Recently in RandomThoughts Category

Just an update on what happened with my championship Fantasy football games I won both championships so basically I won championships in half of my Fantasy football leagues.

Out of four Fantasy football leagues I’m in the championship game in two of the leagues. The other two leagues I was one position out of the last playoff spot. Coming into Monday night I have the lead in both championship games I am participating in.

The custom private league that I’m the commissioner of I have a commanding lead of about 130 + points that is insurmountable unless the players my opponent has for Monday have legendary games.

The public league is competitive level, where the point system is different and not as flexible I’m up by 3 points and have a very good running back that is the hub of the offense going Monday night and he has the number two or three wide-out on a not so potent passing team. You can never tell though but I like my position.

I haven’t won the custom league we call the BDFL (Big Dogs Fantasy League) I am the commissioner of in a couple of years. In fact my opponent who I’m beating had won the last two years and was going for a 3 peat. He’s not a Lakers fan so I had to squash that!

Anyhow just having fun here about the Fantasy sports I love to play its just nice fun and something to do on the internet that combines sports as well, I try to win but don’t go crazy over it.

We had Thanksgiving at one of my nieces place with her family. I started my Thanksgiving Day preparation of my usual smoked turkey Wednesday. I used a larger than normal turkey and it turned out well.

My dad fixed lamb and prime rib and one of my other sisters cooked a standard roasted turkey.

We all filled in with additional side dishes that have turned out well. I worked the day after Thanksgiving, from home as usual of course, and the day was mildly busy.

The rest of the weekend was uneventful I purchased some items for my computer room mainly a couple of more heavy duty UPS’ and another older rack mounted case. The rack is now populated with a dual processor Pentium 2 system. I will of course have no use for those items and uninstall them and build a more powerful system into this rack case which has a lot more space for drive space than all but one of my other 19” rack mount computer cases.

I also had another decent weekends of runs and even on back to back runs of decent distance my time is improving showing my overall fitness is improving since I’m able to handle back to back 7.5 and 6 miles runs improving by times in both.

Not too much special this week so far. Waiting for a person to come and get the items they bought at my garage sale so that I can get to the intent of the garage sale, getting more space to maneuver in.

Also had a couple of nice runs this week both in the 6 mile range I need to keep that up and hit the weights once my space in the garage is once again free.

I still have quite a few things to get rid of from my garage including numerous computer monitors. The monitors are all CRT’s since I moved totally to flat screen models in my computer room. The flat screens are much easier to move around than some of the CRT behemoths I had before. This flexibility is important since I'm always moving things around.

Well hopefully this weekend I will put another dent in moving items out of the house!!

I started off earlier this week thinking the U.S. will show the rest of the world what a quick and positive response to a disaster is. After hours of watching the same information I realized that people are doing nothing except using this disaster as a photo opportunity.
I think this under scores our Era unfortunately everyone projects images that mean nothing and very little gets done. Words are everything but execution and action is poor. People are rewarded not for actions or ability but because they sounded politically correct and patriotic. We elect people who make us feel good not people who get things done. This is from the local to the presidential office.
One more point I would like to make is that also to blame are past broadcasts of storms. You have preening reporters in tropical storms to different categories of hurricanes over the past few years using the same conviction, cliché’s for all level of storms. There was never any information on what the different categories mean. People just figured hey another reporter or politician is trying to make a career on this storm. That could be the reason some people never left.

I have been a big fan of the L.A. Dodgers since I was really young. Sunday 7-31-2005 I went to L.A. with my brother 2 neices and my one of my nieces friends.

Here are some pictures from the game (click on image for full view) :

Me and my brother

Niece, niece's friend & brother

Niece

Stadium shot of Players.

Dodger Stadium Hills

Camcorder Game Shot

Camcorder Another Game Shot

Another Game Shot From Camcorder Before They Told Me To Turn off Cammcorder During Game Action.

We have a fantasy football league that I am the commissioner of and it is set up now with 10 team managers and Yahoos Fantasy Football Plus League format. This league has highly customized settings. We also have a weekly payout bonus and a championship payout.

Most of the people in the league have played in it in years past with one exception and I played with him in another fantasy football league last year.

Like I said this league has highly customized settings that insure that you cannot have somebody just sit still with the team that they drafted and win! You have to actually be active and manage your team.

The superstars play a big part in the league but if you do not do your research every week and get some lesser stars and fill in players you will not win! With the bye weeks and a limited bench no one can stock up and expect not to make any moves and win!

Her are some of the settings:
Roster Positions: QB, QB, WR, WR, RB, RB, TE, W/T, W/R, K, K, D, D, D, DB, DB, DB, DL, DL, DL, BN, BN, BN, BN
Stat Categories: Completions (1)
Passing Yards (50 yards per point)
Passing Touchdowns (6)
Interceptions (-2)
Rushing Yards (20 yards per point)
Rushing Touchdowns (6)
Reception Yards (20 yards per point)
Reception Touchdowns (6)
Return Yards (20 yards per point)
Return Touchdowns (6)
2-Point Conversions (2)
Fumbles Lost (-2)
Offensive Fumble Return TD (6)
Field Goals 0-19 Yards (3)
Field Goals 20-29 Yards (3)
Field Goals 30-39 Yards (3)
Field Goals 40-49 Yards (4)
Field Goals 50+ Yards (5)
Point After Attempt Made (1)
Tackle Solo (1)
Tackle Assist (.5)
Sack (3)
Interception (2)
Fumble Force (2)
Fumble Recovery (2)
Touchdown (6)
Safety (2)
Pass Defended (1)
Block Kick (2)
Fractional Points: Yes
Negative Points: Yes

The heat has me staying close to the house and near the pool. I do enjoy the warm summer weather though and a nice dip in the pool.

Now's the time I finally have my weekends to start finishing up my projects and bringing them to completion. Everything is just rolling along and then its time to really start making some #&*$ing noise. Watch the smoke and that’s what’s going to be showing from the ruins because you know that when the fire's at its hottest the smoke is at a minimum.

The computer room is totally reconfigured! I have two portable stations on wheels for my laptops and their peripherals. I moved my main system to one corner and consolidated my two racks into one and placed that in the closet and added the tape library in the rack as well. I placed one of my UNIX systems in the closet unracked to run the library since it has a nice differential interface but I may decide to run the library with Windows or Linux instead.

I also moved my large screen TV out of the living room into the den where it actually looks better. I think I will also move my bar into the den. I am thinking of having the living room host to my vinyl turntables since placing them on a table in the computer room ends up crowding the room. I’m also going to place the dart board in the living room and possibly a futball table. I moved the smaller TV and entertainment set into the living room and will move the bookshelf with my vinyl albums in the living room as well.

I am looking to place another couch and beanbag type seating in the den as well.

Then outside need to get the front garden in order and weed the vegetable garden I put in. Now the pool is in shape and I need to decide if I should start a pool service. I think I will since that will free me from that since I have so much to do now.

Well we will see how it goes since I have not had a day off since November except Christmas & New Years day.

I still then need to tile the kitchen and bathrooms and trim a few places of the hardwood.