Snippets of Thought & Happy Thanksgiving!

Things have been too hectic to be able to blog but some random notes before the holidays:

- Except for today absolutely beautiful weather. Where else can you have sunshine until November 25th! I love Cali!

- Ava’s 6 month birthday passed, she rolls, screams out loud and is such a cheery baby. It’s a blessing to see her grow. Thanks to Katie for taking such a big role in my hectic schedules.

- Too much to do! Accounting midterms, Marketing group project midterms and 2 more group projects due in 2 weeks. The good news? Next quarter it’s supposed to be much worse.

- Went to the Big Game between Cal and Stanford and happy to say I got seats next to the student section and Cal has scored more touchdowns in one game than I have seen from the 49ers all season! It was a great time out. Although I won’t get season tickets, I will buy tickets to the big games such as this one. It was fun to hang with Jeff and Patty as well!

- The Nerf Vulcan EBS-25 is now returned. It definitely looks good but had too many flaws. The gun jams very very often. If you squeeze the automatic feature don’t let go or else it will jam. It also takes a long time to load. There are only certain darts that fit this gun and the chamber clogs very easily. The 6 D batteries are great until someone leaves your gun on and the batteries are dead the next day. There are just too many dependencies and not mobile.

- So I picked up the Nerf Rapid Fire 20 which takes no batteries, takes any type of dart, manual pump, mobile and reloads very quickly. This is the gun you want in a fire fight! http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2326909

- 49ers had a great win against the Rams, but it was the Rams. I feel the team is getting better week in and week out under Singletary but a-lot has to change next season. I say keep Singletary as he is the real deal give him the same time as Nolan and you will see fruits. Mike Martz really needs to adjust to the talent he has or else he shouldn’t be here. The offense needs more than Gore to succeed. We need a few more solid wide receivers and revisit the Offensive Line again. We may want to pick up a veteran QB or if Shaun Hill is the man then train him up in the off season. On defense the Niners need to figure who they are. Are they going to play 3 – 4 or 4 - 3? Whatever it is they need to find a pass rush on defense to rush the quarterback on defense. If there are missing pieces on defense like safety help for the corners these things need to be sorted out. Cleanup the coaches and coordinators and tell the owners to stay out of Singletary’s way. The front office needs to have some better eye on talent in the draft and from free agent acquisitions.

- Looking forward to a little downtime from everything during Thanksgiving with family and lots of eating!

- I am so behind in movies I didn't know there was a new Star Trek Trailer! Check it out! Definetly going to watch this!

Passion

Interesting interview with Ronnie Lott, former 49er Hall of Fame line backer. Listen here at KNBR.com: http://media.knbr.com/knbr/1114lott.mp3. You may need Quicktime or to Install a Microsoft Active X add on that should prompt for an install (IE).

The moral of the story was about passion, looking back that you did everything that you could to take care of your family. I know this related to the game of football but you do wonder, these guys get paid millions of dollars to play a game that they love, yet why do so many of these players not treasure the opportunity they are given?

Bringing this to a life lesson to our level, for those of you that know me, know that I am beyond passionate about pretty much everything I do. If you are a reader of my blog it is probably self evident I hope that resonates through the sports I play, the fan that I am and the things that I do. I simply strive to do all that I can do with what is given to me.

Many of my close friends often wonder why I do as much as I do in my life. Part of the answer is a wife with a firm swift constant kick in the rear for this year of the horse. =) I constantly juggle at least 3 things in my life and of late as many as 5 things at once. I must tell you that I am passionate about each of my endeavors and if I am not I find something else to do. Whether it is in each project that I manage, getting a home for my clients, my schooling efforts, my badminton games or my family, it is that passion that drives me each day. Keep in mind that it isn't number of things that defines you, but that you are doing everything in your means today to make the most and enjoy this life that will quickly pass you by. For multi-taskers like me many interests come to mind, but for you it may be just a few things that you have always wanted to do in your life. Why sit their dreaming about those things? Go out and get after it!

At the end of the day nothing matters in life other than being able to look yourself in the mirror and that you are satisfied with no regrets all that you wanted to be and do in life. What is life without passion? I say that life would be just a half *** effort and that would be a waste of this wonderful gift of life.

Toys, Toys, Toys

I remember the day as clear as any, when I was walking through Toys R' Us at age 20. I was with John Vuong and saw a Super Soaker with the back pack and said "I've always wanted one of these." It wasn't but a few seconds later I said out loud, "wait a minute, I can buy this myself." Hence the realization that all the restrictions of poverty, parental restrictions no longer apply when you make your own living. I bought the Super Soaker that day and used it at many a BBQ's.

Now another toy that I have always wanted is here at last! There is a rationale behind this, my workplace is filled with Nerf Gun wars and no one wants to be caught unarmed in such a fight. I figured I protect my row by raining darts! Of course extra ammo is a must. The Nerf Vulcan EBF-25 is a decent weapon if you are stationary. You still need a side arm because once you are out of ammo, the reload time is long. There are discussions to extend the ammo belt and possibly modify the springs and get a faster motor. Enhancements will be made. You have to choose between single shot or automatic. If you choose automatic be sure to squeeze and don't let go or it will jam. When you are out though a side arm is a must. This toy takes 6 D size batteries and it is alot of fun!

Vulcan EBF-25

http://www.hasbro.com/default.cfm?page=ps_results&product_id=22378

Lots of folks have this gun at work too, seems to have good performance below.

Nerf N-Strike Longshot CS-6

http://www.hasbro.com/default.cfm?page=ps_results&product_id=17889

It's a dangerous sport so I have my safety googles, headband and of course Nerf wristbands for protection. =)

A Heartbreaker in Phoenix but Rays of Hope for the 49ers

NFL Iphone Enhancements

First off I applaud the NFL for coming up with a web browser customized to the Iphone. There are other Apps such as Score Mobile and Score Tap, but I find a lag in updates and slow general performance. I prefer getting data from the source. For those of you interested this is located at http://wap.nfl.com/, click Scores and bookmark this as an icon on your home page.

This was an exciting game even on a detailed play by play in class. A few improvements though and I will send these off to NFL.com.

- Reverse the order of the plays on the screen so the most recent update is on top. I had to scroll down to the bottom of the page for the most recent update and it was painful after a long 4 quarters of updates

- Have an auto refresh selection using ajax on the top of the screen so I can select the time to refresh. I believe ESPN has this when I owned the Treo 700w. Since the time out to auto lock is a minimum of 1 minute subsequently in 1 minute increments, perhaps a 50 second auto refresh increment would allow a user not to touch the phone and it will just show updates at dinner or wherever one maybe stuck at without having to unlock the phone. I was refreshing about every 15 seconds manually, so those options should be granted as well

- There seems to be a bug with the detailed play by play. Sometimes it shows the detailed text box score and other times it shows the high level, TD, FG summary. I had to reset my browser a few times to get what I needed

- Add a breakdown on stats by players, lots of us are fantasy players that would help a-lot

49ers Rays of Hope

On my drive home there were some livid fans on the air waves. It wasn’t quite clear to me what all the ruckus was about. The 49ers put themselves in a position to win the game against a solid Arizona Cardinal team at 5-3, with their 3rd string quarterback, a new coach’s 2nd game and on the road in Phoenix. I don’t know about you but I did not expect such a fight from the 49er team on all sides of the ball.

The key mistake they made was calling that Michael Robinson 2.5 yard diving play and then running it again to Frank Gore for the last 2 second play. But honestly, do you think Shaun Hill was practicing sprint right options in game winning situations? They only had 2 weeks probably just learning the snap count. They should have watched the line though, Arizona was ready and even Shaun Hill could have changed the play at the goal line and bootlegged in.

Taking a huge step back the 49ers almost won that game at the 1 yard line with 2 seconds on the clock. Yes they made a-lot of mistakes but Mike Singletary has turned this team around in 2 weeks. This is a display as to how good leadership can make changes and make it fast. On top of it all, without interference from upper management Mike Singletary will do wonders in the weeks to come.

If you truly want to see a dysfunctional organization at its’ best take a look at the Oakland Raiders across the bay. Raider fans keep taunting me that we are on a 6 game win streak. Fair enough, but at least the Niners are scoring points and don’t get skunked. Most importantly our owners don’t know much about football so they stay out of the way of those who do. Bad upper management can demoralize an entire team and that is evident from many folks speaking out against the organization. “Shut up and play” has never been a way to inspire any team member or employee in any job.

That being said, let Mike Singletary pulled this team together, because for the first time this season, this team played as one unit. They gave young rookies chances to shine to advance the career ladder and they did. Good leadership makes changes and gives hungry players an opportunity. Good leadership inspires and unites a team to a common goal. With 7 more games left at least Coach Singletary believes they can go 7 – 0. It starts with a belief, then its up to the coach to drive the culture and build the discipline and comradery to get there. It can be done, it will be done, if not this season, I am hopeful for the next.

Mike Singletary on KNBR, great interview, honest and forthcoming

http://www.knbr.com/podcast_skin/fb_singletary.html

Fantasy Football

I really don’t know what to do about Fantasy Football. The weeks we play certain players they have terrible games, the weeks we bench them they have breakout games. Case in point, Jay Cutler has been struggling for 3 games straight so we benched him. The turns out have a record game along with Brandon Marshall who we benched as well. We start Tim Hightower against the 49ers and the Niners have their first defensive stance in a very long time. On top of that Thomas Jones has a breakout game while sitting on our bench as well. What a frustrating first season in Fantasy!

Shaun Hill photo cited from http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/07K5ghOcFm9ou/340x.jpg

Robots in Disguise

The classic Transformers cartoons take me back in time to a fun filled Saturday morning cartoon childhood, afterschool specials and summers spent with old friends. These were days when life was simple and we had little responsibility.

Yat-Pui and Charlene came by to visit and I had to put on my Transformer shirt as inspired by Pui’s Autobot shirt upon arrival. It is great to be able to still be in touch with an old friend and of course his lovely wife. Congratulations to the new addition to your family!
Ava had a great time as well and excellent dinner!