Utah Football and other things of interest or not as the case may be

Utah Football
I am going to use a part of an email from my old Utah roommate Dave who went to the game that Utah won. Utah’s consecutive game win streak is now at 15.

Just a quick report on the game from my perspective. First, the most important thing was that Utah won the game, but it was no walkover. Utah controlled the game, but they did not dominate. Utah State came out strong and actually took the lead 3-0. Asiata fumbled on his first carry of the season.

Utah then awoke, so to speak, and scored twice on good drives. But after they took a 14 to 3 lead, I told my friend Dave Hosick that Utah had better not get complacent. Utah had Utah State deep in its own territory, on is 3.5 yard line with a potential safety a distinct possibility, and then the Utah State running back went right through the Utah middle all the way for a TD. Ugh! It was the longest play in Utah State history, or so said the Salt Lake Tribune this morning.

Utah State was running a true spread offense, which is difficult to defend in my view. Gary Andersen and his troops have nothing to be ashamed of, as they played well and hard for the entire game.

The good news for Utah fans is that Terrance Cain is the real deal in my opinion. He was cool under fire and had very, very few plays that he didn't do well. The one question mark about him remaining is whether or not he can throw accurately the long pass. Utah did not try to take advantage of his running ability. That was too bad, because the Utes ran the same play with Asiata time and time again, and if he had faked the handoff and taken off he could have made big yardage.

Utah scored two safeties in the game, one on blocked punt in the end zone and another on a tackle of the USU QB in the end zone. Utah gave up a very late TD in the first half, when a pass bounced off a receiver and was intercepted by USU deep in Utah territory. The Aggies scored a moment later. Utah only scored 9 points in the second half, a TD in the 3rd quarter and then a safety in the 4th quarter. Asiata rushed for 36 times gaining 156 yards.

Another good thing of sorts for the game is that I thought the game was well refereed. There have been so many times in the past when I thought the refs really blew a lot of calls and hosed a team, usually the Utes. Utah didn't have too many penalties, and neither did the Aggies.

Thanks Dave.

I watched part of the Oregon – Boise State game. I was torn about which team to root for. Normally, I would have rooted for Boise States, the underdog. But, since Boise State had a chance to go undefeated with a victory over Oregon, I was inclined to root for Oregon since an undefeated Boise State season might affect Utah’s chances for a top level, post season game in January.

Perfect.

Then I thought about my Brother’s USC Trojans and how an Oregon defeat would benefit them.

In the end, I switched sides as the game went on.

Visitors
We had a modest uptick in visitors in the past week. We had 203 visitors who viewed 269 unique pages. This was the first time in several weeks that the visitor count was over 200. I surprised when I checked on the most popular pages in the blog archive. I found that January 1, 2007 had fallen to 59% of the traffic while the current blog page had risen to second place with almost 20% of the traffic.

I do appreciate all of you who come out to the blog from time to time.

Nokia
I happen to love Nokia cell phones. I currently own two of them. My first hand held cell phone was a Nokia Model 100, a small brick with no texting capability. All I could do with the phone was talking. I got that phone in 1990 and have used Nokia cell phones ever since.

My current Nokia phone is a Model 6126. I use it mostly for talking. I have sent about 60 messages in the three plus years I have owned it. I have so many messages because two of my students liked to send me text messages. I responded in kind with properly spelled words, proper punctuation, and proper sentence structure. I think that may have upset them.

By way of comparison, a month or so ago Doug sent something like 2,300 text messages under his unlimited data plan. He said that he is trying to cut down on his texting now.

So, why am I writing about Nokia in my blog?

I am writing to vent my extreme frustration with the Nokia online store.

It is horrible; it is painful to use; it sucks; it is a failure.

One of my Nokia cell phone’s battery recharging function was failing after three years of use. It is on the AT&T network so I went into the local AT&T store to buy a new phone.

All I wanted to buy was a Nokia cell phone that came in the flip form factor and use it to talk on.

That seemed very simple to me.

The nice young clerk said that the store didn’t carry any Nokia flip phones. She was very helpful in a not very helpful for me sort of way. She did show me a Nokia semi-smart phone that I could use to download videos and surf the Internet.

And, best of all, it was only USD$129 with a two year contract renewal.

Never mind the point that I have been off contract for over a year now and I am very happy being off contract.

She was very helpful when I said all that I wanted to do was and she suggested that I could purchase a Nokia flip phone online at either AT&T or Nokia web sites.

I went to the Nokia web site since I thought I would have more choice by going to the manufacturer. This was my step in the path to endless frustration and anguish.

The Nokia web site has a mandatory selection function that sucks. It asks you what is important to you as a cell phone user. None of the choices included simply talking. It was impossible to go directly to the form factor and navigate from there.

I don’t need GPS. Doug calls me The Navigator. I have maps that work wonderfully and I never have to run the risk of losing power in the device before I arrive.

I finally reached the section that I wanted. I was scrolling through the images of the phones. This went well until I clicked on the second page of photos. Some of the photos were being shown in a thumbnail size and some were being shown in life size. The life size ones overshadowed the other images so I had no idea what they looked like.

Brilliant design and web site management there Nokia.

Nokia has a sales agent chat function that is next to worthless. I was unable to even enter one letter in the conversation box when the agent came online.

So much for guided help Nokia.

After close to 45 minutes, I bailed out and abandoned the search and purchase effort.

I came home and swapped SIMM cards with the two Nokia cell phones that I have. I can now use the cell phone and it can properly charge my battery for my primary cell phone.

The other phone with the crummy or broken recharge function can still be used so long as I chat with the power cable plugged into the phone. This is an adequate work around since I rarely use the other phone; I have just kept it because I like the number and it is a lucky number, lots of 8’s in the phone number.

My long term solution doesn’t seem to have Nokia in much of the future.

Doug has been urging me to get an Apply 3G iPhone because it is an Apple and it is so easy to work. He said it has replaced his MacBook for many applications like emailing and web surfing. He used his first iPhone to take over 900 photos at the Princess’ wedding two years ago.

I’m just not sure if I want to be that connected to the Internet and everyone that I know. Being disconnected has its advantages in my little mind, like avoiding a nagging girl friend.

The other solution that looks very viable to me right now is a Samsung flip phone. My Verizon cell phone is a Samsung and it has performed very nicely for me for over four years now. Then, there is the economics of the cell phone; Samsung’s are much less expensive then the iPhone and buying two devices makes it more significant.

I still have time to make my decisions. When the phones ultimately fail, I will be faced with a decision. I can wait until then.


Be well and stay happy.