Weekend Update or Stuff I Forgot To Mention Earlier

Weekend Update or Stuff I Forgot To Mention Earlier
I was talking to Doug this afternoon about getting together for lunch next Saturday. I am planning on another thesis coaching – tutoring session in the South Orange County. Since I was going to be in the area anyway, I thought lunch would be a good idea.

Doug may be off shooting a music video with his friend Robin. Obviously, I didn’t ask who the group was since I don’t listen to the same music.

We did agree that Albertacos would be an excellent place to go for a No. 8 combination [two soft beef tacos, rice and beans] and a medium drink. I plan to swing by Gloria’s frozen yogurt and ice cream store on my way back to the beach. The ice cream will help settle my stomach.

Doug will get back to me about the meet-up later on this week when his plans are finalized.

I sent my favorite daughter and son in law five containers of Dunkers from Trader Joe’s. Dunkers are specially baked cookies that are designed to be dunked in hot coffee or hot tea. Trader Joe’s is a local specialty food store that often features close out foods. These Dunkers are extremely addictive and enjoyable.

I purchased one container of Dunkers for myself.

I had an interesting session with my department chair at school on Thursday. But, first, some background information to help you understand things. The business program is on the small side at my campus so there is no program chair for business. The handful of business instructors get passed around to other department chairs. I have had three different chairs in the last three quarters. My current chair heads up the criminal justice program.

I was sitting in the faculty lounge waiting for class to start when my chair asked me to go sit in on a criminal justice student meeting until he got things more organized. Having nothing better to do, I went and chatted with the students until things got organized. I stayed for the meeting because I didn’t want to disturb the meeting by leaving early. Towards the end of the meeting, he told his students that they should ask me if they had any questions about writing.

That was cool.

I spoke to him again after my class was over. He was working on student course assignments for the next term. I wished him good luck and observed that if I am teaching some writing classes as I requested that I might see some of his students in my classes. He said that he would prefer to have me teach writing to all of his students.

Sweet.

My fast drive home after school was doubly sweet for me.

McDonald’s is having a Big Mac promotion where you can buy two Big Macs for USD$3.50. I took the chain up on their promotion. I think this was the first time I have had a Big Mac in at least fifteen years and maybe twenty years.

I found the Big Mac on the bland side compared to the Burger King Whopper. I do like the Burger King offering much better especially because the Whopper has real pickles slices, real onion slices, and real tomato slices.

It is going to be a long time before I go back to McDonald’s again.

I don’t think that I left anything out this time.

Happy Chinese New Year.


Be well and stay happy.

Winding up the Week

Winding up the Week
Well, it is almost the weekend for me. This is a good time to look back and see what happened since the weekend. My Wednesday post got lost in a flurry of activity after my morning class. I had a light breakfast and a very late lunch that probably combined to give me a sugar low and a sense of exhaustion. I took a nap and that killed my afternoon writing session. I chatted with my friend Ling for a couple of hours Wednesday night before I crawled off to bed.

Thursday was a better day for me.

I stopped by my friend Gloria’s frozen yogurt and ice cream store for some chocolate ice cream of course. I was on my way to a meeting with the Dean of the Graduate School at Argosy University where I am taking my Doctor of Business Administration program.

Ice cream is always good to take in reasonable amounts. It helps keep my weight up and that makes Dr. Karen happy. Besides, the detour to go to Gloria’s store was less than nominal. And, I had a chance to talk to Gloria and catch up with the drama in her life.

As you all know, there is hardly any drama in my life right now.

Gloria was excited about the job referral I had passed on to her. It is for a department chair position at a local post secondary education school. She has already had two interviews including one with the school director so that seems favorable for her.

I also took a photo of a mural of Gloria from her store since she doesn’t like to have her photo taken. I can understand that since she is working behind the counter and her hair is up in a bun or something like that.

This is a reasonably accurate mural of Gloria except that she is not that tall in real life and I think her hair is shorter now.

My meeting at Argosy with the Dean went very well. I was concerned that I would face a time limit to complete my dissertation problem because of the cancer. I haven’t been able to write every much over the last year.

The Dean said that he would automatically extend my time limit by eighteen months. That solved one problem for me. The time extension lifted a real weight off of my back.

Then, there was the second problem for me. My dissertation committee chair had left the school while I was laid low with the chemotherapy. The Dean suggested that I either consider forming a new committee with a new chair and a new member with a background in statistics or asking my old chair if he would be willing to continue to serve and then find a new statistics member.

I said that I would like to contact my old chair and ask him to continue and I suggested a new statistics member that I have had for classes before for the committee. The Dean was agreeable to this so life was good again for me.

This morning I checked to see if I still had my old chair’s email address from before I had my catastrophic Windows Vista failure. Unfortunately, it looks like I do not have it as I have not found it in any of the likely places. I still have a couple of remote places to look but I am not optimistic for them.

We had what passes for some Winter weather in Southern California today; light rain and cool temperatures. The rain was only enough to make a mess of the finish the Pathfinder as I was out driving around this morning and afternoon.

Visitors to the blog have continued to drop off. The blog is now averaging eleven visitors a day. Last week, we were a little higher and had a total of 121 visitors; that would have been a normal day’s count prior to the fall off.

All in all, it has not been a really bad rest for the week for me.


Be well and stay happy.

[I really meant to post this on Friday.]

Where did all of the visitors go?

Where did all the visitors go?
Where did all of the visitors go? That’s a question that I would like to have answered. The blog traffic has fallen off of a cliff it seems. The blog has been averaging around 110 visitors a day until very recently.

Friday and Saturday’s combined traffic count was only 30 visitors. So far today, there have been nine visitors.

Wowie kazowie.

Do you suppose that young men are no longer interested in looking at young female models in bikinis any longer? That could be a sign of the end of civilization as we know it.

Then, there is the end of the Mayan Long Calendar in December 2010 to consider as well.

Before the visitor traffic collapse, we had achieved a total visitor count of 785 for the week. Next week, we will be lucky to break 100 visitors.

I almost feel like quoting from the Band of Brothers soliloquy in Henry V [Act IV, Scene 2, Lines 1 through 67]. I do appreciate those few, those happy few that stopped by to visit the blog.

Dr. Karen and Me
Dr. Karen was out on Friday when Doug and I went in for my regular three week visitation. We saw another doctor who was seeing me for the first time.

Our visit was not one that we are going to put down in the record books as being a great one. The new doctor does not know me as well as Dr. Karen; that is not his fault. It is the luck or not so much luck of the draw.

The oncologists want to wait until after I have another CT scan on February 9th to make a further evaluation of my condition and likely course of treatment. I hate the CT scan because you have to drink about 24 ounces of wall paper paste or what I think wall paper paste would taste like so the scan will function properly.

On the plus side, the MRI I had a week ago showed no change in the lesions on my liver. The new doctor agreed that no change was a positive sign; it was a stable indication and stability is a good outcome.

Mentoring
I met with one of my students who asked me for help in writing her resume and finding a new job on Saturday afternoon.

We talked for about an hour or so. She did come around to the idea of a mentorship. This will benefit her because now is not the time to be changing jobs, especially leaving ones with good pay, good retirement plan, and good medical benefits. I think it is a question of her coworkers more than anything else.

Crummy coworkers abound in almost every job.

I gave my mentee a simple assignment that will help her evaluate her job and a journal to record her thoughts, ideas, and questions. I will get her some help on resume writing and interviewing so she can be prepared if she does decide to leave.

Lunch with Doug
I had lunch with Doug at the Fatburger in Aliso Viejo in South Orange Country. Lunch came before the mentorship meeting so I skipped having the onions on my Fatburger with cheese and fries.

We talked briefly about the doctor visit on Friday and a little bit on where I will be taking him for his birthday dinner. We will not be having a traditional Douguary Dinner at Morton’s as we have had in the past. Doug wants to go to a new steak restaurant in Beverly Hills called Wolfgang.

It should be interesting to try a new place.

My Friend Gloria
I went by my friend Gloria’s frozen yogurt and ice cream store on my way home. I figured the chocolate ice cream would help calm my stomach after lunching at Fatburger.

Gloria served up what Doug would call a “law enforcement” serving size. I ordered two scoops and Gloria filled the cup up to almost three scoops worth of ice cream. Naturally, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by not eating all of the ice cream so I added some chocolate and caramel sauces and finished it. I didn’t get anything on my shirt either.

Dr. Karen would have smiled at me for consuming all of those calories.


That was my weekend; busy on Saturday and working on school lecture notes on Sunday.


Be well and stay happy.

A Day of Desperation, Frustration, and Anguish

A Day of Desperation, Frustration and Anguish
Today was one of those days that make you never want to leave the comfort and warmth and security of your bed. I seriously thought about calling in sick and letting someone else teach my Cost Accounting and Budgeting class. Unfortunately, no one at school at 8:00 AM could teach the course so the students wouldn’t learn very much.

Sometimes, I doubt whether they learn if I am in class or not.

As it turned out, only half, 3 students out of 6 students, of my Cost Accounting class showed up today so maybe I should have stayed in bed.

It was Wednesday and I stopped at my local Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to see Tihana and get one of her splendid large ice blended drinks. She was working a later shift today. I decided to get my drink since I was there and then go on home.

It tasted almost as good as when Tihana makes it for me.

That allowed me to give up on the idea of going back when she was likely to be there. I was disappointed that she wasn’t there because I came from school and looked rather professional and nicely cleaned up. I was wearing one of my grey suits with a white shirt and a red paisley tie and well shined black shoes.

Doug would have called it a Michael Clayton suit.

I had a phone call from the student who I think wants me to act as her mentor this afternoon. We had tentatively planned to meet on Saturday morning at a convenient Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. This would have worked out very well; I was planning to have lunch with Doug at Fatburger and then visit my friend Gloria’s frozen yogurt store on my way home.

Perfectomundo.

The student was calling to change plans slightly. Now, I will catch up with her at a public event where she will be working in a booth and talking about her employer. I will meet her after I have lunch with Doug.

I ought to be able to fit a stop at Gloria’s store in on my way to meet up with my student.

Excellent.

After I finished my lunch, I turned on the television to catch up on a fair and balanced world by watching the Fox News Channel. All I got on any channel was a message that service would be available momentarily.

I have Time Warner Cable service and it really, really, really sucks.
Time Warner Cable has no apparent concept of planning or execution.

I power cycled my cable decoder and when nothing changed I phoned customer non-service. The wait on hold was painful at best. The customer non-service person tried to make me feel better by apologizing; that was a useless exercise because there is nothing that she could have said that would have improved my mood.

After wasting or squandering fifteen minutes with the customer non-service representative, I was told that workers were installing new cabling to increase bandwidth. She gave a numeric breakdown of affected customers. There were a lot of them. She said the work would be finished around 5:00 PM.

I ran some errands and checked my email so it was close to 6:00 when I fired up the set to get the local evening news broadcast. The service was still down. I phoned customer non-service and listened to same vile music and pathetic sales messages. The new customer non-service representative checked and found the repairs had been completed.

Wonderful, just wonderful.

She tried to recycle my decoder box. This failed. She said something was blocking her signal from reaching my box. I said it was probably a result of the sloppy cable work. Naturally, she disagreed.

She said that I needed to sit and wait for a technician and I use that term in the loosest of all possible meanings. The earliest visit that I could schedule is next Wednesday afternoon.

Beautiful, just beautiful. Not

Finally, she tried to up sell me on buying more services from Time Warner Cable. Wasted effort.
Of course, she did help me move closer and closer to going with a satellite service like Direct TV.

Here is why Time Warner cable sucks and more importantly can’t plan and execute well. A month or so ago, I went without cable service for three days while the company installed new cables. Last week, I went without cable service for a day while the company installed a new connection box and cables in the building. Today, I am without service for who knows how long because the company installed new cable to increase bandwidth.

It seems to me that these activities could have been scheduled concurrently so as to minimize the customer inconvenience. If your work crews are pulling new cable then they could just as easily pull new cable and increased bandwidth cable..

On the bright side, I will be going to bed early so all is not lost.

Amazed that I could find a bright side in all of this mess? I always try to find some positive element in every disaster. I think this is a sign of an optimistic person.


Be well and stay happy.

Perfect Utah is No. 2

Voters give Florida No. 1 ranking; perfect Utah is No. 2
Associated Press
MIAMI -- Florida is No. 1 in the AP Top 25. Utah is perfect at No. 2, though not perfectly happy.

Texas and USC also claimed to be the best -- but media voters didn't think so.

The Gators received 48 first-place votes and 1,606 points in the poll released early Friday, after they beat Oklahoma 24-14 in the BCS national title game.

Utah, the only team in major college football to go undefeated this season, got 16 first-place votes and 1,519 points.

"I thought we had an outside chance," Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said in a telephone interview with the AP. "There was enough national sentiment, I thought we might get the No. 1 slot. It wasn't to be."

Florida won its third AP national championship and second in the last three seasons. Steve Spurrier and Heisman Trophy winner Danny Wuerffel led the Gators to the 1996 title.

No. 3 USC received one first-place vote. Texas was No. 4, and will have to settle with finishing ahead of fifth-ranked Oklahoma.

The Longhorns beat the Sooners in the regular season and thought they deserved OU's spot in both the Big 12 and national championship games.

The Utes from the Mountain West Conference swept through their regular season, while Florida and Alabama from the SEC, Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12 and Southern California from the Pac-10, jockeyed for position in the national title chase.

The Mountain West does not have an automatic bid to the BCS -- it's not considered a strong enough league to deserve one -- but the Utes earned their way in.
Utah was seventh in the final regular-season poll, but that perfect record looked much more impressive after the Utes beat Alabama 31-17 in the Sugar Bowl last week.

"All you can do is go out and beat the people on the schedule, which was exactly what our guys did," Whittingham said.

Whittingham proclaimed his team No. 1. USC's Pete Carroll had already done that after the Trojans' 38-24 victory in the Rose Bowl against Penn State. Texas coach
Mack Brown followed suit, proudly touting his Longhorns as the nation's best after a 24-21 victory over Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl earlier this week.

Whittingham said he would vote his team No. 1 in the USA Today coaches' poll, even though the American Football Coaches Association has agreed to have all its voters place the winner of the BCS national championship game first on their ballots.

Utah did receive one first-place vote in the coaches' poll and finished fourth.
Whittingham isn't worried about losing his vote.

"That's their call," he said. "I have to look out for my players."

Brown said he'd vote for his team, too.

Carroll has never had a vote in the coaches' poll, always skeptical of the way major college football crowns a champion.

Florida's Urban Meyer became the 17th coach to win multiple AP national championships.

"I'll tell you, we're going to enjoy a big win, we're going to enjoy the national championship," he said, brushing off questions about other coaches claiming their team is best. "Let someone else worry about that. Gators are No. 1"

Alabama's loss to Utah dropped the Crimson Tide to No. 6 in the final poll.
TCU, Utah's Mountain West rival, finished seventh, followed by Penn State, Ohio State and Oregon.

Boise State led off the second 10, followed by Texas Tech, Georgia, Mississippi and Virginia Tech.

Oklahoma State, Cincinnati, Oregon State, Missouri and Iowa rounded out the top 20.
Florida State, Georgia Tech, West Virginia, Michigan State and BYU were the final five.

Undisputed Utes
Utah completed its second undefeated season in the BCS era with Friday's 31-17 Sugar Bowl victory over Alabama. Keep in mind that in 2004, Florida's Urban Meyer was the Utes coach. Here's a look at those years by the numbers:

Utah Unbeaten Seasons,
BCS Era
2004 2008
W-L 12-0 13-0
PPG 45.3 36.9
Yds PG 499.8 399.7
Opp PPG 19.5 17.2
Opp YPG 343.3 289.2

Final AP poll
School Record Points
1. Florida 13-1 1,606
2. Utah 13-0 1,519
3. USC 12-1 1,481
4. Texas 12-1 1,478
5. Oklahoma 12-2 1,391
6. Alabama 12-2 1,264
7. TCU 11-2 1,193
8. Penn State 11-2 1,153
9. Ohio State 10-3 1,013
10. Oregon 10-3 997
11. Boise State 12-1 938
12. Texas Tech 11-2 916
13. Georgia 10-3 903
14. Mississippi 9-4 857
15. Virginia Tech 10-4 712
16. Oklahoma State 9-4 534
17. Cincinnati 11-3 506
18. Oregon State 9-4 467
19. Missouri 10-4 435
20. Iowa 9-4 317
21. Florida State 9-4 246
22. Georgia Tech 9-4 223
23. West Virginia 9-4 144
24. Michigan State 9-4 138
25. BYU 10-3 137
Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press

This certainly was a very nice end to the University of Utah’s 2008 Football Season. Number 2 in the nation is not a poor final ranking. It is a very long way from YU’s spot at Number 25. I talked with the Princess today. We both agreed this was about as good as it will get for our Utes for some time. Interestingly enough, the Mountain West Conference which is generally regarded as not being in the same class as some other athletic conferences had two teams finish in the Top Ten, Utah and Texas Christian University.

So much for not being a high quality athletic conference.

Visitors
We had 947 visitors last week. The visitor level is getting back to the pre-holiday levels. With this visitor level, it is impossible to track the source of the visitors on a daily basis because the Sitemeter information is only valid for the last 100 visitors.

The most popular page is still January 1, 2007 because of the wide range of Women of the Moment features.

Visitor traffic is now predominantly foreign with domestic traffic amounting to around 45 to 40%. We did have a new visitor from the Maldives. The Maldives, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the nation, is a string of islands in the Indian Ocean.

I do appreciate all of you who take time out of your schedules to wander around the blog.

Balancing Checkbooks
The blog is now starting its fifth year; fascinating.

We ought to achieve at least two major, for the blog, milestones this year. We should reach the 50,000 visitor mark and we should hit the 1,000th blog posting.

Other Drama in My Life
I think I had a student ask me to become their mentor. We are planning to talk about this possibility during the week. I guess I really must be a good teacher.

I had my every three week blood tests on Friday. I had a new technician drawing my blood. She wasn’t very good so I now have a rather ugly look bruise on my left arm, hopefully it will go away in a few more days.

We are having a warm spell in Southern California right now. It was about 76F – 24C today. It should be like this all week long with a slight cooling by the weekend. This is our Winter and we should be cool and wet from the rains.


That’s fine with me. The young ladies were out today, playing beach volleyball, when I went for my walk along the beach this afternoon.


Be well and stay happy.

Catching Up

Catching Up
I was off catching up on lesson plans and lecture notes on Monday. I didn’t do any over the Christmas Break. I should feel badly, but, since none of my students did any work, I don’t feel badly at all.

At least, I read the chapters which more than I can say for my students.

I wonder how my Tuesday night students will do on their quiz next week.

I think one of my students asked me to be her mentor. I say I think because I am not sure if that is what she wants. We didn’t have a chance to conclude the discussion about me helping her. Still, it does feel nice to have been possible asked to be a mentor. I am certain that I can help her and provide an information and guidance source that she does not have access to otherwise.

I think she wanted me to call her today or at least that is how I interpreted her gesture as she left class last night. So far, I haven’t heard from her so I will just wait and see what develops in the next few days.

Today being Wednesday, I went to my local Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on my way home from my morning class. It was also Tihana’s day to work so I had a very nice large ice blended when I got home and fixed my lunch, a sandwich.

Tihana asked me if I was back at school teaching. During the Break, I had been coming into the store in jeans and sweatshirts. Today, I came in wearing a brown suit and tie.

On Tuesdays, I have to kill about six hours between my morning and my evening classes. I could drive home and then return. The total drive would take, under ideal conditions, a minimum of two hours. It would be more like three plus hours if I stayed at my flat for more than a couple of hours.

In terms of the time spent and the cost of fuel, to say nothing of the added frustration from driving in heavy traffic, I am better off staying at school.

I killed the time by talking with another instructor who is in a similar situation. We had a good discussion that covered why the school is not run properly; we could do a much better job.

Doug called me on Monday to tell me that he had a case of bronchitis and that he probably would not be joining me when I see Dr. Karen on January 16th because he is concerned about exposing me while I am in chemotherapy. I will try to talk into going to see Dr. Karen with me and I will point out that I am at the hospital regularly and the hospital is full of people who are sick.

Be well and stay happy.

Utah Stuns Alabama in the Sugar Bowl

Whittingham, Utes believe they deserve consideration for national title

By Heather Dinich
ESPN.com

NEW ORLEANS -- Utah quarterback Brian Johnson deserves an explanation.
After all, he has a very valid question.

"What else do we have to prove?" asked Johnson, after leading his team to a stunning, convincing 31-17 win over Alabama in the Allstate Sugar Bowl.

The answer should be nothing. Should be.

Johnson did a remarkable job of orchestrating the spread offense against one of the best defenses in the country, and it took precisely one quarter for Utah to establish which team was better. No, it wasn't the big, bad SEC program steeped in tradition and oozing with talent. It was the unheralded Utah Utes, the only undefeated FBS team left in the country. And they were up 21-0 after their first three possessions.

Surprise.

These guys aren't BCS Busters, they're BCS bullies.

After Boise State's win over Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, and Utah's win over Alabama, there is plenty of indisputable video evidence to overturn the notion that the non-BCS schools aren't deserving of at least a shot at playing for the national title. It's not like Utah beat Pittsburgh (that was sooo 2005). Utah dominated a national championship-caliber opponent. An SEC team that was ranked No. 1 in the country during all of November.

Kyle Whittingham believes the Utes can hold their own with any team in the country.
Utah coach Kyle Whittingham thinks he has a national championship-caliber team, too, and would like the chance to prove it.

"Well, I don't know why they wouldn't deserve consideration," to play in the national championship game, Whittingham said. "Somebody has to explain to me why they wouldn't. There is only one undefeated team in the United States of America right now in Division I football, and it's these guys right there.

"All you can do is go out and beat the people that are on your schedule, beat the people you play against, take care of business and do what you can do and that's about all you can do. All the other things are beyond your control."
Alabama was not beyond Utah's control.

The Utes put on a show with their dazzling defense, and accomplished something few teams were able to do all season: stop Alabama's smashmouth running game and pressure quarterback John Parker Wilson the entire game. He was sacked eight times and threw two interceptions.

Yes, Utah was playing like it had something to prove, and Alabama coach Nick Saban helped to motivate them a wee bit.

The Utes have a number in mind for their ranking.

Saban infuriated some of the Utah players with his comment that the Crimson Tide were the only team to have a 12-0 record that "plays in a real BCS conference."
Saban apologized if anyone was offended by that, but it was four quarters too late.

It's hardly as if Alabama was Utah's first victim. The Utes beat a TCU team that was ranked No. 12 at time, No. 14-ranked BYU, Michigan and an Oregon State team that had just come off a huge win over USC. Utah became the first program from a non-BCS conference to win two BCS bowls. This is its second undefeated season. In 2004, Utah was the original BCS Buster and beat Pittsburgh in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl. This year's No. 6 ranking in the final BCS standings is the highest a team from a non-BCS conference has ever had.

The Utes have had a strong enough season that they should earn a top-15 ranking in the 2009 preseason poll, and that's one of the first steps toward sneaking into the top two spots in the final BCS standings.

They also have to go undefeated, again. And other programs, like Florida and Oklahoma, have to lose.

A major hurdle, though, would be for the Mountain West Conference to earn an automatic bid to a BCS bowl game. This was the first of a four-year evaluation period for the MWC.

"I don't know what we have to do," Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson said. "We keep proving. We take the challenges as they're presented. It's one step at a time. We've made great progress. … The goal 10 years ago is no different than the goal today, and that's to be an automatic qualifier in a BCS bowl game each year.

"You can't do any better than being 13-0 and winning a BCS game. Do we have to do that three more times to gain automatic qualification? I hope not."

Brian Johnson torched the Tide for 336 yards and three touchdowns in the Sugar Bowl.
The players certainly aren't holding their breath."To tell you the truth, I don't think they'll ever give it to us," defensive end Koa Misi said. "We're the Mountain West. There's not much else we can do other than beat Alabama, and I still don't think we're going to get it. I really wish we could go on and play in a national championship, but this is as good as it gets for us, and this is great."

Johnson didn't hesitate for a second when asked where he would rank Utah in the final polls: No. 1, of course.

"I think people get caught up in looking at the athletes and the glamour of a name that program carries," Johnson said. "But that's the reason why you play the game. … And you know, people take this stuff personally. This team, it's a blue-collar team. We work for what we get, and this is something we wanted really bad. So I think we deserve it, and I definitely think without question we are one of the best teams, if not the best, in the country."

They might be. Oklahoma, Florida, Texas and USC would disagree. At the very least, though, Utah has earned the right to find out.

Heather Dinich covers college football for ESPN.com. You can contact her at Espn.hd@hotmail.com.

That certainly is a very nice way to start the year. Recruiting for the Utes should be better in the coming months; winning big on national television brings a new level of exposure to the University and to the team.

The Princess called me after the game ended. This was a perfect ending to watching the game on television for me. We both felt the score should have been higher, perhaps more like 38 or even 45 to 17. We felt that Utah left some points on the field with some less than stellar ball handling and play calling.

My friend and roommate from college would say that Utah needs to replace their offensive coordinator. I would agree with him; the play calling is almost predictable. When we were at the Utah – San Diego State football game, we were calling the plays from the stands with a very high degree of accuracy.

Visitors
This is the end of the year visitor summary. All in all, 2008 was a great year for the blog. We had 3,526 visitors view the blog during December. This is the second highest visitor count in the history of the blog. Next year, I suppose that I will be saying something else.

I noticed during the last few days when I was online that the blog had visitors from Kazakhstan and Madagascar. I think these are firsts from these countries. I do wonder what there visitors found so interesting in the blog.

We had 23,433 visitors to the blog during 2008. This is close to three times as many visitors as the blog achieved since I started writing it back in January 2005. When I started writing, a couple of hundred viewers was a good month for me.

In January 2005, I started writing the blog out of a lark. Something that Doug had gotten me interested in and something that allowed me to talk about things on my mind and it provided a mental relief valve for my mind.

Looking Forward
What will happen to the blog in 2009?

Fascinating question.

I don’t have any answers yet. I do hope to be able to continue the blog for another year and longer. I will still be having my every three weeks session with Dr. Karen at least until mid-year. Then, she will have finished her fellowship and will have moved on.

I wonder what the next doctor will be like.

It would be nice to find a female friend and let her add to the blog from time to time. I think that I will give up on waiting for Lisa’s friend, Liz the Lonely, to call me.

Now that I seem to have a better grip on my cancer, I want to get back to writing and finishing my dissertation this year. I am pretty certain that I can complete it in a year or so.

2008 was an interesting year for me. I hope that 2009 will be more interesting and rewarding for me. I hope your 2009 will be a better one for you.


Be well and stay happy.