I hate to admit it, but I seem to fall into the "I'm Linux" category more than I would care to admit. And my wife would heartily agree...
Unless you have had your head stuck in virtual sand for the past couple of years, you should recognize that the picture is a spoof of the Mac vs. PC ads, with a minor addition from The Tron Guy. And for you Whipper Snappers out there who do not even know what Tron is, I can only sigh in disbelief at how old I am becoming.
I did not even realize how bad it has become until I showed clips of Tron in my ECE 85 class (Digital Logic) a couple of years ago to make a couple of points about bits, bytes, and open/closed software (I'm a geek, what can I say?). But I was horrified to find out that the movie was already older than all of my students were and the humor was completely lost on them. And then this year, to make matters even worse, my incoming Freshman informed me that they have never even heard of the Beta vs. VHS war! What is the world coming to?
How many batteries does it take to beat Michigan in football?
1-AA
I grew up in Michigan as a kid. Ann Arbor, Michigan, to be exact. Home of the University of Michigan and the Fighting Wolverines. Our house was so close to "The Big House" that if the Blimp-Cam paned down on the stadium just right, you could see my house on the bottom corner of the TV. I'd get excited every time that I saw it, and if I remember correctly, I even tried running outside to wave up at the sky hoping that people would see me. Of course they never did, but it was still fun. In fact, I was recently curious, and actually found the old place on Google Earth, still sitting at 42 Deg 16 Min 10.65 Sec N and 83 Deg 45 Min 50.65 Sec W, just down the block from the stadium and looking exactly like I remembered it. It's weird thinking about some of the childhood memories that stick with you.
I can also remember playing football in my backyard with my neighbor's grandson, who was the same age as me. And since neighbors do not put up fences in that part of the country, my back yard actually consisted of about 10 people's backyards, all conveniently strung together. We would play football for hours along that beautiful stretch of grass, oblivious to our neighbors and their dogs as we ran through their property, often while an actual Michigan football game was playing, or after one had just ended. I can still remember hearing the roar of the crowd every time that we scored a touchdown, and if the wind was just right, the marching band as well.
Football. I've never played it officially as a sport, but at the same time, I've played it for hours upon hours, even when I was much older. My roommates in College and I would barrel out of the dorms at some point on a Saturday afternoon after a big game and play until sundown. With the change of seasons that happens every September -- the colder air, the shorter days, and colors of the leaves, I always get a bit nostalgic. And excited for the new football season. I have fond memories of Michigan, and so I still enjoy rooting for their football team -- especially since that was the place where I first saw a live College football game.
I can still remember when my dad took me to see it. The marker on the Google Earth picture indicates the location of where I sat. I remember studying everything around me, soaking it all in, as I sat there overwhelmed by the shear magnitude of 100,000 people sitting in one location. I also remember watching in amusement when the opposing team would kick a field goal over the net of the goal post -- if the football was caught by someone, it was handed one person at a time up the length of the stands until it was thrown out of the stadium and into the parking lot. Conversely, every time we scored, rolls of toilet paper would appear out of nowhere and suddenly come streaming down all around me.
I also learned quite a few new words that I had never even heard of prior to that day. Being young and innocent at the time, I was shocked to hear the words (even if I didn't quite know what they all meant), and even more shocked to hear them chanted repeatedly. And so it is with great amusement that after Michigan's sad loss to Appalachian State University, earning it the notorious distinction of being the first ranked team in the history of College football to lose to a AA team, that I can only imagine the vast multitude of young kids at the stadium that day who lost a little bit of their innocence while watching their very first live football game -- but received quite an education nonetheless.
"Solid as a rock and proud as a peacock, Appalachian is HOT HOT HOT!" ASU FTW!
I finally got around to finishing my last Installation Notes & HOWTO page for Fedora 7, which is on Joomla. Not much to say, other than I am glad that it is finally done. The process has helped me organize all of my Linux information, and I am hoping that it proves to be useful for many people in the future. But deciding to finish that last page and actually getting around to it seemed to take f o r e v e r and a day.
What was the kicker?
Seeing that I was getting requests for the page after looking at the Webalizer! Nothing like a little external motivation to help complete a very long project. And overall, I would call the process a great success, since the writing process also allowed me to learn HTML, PHP, and CSS, in addition to all of the new Linux server applications I've picked up over the past few years. Surprise, surprise, but this Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor did not have a clue about any of those three topics just over a year ago. I guess that is what I like about teaching so much -- it always puts me in a position to learn; and even though I am a Professor, I'm still really just a student at heart.
During the Fall 2007 Faculty Convocation, President Welty discussed the differences between Fresno State and the University of California System by showing this video...
