Dominance

After doing some research of my own, I thought I would throw some fun facts out here about the Iowa Wrestling program - the definition of dominance.

I realized that one great measure of a program is how many members of that program end up coaching in the sport. Specifically, I wanted to see just how many Big Ten schools had coaches from Iowa. Here are the results:

Indiana - Duane Goldman (Iowa 1983-1986)
Mike Mena (Iowa 1994-1997)

Northwestern - Tim Cysewski (Iowa 1973-1976)

Penn State -
Mark Perry (Iowa 2005-2008)

Wisconsin - Barry Davis (Iowa 1981-1985)
Bart Chelesvig (Iowa 1988-1992)

Illinois - Mark Johnson (Iowa Coach 1980-1990)
Jim Heffernan (Iowa 1983-1987)

Ohio State - Tom Ryan (Iowa 1989-1992)

Iowa - Tom Brands (Iowa 1988-1992)
Terry Brands (Iowa 1988-1992)
Doug Schwab (Iowa 1998-2001)
Mike Zadick (Iowa 2000-2002)

Minnesota - J Robinson (Iowa Coach 1972-1984)


That makes 8 out of 11 schools with at least one former Iowa wrestler on the coaching staff. Pretty impressive.

Now, just to bask in the glow for a bit, here's a shotgun listing of some stats that range from bad ass to completely mind-blowing:


Record at Carver Hawkeye Arena - 164-18 (90%)
16 undefeated seasons

National collegiate dual meet attendance record - 15,955 (2008-12-06)

101 Big Ten Champions
182 Big Ten Championships
32 Big Ten Titles

49 NCAA Champions
76 NCAA Championships
21 National Titles

9 consecutive NCAA Championships (1978-1986)
11 of 12 (1975-1986), and 20 of 26 (1975-2000)


There's a reason this program was named by Sports Illustrated as one of the top sports dynasties of the 20th century. Looking forward to wiping the floor with other programs again at the Big Ten and NCAA championships this year.

Quick and to the point

This is sports-related, and it's going to be extremely short.

Now that Florida has won the BCS "championship game", many people are going to be calling them the national champions for college football. I beg to differ. The BCS can go suck it.

Here is a fantastic article that I found on ESPN that sums up my feelings for this bowl season better than I possibly could.

Screw it - I just want to watch the Hawks pummel the Cocks again.

Some Interesting BBall

Tonight, as I have done regularly for about the past 23 years, I attended a Hawkeye basketball game. It happened to be the Iowa State game which always adds a bit of excitement, the crowd was the best I have seen in a few years, and Iowa happened to play a great game and pretty much had their way with the 'clones. Follow that up with the traditional playing of "In Heaven There is No Beer" and all in all - a most excellent experience.

It turns out I also got a nice little celebrity sighting out of the deal. Ashton Kutcher, being an Iowa native and former U of I attendee (I actually had 2 Engineering classes with him the sole year he was there as an engineering student), came back to the state to do some benefit work to provide money for flood recovery. Both he and Shawn Johnson (Olympic gold and silver medalist from Des Moines for those not paying attention) had events throughout the week to help raise money, which I think is very cool of both of them.

Ashton and his wife, Demi Moore, both sat at the scorers table about 10 rows in front of our seats along with Shawn Johnson. I was impressed that along with the good they were doing this week, they did not simply show up for the game, make their appearance, and then duck out. They all stayed well past the final buzzer, and generally seemed to be into the game and all of the events. My craptastic cell phone pictures aren't worth posting, or I would add them here.

There was a screening for Ashton's new movie, Personal Effects, at the Englert theatre in Iowa City tonight as well. I'm not so sure about the movie - it may have had a bit too much pandering to the Iowa fans for even me to stomach, but I'll probably check it out as a rental at some point.

Sensationalism

I may have actually posted about this before. It bears repeating though.

I am disgusted and tired of sensationalist journalism. It along with media saturation are why I have almost completely eliminated traditional media from my life. I now almost solely get my news from aggregated sites online such as Google news. I like to get as wide of a variety of news as possible, in as quick to digest of a form, and available when I decide, not on any other schedule.

This article represents most of what I find wrong with the news currently. News is no longer about just reporting events of substance, it is now about filling all available time and senses with anything that can pass for a story.

How is this story relevant to me reading the HawkCentral website at all? Why is the fact that this guy once played for the Hawkeyes years ago even a part of the story? Shouldn't they mention that at one point he used to eat baby food and wear diapers too? I think that is equally relevant. Moreover, why do they need to mention that the injured party was an airman who served in Iraq? Is that any different than if he was a pimp from Oakland? Seriously, the only story here is local policeman potentially used unnecessary force on another local person. It is only relevant to that location, and only to those concerned about their local police force. Nothing more.

Blech, I need more of the tasty Bud Light in the cool aluminum bottle (yes, you read that right) to get the nasty taste of this story out of my mouth.

Ride in Style

This is how you should ride to a Hawkeye football victory in style. Click on the picture to go to a gallery with more pictures.



For those interested, this is a 1949 Chevrolet 3600 3/4 ton. It was originally my great-grandfather E.B. Null's truck (Huck to most people, hence the lettering on the tailgate), and my dad recently had it restored. It's a driver, not a showpiece, so it has made it to 2 games for tailgating already this year.

It's pretty cool rolling down the road in a vehicle built in the 40's with absolutely nothing automatic in it. A/C, heater, wipers, power windows, locks, seat belts, radio...yeah we don't need any of those.

Extreme Stupidity

(Click here to skip the background, and go straight to the stupidity)

First, some background. I am not particularly fond of cell phones. I hate when the ring, pretty much always. I hate when people talk on them very loudly, about worthless and mundane topics. I think they are the single biggest contributor to ADD in existence currently. What I really dislike personally though is paying for them.

I had a cell phone for about 4 years in college. I remember being excited to move from my analog to a digital phone. I liked them occasionally. However, I really didn't like paying lots of money, so that people could get a hold of me immediately, rather than waiting until I was near another phone. Sometimes it's actually nice to just disappear for a bit. So, even though I never moved beyond a $25 per month plan, I eventually dropped the phone about 3 years ago, and haven't regretted it since.

People are often amazed that I am able to survive without one. Apparently, generations previous to us were just lucky that they didn't die on a daily basis without a mobile telephone.

Now, to the point. Our friends at one of the plethora of cellular service providers have decided they need to help people out, give back to the community. They have a new deal for those less-fortunate, who somehow can't manage to pay their bills, but absolutely have to have a cell phone (and a satellite, and new sneakers, and...sorry, getting off-topic).

Now, if you already qualify for low-cost utilities or subsidized phone service, they will give you an extra special package. It has 700 minutes, free incoming everything, blah blah blah. All for the low, low cost of $37 per month. $37 per month!!! That's over 1/3 more than the point where I considered my service too expensive to continue. And this is for those who are struggling with money? Bullshit. This is just one more excuse for the cell companies to line their pockets.

However, lest you think all lost, the Hawks won big today. All is now well with the cosmos again.

Hawks 47, Purdue 17

Change of Perspective

Without getting too deep, I have been pondering lately how drastically one's perspective on something can change over time. I'll keep it simple with one example.

I used to love building computers. Everything about it. I kept up-to-date on all of the components that were out there, knew their specs by heart, and pretty much knew the best price on anything at any time.

Those days are long past. I no longer give a rip. I want my computer to work, I don't want to touch it, and I pretty much have one that is just "good enough." Until iTunes 7 came out that is, and suddenly I found my machine lacking.

Those who watch this blog saw me love iTunes 7, but also rant about it. However, I never even blogged about my biggest disappointment. After seeing how sweet cover flow looked, I couldn't wait to use it at home. However, I was instead greeted by this message when I enabled cover flow at home: "iTunes is unable to display artwork on this computer." Huh? Why? Talk about a worthless error message.

I immediately hypothesized that my last than fantastic Rage XL graphics card simply wasn't up to the task. A bit of searching on some forums pretty much proved me right. Thus, I was in need of a graphics card. I really didn't care though, and didn't want to spend time researching it. Once again, I really just wanted to be able to click the "good enough" graphics card button on Amazon or something. In the end, I went to eBay, narrowed the list by a few features I actually knew that I wanted, and bought one. Radeon 9250 it turns out, don't really care about the specs, they are good enough, and met the most important criteria, my price point of $30.

Now, I have cover flow goodness. Sweet. Now, lest I forget:

Hawks 24, Worthless Illini 7. Go Hawks.
I'll see all the cool folks under the lights at Kinnick next week.

All is Right With the Cosmos

Normally I tack this onto another post, but this one doesn't need one.

Yesterday was a good day. I got to go to my first Hawkeye home football game. I got to check out the very nicely updated Kinnick Stadium, and vastly appreciated the increased butt room.

Hung out in the parking lots ahead of time, good brews, good folks. I often forget how much energy and craziness college kids have, and it's a good reminder to see it sometimes.

I then watched a great game play out as it should. My "Beat State" shirt was still able to be worn after the game. It's all good.

Hawks 27 Clones 17

Brain Block

I like to include this as part of another post, but I'm truly drawing a blank today.

Anyway, Hawks win again. It was bit ugly, but you can't fault a D-line that can stop 7 straight plays from within their own 3. Big East meets Midwest Muscle and gets smacked down. Apparently the game has changed since I played as well. Now, it seems if you are a defensive back, you are no longer allowed to even breathe on the guy before he gets the ball.

Come November, this game will simply be a "W", it won't matter how ugly and close it was.

Cornocopia

Today is the day to dive into new, untested waters, and I'm throwing it all into one post.

This is my first post using the new, integrated blogger stuff. I switched my account over to the new beta site today. It's not quite perfect yet, and you'll notice a few things are missing on the blog front right now, but I have been pushing them to do this for so long I thought it would be hypocritical not to use it immediately.

I like it all for the most part. There is still a bit too much original Blogger lingering around, that I want to see eradicated by Google. I really like that I now simply use a Google account, there is no longer a separate Blogger account. The new template stuff is really nice, it borrows the nice aspects of Google Pages, but I still find it pretty extensible. Could use some more work still, but very much a step in the right direction.

I really like that they added label support for posts. I had some 3rd party label stuff I was going to integrate, but of course I never got around to it. This makes it easier.

I also today decided to take the plunge and install IE7 RC on my machine. This isn't all that big of a deal, as I only use IE for Windows Update now, but I thought I would check it out. To be fair, I also downloaded Firefox 2.0 beta, and plan to install that also. I know, I usually just want my software to work, and don't want to be futzing with it. Oh well, I was just on a kick today I guess. I'll have to post my thoughts on the two browsers after I use them a bit.

The Hawks won today. I hope to repeat that statement many times through January.


Oh man. The spellchecking on Blogger kicks butt now. About time.

i is the new e

You thought this was just a techie geek blog didn't you? Wrong. That may be the majority of what is discussed, but today I need to bring up another very important topic to me, the Iowa Hawkeyes.

I know it is early, and there will be hundreds of stories concerning the bowl game, but I think this early one from the Press Citizen pretty much sums it all up. The title alone is a good summary.

Oh well, it's over now, we had several people over to watch with us, time to move on. I still would have liked to have seen it play out without the refs though. I was looking forward to a repeat of the Capital One game from last year.

Hopefully we find a way to keep Coach Ferentz around, and stick it to everyone next year. Go Hawks!