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I have been rather vocal about my opinions on Mike Leach (link 1, link 2, link 3), but I am always one to give credit where credit is due: the man is coming off of the greatest football season in Tech’s history. Unless you’re A) not a sports fan or B) living under a rock (and you’re a sports fan), you’ve undoubtedly heard all of the commotion regarding Texas Tech, Gerald Myers, Mike Leach, and the status of Leach’s contract. I’ve remained quiet on the subject..

Until now.

Gerald Myers – you’re a complete moron. How you ever made it as high as Athletic Director is beyond me. You screwed over James Dickey back in 2001 and now you’re trying to do the same to Mike Leach. Dickey deserved firing; no argument there. But the way you did it was pathetic, shallow, and cowardly.

Texas Tech Regents — If you let Mike Leach go, you will reap the whirlwind in terms of fan support, season ticket renewals, and ticket sales. You better think twice.

Here’s my suggestion to the Regents: keep Mike Leach and fire Gerald Myers. Promote Marsha Sharp to Athletic Director as she truly deserves it.

Disclaimer: I probably am a fanboy myself. Maybe not to the extremes I’m blogging about here, but I love Apple and the products it produces.

Apple fanboys annoy me. Greatly. There’s no pleasing this bunch.

Apple releases the iPhone. Within two days, there are a plethora of posts throughout the fanboy websites and blogs containing ways to make it better.

Apple releases the unibody MacBooks. Within hours those fanboy sites are complaining about their lack of firewire.

The day Apple gets behind on the fanboy-imposed product lifecycles, all hell breaks loose. Is the Mac mini being discontinued? Is AppleTV on its last breath?

My advice for the fanboys:

Get over yourself and enjoy and appreciate the Apple products you already own.

</rant>

I debated whether or not to write about this since I normally don’t blog in-depth about political topics.

Originally, I wasn’t going to watch the inauguration. I had never watched one before; why would I start now? However, something in me said it was an inauguration I needed to watch. It was going to be such a historical event in our nation’s history.

My thoughts:

The chanters in the crowd singing “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” as President Bush was introduced are classless assholes. Whether or not you agree with the man’s politics, as President of the United States, he deserves everyone’s respect.

There’s been a lot of coverage regarding the actual oath. Yes, the Chief Justice botched “to” instead of “of” and on repeating put “faithfully” in the wrong place. But I hate to break it to the people complaining that the phrases were too long (which I do agree with).. it’s been like that (with a couple variations) for quite a while:

• George W. Bush
• Bill Clinton
• George H. W. Bush
• Ronald Reagan
• Richard Nixon
• John F. Kennedy
• Dwight Eisenhower

Hell, listen to Franklin D. Roosevelt take oath!

Regarding President Obama’s speech.. I honestly don’t know what to make of it. It definitely felt like he was speaking from his heart; that’s obviously a good thing. On the flipside, it also seemed like a campaign speech and that he was still trying to win votes. Overall, it was a pretty good speech.

The benediction is where I get very upset. Seriously? “when black will not be asked to get in back”? ”when white will embrace what’s right”? This is 2009, not the 1950s. The white supremacists that exist today aren’t going to magically change their beliefs all of a sudden. Nor will the black supremacists. People have inherent prejudices that are extremely difficult to change. The majority of citizens of this great country could care less about skin color. Yes, I truly believe that. Such a bad way to end an otherwise great inaugural ceremony.

As for me..

Did I vote for President Obama? No. My opinions on too many issues differed from his.

Will I support President Obama? Absolutely. The electoral college and a majority of Americans voted him into the office of President. And with that, President Obama has earned and deserves my respect. I am sure I won’t agree with everything he does while in office. I didn’t agree with everything President Bush did while in office; I didn’t agree with everything President Clinton did. But the job of President is by far the toughest job imaginable, and I believe each President acts in accordance with that they truly believe is the right course of action.

Congratulations, President Obama. Serve this country well and in its best interest. You have my support as the President.

For simplicity’s sake, I’ll just link..

Blessed Are We

I am a band geek.. and there’s definitely no shame in admitting that. I marched a bunch of shows throughout my seven years of marching band.

The below video is from Spring 1997.. my freshmen year at Tech. It happens to be the last light show performed under the direction of Keith Bearden and, at the time of this post’s writing, the last light show performed by the Goin’ Band. The Star Wars/Star Trek light show is one of my top two favorite shows I’ve marched.

Ah, nostalgia..

Monica filled this out but didn’t tag me, but I thought it was interesting so I figured I’d do it anyways.

8 TV Shows I Watch
1. The Big Bang Theory
2. Lost
3. 24
4. Big Brother
5. CSI: Las Vegas
6. CSI: New York
7. Heroes
8. American Idol

8 Favorite Restaurants
1. Boston Market
2. Chili’s
3. Texas Roadhouse
4. Braums
5. Jason’s Deli
6. Scotty P’s
7. Whataburger
8. Benaglios

8 Things That Happened Today
1. Clean Wrigley’s Ears
2. Site5
3. Ate lunch with my beautiful wife
4. Watched a new TV show during lunch
5. Woke up at 2:45am because my sick daughter was hungry
6. Updated iPhoto with latest pictures from cameras
7. Took out the recycling
8. Played a round of Tiger Woods golf on the Wii

8 Things I Look Forward To
1. Christmastime with family
2. Having more kids
3. Cotton Bowl
4. Katie Lynn walking
5. Our next trip to Lubbock
6. Ripping out our downstairs carpet
7. Redoing the kitchen
8. Going to the Bears vs Cowboys game in 2009

8 Things I Wish For
1. Continued happiness
2. Endless supply of money
3. World peace and to live together accepting our differences
4. Everyone would be in the Christmas cheer year-round
5. The good Lord to continue guiding me and watching over my family
6. A Chicago Cubs World Series win
7. Katie Lynn to start walking
8. Wrigley to get better

My lovely wife tagged me in a recent blog entry, so I figured I’d better follow through or face the wrath.

The object of the picture tag is to:

1. Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer
2. Select the 4th picture in the folder
3. Explain the picture
4. Tag 4 people to do the same

NO CHEATING! (cropping, editing, etc!)

This is a picture of Monica and our niece Madison from January 2006. Kim and Madison were visiting us in Lubbock, and this picture was taken during that weekend.

So now I get to tag four people to do this same thing: Kim, mjp, Ben, Amanda. Tag! You’re it.

If anyone had told me that Texas Tech at some point this season would be ranked #2 I would have said they were crazy. I have been rather vocal about my opinions on Mike Leach (link 1, link 2, link 3), but maybe I’ve been wrong. 

After seeing the potential displayed this season, Tech absolutely can play on par with the big dogs. Sure, we lost big to Oklahoma. But that’s one game in a season of twelve games. 

This season proves two things in my mind:

1. Defense still wins games. Ruffin’s defense played consistent the entire season — up until the Oklahoma game. They looked discombobulated that entire game, and it spilled over into the first half of the Baylor game.
2. Of equal importance to defense is consistency at quarterback. Graham’s maturity in the program is one of the reasons Tech had such a great season. We cannot go back to the one-year-starter routine again. I think Taylor Potts only has two years of eligibility remaining, so maybe he shouldn’t be the starter.

One final thought regarding this season.. the Tech-Texas game. I am sick and tired of hearing football “experts” on ESPN, ABC, etc. state that Texas lost the game on the last play. The way they are saying it is rather condescending towards Tech. Why? Tech did what it needed to do to win — especially in the first half. Texas came out firing in the second half.. there’s no doubting that. But just because Tech won on the final play only means that they performed well exactly when they needed to in order to win. That exemplifies the media bias against Tech.

In any event, it’s been a great season. If things play out like it seems they will, we’re likely going to the Cotton Bowl. Hopefully we can finally win the game.

Wreck ‘Em Tech!