) It also looked early on like we wouldn’t be able to get in the end zone and they might be able to trade touchdowns for field goals against us later in the game. However, we responded well after the Chiefs managed their lone touchdown of the game. All in all, it was an impressive playoff win.
Apparently the NCAA is banning the use of Indian mascots in postseason tournaments. This of course is utterly rediculous. Ray Ratto apparently agrees.
First of all, every single school on the planet takes pride in their mascot. It’s hard to imagine a better way to carry on the memory of many of these tribes than by teaching it to millions of college students or exposing it to hundreds of millions of fans.
Secondly, at this point tradition is a huge part of the schools that are using these mascots. College is all about tradition. College sports are even moreso about tradition. It’s simply not fair to require these schools to change their tradition so they can take part in postseason play.
Thirdly, if the US Government doesn’t require states like Indiana and Illinois or cities like Miami to change their names because it’s insulting and racist to have them named after Native American tribes, then I don’t see where the NCAA gets the authority to force changes in mascots based on the same reasoning.
What happened to Native Americans is really horrific, but I find it hard to see how it’s racist to use their tribal names as a mascot.
I really should comment about the Michael Lynn - Cisco situation. I’ve been really quite interested in this since news first broke of it. In case you don’t know anything about it the basic situation is threefold. First, Michael Lynn found a vulnerability of some kind in Cisco’s routers, which make up a very large portion of all routers on the Internet. Second, Cisco decided that they didn’t want word of this to get out and took actions to prevent Michael from presenting his findings at a conference. Third, Michael decides to present anyhow, and all hell breaks loose.
My thoughts on this are pretty simple. Michael Lynn absolutely did the Right Thing ™ here. He’s coming through this pretty clean. Cisco is wasting time and money on trying to censor something that can’t and shouldn’t be censored. They are coming through this pretty dirty. Cisco needs to make absolutely sure that they address the technical issues Michael has discovered as quickly as possible. Already there are myriads of black hats out there, who never thought to attack a Cisco routers because of their reputation for highly secure code, that are now looking into the possibility.
Lastly, I think it’s super sad that one of the most basic tenets of computer security is still not easily understood by a major corporation. Obscurity is NOT security.
In other news, I’m really glad to see that Mike Modano is staying with Dallas. It’s nice to see some loyalty still exists. I know he probably could have gotten a slightly better offer somewhere else, particularly with the new salary cap for the NHL. Good to hear he chose to stick with the only team he’s ever played for. Also, it was nice that they were willing to make him a competitive offer to give him that choice. I think a lot of sports franchises simply give up with their free agents.
Slate.com has an interesting article on why Supreme Court Justices tend to become more liberal over time. Personally, I really subscribe to the theory that virtually all clerkships are given to freshly minted lawyers from rather liberal academic institutions with high reputations. It’s hard for anyone to remain the same when they are surrounded with liberal clerks for decades. Just my thoughts. I’m not a Supreme Court Justice, so I obviously don’t know for sure.
One last thing. I found a really cool flash card program written in Java. I’m using it to help study for the GRE and I’ll upload my wordlist when I get it completed.
I’m back from OLS and I’m hoping to get an update posted as soon as possible, but I’ve been really busy catching up on various things that always seem to lag when one goes away on a trip. For example, the 452 email messages I had waiting for me at work…
In the meantime, I thought I would point out two cool links I found out about. The Pacers have picked up another point guard and it looks like they are doing all they can to be a contender next year.
Also, I thought I would post a link to a place where you can download Steve Jobs commencement speech to Stanford this past year.
Ok, so I have been super busy over the last couple weeks and didn’t make the time to post here. I knew that I would have to approach this as something that I simply make five or ten minutes for on some days if I wanted it to be maintained regularly, but somehow I have failed to do that. Anyhow, here I am posting again and I wanted to update a few things.
The ESPY results are in. Peyton Manning won for best NFL player and best record breaking performance for his 49 touchdown pass season.
Lance Armstrong is about to win his 7th straight Tour de France. This was obviously huge news in Austin the past couple weeks.
Sandra Day O’Connor has commented on John Roberts Jr. whom President Bush announced as the nominee to replace her on the Supreme Court. Personally, this pick was an extremely good political move and fits well with me. It’s hard to say exactly how Roberts will be on the Supreme Court because of his lack of a record as a Judge, but you can say that about any potential Supreme Court Justice. I also tend to like picking a younder justice, not just because they can serve longer, but also because this particular court is so old.
I’m currently at the Ottawa Linux Symposium and having a fantastic time. Yesterday I went to the talks on the Novell Linux Kernel Debugger, Len Brown’s presentation on ACPI, TWIN, Martin J Bilgh’s presentation on memory mapping, and of course Jonathon Corbet’s presentation about a roadmap for the 2.6 kernel. Today I went to the nfsim talk, Trusted Computing and Linux, Building Murphy-compatible Embedded Linux Systems, eCryptfs, Kdump, and an impromptu session on Embedded Linux concerns. Obviously, this is a lot to talk about and I hope to be able to post some of my impressions of this process later on when I have more time to reflect.