My team

**I wrote this back in September, but just now got around to adding links/pics and posting it.  As I sat and watched the Seahawks on Monday night football.**

Growing up in Utah you don't get a "hometown" NFL team.  You either go with the Denver Broncos as the closest geographically, or you go with the 49er because of Steve Young.  I remember as a kid watching each of these teams win a super bowl and rooting for them.  But let's be honest, I was never really a fan of either of them. 

For the most part I've just ignored the NFL, watching a big game here and there, and rooting for whatever team had my favorite former college star.  (i.e. Dennis Pitta on the Ravens, Austin Collie on the Colts/Patriots, John Beck on whatever team picked him up that season, etc.)  Then as soon as that team started doing poorly, or my player was traded I stoped caring again.

As of last night, that is no longer the case.

I have chosen to be a fan, follower, and supporter of the Seattle Seahawks.  I would like to here present you with my reasons.

1. Seattle.
2. Neon Green and Grey.
3. My parents and my in-laws live in Washington, I likely will too someday, so I might as well start cheering for them now.
4. Some small connections to a handful of players including: Russel Wilson who I followed through his years at Wisconsin, Robert Turbin who played at Utah State (and scored a TD on an 80 yd run on the FIRST PLAY FROM SCRIMMAGE against BYU in '11), and Golden Tate who I had on my college football fantasy team for several high scoring weeks.  (Other's include Jermaine Kearse and Bobby Wagner.)
5. I like them, and it's as simple as that.  From here on I will support the seahawks win or loose.

I've kind of been a Seahawks fan for awhile, but very much a fair weather fan.  I was irate when the '06 superbowl was stolen from them by the officals and the Steelers, but I stoped caring as they rebuilt.  Now I'm jumping back on the bandwagon, but I'm here to stay.  I really like teams from Seattle.

Gray

So in titling this post I had to pause and decide if I should use 'grey' or 'gray'.  For some reason I'm much more partial to 'grey' but the "traditional american spelling" is 'gray' so we'll stick with that.

So in (approximately) 10 days and 22 hrs BYU will host (presumably) nationally ranked Oregon State in BYU's annual homecoming game.  This is a special game because BYU head coach Bronco Mendenhall is a graduate and former assistant coach of Oregon St.  Also it will be the cougars first real test since barely loosing to Boise St. and the first of three huge and difficult games that make up the meat of BYU's schedule this year.

Finally, it is also the first time that BYU will not wear white, or blue as their primary color.  I'd like to say that BYU has been a uni-staple, but between 1999 and 2004 they went a little crazy with uniform ideas, but in 2005 settled back down into the tradition.  This month all that tradition gets a little tweaking with a (jumping on the bandwagon) black out.

In the uni-watching world we call this BFBS, and black for black's sake is generally frowned upon, as is grey for grey's sake, or pretty much using any color that isn't one of your team's official colors.  But I don't care, these uniforms are gonna rock.  Why? because I said so.  While this comes as a surprise, it's not quite as jaw-dropping since the idea was leaked back in April.

All this thought of BYU uniforms makes me want to compile an awesome database of their uniforms... but for now I'll leave you with the beautiful pictures of BFBS.

You're probably wondering why I called this post Gray, well it's because of this beauty.  That grey with the blue!  ohh it is soooo good!!! I LOVE IT!  if they did one thing right here, it's the use of grey.  boom.

Oil

For some reason I love this logo, like a lot.

For those of you who don't know about former NFL teams, this is the logo of the (since moved to Tennessee,) Houston Oilers (and being in Tennessee where there's no oil, the became the Titans... go figure).

The logo is just simple, nicely colored, and it says a lot about Houston, Texas, the oil industry, and the history of all those.  It's just cool, and you never see it around anymore because the new Houston football team chose worse colors and an ugly logo.  So I decided to memorial-ize the Houston oil derrick as a 3D sketch, 'cause I do that.

BOOM

I know, it's pretty cool, right?  I worked pretty  hard on that... ok, like 3 hours maybe.  It's actually a REALLY complicated structure to model without proper structural design software (I use a free google product).



On a completely unrelated note:  I was at wal*mart a couple weeks ago when I saw huge boxes of cereal on sale (huge as in almost 2 lbs).  I bought some not knowing that my wife wouldn't eat Reece's Puffs, and I didn't really think I'd get sick of them.... but 2 lbs of cereal last like a month!

Major League

Over the weekend of June 8th-10th over 20,000 people gathered at the Anaheim Convention Center to watch people play games.  I was able to count myself among those present and got the chance not only to watch people play, but I did a little playing myself.

The event was the Major League Gaming (MLG) Spring Championship, with most of the focus on the Starcraft II tournament.  There were also tournaments for League of Legends, Mortal Kombat, and Soul Calibur V, as well as a North American Starcraft Championship sponsored by Blizzard.  All the games were streamed online for millions of viewers, but as an added bonus for those attending, there were playable demo stations for the new Starcraft II expansion game set to be released later this year (Heart of the Swarm).

Most of my attention was focused on the MLG tournament, watching games and playing HotS against my friends.  We were there for all of Saturday and watched the finals online Sunday afternoon.  It was a great experience something I would definitely do again.

I'm sorry for the lack of quality pictures.
It was fairly dark all over, so lighting was less than ideal.

A high view of the main viewing area.

Leading up to this I have been getting really into the pro-scene of starcraft.  There are certain celebrity  like players and commentators.  It was cool and weird to be so close to them because they are very much just normal people.  Also the best players are Korean and many of the don't speak much english so its not like you could talk to them much or anything, but whatever.

There are tons of games going on at any given moment, this is a row of computers facing each other where two players face off.  

The most important game going on (with highly seeded or more popular players) is put on the main stage.  The players are in those little lit booths at the front, the screens show to the audience what either player's screen looks like on the sides, and then the commentators screen in the middle.  The commentators (who's voiceover is heard, are actually in little booths of their own behind the stage) have access to information about both players units, production, mining, etc. basically everything needed to commentate and say who is probably ahead and say how engagements will end up.  If you're not familiar with Starcraft at all... I'll explain it sometime later.

The next two most important matches at a given moment are played on a semi-stage where there are no commentators, but you can see either player's screen above their head so you can watch the big battles, also you can watch close up their fingers on the keyboard and mouse and really watch them play.  That dyed haired Korean is MarineKingPrime (aka MKP, aka Lee Jung Hoon) the winner of MLG Winter championship.  Here at Spring he came in 3rd.

This is SK-MC (aka Jang Min Chul, aka The Boss-Toss) talking to his coach and getting ready for a game against Quanitic-SaSe (aka Kim Hammar, he's Sweedish).   MC recently won a Red Bull tournament, SaSe went to take 4th place here at MLG (and I said 'hi' to him).

This is EG-ThorZaIN (aka Marcus Eklöf, a Norwegian) who came out of nowhere a year ago and started winning tournaments.

And this is Grubby (aka Manuel Schenkhuizen, Dutch) one of the few pro-gammers not on a team.

The finals were super amazing!  Even though it was just back at our hotel with the 3 starcraft nerds, then a handfull of girls, we got them all to be a little interested.  We watched some of the quarters and then the semi final matches and everyone started rooting for certain players.  Alicia made an astonishing climb through the losers bracket to make it to the finals where he was pretty much crushed by DongRaeGu (aka DRG, aka Park Soo Ho).  We were mostly rooting for Alicia, but DRG was pretty awesome to watch since he really was just soooo good.

A great way to spend a weekend :-D

If you're still interested here's an article from Forbes.com about the event, including an infographic on viewership and attendance.  It's a big deal because at one point over 400,000 people were watching live or on the internet, which is more than many major tv programs that happend at the same time.

Athleticism

Recently I my mind has been stirred up to thinking about the definition of a sport.  If you check the worlds most useful and accessible encyclopedia it says that "Sport is all forms of competitive physical activity which, through casual or organized participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants."  The dictionary defines it as, "an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature"

That blond kid is so gonna kick that ball...

Both of these definitions (and most thoughts of 'sports') call to mind physical activity, sweaty men, and exercise (oh yeah, and a mass of kids mindlessly following a ball around a field).  Yet there are many sports that do not fit this 'athletic' definition, the General Association of International Sport Federations (GAISF) recognizes five different 'mind-sports' such as chess, go, bridge, and even checkers.  Of course even those 'athletic' sports do not all require the same amount of strength, stamina, dexterity, or even fitness.  A 'futballer' is clearly in better shape than a 'caster' (fisherman), and sumo wrestler could hardly hope to perform like a gymnast (and viceversa).

They're similar... but yet different.

Over the course of history what society considers 'sport' has taken various forms.  From the purely track and field events of the first olympics to this years first ever European Winter X-Games, the events that we crowd around a TV to watch are changing as the technology around them.  Lately I have been glued to my computer screen as I watch live streams of some of my favorite video games being played in tournaments around the world.  E-gaming seems to be the newest wave in development of sports.  If you think back 30 years, people then didn't really consider skateboarding to be a 'professional sport' but it sure is now.


I think many people are reluctant to call gamers 'athletes,' because they're not really athletic, and that's fair, but not being an athlete doesn't mean what you do isn't a sport.  Consider things like shooting,  racing (NASCAR) or, equestrian events, those are sports, but it's hard to call those who do them athletes.  Some of you may argue saying that jockeys are athletes, and certainly some people believe that race car drivers are athletes.  I assure you, it may take great skill, but not athletic conditioning.

Although, it can't take that much skill to hit a target with fancy
targeting scanners attached to your head and gun.

People seem to equate being athletic with things outdoors, even things like jet ski racing seem more athletic due to it's outdoor nature, but really what more athletic conditioning does a jet ski racer need over a NASCAR driver?  If a man were to run several miles every day on his indoor treadmill, we might think him to be less athletic than the man who walks for just one mile outside.  Think about it.

A gamer is just as much an athlete as many of these aforementioned sport playing professionals.  He may sit down during his event, (so do many jockeys), yet the skill, dexterity, concentration, and comprehension, are (I think) much higher than most athletic events.  I believe that e-sports will continue to grow and become more and more socially acceptable.  I believe that I will live to see the day where StarCraft is broadcast on television, and not just through the internet.

This guy is just awesome, and he sure looks athletic, but
does his sport require athleticism to compete?

That's right, he's sitting down.

March Madness

I have a very distinct first memory of March Madness.  I was either nine or ten years old, and in either fourth of fifth grade.  You might think that that isn't very specific for such an important memory, and so I will say that I'm pretty sure I was in fifth grade, 10 years old, and the year was 1998.  My elementary school principal was a graduate and a huge fan of the University of Utah (The U).  The U basketball team had a strong streak in the late 90's and was in the NCAA tournament for the fourth time in a row and our principal had been giving us updates and encouraging us to root for them.  They made it to the championship game where they played against the University of Kentucky.  I was a much bigger fan of UK than I was of the U, so I wore my Kentucky apparel to school the day after the championship game rubbing it into my principal that UK had beaten the U.

You might wonder why I am such a fan of the University of Kentucky, well I am happy to tell you.

This is where I was born,

This is how to get from there (where I was born) to Rupp Arena, where the University of Kentucky basketball team plays.

Congrats to the Wildcats for their 8th national championship!!

For those interested in random basketball trivia please keep reading, otherwise you may now close this window and resume your internet-ing.  I have a hard time remembering if my specific memory was in '98 or '97 because in both of those years Utah lost to Kentucky in the final and Elite 8 (respectively).  Furthermore, Utah lost to Kentucky in '96 in the Sweet 16, and in the second round in '93.  The first time that Utah ever made it into a post season tournament, (NIT 1941) they lost to Kentucky in the first round, and most recently Utah lost to Kentucky in 2005 in the Sweet 16.  Utah also lost to Texas Western in 1966 who went on to beat Kentucky in the final. (One of only three times Kentucky has made it to the final and not won... totally random, I know.)

Testing the 'scam'

So going around lately in magazines and in the mail, have been gift cards worth $500 for a company called RedStar Worldwear.  That seems pretty legit, but then you go and find out that you have to pay a 9% processing and shipping fee that cannot come from the gift card.  So this makes my "free" sunglasses actually cost about $17 (they're said to be worth $190 originally).  So is this a scam?  are they just trying to get your money for crappy sunglasses? or are these the real deal?  The website says they're doing this deal in order to "create a buzz for our new products" and you have to wonder if that's true.

So I took a small hit and tried it out (I had made a little extra money a couple months ago so I thought I'd put it to good use).  I ordered myself one of the pricier, polarized pairs of sunglasses, and got my wife a pair, and a pair for my good friend Chris Taney ('cause he helped me earn that extra money in the first place).  They shipped surprisingly fast, I was expecting a couple of weeks, but they got here in under a week!  And they are not cheap plastic wal*mart glasses.  They are surprisingly good, solidly built, quality materials.  For me the biggest test if they were quality or not was if they are truly polarized.  They have on their website a section of glasses marked as polarized, and I wanted to know if they truly came with polarized lenses, so I tested them out in the video below, and you will find that they are in fact polarized.  Sweet shades!

Fit to curl

That right there would be me, throwing the winning rock!

Pretty good for a first time!

I am also, a most excellent sweeper.

curling dreams

So this past weekend Stephanie and I lived out a dream and went curling.  Ever since the winter olympics two years ago (when we were just dating) we watched several curling matches and decided that we would someday go curling.

The Utah Olympic Oval in Kerns, UT offers curling classes and open curling times in the evenings so we went with some of my siblings (and my dad) and curled!  The most interesting part of living out this dream is that the night before I had had a dream about going curling.  And as with most dreams, everything was just a little strange...


Instead of curling with nice, rounded curling stones like this:

We were using unnaturally tall and awkward stones like this:

And instead of curling on a nice long sheet of ice (about 120 feet)

We were throwing stones on a rather short and boxed in sheet and I kept hitting the back wall, no mater how soft I did it (typical dream frustration).

The dream was further crazy by the random appearance of Stephanie's former roommate (a totally crazy, and really creepy person) who was not only in the dream, but wouldn't stop talking to me.

Hopefully I'll post some pictures soon (when I get them from my dad) of us actually curling.  I hope to go again soon, and I just might be the next world champion curler.  (Okay, not really next, but future... the national championships are actually happening right now, fyi.)

PS. since things in dreams don't really exist I did quick mock-ups of them using Google SketchUp.

I read a lot of sports articles.  I used to read most of them on ESPN.com, but then they lost Pat Forde. (And since he now supposedly works for Yahoo Sports, I looked him up and finally found The Dash reinvented.)  So I've moved over to Grantland for now, a spin-off from ESPN, writing about sports and pop cluture (ooh, ahh..).

This is a small excerpt from this weeks article that I just happen to love, and I love it a lot because it's so true, and because I love soccer. (I love soccer more than I love football in general, but not as much as I love college football specifically.)

Letter to a Coach

Coach Saban,

First off, let me say you have a fine, fine football team. The running game and the defense are just fantastic. I'll make this quick because you're busy. Tuscaloosa probably has a part of town where Latinos are concentrated. If not Tuscaloosa, then certainly Birmingham. In that part of town there will be a makeshift soccer field, or maybe even a real soccer field. On this field you will find children of all ages for whom kicking a ball is easy, second nature, and who haven't lived lives steeped in American collegiate football lore and therefore wouldn't be super-duper nervous if asked to kick a weird-shaped ball through uprights that to them would seem a gaping target. After you've chosen your boy, explain that he will receive a college education at one of the top 100 state universities in the nation if a few dozen times a year he kicks the weird ball through the uprights for you. There may be a moment of confusion when the boy thinks he has to actually hit one of the uprights with the ball, and then when he realizes he merely has to kick it anywhere between the uprights, both of you will laugh, and laughter knows no borders.

It's true. And speaking of soccer, my own Real Salt Lake lost to the stars of the LA Galaxy last week, which means the Galaxy will be hosting the Houston Dynamo (what's a Dynamo again?) for the MLS cup next Sunday (Nov. 20) I believe it will be broadcast on ESPN or ESPN2 for those interested.  

BCS comps

So I like computers, and I like college football, and college football uses a lot of computers to determine rankings.  It logically follows that I would be very interested in these computers, which is why I have bookmarks to the sites for all six BCS-used computer ranking systems.

In looking ahead to tonights BYU game against TCU, I though I might go see what the computers thought might happen, so....

One computer (Massey Ratings) actually has links for 'predictions' and 'matchups' where you can enter in particular match-ups and see who would win, as well as see predictions for the upcoming games.  It says that TCU has a 78% chance of winning the game, and by a predicted score of 34 to 24.  Maybe not the best chance, but it's the same percentage that said Notre Dame should have beat USC last week, just sayin'. (btw Massey has TCU and BYU ranked 53, and 54)

Moving to more promising news, two computers have BYU ranked higher than TCU.  The Colley Matrix BYU 41, TCU 42 and the Anderson-Hester computer, BYU 41, TCU 45.  Close margins, I know, but still.  (Colley Matrix is 'unbiased' meaning high scores don't matter, and A-H prides themselves on being the best rater of what a team has accomplished to date, not a great predictor)

Then there's the other three computers that have TCU above BYU, but again, by pretty close margins. The Billingsley Report TCU 41, BYU 50, Peter Wolfe TCU 43, BYU 47 and finally the Sagarin Ratings TCU 46, BYU 55.  And finally there is a page on the Massey Ratings site that shows the ranking of teams based on the averages of all the computers (both BCS official and others), there TCU is 33, and BYU is 51.... not boding so well for the cougars in this one.

But really, computers can only take you so far.  They fail to truly predict the outcome of games though they come close.  From a more human perspective, neither team has won any super difficult games, TCU's 'best win' came over #51 SD[iego]SU, while BYU's is over #76 SJ[ose]SU (basically the same team, minus Ronnie Hillman). Their strength of schedule and records are actually pretty similar.  Both have lost to two good teams (ok, so Utah's not so great, but the were better before losing Wynn) and both teams have beaten up on inferior opponents to look good (Idaho St., New Mexico, Portland St.)

If I were a betting man, I might put a few dollars on TCU.  But it is a really, really close call.  I still believe that BYU can win this one, they are an improving team, and this will be the big test for them (since their next three games they will actually be favored to win).

And now it's only 7.5 hrs until kick off.  :-D  I'm excited.

The QB debate

So it's been a little over a week since BYU nation began the great QB debate, Jake Heaps or Riley Nelson.  It seems that a large portion of fans think Riley is a much better option than Jake, chanting his name at the Utah State game to get him put in the game.  It seemed quite obvious to me that Riley would start this game against San Jose State.

Really, the only thing Riley adds to the game is his ability to run.  He is just as inconsistent (if not more so) of a passer as Jake Heaps is, throwing two interceptions (almost three) this game.  His running ability though does do a lot for the game, giving the ability to pick up 5+ yards running when his receivers get covered and getting him to move the pocket and give more time for plays to develop and get open receivers.

I think though that the biggest difference is not in these stats, unlike baseball, football is much more of an emotional game.  Think of it this way, Heaps, the sophomore going deep to the freshman Apo.  On the other hand you have Nelson, the junior going deep to the senior Jacobsen.  leadership is everything and the players respect their elders.

I think Riley will continue to start our games.  I think Jake will get time to play in the 3rd and 4th quarters in the games against Idaho State and New Mexico State, (and maybe Idaho). And he will continue to improve and in the future Heaps will be the great BYU quarterback that has been expected of him.

Uni-forms

You may not know this, but I love sports uniforms, more to the point I love college football uniforms.  Considering that Nike, Under Armor, and others are spending millions, possibly billions on creating cool, trendy, and stylish uniforms that college recuits will like, it's not a surprise that I (a near-college age male) like them.

Because of my slight obsession with the college uniform scene I found a blog called The Uni-Watch.  It is run by uniform enthusiasts who are quite thorough in their coverage of uniform changes, updates, discrepancies, and specialties.

Through this blog I stumbled upon a very narrowly minded site tracking the Oregon Duck uniform changes (most would say it was the ducks who began this national uniform trend).  I also found The Gridiron Uniform Database, a complete collection of NFL jerseys worn every game for the past several years.

After this years explosion of college football uniform advancements some devoted uni-watchers decided to expand the gridiron database to include college football, and this is the result.

If you notice the second team on this list, Boise State, (the were second at the time of this writing but that could change) who's uniforms were reproduced here by none other than you're truly, me.

I will say, I do believe they are quite the work of art.  And hopefully I'll be able keep up weekly with the new uni-combos they wear and make improvements eventually to those currently 'done.'  (I forgot the name on the back of the first two, oops.)

Hand signs

So my last post got a little distracted with my slight obsession with those Nike gloves, so back to the point...

Hand signs are cool, not just as a "We just scored so throw your hands up!" way, but also in a passing on the street, simple way to show your team spirit.  However they aren't the easiest thing to have.  Ignoring the new glove-palm salutes, only five teams that I know of have hand signs.  So please, if there are other widespread hand signs let me know about them.

As I drove on the freeway in Salt Lake County (U of U territory) I passed a man with a BYU sticker on his car, and I wished that BYU had a hand sign that I could have flashed, letting him know that I too was a BYU fan.  Alas, the only think I could come up with was a sign language Y, but that's not a BYU tradition, so I didn't

Now, about those teams that do have signs:

Perhaps the most well known sign, Hook 'em Horns:

Then there's the growing in popularity Oregon O:

If I ever attended an Oregon game, I'd buy these.

TCU has it's "Horned Frog" although it looks nothing like a frog (or horns for that matter):

The University of Miami (FL) has their U shape:

probably my 3rd or 4th fav of the gloves

Some would argue that Utah also has one, but there's a debate about the U symbol...

And one I just found out about this past weekend, the ASU pitchfork:

And through my searching I came across of few less-well known others (the Houston Cougar Paw, the Villanova V?) but nobody really cares about those so we'll leave it at that.

Some are cool, others are weird, but hand signs (sadly) are not for every team.

NCAAF Gloves

Quite a bit of hullabaloo has been made recently regarding hand signs in college football. Over the past year or so there have been a flew flags thrown over 'excessive celebration' relating to the using and showing of hand signs after touchdowns.

Most recently, Fox Sports' Mike Pereria complained that the Oregon Ducks should get penalized similarly for their O sign.  Then after further clarification from officials and administrators he recalled his statement, saying that flashing the hand sign was ok to use in a 'non-taunting' fashion.

This is probably a good thing, since more and more teams are getting awesome gloves that make for sweet glove-palm salutes.

Entré Les Photos!

UGA

Oregon State

U of Miami (FL)

Horned Frog (TCU)

TCU

Stanford

Boise St. (probably the best design)

Army

Navy

Michigan State

LSU (totally awesome)

Florida

Florida State

Alabama

Texas

Nebraska (a little over kill with the 2nd pair)

And if you want to see more Nike Pro Combat Unis take a look at these news stories from the first three years of uniform releases.  First Second Third