After reading Steven Garrity’s intelligent review of the new blogger templates, I gave some thought to the current design of the site. I especially appreciated his comment that the design should not compete with content. Looking at my old site design, this was clearly happening.

The most interesting things were happening in the sidebars in comparison with the rather boring text in the center. Also, the text seemed like it was completely surrounded by clutter, with random pictures on the left and tons of text on the right. It was just too darn busy! I also came to dislike an idea I was originally excited about - filling the right column with pictures and albums that could be changed by each regular (or, ahem, irregular) contributors. The fact is, they got changed about three or four times in as many months, and that’s a little boring. I did not do away with the “Photo Mojo” section. You’ll notice it’s there, but much smaller in the upper right hand corner.

I did like including pictures from “the wall” in the old design, but in order to implement a fluid design (which was requested by a couple of mathcaddy regulars) I chose the easy route of ditching the header pic and just keeping the sidebar image. I think it still works.

I still feel like the site needs something else and I’m not totally pleased with the way the comments section looks right now, but I am overall happy with the design. But don’t be surprised to see some changes here and there.

Is there a new design for Mathcaddy coming about soon that was maybe hinted at in the now redone comments section?

This meet started out how all other meets should start out, with the ambition to conquer the world. So being the Risk fanatics that we are, I went about trying to make a portable Risk board that we could play on the 3 hour bus ride to and back from Wenatchee.

My first idea was to secure small bits of metal to the underside of each piece and place magnets on the underside of the board beneath each territory. This didn’t work in theory because the magnets would slide all over the place and I didn’t have nearly enough magnets for each territory or any metal to place under the pieces. But I wasn’t going to give up that easily. After all, I did have all school day to waste thinking about this.

My next great idea was to carve holes all over in the board that would be as wide as an infantry unit, as long as a cavalry unit and have to slits to the sides for the wheels of the artillery units. This turned out to be a horrible idea because it involved completely destroying my risk board.

I thought that I had the solution this time. I decided to use pins to represent armies! In theory, the pins would be easily stuck into, taken out of and moved around the board with great ease. In reality, the pins bent when you tried to stick them in the board and once you got them through the board, they stabbed your leg.

When I had completely mutilated my leg with pin pricks to the point that I couldn’t stand anymore, I realized that the original game board would not work as my special travel edition. I remembered that we had a chunk of Styrofoam in our house that wasn’t being used for anything and I thought that after I drew the risk board onto it that it would work perfectly. Unfortunately, the board ended up not only being nearly impossible for me to trace to my satisfaction, but I also couldn’t find our precious Styrofoam.

While looking for the Styrofoam I found a nice tack board hat my Mom was using to display some necklaces and bracelets that she made. This would provide the perfect surface for my travel Risk board! Alas, she did not let me use it, of course why would she? That would only make my goal that much closer to turning into an achievement.

I thought that I had failed in my quest, but the next day things changed. I went to school with my 250 yellow-headed pins, multicolored markers, dice and original Risk board without any intention of actually getting a good game of risk going. Soon enough, I met up with someone that wanted to try to play a game of Risk. He had a map of Europe and a bit of western Asia with him from his Geography class and we decided to play on that for a 2 player map. We grabbed a mouse pad from a nearby computer and stuck that under the map so that the pins would have something to stick in. It worked wonderfully! When the class was near ending and the teacher wasn’t looking, I convinced her to let me borrow the mouse pad over the weekend so that we play Risk on the bus ride to Districts.

On the way up to Wenatchee I got in two good two player games of Risk, the first one I won easily, and the second was a bloody massacre with neither side gaining or losing much ground. I think that if the second game continued, I might not have been able to prevail.

We arrived in Wenatchee about 2 and a half hours before m race, which really sucked because we had nothing to do besides be nervous about our upcoming races. I was especially nervous because I was ranked dead last in the mile. In fact, I was only allowed into the race because a teammate of mine had decided to drop the mile and run the two-mile as fresh as he could be instead of running them both. After he gave up the mile I was next in line in the district to be let in to the race. I of course was told that I was let into Districts on Tuesday, a whole weekend and a day after I thought that my season ended with JV Championships. During that weekend I hadn’t exactly stuck to a ‘no carbonated beverage’ diet or any healthy diet for that matter.

Even after I heard that I was in Districts, that didn’t stop me from gorging myself at Carmichael’s Middle School Track Banquet at Granny’s Buffet. My little sister is on that track team and so is my good friends little brother, so we actually had an excuse for going. We also convinced two more of our friends to coincidentally show up for dinner. We ate in solitude in our back corner of the restaurant with no one else in our entire row of tables against the wall. My ‘food friendly’ friend came up with the great idea that we should have a race down the row of tables to the other side of the room. He explained that to move from one table to the next, you had to eat a full plate of food at the table that you were currently at. There were 12 tables in all so it sounded like a great idea! We all got off to a good start wolfing down food at the first three tables with ease. After the 3rd or 4th table we lost a participant and after the 4th or 5th table, it was down to just my fat and gassy friend and me. We kept a steady pace all the way to the 7th table and then decided that the last 5 tables would be all desert. I continued the race with a vanilla ice cream cone with sprinkles and a few cookies, but then my Dad pulled me out of the race because he wanted to go home. I was told that my friend kept on going, but he too had to leave before he could reach his goal. Rumor also has it that he wanted to stop by Wendy’s on the way home. He is my hero.

Anyways, at Districts, we were finally getting lined up to run the mile. I was very nervous and also excited because I knew that there was only 1 mile separating me from the end of my season, again. I decided that there wasn’t going to be any way that I wouldn’t run a sub 5 minute mile. I also promised myself not to finish last.

I took off the first lap trying to stick as close to the back of the pack as I could, and trying to ride their pace to my magical sub 5 mile. I started my second lap at 71 seconds, 4 seconds faster than I should have run my first lap. I kept telling myself every thing that I could think of to push myself and settle into my ‘groove’ pace, but the more that I told myself ‘you can do it!’, ‘you got this!’, ‘your going to break 5!’, ‘don’t let this guy pass you!’, ’stick with this guy till the end!’, the more unsettled I became and I just couldn’t find any pace that worked for me. I finished my second lap around 2:32 which was a bit more on pace than before, but slower that I would have liked. Physically, I felt pumped and ready to tear up the track, but mentally I was in shambles. Coming down the final stretch I looked up at the clock and saw 4:45, seeing that I thought that there was still hope for me to break 5. Neh, I didn’t. I ran a 5:04.99, which I bragged to my team mates was still sub 5:05. although I didn’t reach my goal of breaking 5, I did get second to last! I was happy to see that I was not a complete failure.

After my race we had an awesome 4 player Risk game on the official board and I was the first one to be conquered. *sigh*

Another week, another so-called “iPod killer”.

This time it’s Sony’s offering. Hey, what about Microsoft’s iPod killer? Or Dell’s? Neuros? Rio’s? E.Digital’s? iRiver’s? Or the original iPod killer, Archos Jukebox? Seriously, I’m going to stop because it’s just a lot.

iPod Killer! Who would have thought geeks could be so violent outside of Unreal Tourney? Dozens of tech companies are developing a product that by description has the intent of slaying another product! And why is everyone so sure they have THE iPod killer?

Don’t all these tech companies know the rules of iPod Killer Highlander? “There can be only one.” Can’t some of these players settle for being an “iPod taunter” or even an “iPod bully”? When I think about it, I suppose some companies might be willing to be the “iPod’s lunch money stealer”. Maybe “iPod threatener” doesn’t have as sharp a ring to it. They could always try “iPod hurter” or “iPod injurer”. There are gobs of alternatives!

Really, does everyone have to kill the iPod? Can’t we all just get along? These aren’t MP3 players - they’re MP3 birds of prey!

Although, come to think of it, the phrase “iPod killer” seems more prevalent than “MP3 player”. Perhaps rather than calling MP3 players just that, the product category should be called “iPod and/or iPod killers”. (iPods and iPod killers are apparently not mutually exclusive: Eliot Van Buskirk said, “Ironically, the biggest iPod killer of them all could be Apple’s next-generation models,” referring to the current revision of iPods.) HP seemed to follow this idea, making their iPod killer the actual iPod.

The great irony of this whole thing is that the iPods are all destined to be dead anyway. It’s quite sad to me that the common engineering standard of planned obsolescence means that my iPod is almost guaranteed to be dead before any of its foes have a chance to vanquish it.

Maybe that’s the real iPod killer, Sony, Microsoft, Dell, iRiver, Archos, and the millions of you out there. If you want to kill the iPod, just wait.

Its battery is slowly going the way of the SuperSize fry.

Patience: The conquering iPod killer.

All these threats to my iPod have me thinking: How much real quality time do I have left with my iPod? I should probably take it out to a psychedelic multi-color flashing room and dance around like a freak more often.

“All iPods die. Not all iPods really live.”

Right?

Wowee. It turns out that my 5:01.5 mile time got me a spot in Districts. This gives me another shot to break 5:00. It also means that I have to run again. It hurts.

On a second note, I helped out running Special Olympics today. That was fun.

In other news, I suck at posting.

I arrived this morning at the Orange County Airport (aka John Wayne Airport aka Santa Ana Airport aka I hate the abbreviation aka, okay?). Walking in the doors went well, but it went downhill from there.

When we took off from Orange County, we did an odd thing. As we got over the ocean to turn, we were headed straight out to sea. Then we turned right (toward Seattle), then left, then again to the right. As we made the third in this bizarre series of turns, you could feel the pilot take manual control of the jet. We banked to the right quickly and a little rough. We were now back on course, headed up the coast toward Seattle, but it felt like something was wrong. This feeling was confirmed as we started climbing to about 18,000 feet and then dropped to about 15,000 feet.

Then the pilot came on the PA and made the most unnerving statement I’ve ever heard. “Hello folks, this is your captain. The plane is completely flyable.”

What?? Who would have even questioned it wasn’t flyable?!

He continued: “There is absolutely nothing wrong with the plane that I cannot control.” Okay, still a little bit of a weirdly frightening statement. I, of course, knew everything was probably just fine. But he sounded so darn defensive it was pretty surprising.

The pilot then explained that the plane’s autopilot turning controller was malfunctioning and that he had requested permission to fly the plane manually to Seattle, but that we would probably make an “emergency landing” at LAX.

We did land at LAX a few minutes later.

I have no doubt there was nothing seriously wrong with the plane. I imagine the pilot was nothing but 100% truthful with us. But it got me thinking. What if there was something wrong? Say we had a good chance of needing to make an incredibly dangerous emergency landing? Would it be better to tell the passengers everything was safe even if it wasn’t? Perhaps just so they didn’t panic and increase the chance of failure?

Or what if the pilot was certain that we would not survive whatever condition the plane found itself in? What would he say to the passengers? Would it be better to tell the truth and allow people to know their fate despite the fear or would it be better to allow them to die peaceful and ignorant?

I wonder if airline pilots philosophize… or if they workshop airline ethics?

I was in Southern California last week. I had some interesting experiences. For example, I am my own worst travel agent nightmare. Heading for a week in Pasadena, I booked a flight from Tri-Cities to Santa Ana. I mistakenly thought that the John Wayne Airport (Santa Ana) was the Burbank airport.

Santa Ana is actually south of Anaheim, which is considerably south of Los Angeles, which is south of Pasadena. I was almost as close to San Diego as I was to Pasadena! Now add to that the fact that I booked a car from Advantage Rent-a-Car, which was several miles from the airport, despite Expedia.com saying it was located “at the airport terminal”. What they really meant it turns out is that customers have to call for a shuttle that picks customers up at the airport terminal and takes them to the middle of nowhere.

When I called for a shuttle, the oh-so-helpful and friendly representative from DisAdvantage informed me that they had no cars. None. I had a reservation… but they had no cars. They suggested they could take me to my hotel and then bring me my car later, if I was willing to do that. But they weren’t willing to drive my car to Pasadena! (Rightfully so, since it is - according to yahoo maps - an hour north!)

They said I was welcome to wait in their office for a car and that they would give me the first one back. Luckily, someone showed up with a car shortly after I arrived at the office. And it was a better car than I had ordered. It was a pretty nice little silver 2003? Chrysler Sebring. So off I went!

Then I realized there was another reason I am my own worst travel agent nightmare. The flight I had booked, in connection with the wait for my car, had me heading for Pasadena at exactly 4:05 on Tuesday afternoon on the most jam-packed highway in the known world. I-5 in Los Angeles. Now, this highway has cars that have been stuck in traffic jams so long that some parts have formed strata similar to the Grand Canyon. There are miles and miles of dead people sitting in cars that haven’t moved since 1970. (See picture at left.)

Eventually, I got to Pasadena. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Adam says: Mathcaddy Radio presents Adam’s 10 favorite songs of all time. Although, this is just off the top of my head… there’s probably other stuff I like just as much. Anyway, I invited Steve to participate in this session. And he did. His role was to offer his opinion after I shared with him some of my favorites. Sometimes he was even funny! Often he was just weird. And occasionally he hated my picks.

Steve says: Adam made me do this. He dragged me from my house with my heels clicking and clacking the whole way. I got a hair cut today. Adam gave me ice cream and it was good. I had a hard time saying what I liked and didn’t like about songs, so I just said anything else that came to mind. Some songs that I sound particullary hateful towards I actually like. So dont trust anything that I say. But don’t come to me for help when the communists come, I will be somewhere.

Mathcaddy Radio: Session 5

01: Palo Alto - “Too Many Questions”

02: Ben Folds - “Not the Same”

03: R.E.M. - “Be Mine”

04: Harvey Danger - “Terminal Annex”

05: Nada Surf - “80 Windows”

06: The Verve - “The Drugs Don’t Work”

07: Death Cab for Cutie - “Tiny Vessels”

08: Jawbreaker - “Stuttering”

09: Travis - “Writing to Reach You”

10: Roy Orbison - “You Got It”

[59 MB MP3 :: 64 Minutes]

Today I noticed that my iPod wouldn’t turn on and that there was a strange rattling sound coming from inside it!. I was very worried that it would be broken forever and that I would never again be able to listen to its sweet sweet sound through my blown out ear buds. I got home and charged it up hoping that it would just be running on an empty battery. Luckily it was. Unluckily, none of my buttons worked. I noticed that the hold button was engaged so I disengaged it. I guess that the hold button broke and was wandering around freely inside. Anyways now I get a new shiny iPod from customer service.

I ran the mile. I got a 5:01.5. Damn.