Going on Break

I know you don't want to hear this in the middle of football season. However, personal circumstances necessitate that I take a break from the blog for awhile. I may put something on here occasionally, but I just need to focus more of my time on other things.

Hope you understand. Maybe some of my other friends want to pick up the slack (Trey, Lennie, etc). If anyone else is interested in posting items occassionally, drop me a line.

I will still be following the Jackets and cheering loud-and-proud.

Scott

Georgia Tech Cool Stuff

Some cool stuff goes on in the research labs around Georgia Tech - like this, wireless power. That's right - the holy grail - getting rid of batteries:


Wirelessly Powered Robot Swarm from Travis on Vimeo.

Sarah Palin Rap

This isn't about politics. It's about the humor. This cracked me up:

Need Restaurant Advice

I'm in Atlanta for a couple of days with some international folks in my company (England, Mexico, Asia). We're staying at the Westin near the airport and need some advice for a good restaurant. Something fun, not too high-end, but a good dining experience for non-Americans. We're not looking for a long night either.

Thoughts?

Watch and Listen

Listen to this clip (right at the end) from a new HBO series "Generation Kill".

I'm Tired

You know, I watched about 10 minutes of the Presidential debate tonight and that's all I could take. Putting my personal politics aside, I just cannot believe that the rigorous, drawn-out, tiring process of producing candidates spit out these two guys. Is this all we can come up with?

I'm tired of hearing about "what the American people are tired of hearing about......", and then proceeding to talk about it until even more tired. I'm tired of the lack of leadership. I'm tired of finger-pointing. I'm tired of empty promises. I'm tired of candidates trying to convince me that they can make things happen. Don't sit and tell me how you're going to change the economy. You don't have a clue, nor the power nor the gumption to change the economy. It's too complex with too many variables for any of us to understand. How the heck are you going to convince me you can turn it one direction or another? You can't.

I'm just tired tonight and grumpy tonight. Sorry about the rant. Just not in the mood to be entertained tonight, and that's all these debates are good for - entertainment.

GTG's - "The Ratio"

Those whacky Georgia Tech white rappers are at it again, this time with a mega-love ballad, a smooth R&B tune called "The Ratio", crooning about the realities of the guy-to-girl numbers at Tech. Of course, the "ratio" has improved over the years, especially if you go back to the days when my Mom was a student there. She was a cheerleader and all the girls lived in the same house on campus. The numbers have certainly swung more in favor of the guys, but the ratio concept is still just as alive today as it was back in my day in the late 80's.

GoCrossCampus ACC Tournament

Hey Georgia Tech and ACC fans. You like challenges? We were contacted by the folks at GoCrossCampus about an interesting challenge game open for anyone. Sounds intriguing. I encourage Tech fans to sign up and play. Here are details:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GoCrossCampus Press Contact:

Brad Hargreaves, ACC Tournament Director

brad@gocrosscampus.com

(318) 780-0257

2008 GoCrossCampus ACC Tournament to Launch on October 6

First Annual Battle for ACC supremacy to include students, faculty and alumni

NEW YORK, NY – In what is slated to be the single largest competitive event in the history of the ACC, twelve universities are gearing up for the first annual GoCrossCampus tournament in the Atlantic Coastal Conference. An epic two-month battle for territorial supremacy, the Championship is open to all students, faculty and alumni from the twelve member schools of the ACC. The game is online at http://acc.gocrosscampus.com.

The tournament kicks off on October 6^th. Participants can show off their spirit and dominate their rival schools on GoCrossCampus (GXC for short), created by student-founded web startup company GXStudios. GoCrossCampus is creating an competitive league around a simple, browser-based casual online game.

“Take a world domination game, multiply it by over 200,000 ACC students, and inject intense competition and social interactivity,” explains Matthew O. Brimer (Yale ’09), Chief Marketing Engineer at GXStudios. “You control who you attack and where you defend, working together en masse with the rest of your team for total ACC domination. The object of the tournament is to conquer the entire map and oust all your rival schools.”

While this is the first ACC Tournament, GoCrossCampus has created a successful collegiate league over the past year. Last year’s Ivy League Championship garnered nearly 11,000 players from all eight Ivies. It was covered by the New York Times, CBS News, MTV News and Sports Illustrated. “We can easily beat that in the ACC,” says Nick Selz (Yale ’11), GoCrossCampus Marketing Coordinator. “We’re creating a full-blown online sport for the entire campus to get involved with, and we’ve been extremely pleased with the support we’ve gotten from top campus organizations.”

“Everyone who has joined the game so far seems really psyched,” says Allison Sproul, a freshman at Florida State. “FSU is determined to win this ACC tournament after failing to do so in last spring's GoCrossCampus Florida Championship. Those other teams better be ready for our tomahawk chop!”

Combining elements of social networking, online gaming, and inter-collegiate sports rivalry, GoCrossCampus fosters campus unity and rekindles traditional Ivy League rivalries -- online as well as offline. Brimer elaborates, “Whether it’s the nightly team strategy meetings, the networks of spies on other campuses, or the massive recruitment pushes in dorms and dining halls, GXC bridges the real and online worlds.”

“You can talk strategy via a built-in chat interface, get real-time stats on how the game is progressing and even get elected commander of your school,” describes Selz. “Best of all, it’s completely free for all involved.”

To check out the ACC Championship Tournament, visit http://acc.gocrosscampus.com.

###

About GoCrossCampus

GoCrossCampus is a team-based massively multiplayer social gaming platform that revolves around your connections, locations and interests. Founded in 2007 by five Ivy League students, GoCrossCampus has been phenomenally successful in its private beta launch, and the company is continuing to expand rapidly, developing its brand and software into a groundbreaking new multi-platform team-based social gaming destination.

GoCrossCampus is a GXStudios property. GXStudios is a venture-backed web startup company with offices in Manhattan and New Haven. In Fall 2007, GXStudios secured Series A funding from by two New York firms, Easton Capital and WGI Group.

GoCrossCampus is online at http://gocrosscampus.com

No Sports???

Not to get away from the world of Georgia Tech, but I found this video entertaining. I'm not a big fan of Jim Cramer, except his first book, which was solid with investing fundamentals.

Having said that, check out this video from Cramer's show from August 2007 - about one year ago, talking about the mortgage problem. He says we have "Armageddon" coming and talks about Goldman, Bear Sterns and how "these firms are going to go out of business".



Of course this is the same guy that said Bear Sterns was fine, and gets as much or more wrong as he does right. In fact, he's generally bullish on stocks. I just thought his rant was entertaining.

Remember the day

Stop for a minute and remember

Where am I?

Not much on the blog this week so far. Why? Trying to enjoy Walt Disney World with a 6 and 3 year old........ and a 10 month old. That's a challenging feat as it turns out. It's brutally hot and of course kids can only take so much.

Anyhow, as time permits I'll post some things. I'm sure you've followed the Fan Day events Saturday, the new controversial uniforms, some depth chart shifting and the general positive attitude of the players & coaches. I like what I'm reading.

Can you believe football season starts this month??? Yeah baby!!!

Why do you care?

If you peruse the discussion boards enough, you will find that there is a sub-segment of Georgia Tech fans who really care about the fortunes of our rivals in Athens. You will occasionally find these rants from Tech fans about how the recent success of UGAg absolutely drives them to drink, pull their hair out and even give up sports all-together. I just don't get it. Well, let me clarify - I understand it, but I still don't get it. So here's my question - why do you care?

Here's my position on the mutts - I don't care a lot about what happens to them other than when it overlaps with the fortunes of Georgia Tech. I care how we perform against them head-to-head, but my feelings are pretty ambivalent as to what they do on their own. Am I upset that they made it to the College World Series final and almost won the whole thing? No. I don't really care much. There's a little part of me that was glad to see them lose, but not much. It's mainly that part of me that doesn't want to hear the gloating from them. Now, do I care that they beat us in the Regional to get there - yeah. But what steams me is GT's failure, not UGAg's success.

Do I care that their football team is getting major hype pre-season? Not really. Heck, the way I look at, it just means there will possibly be a lot more at stake for them when we meet in November. That's when the wins are the sweetest.

Do I care that UGAg's hoops team won the SEC championship out of nowhere? Not really. Honestly, it doesn't even sting that they beat us on our home floor. We did the right thing by opening our doors and I'm proud of our school for that over the results of the tourney. However, I'm using my brain cells to focus on where Paul Hewitt is taking us as opposed to the fortunes of the crew in Athens.

You'll notice that I rarely mention UGAg on this blog, while many of the UGAg blogs devote a decent portion of their weekly coverage to the Jackets. For me, one reason is time. I have 3 girls under 7 years old, a full time job, responsibilities at church, etc. I chose to focus my blog time on Georgia Tech sports - not UGAg sports. But mainly, I just don't care much what they're doing. I don't even spend much time figuring out ways to slam them. If I did, it would just invite the throngs over here to turn the site into a smack board, which I'm not that interested in. Even posting on this topic is likely to result in some non-regulars to make their way over.

Understand one thing though - I really don't like UGAg, and the basis for that is precisely my loyalty. Clean-ole-fashion-hate is alive in my heart. However, for me, it's about crossing paths, not what goes on when our worlds are apart. From that perspective, I'd like to see better performance from the GTAA. They've gotten the best of us recently. It's a fact. I don't like it and want to see us be more competitive.

However, bottom-line, their successes and failures really mean nothing to me. Does their success drive you crazy? Why?

Gold Nuggets

Just a quick reminder. If you are a news hound and want all the latest and greatest, there is a great source of relevant links involving Georgia Tech Sports. It's in the left column below the google ads called "Latest News" (imagine that). That list contains links to stories involving current and former GT athletes and also links to stories relevant from the ACC as well.

There's gold in those links. There's a lot more to learn there than I have the time or inclination to report in the main column. Make sure to check it out on a regular basis. It's updated throughout the day.

TGIF

D-Rad's "Good Word"

Dan Radakovich published his latest "The Good Word". Here are some highlights:

1. Congrats to Amanda McDowell right off the bat
2. Track-and-Field regional coming up
3. Congrats to Danny Hall getting to 15th regional in 17 years
4. WREK broadcasting beesball games
5. CSS airing the games on TV
6. Thirteen weeks to fall football
7. Pushing season ticket sales. Go buy some! (I bought 4)
8. Season opener against Jax St Thursday Aug 28. Kick-off 7:30pm - the revolution will NOT be televised......... as of now. Bummer.
9. Last stop on the Coaches Caravan coming
10. Braves / GT night coming up. Special cross-promotion with a good deal on tickets.

Happy Memorial Day

As you enjoy your day off Monday, remember those serving around the world in the military. Remember those who have given their life for the cause of freedom. Remember their families.

God bless them and God bless America - the best country in the world.

Detour to the strange

Not Georgia Tech related.
Not sports related
Not sure what it relates to.

Just ran across it and thought I would share.
I am trying to think about the time it took to do this.
Wild.


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Give Me Your Story Ideas in Sidebar

As always, I'm willing to be a guinea pig for anything new in the blog world. Some things work. Some don't. I have a new one for you. In the left hand column there's a new section below the Google Ads that says "What should I write about". If you'll click on those words, you can actually submit a story idea, and viewers can vote on it. If you just want to vote on what's there, you can do that also. Just trying to figure out another way to get readers involved and interacting with the site.

So leave a story idea, and vote on one too.................

Back from the dead.

So today the Georgia Tech Sports Blog comes back online after about 3 days of dead air. Nada. Nothing. One day we're there. The next day we're not. Three days later we're back again. Nothing from Google before during or after. Just a big black hole of mystery and intrigue.

So what happened? I had some conspiracy theories, like the good people at Georgia Tech decided I have somehow infringed on some GT symbol and got the IS department to hack me. Then I thought - nah - this is a pro-GT site, so the last thing they want to do is shut us down. Then I thought on a bigger scale. Seeing as I'm working my way through season 4 of the show "24", I have Jack Bauer syndrome, so the conspiracy theories started running wild. Maybe my recent post on two government contractors killed overseas who both happened to be named "Paul Johnson" put me on some kind of watch list, and the folks at the DOD shut me down. Maybe they thought the site was some type of silent trigger signal for an attack on the nation's nuclear reactors. Who knows.

Barring any conspriracy theories, I'm just left with the explanation falling into some type of techno-glitch over the "big G" (Google, which owns Blogger). I never got a response from Google before, during or after the process, so I don't really know what happened and why it's back now. We could be back because they did receive my many pleas and decided to review the situation. They may have responded because I put my Blog on a Google site review list for sites mistakenly blacklisted as "spam sites". The old "false positive".

Or maybe it was just the power of networking. I noticed the following comment below the AJC story on Trey Dunmon today at about 1:00:

By GoodWord on the street
April 29, 2008 10:48 PM
HELP! Does anyone know how to get on scott’s gtsportsblog? I can no longer find it on the web and it is my favorite source to ga tech sports. Concerning Dunmon, I wish him all the luck. If it isn’t the system he wishes to play in then let him go be successful and happy. I think he is a high character guy and gt will miss that. Can’t blame him one bit, it is his life and his decisions. Good luck as southern Trey! Upset UGA the first game of the season!

That was the very first comment on the Dunmon story. Then further down there was this today:

By Tekgeezer
April 30, 2008 1:17 PM
I just contacted the Engineering Director at Google re: GT Sports Blog. He says he has just “loosed the hounds”

It was a few hours later that the site was back up and running. The "hounds" found their mark I guess. Tekgeezer, if you were the reason why, then hats off to you chap. Thanks!

I want to thank the entire Georgia Tech community for your patience and generosity. I got numerous offers of help, lots of interesting ideas and I even had someone offer free server space at their professional server farm and help with a custom domain if I wanted to ditch Google. The GT community is a great one, and I'm glad to be a part of it.

Thanks for all the support all of you have given the Blog over the years. We will be 5 years old this fall. That's like 50 in internet years.

Thanks again,
Scott
GT Sports Blog

I'll leave you with this. For a few minutes, an Elton John song seemed appropriate. First it was going to be "Don't let the sun go down on me"..................................... then I thought maybe it should be "I'm still standing"............... I almost settled on "The Bitch is back"

In the end, I decided Elton John just wasn't the "aura" I wanted to send, so I went a little Houston of Pain hip-hop on you (some bad language). After all, I have to represent:



I think this verse sums it up:

Look at all these rumors
Spreadin like tumors, gossip and lies
Exaggerated reports of my demise
And if you believe them well then you got gassed
The media deceived them just like in the past
.. Cause I'm....... back from the dead

Now, a question. Have I just completely ripped to shreds some unwritten social contract I have with my readers as an "approaching 40-year old white guy"?

Third String News

So, every week there's a lot of secondary news that you never hear about, or maybe catch on the Hive, but that's relavent or interesting to GT fans. Mostly, I never have time to tell you about them, but I thought I would throw some interesting stuff out there.

KEITH URBAN - GT FAN
So Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban were in concert in the ATL, and Urban collaborated with none-0ther than the Georgia Tech drumline on the song "I Told You So". Evidently the drumline came out and you couldn't tell they were GT............ until a huge GT was flashed on the big HD video screen behind the band. Apparantely that led to both a chorus of cheers and boo's as Jacket and Doggy fans expressed themselves. Good stuff, and maybe I just became a Keith Urban fan.



TAKING THE M-TRAIN
Anyone who has been at GT knows about "taking the M-Train", which means changing your major from some type of engineering or architorture track and jumping on the management / business bandwagon. Well, some buddies of mine sent this link to me of a video done by some GT students which highlights two key things.... 1) they have way to much time on their hands........ 2) They have way too many connections to be GT students. So without further wait, here's their musical ode to the M-Train, complete with Buzz, cheerleaders and more. Fan-freakin-tastic I say!!






LACK OF INSTITUTIONAL CONTROL?
Well, the NCAA said that our Athletic Dept was not "in control" with their investigation a few years back. Well, maybe the problem was the school itself and not the GTAA. A couple of GT professors were recently arrested for double-dipping their salaries with their former job at U of Minnesota. We had some GT employees abusing school credit cards. Now we have more of the same, with another old lady bilking her GT expense card for electronic goods. Honestly, looking at her mug shot, I did not realize that the mom from the Partridge Family worked at GT.



FOOTBALL OPPONENT #1: SPIES
Evidently Jacksonville State got into a little trouble last year for spying - and has been cited for a secondary violation.

Dose of Reality

Sometime's you're just clicking along in your sports-induced coma / haze / parallel universe, when all-of-the-sudden you get whacked in the back of the head harder than a Kristi Miller forehand.

I have various tools to easily stay updated on GT sports. Searches sent as RSS feeds is one of ways to keep on top of things. As it turns out Paul Johnson is a very popular name. In fact there's a Facebook group just for people with the name "Paul Johnson". There's PJ the photographer, PJ the musician, PJ the historian, PJ the professor, PJ the other professor, PJ the Geophysicist & artist, PJ the director of resoures at Life.com, PJ the consultant, PJ the musician again.................... it goes on and on. He's had churches named after him, schools, badminton teams, etc, etc.

There are two more Paul Johnson's that I want you to know about.

------------------------------------------

#1 - This Paul Johnson who was born in Township NJ. This Paul Johnson moved to Florida in the 1980's to work at Lockheed Martin as an engineer. This Paul Johnson worked as a government contractor in Saudi Arabia for 10 years.

This Paul Johnson was was captured by Al Qaeda Saudi Arabia in 2004 and was threatened to be killed if Saudi Arabia did not release al Qaeda prisoners and the US did not leave the country.

This Paul Johnson was beheaded 6 days later, with pictures of his corpse posted on the internet. This Paul Johnson made headline news at the time for reasons that go beyond heart-breaking.

This Paul Johnson left behind a son, daughter and wife.

------------------------------------------

#2 - This Paul Johnson is a security contractor from Minnesota. His full name is Paul-Johnson Reuben. This Paul Johnson is a former Marine. This Paul Johnson was kidnapped, along with 4 other contractors, in Iraq about 16 months ago. This Paul Johnson had his severed fingers sent to the US government officials in Baghdad last month, who later confirmed that they were his. The remains of this Paul Johnson were recently found in a grave, along with the other contractors. This Paul Johnson is being put to rest in Minnesota with a full military funeral.

This Paul Johnson leaves behind twins and and ex-wife.
------------------------------------------

I don't share these with you to gore things out. I just wanted to share how I was snapped back into reality in a very unexpected way and how we all should never forget that while we sit at our computers slamming which coach isn't getting the job done, people are dying. They are dying serving this country. That includes those in the military, but also contractors putting their lives on the line in dangerous places.

As a society we seem more interested in what Brittainy Spears is doing than what is going on in Iraq. If that were false, then the news would reflect it. It doesn't. We learn more about Brittainy, Paris and Jessica than we do about people who lose their lives fighting for our freedom to watch crap like that.

It's not Memorial Day, or July 4th or Armed Services day. But here on my Blog, today is officially "Paul Johnson Day"......... and it's got nothing to do with the Triple Option.

Rest in peace Paul Johnsons..........