Pigeon Control in Great Britain...

An interesting story appeared on bbc.com earlier this week. It turns out that a pelican (which normally only eats fish) picked up a pigeon and had it in its beak struggling before finally getting the pigeon to go down its throat head first and alive. A little disturbing but interesting all the same:). You can see the article here.

Utah 45, UNLV 23

Utah comes up with another big win over one of the worst teams in the nation. Poor UNLV. They are 1-7 and they don't look like they will be able to win a game anytime soon. This was a pretty good game for the Utes. Ratliff had a great game going 19-23 for 268 yards and throwing three touchdown passes. The bad news is the Utes scored all of their points in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. That means that they obviously didn't play terribly well in the first and fourth quarters. Brent Casteel also had a pretty good game. He caught 3 touchdown passes but easily could have had three more. He was caught twice inside the 1-yard line and also caught a lateral pass on a punt return and returned it for a score - which was called back because it was ruled an illegal forward pass.

This was a pretty fun game for myself as well. Near the beginning of the second quarter a friend that I know in promotions came and got us to see if we wanted to be involved in some promotional things. We did and then got to go down onto the field to watch the game. We watched most of the second quarter from about the 15 yard line before two of the guys that I came down with got to cheer on an animated racecar and whichever car wins - the person cheering for that car got $50 in gas cards. I was supposed to kick a field goal at halftime for a chance to win $1000. That didn't actually pan out - and maybe I'll get to do something different in one of the next two home games.

We convinced them to let us stay on the field through halftime and for most of the third quarter before some guy came and kicked us out. We played catch on the sidelines and had a great time watching the Utes score 31 points right in front of us. After we were told to remove ourselves from the sidelines, I went up to watch the rest of the game in a suite. After the field-goal mix-up, they gave me suite tickets to make up for it. It was pretty cool also, free food, drinks, game guides, awesome seats. Too bad the fourth quarter was an awful display of Utah football. I don't care that they were up by 30-40 points. They still need to play football. UNLV had not given up but Utah had.

Now the utes are 5-4 and need to beat either CSU, Air Force or BYU to become bowl eligible. Maybe they should beat all three...

Return the Kids to Target!

I was reading the news online at work earlier this week and next to a story titled "Thousands of Pumpkin Decoration Kits Recalled" I found this picture.

I thought is was funny. You can see the story here, but I believe that they have now changed the caption to correctly read 'kits' and not 'kids'.

Rose Bowl Photos

Ok, I finally got pictures from my parents of our little trip down to Las Angeles to watch the Utes take on the UCLA Bruins. All of these pictures were taken before the game - so we are all still happy...

This one is a picture of us all at the Dodger game. The Dodgers won - but I can't even remember who they played.

This picture is a picture of Kevin, Alysia and I eating a nice game-day breakfast at the Embassy Suites.
We had some extra time on Saturday before the game so we went to visit Hollywood and Beverly Hills. We stopped by the Las Angeles Temple on the way back to the game.

The picture on the right was taken at the Rose Bowl . They are building new locker rooms - hence the construction.

Another picture in front of the famed Rose Bowl sign.

This is us at the game in the middle of the Utah section (on the 63rd row!).

Here is a picture during the midst of the carnage/slaughter. The stadium wasn't packed but the fans gave UCLA everything they needed to walk over the Utes. Even though Utah lost, we had a blast at the beach and throughout LA.

Would you like a hug?

After watching your team lose a lead like that and then get beaten by a team that they most certainly should have beaten you need something to cheer you up. How about a hug? (This will make you feel good!)

New Mexico 34, Utah 31

I’ve been dreading writing about this last game. Utah was up 24-3 at one point. I smelled a blowout. New Mexico (props to them) never gave up and kept bringing it straight at the Utes. In my opinion, this game was lost by the defense. This is the 2nd game in as many weeks that the Utes have lost to a FRESHMAN quarterback. Oh dear... The offense looked awful in the second half, but they had built up a lead and the only thing that the defense needed to do was to hold them. They had made that part look easy during most of the first half.

Eric Weddle – As good as this kid is, he did not play well in this game. Last week after the Utes lost to Wyoming, he kind of railed against the offense, talking about how the defense had done their part but that the offense had failed to do theirs. He cannot say that now. He has been outstanding at cornerback for the most part but yesterday New Mexico took it to him in crossing routes and he was beaten time and time again. He gave up at least 2-40 yard pass plays a 30 yard pass play and a pass interference call on third and short. I’m not sure if he was giving them too much of a cushion or if he was playing them as tightly as he could and they were just that much faster.

Previously Utah had either shown up for the whole game or not shown up at all. Yesterday, they showed up for the first half but not for the second half. This is a problem that is much more grievous than the other. If they get beat in a game because they were outplayed the whole game then that’s one thing. If they have a huge lead and just need to hold it but let their guard down – then that really reflects on the coaching…

At least basketball starts in about 2 weeks!

Wyoming 31, Utah 15

Oh dear. Sound the alarm, call in the reinforcements, Utah has laid another egg (Not by being shutout, but by playing like they should be shutout...). Utah played in Laramie today and was totally dismantled. (If you are interested in how this happened, please see the posts Boise State 26, Utah 3 or UCLA 31, Utah 10.) These games were all similar in the ways that Utah just played horribly and the other teams played fantastically.

Before this game, Utah was the only team in the whole wide world that had not given up a sack this season (ok, maybe just NCAA division I). Wyoming must have known something that all of the other teams didn't know though. They sacked Ratliff 6 times today. I had hoped to see Grady in at quarterback at the start of the second half at the latest. He didn't even get to play one snap. It was pretty obvious that Utah needed a spark in the game and it was pretty obviuos that Ratliff wasn't going to provide it. Grady may not have either, but he certainly wouldn't have hurt their chances.

Utah's next game is against New Mexico on Thursday in Albuquerque. This is a game that the Utes should win, but I certainly wouldn't bet on them...

Go Utes!?

Ken Jennings on the Colbert Report

This video clip is from The Colbert Report on September 14. Ken Jennings was the guest. He just moved out of Alison's parents ward and so I have actually met the guy a time or two when I visited their ward (before he was a celebrity). In case you don't know, Ken was on Jeopardy for 75 days (he won 74 of those days) and left with more than $2.5 milliion in winnings. He is on the Report (pronounced Repor') publicizing a new book that he wrote about his experiences.

You can visit his personal website here, but even more interesting is the Wikipedia article on him here.


Video: Ken Jennings on the Colbert Report
ps. Happy Friday the 13th. Nothing bad or crazy happened to Alison or I...

Midterms...

I hate midterms... This week has been very busy. I've actually only had one test this week, one last week and I've got one next week. My test this week was in Microwave Engineering. It was really tough but it's not extremely stressful because we have two midterms and there will be 2 portions on the final. The higher score of the two will go towards my grade. Therefore, even if I bombed this one, I have a second chance to redeem myself. If you want to see an example of the test I took see here (If you understand this stuff, next time offer to help before I go and submit myself to such torture).

Everything else here has been going well. Ada has been quite fussy this week. We thought she may be sick or have an earache, but now we are thinking that she is actually teething. It's quite a bit earlier than most babies but it's not unheard of. She is 11 1/2 weeks old and I think that the average is around 6 months. She just wants to chew on things when she is awake - which is unusual for her. She hasn't been sleeping as well - and we are guessing that this is because she is sometimes in pain. She seems to be doing better today though. Here is a picture of Ada at 11 weeks.

For the Birds

I found this little Pixar film on MSN Soapbox. It's clever. Many of you may have already seen it. The real reason for posting this is my curiosity of Soapbox's embedded player. Microsoft is notorious for not making things designed by them user-friendly with other programs. I wanted to see whether or not Soapbox was the same way.


Video: Pixar - For the birds

Utah 20, TCU 7

Holy Smokes, Another shocker. TCU, was a top 20 team last week before losing handily to BYU 31-17. They dropped out of the top 25 but that shouldn't have meant that they would not be very good all of a sudden. I honestly didn't think that Utah would be able to win this game. They have not shown that they have what it takes to beat a team that actually has a win over a Division I opponent. I was certainly wrong.

Going into the game I knew that if Utah wanted to win, their defense would have to step up. TCU has struggled to score points this year and so I thought that the game may come down to a field goal or two and be a very low scoring game.

Some of that turned out to be true. TCU's offense certainly sputtered. Utah played a fantastic field position game. Utah's punter, had longer punts than TCU's and after a couple change of possessions, Utah was able to capitalize. The Utes also had some big plays including a 49 TD reception from Ratliff to Casteel and TCU's last three drives all ended in turnovers (and they were all inside the 20).

So, the question remains, is Utah any good? That will be answered game by game. It virtually depends on what Utah team will show up each week. The one that got slaughtered by Boise State or the one that looked pretty good for the most part against TCU. Their next chance to show what they've got is against Wyoming next Saturday. Go Utes.

Improv Everywhere

I got an e-mail the other day from Jason Whinham (a friend from High School, studying Health Administration in Richmond, VA) telling me about the website improv everywhere. He directed me to a "mission" that they went on in New York City. Their mission was to go into a Home Depot store and shop normally for a few minutes. Then all at the same time, they would start moving in slow motion for 5 minutes. After that, they would shop normally for 5 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of standing perfectly still. It sounds like a pretty funny concept, especially considering that there were more than 200 people involved. You can read about that mission here.

After reading about Slo-Mo Home Depot, I was browsing their website and came across the mission Rob!. I found this mission especially entertaining, so much so that it was bringing tears to my eyes as I read, I was laughing so hard.

If you ever find yourself in New York City and something strange happens (because nothing strange ever happens in NYC), check out their website www.improveverywhere.com to make sure that you weren't a victim of improvisation.

A Real Life Success Story

A real life success story. I've had a wishlist on Froogle for more than a year and a half. Regardless, I've never received anything off of it - that is until just over a week ago. As you can tell, I was stoked. Abby bought me a late birthday present of an item that came directly from my wishlist. In case you were wondering, she got me The Truman Show with Jim Carrey. And to top it off, just last week, I got 2 more items from my wishlist. I had $40 to spend at Best Buy and Alison and I bought Franz Ferdinands new disk "You Could Have It So Much Better" and the movie version of "The Phantom of the Opera." It has obviously been a good month for the wishlist. We got the $40 because we signed up for Best Buy's reward zone when we bought our new computer and they gave us a percentage back. Turns out to be a pretty sweet deal I guess. As always you can see what else I am wishing for here!

Boise State 36, Utah 3

Well, There is certainly not much to say about this game other than it was Homecoming and the Utes were given a good old fashioned butt-whooping by the Broncos. I have never attended a game at any level in which the team that I was cheering for was outplayed on every side of the ball like the Utes were yesterday.

On the other hand I've got to give props to Boise State. They played a fantastic game. They dominated the Utes on offense, defense and everything in between. There were also a ton of Boise State fans at the game. If I knew my team was that good, then 5 hours is a short drive to watch them destroy the team that allegedly kept them out of the BCS the last time that they had an undefeated season (2004). I'll be behind Boise State for the rest of the season. TCUs out of the BCS running and now Boise State is the only team with a chance to make it from the non-BCS conferences.

How good or how bad is Utah? That is a question that still may not be answered for a couple of weeks. Of the two division I teams that Utah has played and killed, neither has won a game yet. I think that BYU won't have too much difficulty in winning the conference but I hope that the Utes or another team can put a wrench into those plans ;).