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It is shameful. I cannot believe this is actually happening in our country.

The Bush Administration has tried to have the National Park Service tell the public that the Grand Canyon was not caused by natural geologic forces, but rather it is a direct product of Noah’s Ark Flood of the bible.

This is reiterated on an NPS publication offered at the park for sale. Shameful. Park rangers aren’t even supposed to be allowed to tell tourists the actual age of the canyon anymore, to avoid ‘offending the Fundamentalists’. It’s too much. Something has to be done. I’m serious. Only an ignorant jackass would believe that the Grand Canyon was caused by Noah’s Flood and that the canyon is less than 6000 years old. Only someone who is actively, purposefully evil would try to convince everyone else that geology isn’t real and Noah’s Ark floated down the Colorado River. Except now our government is trying to do exactly that.

Scientists and normal, rational folks are outraged. Here is a letter of protest signed by the head of various important scientific communities.

“As one park geologist said, this is equivalent of Yellowstone National Park selling a book entitled Geysers of Old Faithful: Nostrils of Satan” - from the article below

W T F ????????? We have got to be the stupidest country on earth.

The article

It’s happening again.

The Jets are going to qualify for the postseason with a win against the sad-sack Raiders. We’ll be either the 5 or the 6 seed.
If we’re the 6 seed, we’ll probably go to Indianapolis.
If we’re the 5 seed, that means we’ll go to New England for the wild-card game. Oh please let it be so.

This is Bill Belichick’s worst freaking nightmare. This is why he’s so mad at Coach Mangini; he saw it coming. His former Padawan Learner Eric Mangini is now on a collision course to ruin his Super Bowl dreams. It is delicious. It must come to pass.

p.s. Anyone who still questions whether #10 has a pro arm needs to watch the replay of his TD throw to Jerrico Cotchery in the Monday night game. That’s probably the best throw I’ve ever seen him make. It was a thing of beauty.

It could not really be snowing any harder than this. Or any more sideways.

The Jets on Sesame Street! Elmo to start at right tackle against Miami.

One year ago today, I brought home my first motorcycle. The 2005 FZ1 had 22 miles on it that day and five of those were my test drive. As of today the bike has 12,750 miles and I’ve tacked on close to 2000 more on the 1985 Shadow VT700C. I’m on my third rear tire (lost the second one to a nail), and my second front tire. In the same 365 day span, My 2002 Civic Si has been driven less than 3500 miles.

It’s been a great thing. It’s been the focal point of all my fun time this last year. I drove it across the country. I drove that thing over the Golden Gate Bridge one foggy morning last May - a glorious moment. I dropped it twice within a couple of weeks of buying it; once at a stop light, once in a badly paved alleyway. No harm done. I was interviewed repeatedly by Law Enforcement Officers, and learned that cops hate bikes. I was ticketed 4 times, including once for going 110mph, something I never imagined would ever happen to me.

On my service warranty, which cost $999, I have had almost $2000 dollars of service performed by my dealer, with two solid years left on that contract. Poor guys, they usually make boatloads of money on those things because folks don’t ride that much and never bring their bikes in for service anyway. They’re hating me. No question they’ll lose money on that deal. My bike’s in there all the time.

Basically, this has been a great first year of riding. I managed to survive, which is good. I don’t know what the stats are, but the chances of wrecking after your first year of riding is over plummet. So hopefully, all the newbie stuff is out of the way. I know for sure that one year ago at Colorado Powersports I spent the best $7700 I ever spent.

I’m already planning for Spring Tour 2007. Last year it was San Francisco. This year, I’m thinking Vancouver, B.C. Canada. Better get that rain gear ready. Who’s coming along? Let’s ride…

Jets flounder away the wildcard?

Well, the Jets aren’t quite finished, but that dud at home vs Buffalo may have been the death knell for this first season of Mangini-ball. Chad is a fantastic QB, but he has had too many letdown games this season. We couldn’t afford a 4 turnover day against a motivated Bills squad, but there you go. We were lucky they didn’t score a few more off turnovers. So, now, like all the potential AFC wild-card teams, we have got to run the table. Whichever two of the following teams that win out will be the wild-cards in the AFC: Cincy, KC, Denver, Jets, Jaguars. Two of these teams will win out is my guess. It’s impossible to say which, though. This is the NFL.

Don’t touch the QB

Speaking of the NFL, I am thoroughly disgusted with this whole “protect the QB” bullshit. The way that refs are enforcing this ridiculous mandate by the owners is ruining the game. This is football, ok. Let me repeat that. This is FOOTBALL you idiots. The QB will get hit sometimes. He should get hit sometimes. He may even get “driven into the turf” occasionally. He may even be hit in the helmet, god forbid. It’s called FOOTBALL you morons. The league thinks that the ‘highest paid players in the most important position needs to be protected’. OK. Let me remind you that every single Sunday, those QBs take the field with hundreds of millions of dollars in personal bodyguards. They’re called Offensive Linemen. Perhaps you’ve seen them out there. They’re kind of hard to miss. These calls are really annoying and ruin the game, taking all the agression out of men who are getting paid millions to hit the quarterback, which, apprently, they’re not allowed to do anymore. Such lame BS. We all know Tom Brady has a photo shoot after the game to get to, but hey, remember he’s got to play football first. The reason that fool has the photo shoot to go to in the first place is football. Where men get hit from time to time. It’s got to stop. If you want to do some real good in the league, make the goddammned Denver chop-block illegal. For years players have had their knees destroyed and their careers ended by it. Everyone knows it a dirty, dirty way to play. Denver and it’s apologists always counter with ‘well, it’s perfectly legal in the rules’. Which, unfortunately, it still is. So I say make it illegal to intentionally block player below the knees. And make it perfectly legal to hit the freakin’ pretty boy QBs as hard as you like between the whistles. It’s called FOOTBALL, there, flower petal. Football.

Hey Rookie, shut the $#%* up!

These young bucks today, I tell ya. Vernon Davis, a 1st round rookie TE out of Maryland, who has played in all of 7 NFL games so far in his career, called out his QB, Alex Smith in the press after yesterday’s game.
“I did what I was supposed to do…. I was open, did you see that? He should have thrown it quicker and more over the top.”
Wow. That tells me that Vernon Davis might not make in this league. That’s not done. You handle that inside the locker room, not in the press. This kind of thing divides a locker room and creates a loser atmosphere for a team. Not to mention that you have a career total of 10 catches for 143 yards! Do something first, jack-ass, before calling anybody out. Shame on Davis. He’s obviously not ready to play in this league yet. Grow up some, please.

King Kenny:

The New World Champion, Nicky Hayden (aka The Kentucky Kid)

Valentino Rossi’s old 1000cc M1’s (a thing of the past, now they’re all to be 800cc)

I have spent an inordinate amount of time over the last 8 years looking at imagery of the earth. My new job is no different, in fact, I see an absurd amount of earth imagery in my latest gig. Which is cool. I am still fascinated every time at what you can see in these images.

I never imagined seeing them in the carpet.

Check out this carpet, which has real earth imagery “printed” on it digitally, that is the strands of the carpet were colored to match the pixel data in the earth imagery. Gives one the effect of being 1000 feet tall walking across the earth. That’s just cool.

When I was finishing up college in southwest Virginia in the late 1990’s, I worked for a couple of years at a Virginia Tech sports bar called Champs Sports Bar and Cafe. When I was hired on, the General Manager of Champs was a fellow by the name of Kevin Halpin. Kevin was universally referred to as Halp. Halp was a former marine, a veteran of Desert Storm, the first Gulf War.

Halp was a perfect bartender, knew everyone in town, and was generally a personality in Blacksburg. He also happened to be the ex-boyfriend of the girl I was dating at the time. So, it was slightly intimidating when Halp approached me out one day to recruit me for a bartending opening. I thought he was coming to give me trouble about dating his ex-girl. I couldn’t have been more suprised when he offered me a bartending gig at Champs on the spot. He’d been poking around and decided I’d fit in there. Halp turned out to be a great guy and we were good friends during the remainder of my time in SW VA. I promptly quit my job at the Macado’s sandwich shop waiting tables and reported to work for Champs. This would’ve been 1996.

One of the first things you find out as a rookie bartender is how much freakin’ work bartending is, and how much of that work can be distasteful. Champs didn’t have a cleaning crew, so the bartenders did the worst of the cleaning, since they made the most money. This was typical of how Halp ran things. The best part was cleaning the toilets. Imagine these toilets for a second. Picture 1000 drunk college kids tearing it up on friday night before a Hokies game. And let me tell you, the ladies room was no better than the men’s. Cleaning these toilets was horrible, but I never minded doing that much, because of the way Halp trained me.

I can still picture it right now, Halpin standing there in his khakis, motorcycle steel shank boots and white polo, hair cut high-and-tight, over a toilet that it’s best not to describe. He kneeled right down by that toilet, grabbed his rag and proceeded to clean the bejeezus out of it with this rag, bucket and bare hands. This was a thorough job, incuding a small demonstration of how the flush handle worked, how to care for it and prevent it from leaking, and advice on how to deal with cleaning up vomit (”Just don’t think about what you’re doing”). I can clearly remember him scrubbing that sucker down “This is how you do it, okay.. You got it?”, tying a knot in the rag (our universal sign of evil - do not pick up a rag with a knot ), tossing it in the rag bin and scrubbing up. Let’s just say I was impressed. Halp could’ve stood at the bar, counting the money and told me, or anyone, really, to go do the toilets. He certainly didn’t have to get down on his knees and scrub vomit and other horribleness off of it. After that, I didn’t grouse about cleaning the toilets. If Halp could cheerfully scrub that sucker, when he certainly didn’t have to, well I couldn’t complain. It was a good lesson on how to lead folks, and I still remember it sometimes when I clean my toilet.