UnSpace

Because of the rain, the middle school kids at youth group skated in a section of the gym. They got a lot of air and I got a lot of great photographs, and they hardly ever ran into me in the process.

I hate to say this. I really hate to say this. Back when Michelle Madoff was mayor and wanted to build a baseball park like Baltimore (trust me, if you've been to Baltimore, you'll see where a lot of ideas were ripped off from), I agreed with her. But when the ballpark turned from Pirates into piracy, I began to wonder.

As the Penguins dragged on the negotiations, I started to wonder if keeping a sports franchise was worth it. Why were the cash-strapped governments paying for stadiums and parks and arenas that should have come out of the team's pocket? What happens if a city were to just say "We can't afford you. Bye!"? Eventually, if enough cities did that, sanity might return to the civic financial crisis.

I like hockey, although the one game I went to with Nancy was so filled with fan violence, we've not been back since before we were married. I remember the season the Penguins went out of their way to come in last, to get the next hockey superstar. Who can forget that great radio analysis: "Pitt lost, Penn State lost, the Steelers lost, and the Penguins are up next!" I celebrated when Mario won the Stanley Cup, prayed for his recovery, and watched as Sidney Crosby came to be yet another great hockey star to play in Pittsburgh.

When Ed Rendell proclaimed the Penguins deal the best sports franchise deal ever in Pennsylvania, I'd had enough. Governments need to form a union, to quit being thrown on the rack by these sports teams. Enough is enough.

The Penguins are intent on moving the team now. They didn't get far more than they ever should have been offered.

Kansas City or some other city will get the Penguins. Pittsburgh will get some much-needed financial sanity.

I'm really sorry it had to come to this, especially since I don't think most politicians or voters have enough brain cells to learn from this loss.

I might be wrong, and your mileage may vary.

Please don't firebomb my house.

Kick off the
season with a taste
of the Steelers!

This morning, the Steelers cut 20 players. This afternoon, my grocery store had one of those sample carts, with a woman passing out slices of hotdog wrapped in crescent roll. The sign on the cart said "Kick off the season with a taste of the Steelers!"

I didn't realize the penalty for not making the team was so severe.

I managed to get a photo of the cart with my cell phone.

Erectile disfunction medicine commercials are easy to pick on, like those "feminine itch" products they always advertise if you eat dinner in front of the TV. But there's a Viagra commercial that really irritates me.

Have you seen the one where there's this 50 year old husband really enjoying a baseball game¹ and the 20 year-old wife stops reading her book and gives him a "come hither" look?

Ok, first off, no matter what the commerical says, it doesn't take an Eensteen to stick a tape in the VCR. Programming a VCR, I'll grant you. Even I can screw that one up. But just shoving a tape into the VCR and hitting the REC button is not a solution worthy of Solomon.

But more important is the obvious power-play going on in the marriage. She knows he's watching the baseball game. She insists that he go do his "husbandly duty" now? She can't wait for the game to end? The wife is obviously playing power trip. Given how much better looking and younger she is than him, the guy has no choice, and she knows it.

Of course, maybe it's not her fault. Maybe she asked him, he said yes, and then he started watching the ball game while waiting for the Viagra to kick in. In which case, why is he even bothering with the VCR tape?

Maybe he needs Viagra, but they need a marriage counsellor more.

By the way, the couch might work just as well as the bed, and there might be certain advantages for her to letting him be distracted by the baseball game.

"It's a long, fly ball! Home run! You can kiss that one good bye! The crowd goes wild! The fans are jumping up and down, screaming with excitement as he scores!"

1. Obviously, he's not a Pittsburgher. [back]

(Sung to the tune of "Happy Boys" and with apologies to the Beat Farmers, Big Ben, and pretty much everybody, but this song has been stuck in my head and I'm hoping writing it down will get it out. )

I was wearin' black and gold and started to hum
Rothlisberger Rothlisberger Rothlisberger
'Caus da Steelers gonna win one for the other thumb
Rothlisberger Rothlisberger Rothlisberger

Well I'm a happy fan (happy fan)
Well I'm a happy fan (happy fan)
Oh ain't it great when ref's calls are going your way, hey hey?

Well Big Ben's cycle ran into a car
Rothlisberger Rothlisberger Rothlisberger
They took him on up to Mercy's E.R.
Rothlisberger Rothlisberger Rothlisberger

Well I'm a happy fan (happy fan)
Well I'm a happy fan (happy fan)
Oh ain't it great when ref's calls are going your way, hey hey?

They fixed Ben up in a couple 'a days
Rothlisberger Rothlisberger Rothlisberger
The docs all said he can still make the plays
Rothlisberger Rothlisberger Rothlisberger

Well I'm a happy fan (happy fan)
Well I'm a happy fan (happy fan)
Oh ain't it great when ref's calls are going your way, hey hey?

We're glad you're back, Ben!

Last year, I blogged the Tour de France. Because of a number of circumstances, this year I haven't. But I have been keeping up with the Tour de France (TDF). Mike asked for a link about the tour, and in my typical obsessive style, I'll provide multiple:

• TDF blog
  I consider this one of the best sources for information about the TDF.
• Velo News
  Velo News is another classic source for information about the TDF.
• BBC TDF
  The BBC is often the first web site with stats, and if you search around there are numerous features.
• Site officiel du tour de France
  If you're looking for TDF info, the TDF official site is an obvious place to start. While this site might have results later than the BBC site, they do tend to be a bit more accurate! Once or twice last year, I got caught by publishing preliminary information that turned out to be incorrect. Nothing major, but still an "Oops."

I mention the problem with preliminary information, because that is one of the reasons I'm not blogging the TDF this year. The day before the race, the drug investigation in Spain resulted in one team being "disinvited," another team eventually "disinvited," and multiple riders (including many favorites) being withdrawn by their team.

I wrote an article based on preliminary information and then looked around the web for more. The harder I looked, the less I knew what was going on. Attempts to correct the article reached the point of absurdity in under 20 minutes, and I deleted the entire post and hung up my plans to blog the TDF. There were additional factors, but that bit of mayhem was the major source.

Rob's Brazilname Soccer Shirt

I'm not real clear on why my Brazilname would be Cincha, but according to the BrazilName site, my name would be Cincha if I played soccer.

In the real world, Brazil, everyone pronounced my first name as "Hobbie." They're not used to the "r" at the beginning like that, and names apparently don't end in a simple "b." My last name was simple for them, although some pronounced it as if it were the Scottish name it's derived from. I would think my BrazilName would be "Pântano." Maybe it's a soccer thing. I barely understand the offsides rule in English.

I played 1 season of Intra-Mural soccer. I'm not saying my IM soccer was as bad as my IM basketball — nothing's that bad. But soccer once again proved the wisdom of making track and cross country my sports.

I wonder if the Brasil team would pay me money to not wear their colors?

Congrats to Italy on their victory. I wish I'd seen the game. I wonder if my father-in-law recorded it?

I have frackin' had it with the French and the Le Monde paper in particular. They hate Lance Armstrong, and will do anything they can to damage the man's reputation. Get a load of their latest crapfest, as reported on MSNBC:

Seven-times Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong has admitted he took banned drugs including erythropoietin (EPO) at the time he was being treated for cancer, the French daily Le Monde reported on Friday.

“According to new testimonies gathered from October 2005 to January 2006 by a court in Dallas, the seven-times Tour de France winner told a Indiana University Hospital doctor on October 28, 1996 he had taken performance-enhancing drugs,” Le Monde said.

Armstrong was not competing at the time he took these drugs. He was fighting for his life. All of the drugs — EPO, growth hormones, cortisone, steroids and testosterone — were used in an effort to save the man's life. The cancer treatment devastated Armstrong's body. No one who knows anything about cancer treatment would think that the doctors prescribing these medications would have been attempting to to "enhance" Armstrong's cycling abilities. They were given to him to enhance his ability to live through the chemotherapy.

Armstrong didn't return to competition until 1999.

If George W. Bush wants to gain back the support of the American people, he should immediately invade France. Bush should do what he did not do in Afghanistan or Iraq, but should have: overwhelming ground force to pacify the country once and for all.

If the leaders of Iran and North Korea look at how we treat our allies, they'll stop all this nuclear crap and behave themselves. They'll know for certain we be bad-assed psychotic bastiches!

I am, of course, kidding. We never should have gone after Iraq until we had Afghanistan turned into a stable country and DNA from Osama's corpse in an FBI lab for confirmation. Going after France now would be insane, stretching the American military far beyond the breaking point.

This is why we never should have gone into Iraq: What happens when we need to invade some country that really needs it?

I was flipping through the channels, checking out the TV coverage of Steeler's Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's motorcycle accident. Repeatedly, I heard local reporters say "Ben has a gash on his head."

In Pittsburgh, a "gash" is a laceration — a slicing wound, as compared to an avulsion, abrasion, amputation, puncture, tear, three-corner tear, or other wound. Everywhere else in the United States, the word "gash" is a slang reference to a part of the female anatomy. Excuse me if I'm not more specific. Most Pittsburghers are either unaware of this alternative meaning or don't think about it.

For years, as a Pittsburgh paramedic, I had to put up with the 911 dispatchers announcing over the air things like "Medic 8, start for Fisher and Cresswell for a woman with a gash." Our radios always had to be on, meaning that patients could hear everything said over the air. Numerous times, I had to explain to irate non-native-Southwestern PA patients the meaning of this peculiar bit of Pittsburgh slang and apologize to them for any inadertant offense. To say the least, it was embarassing.

If Roethlisberger's injury were in another location, the confusion might have caused serious problems. "Roethlisberger has a gash in his groin" might have brought the wrath of the Republican and Religious Right bigots down on the Steelers. The incorrect assumption that the Pittsburgh sports legend and children's roll model might have any form of sexual anatomical ambiguity would be intolerable to the homophobes. I'm sure you could picture Rick Santorum standing next to Jerry Falwell and James Dobson in church on Football Sunday demanding a Sports Protection Act ammendment to the Constitution stating that athletes must have external sexual characteristics of only one kind.

As an athlete with a bit too much adipose tissue in the pectoral region, such an ammendment would be personally devastating. I suppose it might help me to lose more weight, but still….

While I'm at it, yes, head wounds bleed. The scalp is very vascular. Head wounds bleed a lot, more than most wounds of an equivalent size. This makes the blood loss no less dangerous. If you lose 4 liters of blood from a head wound, you will be in hemmorhagic shock every bit as much as any other wound that would cause you to lose that much blood. Use appropriate measures for controlling bleeding, as per your first aid, first responder, or other medical training.

Since someone always asks, no, a torniquet around the neck is not appropriate treatment for a head wound. The concept of a tourniquet around the neck is just a dumb joke. Really. In all my years in the prehospital arena, I never needed to use a tourniquet on any patient; direct pressure, elevation (where appropriate), proper medical pressure dressings, and pressure points always did the trick, even when an arm or leg was amputated.

Lance Armstrong announced that he's running the New York Marathon November 5th, 2006. Can one of the world's greatest cyclists win the marathon?

UnSpace has never been known for short articles, so I guess I should elaborate on my prediction! Y'all know I'm dying to, anyway.

Lance is one of the most studied athletes in history. He's had so many tests done, I suspect he's a card-carrying member of the Union of Laboratory Rats and Experimental Subjects. Unfortunately for sports pundits everywhere, this information has not been made available. All I can find for his aerobic capacity is that it is somewhere above 85 ml O₂ per minute per kilogram body weight (excluding bone). For those of you not familiar with such numbers, aerobic capacity is a measure of how well the body can take in oxygen to burn glucose and fat and protein. The higher the number, the better. Lance's number is extraordinarily high.

But to show a problem with the aerobic capacity (also known as the VO_{2 max}), realize that Lance is not thought to have the highest capacity of the participants in the Tour de France. There are other cyclists who have higher aerobic capacities, and yet Lance beat them easily. For years, runners thought that VO_{2 max} was the be-all and end-all of running. Now don't get me wrong, it's important: a cyclist or runner with a VO_{2 max} of 45 ml O₂ per minute per kilogram body weight (excluding bone) can only hope to beat Lance Armstrong either by having Lance become disqualified, significantly injured or by using a mechanically-powered vehicle.

Lance has run in the past; before he became a Tour de France cyclist, he did triathlons. I can't remember if they were full Iron Man triathlons or shorter ones, so I don't know if he's ever run a full marathon before. Lance was only 16 at the time; most 16 year olds don't have the mental toughness for a full marathon. Still, with his Tour experience, he won't have first-time marathon jitters. If there is any truth to the theory that a person has only a certain number of "good" marathons in him, he has probably already used his up cycling the Tour de France. But if people had only a certain number of good marathons in them, there's no way Lance would have won the Tour de France as many times as he did!

Exercise is specific, though. Lance's aerobic capacity is different, depending upon how it is measured. As a cyclist, cycling would give Lance the highest VO_{2 max}. Since he has experience swimming and running, I would suspect that his VO_{2 max} for running would be next, with his VO_{2 max} for swimming the lowest but close. Measuring VO_{2 max} for swimming is problematic anyway. Lance's experience on the bike will help him, but not as much as someone who did most of their training by running.

Lance rebuilt his body after the chemo. No one who understands cancer therapy would claim that the cancer treatment improved Lance's athletic ability. But it did permit him to tear his body down and rebuild it. Triathletes tend to be beefy athletes, while Tour de France cyclists have less upper-body mass. Armstrong took a negative in the lost weight and used it in a positive way, to reshape himself. But this also reveals something about Armstrong: his body is able to rebuild itself amazingly well. This would indicate that Armstrong will do better at running a marathon than most cyclists.

Armstrong was a man obsessed when he cycled the Tour de France. He claims that he is running the New York Marathon to "… fill a void in his life since he hasn't been competing." That's not the same thing as cycling like the deranged to win the Tour de France. But Armstrong is naturally competitive and emotionally tough. He claims to be doing the marathon in a non-serious way, but I'm not sure he can actually do that. My guess will be that, somewhere around August, he calls a few friends up and starts running workouts in a wind tunnel. I've never heard of runners training in a wind tunnel to decrease their drag. Given the amount of drag a runner creates, it might not be a bad idea, though! If he does this, watch for some cool new running gear to hit the market.¹

Armstrong has started the training at the right time. Done correctly, he will peak at the New York Marathon. The timing of this announcement is a little strange, a little too perfect. Lance's conscious mind might be saying "I'm doing this half-seriously." Even he might not know what those little sub-processes are up to in his brain.

Armstrong is a little old, especially in comparison to a lot of the marathon winners. Lance was born September 18th, 1971, which means he'll be 35 for the New York Marathon. In normal people, that's right around the time aerobic capacity starts a decline. But the "inevitable decline" may not be physiologically based, especially for someone who's trained as much as Armstrong. The winner of the Boston Marathon, Robert Cheruiyot, was 27.

Armstrong will do well in the New York marathon. He won't win it. He won't even be the first American. But he will turn in a wonderful time. He only has to finish in 3:15:59 or less. I suspect he could sign autographs along the way and beat that time.

Why 3:15:59? Well, you see, there's one word that could convince Armstrong to try to win a marathon. There's one word that might inspire him to a greater feat than 7 Tour de France championships.

He can't do it. Though my heart races at the thought, I know it's impossible. But some words have power, and to an endurance athlete, this one word has incredible power. The 3:15:59 has special meaning, for it would allow access in 2007 and 2008 to that magical word, the one word that might drive even Lance Armstrong to do the impossible:

Boston.

1. Why no one's come up with aerodynamic shoes is beyond me. The drag has to make a difference, especially given the back and forth motion of the foot. [back]

When your name's "Schwyzer," people can find your race results in the LA Marathon easily:

10K: 00:55:41
Half: 01:54:12
30K: 02:45:13
42.2K: 03:57:46

42.2K, by the way, is a full marathon, equal to 26 miles 385 yards. The uncertainty in the measurement shall be only .1%, or 42 meters. To avoid having a short course, this means that most courses are measured out to 100.1%. In practice, most runners are unable to hold to the perfect race line and so cover even more distance.

Pace: 9:04 min/mile
Place: 2057 out of 20111 (12.5%)
Gender: 1728 (No jokes, please!) out of 12333 (14.0%)
Division: 309 out of 1605 (19.3%)

Note and Update: Hugo pointed out to me that these are the "live" results, and runners are still finishing and still making it to the web. His percentages should improve markedly. I'll post the final results when I can. And here I just thought it was one heck of a marathon when a sub-4 hour effort doesn't get you into the top half.

Further update: the numbers have been corrected and percentages added. I just checked out where my worst marathon time would put me: I so have to run Los Angeles! At my worst, I'd be around 15500 or so, and there'd still be thousands of people behind me!

His bib number sucked, though: 21339. This is his lucky number now, and he should look for it everywhere. Good luck with that….

Good job, Hugo!

The problem with blogging breaking news, as I did yesterday with "Vice President Accidentally Shoots Hunting Companion" is that new information might come to light in the incident. In this case, new spin was revealed that makes me regret any understanding I had for the Vice President. I was wrong.

The shooting actually happened 24 hours before. Why was this information withheld from the public? Someone apparently decided that more spin needed to be placed on the shooting. The results of that spin leave me disgusted.

I said that

"Even if the companion contributed to the accident, the one holding the gun must always be certain of what is in the possible kill zone and only shoot when there is absolutely no doubt."

The owner of the ranch, where the private hunting took place is someone named Armstrong. According to Fox:

Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong told The Associated Press.

Armstrong told FOX News that Cheney, thinking he was the last hunter on the right of the party, turned and fired at a quail. Whittington was standing 30 yards away on lower ground with the sun to his back.
[ . . . ]
"The vice president didn't see him," Amstrong told The AP. "The covey flushed and the vice president picked out a bird and was following it and shot.

The victim of the shooting didn't announce himself. He surprised the Vice President by coming at him out of the sun. It's the victim's fault, the Vice President was just hunting. The implication is clear: the Vice President isn't responsible for shooting Whittington.

Not. It is the responsibility of the person firing the gun to know both what he is shooting at and what is behind what he is shooting at. Cheney is at fault. The fault may not be 100% his, but the ultimate responsibility is with the person firing the weapon. Cheney shot an elderly man wearing blaze orange and put him in the intensive care unit. Apparently, the Vice President didn't care what he had to do or who he had to hurt, as long as he got his objective — the quail. Anyone else beginning to see the Vice President's behavior taking on a pattern?

Further attempts to spin the story verge on the ridiculous. Here are some quotes from the Fox article:

"It was just one of those things that unfortunately happens quite often when hunting," said Kathryn Garcia, who broke the news for the Caller-Times.
[ . . . ]
"This is something that happens from time to time. You now, I've been peppered pretty well myself," said Armstrong.

These people shoot each other "quite often?" It's something that "happens from time to time?" These people should be stripped of their right to own guns. They have clearly shown that they are totally irresponsible. Gun ownership is a right, but that right carries responsibilities. Hunting accidents that could blind or kill someone are not lighthearted moments that are an expected part of hunting.

The people speaking to the press tried to minimize Whittington's injuries. Whittington is now in an Intensive Care Unit. I've been to other countries, so don't try to tell me that "Texas medicine" is different. If a patient is in an Intensive Care Unit, someone with medical training does not consider the patient's injuries trivial. Putting that person in an Intensive Care Unit as a precaution or to keep them away from the press is an abuse of precious hospital resources and dangerous. ICUs are also places to acquire nosocomial infections and "ICU psychosis." Whittington is 78 years old. I would not be surprised at all if this incident is a contributing cause in his death, when he dies. This incident will take time off the man's life, if only because of enforced bed rest in the ICU. The elderly do not have the "reserve capacity" to come back easily from major insults. Precious healing resources are being wasted repairing damage that never should have happened.

The Vice President's handlers are concerned that this incident will result in jokes about the Vice President. When I wrote my article, I wrote it as a gun owner who fears accidentally injuring another with a firearm. I am aware how accidents can happen. My thought was "There but for the grace of God go I."

I take my gun ownership seriously. My behavior reflects on other gun owners. If I do not hold myself to the highest standards, I might cost all the others their rights by giving evidence that no one should be trusted with a gun, eventually resulting in a repeal of the right to bear arms.

The Vice President sent forth his toadies and tried to shift blame and minimize the seriousness of the incident, and out of misguided and undeserved sympathy, I stuck up for the jerk. I was wrong.

LET THE MOCKING OF THE VICE PRESIDENT BEGIN.

Parenthetical note: Can you imagine going hunting with these idiots? "Ah yup! We shoot each other quite often!" This is not what the National Rifle Association has in mind when they spend their advertising dollars to protect gun ownership.

I was never more proud to be a gun owner than when a friend named Mike told me about a hunting trip he went on. Mike was lucky to be invited with this prestigious group, and they were going to an area far away where hunting was known to be especially good. When they got there, Mike noticed that one of the hunting party had been drinking. He hadn't been drinking much, but he had been drinking. Mike pointed this out to the group and expected the man's firearm be taken away from him. It wasn't.

Mike got in his car and drove all the way back home, losing one of his precious days off as a result. Mike did not want to die, nor did he want to be part of a group that cost someone else their life.

Mike is a true gun owner.

Dick Cheney and friends are not and should be ashamed. They are a disgrace. A pox on their houses and gun cabinets.

In a total miscarriage of the sports justice system, Zach Lund was banned from the Olympics and for one year of competition.

At least one writer for Slate has advocated the U.S. boycott the Winter Olympics. Apparently normal heterosexual males aren't supposed to enjoy watching strong, beautiful, and scantily clad women dance on ice. I just don't understand men, straight or gay. But after the banning of Zach Lund from the Olympics, even I might want to call for a boycott.

Zach Lund was made to leave the Olympic villiage in front of his friends and fellow athletes. His crime? He got "caught" using finasteride, one of the drugs used to treat baldness that may also mask steroid use. In an effort to support Lund, NBC, in making the announcement, showed a recent picture of Lund that left absolutely no doubt as to why Lund was using finasteride. The only hope is that no one ever shows a tape of that announcement to Lund. With friends like that, who needs the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)?

Finasteride was added to the banned drug list in January of 2005, but somehow Lund and his physicians and trainers missed that. Lund failed the drug test in November, 2005. The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) gave Lund a warning but permitted him to compete because his reason for using the drug was obviously not for cheating. That had to hurt, but at least he was going to the games.

WADA, feeling that balding athletes everywhere needed to be humiliated far more, appealed Lund's lack of suspension to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

CAS said it had been entirely satisfied Lund was not a cheat but that he had made a mistake and failed to check the list of prohibited substances in 2005.

The decision is insane, the result of a war on drugs that seems intent on mirroring the abuses and absurdities of the real war on drugs.

I may have to ask my doctor for a prescription for finasteride. Any time I participate in a road race, I am theoretically at risk for a drug test. At my skill level, getting banned for a couple of years would simply mean framing the written ban as a trophy for my wall.

This isn't the only blow to the Turin/Turino Olympics. Imagine Jerome Bettis sitting out Super Bowl XL with a groin injury, and you've got the basic idea of what it meant for Michelle Kwan pull out. I don't think she had a realistic chance to win the gold, but not all wins are realistic, as Pittsburghers know. It would have been nice to see her try, even if she is ancient at 25 years old.

Emily Hughes, sister of Sarah Hughes, the 2002 gold medal winner, will take Kwan's place on the team.

If it weren't for the chance to root for Emily and watch snowboarding and Olympic-level sled riding, I would probably boycott these olympics.

Geocaching is a simple hobby of treasure hunting. You hide some treasure (trinkets, always child-friendly and often aimed at the children in us all) some place in a specially-marked "geocache," take the GPS coordinates of where you hid it, post your "cache" to the Geocaching web site, and wait for other people to find it. They sign the log book you included in your Geocache, trade one trinket for another, rehide your "cache" and the game goes on.

Unless your "cache" is mistaken for a terrorist threat…

But before [Scot Tintsman] could finish adding the requisite trinkets and log books [to his cache] and posting its GPS coordinates on the Internet, a bridge inspection crew found it.

Rounding a corner on his motorcycle to finish rigging his cache, he was greeted by a barricade of police cars and a bomb squad.

To help prevent such mistakes, Geocaches should include a water-proof paper with the following description:

GEOCACHE SITE - PLEASE READ

Congratulations, you've found it! Intentionally or not!

What is this hidden container sitting here for? What the heck is this thing doing here with all these things in it?

It is part of a worldwide game dedicated to GPS (Global Positioning System) users, called GPS Stash Hunting, or Geocaching. The game basically involves a GPS user hiding "treasure" (this container and its contents), and publishing the exact coordinates so other GPS users can come on a "treasure hunt" to find it. The only rules are: if you take something from the stash, you must leave something for the stash, and you must write about your visit in the logbook. Hopefully, the person that stashed this container found a good spot that is on public property and is not easily found by uninterested parties. Sometimes, a good spot turns out to be a bad spot, though.

IF YOU FOUND THIS CONTAINER BY ACCIDENT:

Great! You are welcome to join us! We ask only that you:

• Please do not move or vandalize the container. The real treasure is just finding the container and sharing your thoughts with everyone else who finds it.
• If you wish, go ahead and take something. But please also leave something of your own for others to find, and write it in the logbook.
• If possible, let us know that you found it, by visiting the website listed below.

The GPS Stash Hunt is open to everyone with a GPS and a sense of adventure. There are similar sites all over the world. Currently, the organization has it's home on the Internet. Visit our website if you want to learn more, or have any comments:

http://www.geocaching.com

If this container happens to be sitting on private property and you wish it removed, please let us know. We apologize, and will be happy to move it.

There are stickers available to help identify geocaches for what they are:

Groundspeak has a great, waterproof version of this sticker available, that's easy to apply to your cache. They also sell a lot of other cool stuff for Geocaching.

I can't help but wonder if any of my hobbies — high power rocketry, geocaching, photography, comic books — will survive long in this post-9/11 world. Won't giving up our freedoms mean the terrorists win?

Y'know, if we'd looked for "Super Bowl rings" on eBay, maybe we could have gotten one for the thumb years ago…

In reading through the news this morning about the Super Bowl, I notice that a lot of people think it was a bad football game. Here's why I think they're wrong.

Sports in general (and football in particular) are fought on many levels:

• Technical: the physical execution of the sport
• Strategic: anticipating the oppnent's game plan and countering it
• Psychological: affecting the opponent on an emotional level and controlling your own responses
• Meta: Combining all of the above and getting them to interact to improve chances of victory

A wise game plan attempts to force the opponent to make mistakes. An even wiser (though possibly riskier) game plan is to make the opponent think you are making mistakes that the opponent can take advantage of…only to walk into a trap¹.

Yesterday's game was about making the other team screw up. A classic example is the switch to 3 rushers. Hasselbeck had less pressure on him and thus oodles of time in the pocket. But in return for the extra time, there are more defenders to cover receivers. The result can be a killer pass, a short pass for insufficient yardage, an interception, or Hasselbeck running for yardage. How the defense executes the play and what they can "sell" to Hasselbeck (who is also trying to "sell" his own misinformation) determines the outcome. I think all of those things happened yesterday!

Near the end of the second quarter, between the Steelers' lead and the defensive pressure, Seattle lost the chance to go ahead. The same thing happened at the end of the game; what should have been a 2 minute drill started at 8 minutes turned into a quagmire of mistakes forced on Hasselbeck and the Seahawks. The mistakes happened because the Steelers forced them into it. Seattle is an excellent team. The mistakes arose, not from their inability but from the level of play. Had they faced a Steelers team not at the absolute top of their game, the Seahawks might be Super Bowl Champs.

The same can be said of the Steelers. They faced an opponent of equal caliber and mistakes resulted. How many fans were thinking back to the 1995 Super Bowl when Roethlisberger was intercepted by Kelly Herndon? He was pushed into mistakes that led to that interception, and the interception could have led to more Roethlisberger mistakes. Last year Roethlisberger would have come unglued: not this year, though.

When was the last time the Steelers didn't have a "gadget" play? The ABC announcers were going "expect a gadget play" and it never materialized…until it was unexpected and worked for a touchdown! How much effort did Seattle spend defending against anticipated "gadget" plays that never materialized? When did they forget or give up? Why did they give up?

There were more layers to yesterday's Super Bowl than Nancy's Seven layer lasagna (which, strangely enough, has more than seven layers). The mistakes were because it was such a good game. A perfect game by one team would have required the Browns play the Steelers or Seahawks in the Super Bowl. It would have been a perfect game on one side only.

Yesterday's game was good. It wasn't pretty, which is why it was good.

1. "Tactics of Mistake" by Gordon R. Dickson is highly recommended reading on this very topic. [back]

That was a game. It wasn't the best football ever played. Both teams were a bit rough at times, but it was a great football game and a very memorable Super Bowl game.

The Steelers won, 21-10, over an excellent Seattle Seahawks team. I wouldn't mind seeing the Seahawks and Steelers develop a rivalry, the way the Cowboys and Steelers used to be!

Finally, we know what it takes to make Bill Cowher smile. Finally, we get to see a Rooney hold the Super Bowl trophy once again.

I just went outside, wearing running shorts, a Roethlisberger away jersey, and a Terrible Towel in my hand and screamed my lungs out with everyone else in the neighborhood! My feet are still cold — I have to learn to not go barefoot so much, especially in the snow.

This is the 5th Super Bowl victory I've celebrated, although two were when I was away in St. Louis. It feels every bit as good as I remember.

And The Sock Girl will get a pair of socks in the mail, to photograph on her feet and post that picture on her blog!

Jerome Bettis just announced "The Bus…the last stop is in Detroit."

You knew it would be if we won. Thanks, Jerome, for all the years and all the football you've given us. It's the end of an error and you will be missed.

I hope we'll see you around town, like Franco.

Thoughts through the Super Bowl:

• Someone asked Mick Jagger who he thought would win; give Jagger the credit that he said he didn't know. I think he was still trying to figure out what the giant wickets are for.
• I'm glad they explained that it was Arron Neville singing and not Aretha Franklin…I was thinking she had a serious hormonal problem.
• The advertisement for Grey's Anatomy makes me want to watch. Code Black: "Is that something bad?" Have you ever noticed that nothing's ever named "Code Puce" in a hospital?
• The "The Places You Go" skit was great, but Harrison Ford looked worse than Aaron Neville was Aretha Franklin.
• It's a shame Keith Richards didn't live to see this.¹ Of course, he still looks better than Harrison Ford did.
• The birds are excited about the game…or at least the chips they see. Holmes the African Grey is bobbing and waving to "Here we go Steelers, Here we go!" Sack and penalty against Seattle declined! Roethlisberger is coming up after Seattle kicks the ball into the end zone.
• Do not hide Bud Light in an office full of alcoholics. Burger King's commercial was surprisingly disturbing…moreso than just the usual Big Head King.
• Two false starts…ouch. Three and out because of the penalties.
• Bruce Willis seems to be going to the same spa as Harrison Ford. I don't think I'm going to look in a mirror any time soon.
• This is the first time I've seen Hasselbeck. He's good. Jackson's catch proves it, but the 10 yard holding penalty (choke hold) saves the Steelers! It could have been near red-zone, but instead it was 3rd and 16. Almost got an interception there! That may calm Hasselbeck down a bit. Another kick into the end zone. Still 0-0.
• Yeah, the Super Bowl commercials remind me why I don't drink. Drink and be incredibly absolutely stupid, at least according to all the ads.
• Another Steeler 3 and out. I thought Hines got it, but apparently not.The Seahawks get excellent field position.
• I never read "V for Vendetta" but the movie looks like it has possibilities.
• Jackson just took it to the 28 for the Seahawks. And then a great throw and another 1st down. Another penalty saves a touchdown by Jackson. That seems to have re-energized the Steeler defense! 3rd and 23: I smell a pass. Incomplete! Field goal right down the middle, and the 'Hawks take the lead 3-0.
• Aleve long and prosper?
• The Steelers need to pick it up. Logan's now out. And the Steelers are 3 and out again.
• Second Quarter. Warrick gets a good return on the kick that gets taken away by the penalty. Pruitt's screwup hurts the 'Hawks." 2nd and 5: Hasselbeck makes the pass. Sigh. Alexander's run gets them to 3rd and 2 across midfield. An incomplete brings up 4th down, but it should have been a fumble. The punt goes into the endzone and the Steelers get it at the 20.
• Bettis gets a 2 yard gain. 3rd and 8. Third and long hurts. Finally we get a 1st down with a Randle El catch! Hines Ward gets a great run on the first gadget play!
• Nancy says she's worked for the company in the Careerbuilder.com commercial where the monkeys rotate the graph so they can celebrate. I can guess which one, but I won't.
• Roethlisberger throws the interception on the fake. Crapola.
• Seattle gets 4th and inches and punts. Randle El got a terrible hit and appears injured. That was ugly.
• The Ford Hybrid "It isn't easy being green" with Kermit was cute. The pictures of the Steelers with the Lombardi trophy are great.
• Parker gets a good run on 2nd down, leading to a 3rd down and 6. Randle El's back and Hines Ward gets the absolutely wors shovel pass I've ever seen, getting the first down! Oh! The running game just isn't working, putting more pressure on Roethlisberger. Now that's a pass –20 yards on the seam to #80, Wilson. Almost a Hines Ward touchdown, but he drops the pass. The bus gets a catch but there's a flag: offensive pass interference. Sack. Big Ben goes down, but at least he hung onto the ball. 3rd and 28: caught at the 3 freakin' yard line by Hines Ward! Roethlisberger was very careful to not cross the line of scrimmage. Oh my word! Even the parrots are stunned. Pittsburgh calls a time out with first and goal and I can breathe again. The bus goes to the 1, and the announcers are saying they'll give it to the bus. The bus is stopped and it's third and about a yard. Now it's the 2 minute warning.
• Didn't I just see a Poseidon Adventure remake on TV? Gillette Fusion has five closely spaced blades that will get gunked up with beard after the first stroke. Why not just get a 47 blade razor? That's where they're heading. This blog entry is so going to look terrible. Oh well.
• Roethlisberger gets the TD on a keeper! It's up to the replay offical. From my view, part of the ball went over the front of the line but not by much. It stands! 7-3 Steelers and I feel like puking. My stomach hasn't been good, and this game is not helping at all.
• Mike Holgren's wife is on a medical mission to the Congo. I want the Steelers to win, but I admire her.
• Holding on the kick means 1st and 20 as we approach halftime. 1:47 to goand 87 catches the Hasselbeck pass, 37 gets the second pass. Seattle has been doing an excellent 2 minute drill. When I was a kid, they used to always call "clipping" penalties, and you never hear that any more. I woner why? Here's a possible answer. Hasselbeck gets another excellent pass. Oh my, the pass to the end zone was out of bounds or it would have been a Jackson touchdown. Time out for Pittsburgh with 48 seconds to go. The Steelers just took a time-out, and the pass was out of bounds. The field goal is….no good! The Steelers will go into halftime, assuming nothing happens in the remaining 2 seconds, winning 7-3. The R-man takes a knee to end a strange end to the first half. The parrots are getting twitchy and I have to stop eating anything.
• The guy singing "You're going to have to face it you're addicted to love" is dead, and so the commercial for "Lost" was a little creepy.
• Second half coming up. They're saying Cowher said Roethlisberger has to settle down. The kickoff…to the 24. The players are up, and a little riled. Let's not get any penalties! The pass is just behind Ward, although Ward almost caught it. Manuel is out. Paker broke it open, it's going to be a touchdown! 75 yards…no flag…no flag…NO FLAG! Ok, the first half was a "good game" and now we can have a blowout. I've been waiting for Parker to do that…he's had 6 carries for 11 yards before that, but now it's 14-3! Woohoo! Longest runback!
• The Ameriquest "don't judge commercial was excellent! I laughed hard. The woman is walking through a dark airplane, they hit a bump and she winds up in the lap of a passenger and knocks his eye mask into his mouth!
• 3rd and 4, let's hold Seattle and force them to punt…Polamalu overshot the runner and the 'Hawks get the first down. I'm not sure Polamalu is 100%. Seattle just got another 1st down with a run, making them the first to get a running game going. Of course, Parker just had that run…forget I said that. No catch! It bounced off him. To the 32 yard line 3rd and 5, no flag. There was almost another sack, Jackson wasn't ready, didn't know where the ball was. The field goal is no good for 50 yards and the Steelers get the ball!
• The Budweiser baby horselet commercial, where the pony gets into the harness and pulls the wagon — with two other horses pushing the wagon — that was a great commercial! Nancy loves it, too.
• Hines Ward just made an incredible catch! Who's quad is hurt for the other team? The Bus goes over the top for yardage! Incomplete pass with Roethlisberger running a "quarterback marathon." The quad belongs to Seattle's #24. Ward catches a great pass that was obviously successful and then fights for more yardage. The Bus just took the ball to the 10. Now he's into the 7. The Bus comes out.
• I've seen the H3 commercial before, but it's still good. Next, there's a commercial for the Pittsburgh Hazmat team. "Practical Solutions" is a disinfectant that's practically unneeded. If folks are complaining about the NBC shows, "Sons and Daughters" has to raise some hackles.
• Roethlisberger threw an interception and tries to make yet another tackle. The #31 Herndon for the 'Hawks made a big play. Ouch. Nancy decided to stop watching again as a result. Hasselbeck almost gets intercepted, which would have been nice. Touchdown Stevens. Polamalu missed the coverage on a pick. Field goal good. 14-10. It's still a 4 point game.
• The nerd girl in the Taco Bell commercial is cute. Hey, what can I say? "Sons and Daughters" is definitely a show that should cause problems.
• They're checking out the Steeler's Okobi on the field. Parker gets 3 to the 23. Thank goodness I'm a touch typist. Totupu gets the tackle on the next, Ron Haines did not get the first down. Bernard for the 'Hawks, a starting tackle, is out. The punt goes to the 25 and the ball winds up at about the 28.
• Ok, gotta see "The World's Fastest Indian."
• Stevens drops the ball again. This game is way too close. 5 yard penalty for offsides helps. Townsend keeps the pass from being caught. 3rd and 15 long: Hasselbeck got too much time, but it didn't matter as the receiver didn't make it to the first down and Seattle punts. Randle El fought for some more yardage on the return.
• Incomplete pass for the first down. Tatupu strikes again Roethlisberger runs for almost 9 yards. R-man should have gotten out of bounds. 3rd down it's thrown away and the Steelers punt. Did Ben get hurt? The ball's downed at the 2.5 yard line. Ben doesn't appear to be doing anything to fix anything, so that's good.
• Hasselbeck is backed up. The end zone is alive with Steeler fans and Terrible Towels. Alexander got a few yards. Hasselbeck runs to the 16 and now another Steeler is being worked on. Two back-to-back catches have giventhe 'Hawks another 1st down — and then across the midline for another 1st down. Incomplete pass ends the 3rd quarter. 14-10 and the teams switch ends.
• Ok, I like the "Benny Hillesque Sprint "What if your couch caught on fire?" commercial. How old do you have to be to recognize Benny Hill? The commercials haven't been as good as I remember.
• This is a good game. I don't want a good game now. I want a Steeler blowout. But Hasselbeck just threw another good pass to Engram, and then a run gets more yardage. Another 1st down. Sigh. Polamalu han't been in the game — and now the announcers are even commenting on it. Stevens gets it at the 1, but there's a flag holding against offense. Whew! Still, Seattle is doing well. Sack by Hampton! That holding call hurt Seattle. 2 and 25. Alexander gets pulled down at the 26. 3 and 18: Interception by Ike Taylor! The Steelers needed that, but there's also a flag post-interception. The penalty is against them, if I heard it right.
• The Degree "Stunt City" would be one I could wtch again. The Emerald Nuts commerical is too weird for me. That should scare them. Yeah, Paul McCartney Fidelity commercial…yawn.
• Parker gets a yard on the first run. The penalty against Hasselbeck was probably