Weekly update

Ravens won, offense looked lost for the first half as usual

For some reason the GOP primary has caught my attention.  Herman Cain is accused of sexual harassment.  Sound familiar Clarence Thomas ring a bell?  Is it that these "powerful" black men aren't well behaved or more prone for compliant?  I think the latter.  They may have made those comments or actions, but so have many other men.  I think the comments/actions weren't as well received by the victims because the perpetrators are black.  That comes from what I have seen in my experience.  I see lots or harassment that is laughed off or even accepted as desired attention, but usually from white men in power. If it came from a black man and he said it well that's another matter.  I am not supporting inappropriate behavior in the workplace in anyway, but it happens.  What the question is how is it dealt with and is it fair? 

Weekly Update

Ravens Lose to the Jaguars
I dont know if I am mad at the Ravens or myself for Staying up so late for nothing
As I saiud last week the Ravens offense is average at best and last night it wasnt at its best
The shame is the defense is almost always a Superbowl winning defense
The offense is a losing team, bottom third offense
What could have been if we had an offense
It used to be the blind loyalty to a sorry quarterback
Now it is an offensive coordination/communication/trust issue
Something has to change

Went shooting this weekend.  I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it. Seeing those clay pigeons exploding from my well aimed blast.  Now I want a shotgun again.

Weekly Update

Ravens won
Flacco made 2 nice passes, but that doesn't excuse the first half struggles
Yes there was pressure, but why freeze and fumble?
People compare him to Ben, Ben doesn't just stand there and get hit, he moves up in the pocket or laterally
Flacco isn't an elite quarter back he is average and that's it
We have to work with what we got
If that isn't good enough then we need another one

Other thoughts
Republican Primary
What happened to the tea party?
I was expecting some more crazy candidates to laugh at besides  Michele Bachmann and Palin before she quit
It's becoming more of the same people corrupted by the system into mediocrity
Cain is interesting, but do you really think they are going to nominate a black man?

Diet update

A short one.  I stuck to that diet I started in the end of August pretty well.  I lost another 10 pounds and am making some muscle gains.   By pretty well I followed in for 5 weeks and even since then I have adapted my "regular" diet to limit carbs as much as possible and maximize protein.  I probably am not eating enough to really gain muscle as I find it hard to eat often as prescribed.  The foundation is set to keep getting fitter and I cant say enough about the diet.  Also I was worried about all the cholesterol I was eating from all the meat and fat and lack of fiber, but I had check up, as I was in the midst of the diet and my numbers were "excellent" (to quote the Dr's office). Also my lower blood pressure number was, earlier this year, a little high, but it went to the excellent region aswell.
Was it all diet?  I don't know, because I had been exercising regularly since the winter, but I stepped it up a bit.  I do 5 days was week in the gym. Some cardio (20-30 minutes) and mostly lifting.  My progressed is self enforcing and that is great.    

Game of Thrones Book 5 Observations

I am on vacation this week and just finished the latest Game of Thrones (GoT) Book (#5 Dance of Dragons).  I started reading this series by George RR Martin after seeing the HBO trailers for their 2011 series GoT in 2010.  I read the first few books before the series started (books 1-4).  These I borrowed digital copies from the library, which doesn't have too much content, but it actually had these books.  To borrow digital copies you have to wait for their copies to be available then download them within 3 days.  These being popular the was a wait up to a week or more.  Then you had the traditional 14 days borrowing period once downloaded to read the books before they expire on the reader.  These books were at least 700-1000 pages, but I was so into them I got them done in as little as 5 days.

So the first book was excellent and I see why HBO picked it up.  This isn't meant to be a comprehensive reiveiw of the series but sufficed to say it is a fantasy medieval with adult themes: sex, violence colorful language, the typical HBO series we know and love.  The next book was good, leaving you hungry for more.  But the 3rd and 4th started so many threads new characters and story lines, but didn't close enough.  Many main threads stagnated and were passed over for new characters that you just didn't have much invested in thus leaving you empty.  I wouldn't be spoiling anything to tell you some story's did get wrapped up and some main characters did too (wink wink), but the ratio to closing and opening was not positive.  This leaves a web of threads needing to be trimmed.  The author had been working on this 5th book for sometime and it was released in summer 2011 (after the HBO first run of book one was done) .  He offered some explanation of the 4th to the 5th book ie the timing being long between books and the shift.  The shift needs some explanation. In the 4th book some main story lines were just dropped; you just didn't hear from those characters. This was actually ok if you had heard enough or got enough from the ones he did voice.  So I guess I should have taken a lesson from in the 4th book in which the storys you did have were left open, meaning the ones in book 5 would be left in limbo too.  But in his explanation he spoke of weaving the storys together in time and practical function, so that gave me some hope that certain things would be moving the right direction and I would get more satisfaction.  Well that didn't happen.  The good news is it was still well written, but less of the details and sense of place that the other novels had, but still enjoyable.  I guess about half way through I saw that things weren't closing, so that left me really turned off at that point.  I held out hope I was wrong, but as the chapters moved in I saw my fears were realized.  Although there was some twists, that we know and love in this series, but not enough to let me say this book was great.  Now will I read book number 6 (and I guess 7, no way to wrap up all the loose ends in the next 1000 pages) yes I will.  Not really an endorsement but a following through on my commitment.  I am a newcomer to this series, getting all my fix in less than a year, how do the die hard fans that started with this series form the first book think?  My commitment is much less, but again maybe I enjoy punishment.        
    

Death Penalty Debate

Some in the black community (and other groups) are outraged that Troy Davis was put to death.  They point to the unfairness of the death penalty and the disproportionate number of minorities facing capital punishment as a reason to save him and end the practice.  There is much truth in this argument.  In the last few months large numbers of people have held vigils, raised money and ran petition drives.  Countless hours have gone into this man's appeals and raising awareness of his case in the hope that he will be saved from death.  There seemed to be a ground swell of support for this man as evidenced by the media coverage and the vocal arguments made on his behalf by the community.  The consensus was we live in an evil country suffering under an evil unjust government.  I agree with the evil country part... 
    Here is my take: This is sad.  The US executed less than 50 people per year in the last few years while the number of murdered people was more than 15,000.  If each death row inmate had as much support as this man did then there should be 300 (15K/50) more times support for the murder victims.  I haven't heard more than a passing local news story about a standout student killed by a stray bullet or a child killed by her crazy parent.  Where is the outrage against the real evil in our country: the criminals?  Where is the outrage and accusations of a conspiracy to kill and continue the cycles of violence?   Will they march against criminal gangs or organized crime?  Will they raise their voices against drug dealers and other violent criminals? No they attack and defame the government and systems that allows our relatively free society to exist.  Wouldn't it be a better place if these efforts were spent to end crime and the causes of crime that put men like Troy Davis in the situation that leads him to death row?  Instead of fighting for the criminals shouldn't we fight against their evil and instead offer opportunity?  I wish we could bottle up this misdirected sympathy and effect real change.  I'll end it with this.  If a man walks into your house and shoots your husband or wife dead. You will turn to the corrupt racist system to resolve this injustice done to you. You will put your hope into that system to find, stop and punish him for what he has done.  So why use this opportunity to take away its tools, condemn it for its flaws and undermine its authority?  Me,I'd rather use my time to keep that man out of my house....

Yeah about that Hurricane

Yep no big deal.  Many people lost power for up to a week and lots of trees down.  Actually the trees down into power lines was the biggest issue.  A coworker of mine's parents had a tree fall into their house, but it caused little damage.  A minority of people, I know, lost power.  The boat was fine.  One line came loose,  but there were extras in place.  The storm surge was a storm suck.  The water went out of the bay as opposed to up.  They say due to the wind direction.  Now the week after we have had lots more rain from a tropical storm that hit the gulf coast (Lee).  This caused major flooding in the area.  I wonder if the hurricane plus this tropical storm exacerbated the water levels or was the tropical storm alone responsible?
These storms got me thinking about at least having a back up power source, be it a generator or going solar (with batteries for back up).  The generator would require storage which leads me to a fall/winter project of adding a hoist mechanism to the garage for loading items onto the loft.  I thought about this before for buying a snow blower, but I never got one so the project foundered.