ZachIsHere

It Is Incredible Outside

// August 31st, 2007 // No Comments » // Thoughts

Get off your computer. Go outside. If you are on a laptop outside then watch this Josh Rouse song. Fun stuff.

You Could Be A Part Time Model

// August 27th, 2007 // No Comments » // Thoughts

Festivities

// August 26th, 2007 // No Comments » // Thoughts

Had a fantastic birthday this year. Really special.

The Chiefs game was part of the b-day events, and as terrible as the team on the field was I didn’t mention how fun it still was because me and the ol man got to watch the whole thing in a suite. They have really nice digs up there. Now I just need to make eleventy billion dollars or get in good with some corporation to get in there every game.

My actual birthday was on the 24th and I worked at the Kansas City Club that day. They surprised me with a cake and a very nice card. How nice was that of them? This is for an employee who put in his 2 weeks and is about to move on to another place. That says a lot about the character of people I was lucky enough to meet.

Went to Plaza III for dinner that evening. They really know how to cook a steak. I had a large center cut strip cooked medium. It was a fantastic meal followed up with creme brulee for dessert.

Later that night a group of my friends and I met at Thomas Restaurant. This place serves dinner but also has a full bar and from Wednesday to Saturday a guy plays piano. He has a whole list of songs he plays and sings. It was a blast. The guy was so cool he had a great list of music and even let Dirk sing at one point and me sing in all of our drunken glory. Everyone had a blast.

Thanks to everyone who sent letters and called and spent time with me on Friday. It was great.

Chiefs. *Sigh*

// August 23rd, 2007 // No Comments » // Thoughts

The best part of the pre-season game on Thursday?

The food.

The Chiefs played the Saints and there isn’t a lot of good that came from it. I am really searching for anything the offense did well and I am coming up short.

Nothing…and let me tell you I am a creative person. I can shine a positive light and put a nice spin on everything but the Chiefs offense against the Saints.

When Croyle dropped back he was sacked. If we wasn’t sacked he was pressured. If he wasn’t pressured he threw a bad pass. If he didn’t throw a bad pass it was dropped. And if his good pass wasn’t dropped? The play was called back for holding.

Read that paragraph again. None of it is made up or dramatic thats how it went down.

The Chiefs defense? Meh. They did some decent work. The Saints were finding a lot of soft spots in their mid range pass coverage. The run defense was quite good overall, there were a few times where they were burned to the outside. Allen needs to remember to keep containment. The inside run defense was really impressive, Tank Tyler had a great game. The Saints were driving the ball quite well but the starting defense really stood tall with their backs to the end zone and kept them out for a while.

There were a lot of points where I found myself less mad at our defense and more impressed with their offense. They had an amazing rhythm and a quick strike style that was getting good yards in chunks. At points the Chiefs would defend as well as the rules allowed and they would still make a great throw and catch in a very small amount of time. This Saints team is going to hurt people.

Hopefully it gets better…I don’t know.

But tonight the Chiefs went to a club fight without a club.

Little Ones Roaming

// August 22nd, 2007 // No Comments » // Thoughts

Chris’ girlfriend Megan has the cutest little gal. Her name is Olivia and she is 10 or 11 months old. Every now and again she comes over to visit the house and loves all the random little things you find in our place. It is lots of fun to have her around when she visits.

Time To Get It Started

// August 22nd, 2007 // No Comments » // Thoughts

Whitlock: Football really matters to LJ

Larry Johnson won me over. When his contract impasse started with the Chiefs, I had one concern:

I questioned how important football was to Larry Johnson. Did he really love this game?

When an organization gives a player close to $20 million in guaranteed bonuses and a contract approaching $45 million, the general manager and the owner need to know that the player truly loves the game.

We know that now about Larry Johnson. He ended his holdout and reached an agreement with the Chiefs on Tuesday morning primarily because he couldn’t stand being away from the game and his teammates any longer.

Team Larry — Larry, his dad and agent Alvin Keels — wasn’t totally enamored with signing on Tuesday. The members who don’t carry the football were inclined to wait until after Thursday’s exhibition and try to squeeze another million or two out of Carl Peterson.

I would’ve waited. Not Larry. His football jones took precedent over his bank account and his ego.

“The guys on the ‘Hard Knocks’ staff would tell me and show me interviews from guys on the team saying they missed me,” Johnson told me Tuesday evening. “That really got me. It was really more about loyalty to them (teammates) to get back here as soon as I could.

“I was up at 7 a.m. trying to get this deal done. I drove like 110 miles per hour to the stadium. I ran up the stairs to Carl’s office to sign the deal. I stretched in the elevator, didn’t warm up or anything and just ran to the field as quick as I could. There was no way I could get this contract without those guys. I wanted to be out there with them.”

Wow, a running back who wants to practice and interact with his teammates on the field. OK, I apologize. I promised to take it easy on Priest Holmes this week.

On a serious note, this is a side of Larry that we haven’t really seen. Larry’s passion and emotion seem to be pointed in the right direction. He told me earlier this offseason that once he got this deal done, we would see less of a rebel and more of the guy who just loves to play football.

That’s great. It will certainly help Peterson and Clark Hunt sleep better knowing Larry has every intention of establishing himself as a Hall of Fame running back. The business and politics of professional football can kill a player’s passion for the game. Many players get a gigantic contract and immediately start tapping the brakes. Larry is hitting the accelerator, and he’s demonstrating a little bit of maturity.

Honestly, I never expected Larry to survive an extended holdout. I thought he was too emotional and that he would fall out with his dad and agent at some point.

“If we (Team Larry) were stranded on a deserted island for 25 days with no food or nothing, I really believe the three of us could survive,” Johnson said Tuesday. “Hey, it’s been rough, and there were setbacks in communication, but it was magnificent to see three guys come together with one goal in mind and stick to our intentions.

“My dad did a great job with staying in the loop with Carl, Denny and Herm and keeping me up to date on what was going on. And Alvin did a great job with the numbers and keeping us on course with our goal. Everybody had a hand in it getting done.”

Yep, and that includes Peterson and Denny Thum, too. They negotiated a deal that made financial sense to the Chiefs and a deal that didn’t create bad blood between the organization and its star player.

Jared Allen, you’re now on the clock.

RIP Dan Feather

// August 21st, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Thoughts

I got shocking and tragic news today.

An active contributor to this website and Springfield friend Dan Feather has passed away. He died from injuries incurred during a motorcycle accident. He was 30.

I have to be totally honest. This one hurts. I had a lot of fun meetings with Dan in Springfield and he always helped me through computer issues that would come up for me because I am an idiot. I immediately connected with his subtle but sharp sense of humor. He always has a slight smile on his face. Not as much of a happy smile but an even better “I want to say something but it is better I don’t” type of wicked smile.

His blog was a good read. Certainly one I checked on a weekly basis. Dan was big into technology but even bigger into what he saw as an alarming attack on our privacy and civil liberties as citizens of this country.

I will never forget when he told me the story of someone falling through the front window downtown at Geekerz over a beer at Patton Alley.

You will be missed buddy…

You still read his website at Vapor.org. Below is one of my favorite posts of his talking about the ups and downs of life in an office. I encourage you to read some of his work.

Right, so it is nice not having to drive 45 minutes to work in the morning, and then 45 back home. However, there has been a trade-off. My cubicle is right next to one of the break areas. It isn’t a room, it is an open area, and the entrance to my cube is right next to it. This wouldn’t be so bad except that people like to congregate here throughout the day and carry on “interesting” discussions about medical problems, their preference for tea instead of coffee, or to prepare themselves breakfast smoothies with the blender, or fill the ice tea container with ice from the machine, etc. You know… make alot of noise and talk really loud so everyone can listen to all the interesting things they have to say about cantelope and how everyone else is lazy because they dripped a little coffee on the counter and how iced tea is better anyway. This goes on for 30 to 45 minutes many mornings. So, here I am, actually trying to do some work, and all this is going on behind me. I lean back, and peer out at them everyonce in a while to make them uncomfortable and remind them I am listening. Sometimes that works… and gives me a little chuckle.

I used to feel a little bad about coming in a little late in the morning, but with all this going on it ends up that it doesn’t really matter anyway. I figure, I can take care of my morning activities before I get to work while they are performing theirs at work and it all ends up the same anyway. That, and I don’t have to listen to as much of their noise.

Of course… then there’s the mid-morning breather, lunch time, and the mid-afternoon breather. Oh well… working in this office frees up some personal time and saves me some money, so it is worth it.

Oh! Now I am hearing about fiberglass, epoxy, and… surfing?

New Camera Goodness Announced

// August 20th, 2007 // No Comments » // Thoughts

I have been wondering when they were going to come out with a self cleaning DSLR. I have heard whispers about it for a while. That feature would be a dream to have. It is also impressive they are releasing it at 8k about the same price as the previous model. 21 mega pixels? Yowza. I highlighted some of the interesting parts of this release below. Full text through the link.

(Via Canon’s Official Website)

EOS Integrated Cleaning System
Another first for a professional digital SLR of this caliber is Canon’s complete dust management solution, called the EOS Integrated Cleaning System. The new CMOS image sensor is designed with a lightweight infrared absorption glass cover that vibrates for 3.5 seconds when the camera is turned on or off. This brief delay can be cancelled immediately upon start-up by pressing the shutter button half way. Dust that has been shaken or blown loose of the sensor is trapped by adhesive surfaces surrounding the sensor unit housing, preventing the problematic particles from reattaching themselves to the filter when the camera moves.

Like its sibling, the EOS-1D Mark III, the shutter of the EOS-1Ds Mark III Digital SLR camera carries a durability rating of 300,000 cycles and, though it generates less dust, it still charges itself three times during the manual cleaning process so that dust is shaken off the shutter curtains as well. This cleaning system uses very little battery power and can be turned off in the custom function menu.

The second part of the dust management system is a software solution that maps the location of any spots that may remain on the sensor. The mapped information is saved as Dust Delete Data and attached to the image file. Subsequently, the offending dust information is subtracted from the final image during post processing, using the supplied Digital Photo Professional software.

Info
The Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III’s compact, lighter-weight magnesium alloy body is rugged and versatile enough to take out of the studio and into the field. The camera’s fast, five-frame-per-second (fps) shooting rate for bursts of up to 56 Large/Fine (21-megapixel) JPEGS or 12 RAW images is unmatched in its class, making it the ideal instrument for capturing the fluid motion and free-flowing lines of location-based fashion photography as well as a wide range of other professional photographic applications.

The Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III professional digital single lens reflex camera is scheduled to begin shipping in November and will have an estimated selling price of $7,999† (the same price as its predecessor, the 16.7 megapixel EOS-1Ds Mark II).