Rissa placed 1st in traditional weapons, 2nd in traditional forms, 3rd in eXtreme forms, and 4th in sparring at the Humble, Texas ATA tournament. JR placed 4th in everything in his first outing as a 3rd degree black belt. I am so proud of both of my ninja monkeys!
Archive for February, 2010
I’m in a quandary. When things are going well, I love my job. Despite how hard I try, the politics of being there is making life miserable at times. My boss is a smart engineer, but he needs to be a politician so he can protect us worker bees from the wrath of Group politics. My boss means well, but he is not fighting hard enough for our interests as the boss. We are losing funding. We are not getting positions filled. We are being denied opportunities to excel. If the political climate does not improve, us worker bees will continue to suffer.
Well, it seems that somebody has listened to the engineers at my workplace. Change is underway. I do not know if it will the exact change we asked for, but it will involve one of three possible outcomes:
1. Another engineer and I will be transferring to another branch to start up a new business development function in a different building.
2. One of us engineers will transfer over and leave the other to handle the other half of our proposal.
3. Both of us will get screwed and the new idea will be implemented by two other engineers.
I hope it is option 1. I like where I work, but I am okay with a change of venue as long as I do not lose my Gryphon program. I would be disheartened at losing CP-1, but that has already been effectively stripped from me (see my other rants for details).
I saw a discussion on a forum about Johnny Brantley and how he stacks up against other recent Gator QBs. Brantley has been described as a classic, NFL-style QB. He even broke Tim Tebow‘s high school record for passing yardage. I think Brantley will do fine in year 1 of the post-Tebow era as long as he has an offensive line to protect him. Brantley has trained behind good O-lines and has not had to scramble or rush a lot, so nobody is certain how he will do behind a bad line. Rather than compare Brantley to Tebow, I would rather compare him to Chris Leak even though they are not that similar at all. Brantley is about as athletic as Leak, has better defensive reads, better accuracy, and better mechanics. Other than that, there simply is not enough information to assess Brantley as successor to Tebow. As the next season progresses we will see how this plays out.
Cam Newton (2007 HS)
Code:
Height: 6-5.5Weight: 22540-Yard Dash: 4.75Short Shuttle: 4.44Vertical Jump: 35.0"Pos Rank: 14
Tim Tebow (2006 HS)
Code:
Height: 6-2.5Weight: 21840-Yard Dash: 4.71Short Shuttle: 4.56Vertical Jump: 32.5"Pos Rank: 3Areas for Improvement: mechanics
John Brantley (2007 HS)
Code:
Ht:6'3"Wt:190 lbs40:4.64 Shuttle:4.41Vertical:29 inchesAreas for Improvement: mobility
Chris Leak (2007 NFL Combine)
Code:
Height: 5'11"Weight: 21040: 4.66 Vertical jump: 31 inches 4.24 20-yard shuttle8/12 Wonderlic scoreAreas for Improvement: size, strength
Who are you? I have several identities that I use on the Internet, but other than this one for my blog I do not tie in those alternate personas into my real one. The Internet is a dangerous place, especially when nefarious evil-doers on the web connect your Internet persona with your real one. To the maximum extent possible, the two should be separated. Have fun with your e-personas and feel free to make that e-persona different from your real one.
Why should you care? So what if John Smith is connected with GatorFan95? How about Gainesville2013? ILuvMaryKillshotJones? A lot of information can be gleamed out of those two user names. John is a Florida Gator fan, born in ’95, who will graduate from Gainesville High in ’13. Now, what if John has a Twitter page tied to a FourSquare account with one of those, and does not pay attention tho who is following him? With FourSquare, people can track your movements–that means they can find where you live, where you frequent, and more importantly when you are not home or when you are about to travel through a certain area. What if little Johnny is your son? Your son is advertising to the world where he lives without ever explicitly putting that down on a Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace account–FourSquare and other applications do this for you! Now someone can follow your son, set a trap in between Gainesville High School and the McDonald’s that he just tweeted he was going to visit, and look for a female volleyball player who is a year younger than your son. That’s just the surface! An adept e-stalker can now use that information to figure out his Facebook account username, and maybe even his password. It all starts off innocently and spreads to the scarier stuff.
Takeaways:
- Use alternate Internet personas and try not to tie them to your real persona.
- Be careful of what certain web applications do and limit the ability for them to leak out information.
- Estimate the risk of releasing information versus the need to release it.
Apparently, no one in my branch knows what engineers do for a living and they do not understand why engineers like me get frustrated when we do not get challenged with problems to solve. I just looked at my personnel records and discovered that I am coded to stay in San Antonio until August 2012 at a minimum. That would be fine if I were being challenged in my job and offered opportunities to succeed. I had a verbal agreement with my supervision that I would try to stay until 2012 as long as I were being challenged with meaningful work. Right now, I am frustrated and I just want to move on to the assignment that I was denied last August by my own management. I think I have earned that right–I have far surpassed expectations and given my organization clarity in vision, leadership by example, expansion of services, and renewed reputation. All I want in return is for my boss to keep that incompetent engineer out of my way, to value my input, and to reward me for my hard work. None of that is occurring now, and I grow more and more frustrated by the minute. I doubt my boss will be able to hook me up with the right job in DC or Maryland in 2012, and I am becoming suspicious that they will let me go in 2011 if I find that job myself. I just don’t know what to do…
It has been just over 16 years since my wife and I started dating. I love you, Rachel!
Prom Night ’94
Meh. I don’t really care for either team. My brains tells me to root for the “greatest QB of all time, Peyton Manning”. My heart tells me to root for Drew Brees, a Christian and all around good guy, and his team that has never been to the Big Dance. My prediction, 35-17 Saints.
Mark Coleman vs. Randy Couture
Coleman fights the same way he did 100 years ago. Couture is pretty much a new fighter with each match over the course of 100 years.
Nate Marquardt vs. Chael Sonnen
Nate the Great needs to get in some serious practice if he wants to win a rematch against Anderson Silva.
Mike Swick vs. Paulo Thiago
Quick Swick can ill afford another loss. 1st round KO of Thiago will get him back on track.
Demian Maia vs. Dan Miller
Marquardt took apart Maia, but Maia is too good to get beaten in successive fights.
Matt Serra vs. Frank Trigg
I dislike both fighters, but I dislike Serra even more.
Justin Buchholz vs. Mac Danzig
The former TUF champ needs this win. Bad.
Melvin Guillard vs. Ronnys Torres
Guillard is capable of so much, but often fails to live up to those expectations. He needs this win.
Rob Emerson vs. Phillipe Nover
Emerson has no idea how to handle Nover’s submissions.
Phil Davis vs. Brian Stann
The All-American Brian Stann needs to learn how to do more than punch and walk through punches. I doubt Davis is strong enough to team him that lesson.
Tim Hague vs. Chris Tuchscherer
As long as this fight is over in 20 seconds or less, it will go to Hague.
Joey Beltran vs. Rolles Gracie
Another Gracie? Another win.
My TDY to Baltimore went very well. On Monday, I had dinner with Bob and we discussed the inner workings of our organizations. On Tuesday the meeting went well, and it was quite entertaining to watch grown adults argue with one another. I had to take a few bullets for my organization, but it did not bother me. Tuesday night, Rachel and the kids arrived with a couple inches of snow. We had our first snowball fight since 2003, and we made snow angels. Wednesday morning I braved the snow to meet up with JR and Jamie out in Centerville, VA, then we all went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Annex in Chantilly, VA. Immediately after that, we ran through as many memorials and monuments as we could in DC–Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, Marine Corps Memorial, and Air Force Memorial. Whew! After that, we had dinner with a friend at Dave and Busters and called it a day. That was a lot of activity to pack into a couple days!
