Happy New Year!!!

Yup, it's New Year's Eve which means it's not your typical Friday night. But, me being me, I always wondered why humans pick this day of all days to act a fool.

Maybe this morning's Seattle Times has some good suggestions:
"Some perhaps mourn the passing of another 365 days and nights, the countless missed opportunities, missed connections, unfulfilled potentials that go into a year. Those with more optimistic spirits might be celebrating the victories, large and small, the things that go right, the seeds perhaps just starting to grow, the hope for 2005."

"Or perhaps might we be celebrating the idea that, despite our seemingly incessant self-destructive urges, the human race is still here?"

"Or are we simply toasting the inherent yet staggering symbolism, the endless cycles that define not only our existence, but all existence?"

In anycase, I'm not going out tonight. For starters, I'm broke. What fun is it to be around a bunch of drunk people if you're not drunk too? Infact, drunk people are the main reason I don't want to be out. As hard as some may try to convince you with their stories of "oh my God, I got soooooo drunk last night", the majority of people I've encountered in my lifetime CAN NOT handle their liquor. So, instead, they get tanked and do something increadibly embarrassing and degrading to themselves. Sounds like fun eh?

Besides, I got my own celebration to tend to... hopefully. I plan on sitting down on the couch with some wings or chips and watching the Florida/Miami game. I'm hoping I'll have my brother to enjoy that with, since he's on his last full day here before going back to California tomorrow.

Not going out hasn't stopped me from making any resolutions, however. I actually decided this a month ago, but, I've decided I'm going to have no unnecessary expenses this year. I plan on moving out somewhere between April and July, so I need to make sure that I'm managing my money well. Besides, it's just a good idea in general.

Anyway, for those of you that plan on going out, enjoy yourself, but be safe.

That's all from me.

Peace,
Skoo

I'm back

Just got back in from KC. Made pretty good time I guess, about 3 hours drive.

Anyways, things went good I suppose. Got to see my new second cousin, that's him in the picture. Unfortunatly, my phone doesn't take the greatest pictures. Still, he's a cute little guy.

In any case, it was good just to get out of town. Today was supposed to be my 11th day of work in the last 12. Luckily, I got to work this morning and they told me to turn right back around and go home since our cooler was about 80% empty, meaning nothing to do. Not like I'm going to argue with that. 10 of 11 days was bad enough. Plus, that allowed us to get out of town a little earlier than planned.

So now, I got the next 3 days off, so I plan on doing nothing short of vegatating. Thinking about picking John Legend's album up in the morning. I'll let you all know how that is if I get it.

Note to self: I need to change my settings on my boy Jai's message board. On curtain topics I set it to send me an email whenever there's a replay in those threads (which I also get a text message everytime I get an email), so my phone was going off all day and I come home to 87 new emails.

One more note, my girl STL updated her page today. Yet, another nice layout, so check that out.

That's all for now.

Peace,
Skoo

Merry Christmas

Just wanted to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas. I hope everything is going well and continues to go well.

I'd have to say I've had a good Christmas season so far. My family and I opened gifts this evening. I went in with my mom on getting my brother a Nintendo Gamecube. It came with a game and two controllers, so not a bad deal at all. As for my mom, I got her a suped-up version of the board game Cranium. My brother also went the game route and got her Scene It?, a movie trivia game that uses DVD's. Pretty cool gift.

As for myself, I got a couple cd's, Dwele's Subject and the Okayplayer compilation album. I also received Tiger Woods 2005 for my Xbox and a Home Cafe coffee maker that is basically error proof and makes really good coffee. I was really happy with the gift side of things this year.

It sounds as if mom is wanting to see a movie tomorrow. Whether or not I see that movie with her and my brother depends on how awake I am. I've worked 8 days in a row with Christmas Day being my first day off since that streach and today I had to be at work at 4 in the morning. In short, I'm exhausted. But, she was talking about seeing Closer with Julia Roberts, so it might be worth going. Maybe I'll push myself.

It looks like I'll be heading to Kansas City after I get off work on Tuesday to see my aunt and cousins. I'm looking forward to that as my cousin Mary will have her new baby with her, so I'll get to check yet another second cousin out. Should be fun and it's good to get out of town.

Once again, I hope everything is going well for you and yours over the holidays.

That's all for me.

Peace,
Skoo

Trillian 3 released to the public

Yes, Cerulean Studios has finally released Trillian 3 to the public for download now. Again, for those of you that have no clue what Trillian is exactly, it's a multi-client instant messenger meaning you can be on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, ect. with one program as compared to 3 or 4 or how ever many instant messengers you have. It's about simplicity people. For $25 you can have the enhanced features (assuming you don't bootleg or anything), but the basic version has plenty of features itself.

Here's a list of some of the new features:
-Chat room support for Yahoo and MSN to go along with AIM/AOL
-Audio support for im's and chat rooms and improved video quality
-The ability to record and archive audio and video conversations
-List icons like those in Apple's iChat

There's plenty more features and you can learn about those, aswell as download the program, at Cerulean Studios' website at http://trillian.cc

Trillian comes with the "Whistler" skin as a default. For those of you who would like the skin I have shown here, it's the MCE Royale skin meant to compliment the Royale theme for Microsoft's Media Center Edition 2005 and it is avalible here. If you'd like the weather plugin, im me (assuming you have my name on your list).

Check out Trillian, I'm pretty sure you'll be happy with it.

Peace,
Skoo

Just some notes

Just wanted to drop a few things on here.

First, as you can see, I made some changes to the layout. I was finally able to disect the html to this blog template and apply it to the rest of the pages on here. There's more information about this in the new "about" section. I've also started up a sports blog. Obviously, this will be about sports. I figured it would be a way to separate that material from this blog, just incase some of you don't neccesarily like reading sports. In saying that, for those of you that really know me, expect the sports blog to be updated more often than this one.

Moving along, my brother from California is in town for Christmas. Talk about your contrasts with the Bay Area seeing tempatures in the 50's while right as I type this in Lincoln it's a balmy 17º.

I've yet to do my shopping for Christmas, mostly because I don't get paid until Friday. I thought about going out today and getting that stuff taken care of, but the weather has me camping indoors. Hate to say it, but I may wait until Friday being that tomorrow looks to be just as cold, with Friday being warmer.

That's all for today.

Peace,
Skoo

This Gator's Smilin'

After what has been a mediocre season for Gator football fans everywhere has suddenly redeemed itself this past week.

Things started off with a bang with the hiring of Utah coach Urban Meyer, filling the vacancy made with the firing of coach Ron Zook in late October. I couldn't be more happier with this hiring. Meyer comes in with four years of head coaching experience and already has been a two-time coach of the year. This means we got probley the hottest coach going right now. His spread option offence is ideal for the Gators personel and is a good in bewteen of Zook's pro style offence and Florida legend Steve Spurrier's fun-n-gun spread offence. The future is looking bright in Gainesville.

As for the present, I got my wish. It was announced early last week that Florida would play in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta and would play the loser of the Va. Tech/Miami game on Dec. 4th. I pulled for Va. Tech hard in that game hoping that Miami would be the team to play the Gators, and sure enough that happened. With Florida State being the major instate matchup that Florida gets guarenteed to them every year, I really savor when Florida plays Miami. It's a matchup that I feel should happen every year, hopefully one day it will. But, for now, I look forward to December 31st.

GO GATORS!!!

First Snow

Just wanted to show off a photo I took late this morning on my phone.

This was the first snow of the year. What you see here is about an hour's worth of snow. Nothing too spectacular, just a sign that winter is here despite what the calendar says.

We're supposed to recieve more tonight. Infact here's a portion of the weather advisery that was issued earlier today:

... WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON CST MONDAY...

OCCASIONAL SNOW... HEAVY AT TIMES... WILL CONTINUE THROUGH THE OVERNIGHT HOURS... AND INTO MONDAY MORNING WITH TOTAL ACCUMULATIONS OF 5 TO 7 INCHES POSSIBLE.

ANY TRAVEL IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED. IF YOU LEAVE THE SAFETY OF BEING INDOORS, YOU ARE PUTTING YOUR LIFE AT RISK....

Just thought I'd share that with y'all.

Peace,
Skoo

Thanksgiving

First of all, I hope that you and yours had a good Thanksgiving.

My Thanksgiving started like most of my days... getting up early to go to work. I actually didn't mind. It's a holiday, meaning that I get paid more, and it's a really easy day to work. Easy enough to only have one other person in the department besides myself.

As expected work went fairly easily. The morning had enough for me to do as long as I did it leasurely. Being that my boss wasn't around, I took numerous breaks upstairs where they always leave deli meat & cheese available with some chips and other snacks laying around for us to feast on. They also leave the pop machines open, so I was well wired off of Mt. Dew after a while.

Once the afternoon came around, I spent my time milking the clock and watching Peyton Manning single-handedly dismantle the Detroit Lions.

Finally, I leave work for the day, come home, and pass out in my Lay-Z-Boy with the cat. Fairly easy to do watching the Cowboys and Bears, I might add.

After my sleep, I filled myself on ham (cause I was sick of turkey by this point), sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and stuffing followed by pumpkin pie.

My Thanksgiving was mostly quiet, which is the way I like things. I just like for people to stay out my way so I can sort my thoughts and collect myself. Holidays are about the only chance I get to do that.

Overall, I'd say things went ok.

Peace,
Skoo

Trillian 3

Last night I discovered that an alpha version of Trillian 3 had been released. For those of you naive to what Trillian is, it's an all-in-one instant messaging client that combines Yahoo, MSN, AOL, ICQ, and IRC and lets you have multiple account running for each client. It also has plug-ins available for Jabber, Novell Group Wise, and Lotus Sametime (the last two being mainly business chat clients). So, naturally, I decided to try out the new version. I have to say, so far, I'm really pleased with it.

They've added some features, obviously. There's two I've really taken liking to. First, they've added support for chat rooms on MSN and Yahoo!. Also, they've added support for voice chat. I've found the voice chat to be a little shaky in chat rooms, but then again, it's an alpha (or extremely early release). I've yet to try voice in pm.

Another thing I really like, as you can see in that screenshot, is the interface. It's an extremely friendly interface to use and look at. They now allow for me to select one buddy icon for all my clients instead of making me indivisualy setting my icon for each account. The other thing I really like it that I can see my friends' icons in my buddy list next to their names, much like Apple's IChat client, along with their status below their names.

Overall, I'm really happy with it so far. If you want a closer view of the screenshot above, just click on it and a new window should open up for it.

Also, if you'd like me to send you the instalation file for the Trillian 3 alpha, let me know. Just know that you'll be stuck with the basic version, unless you find a crack somewhere, because I'm not releasing my registration information. I'm not crazy.

Anyways, that's all from me.

Peace,
Skoo

Boredom

My boredom has to be at it's highest that's it's been in a while. I don't hear from my friends like I used to, for various reasons out of my control. I'm almost convinced I need a new group of people to be around. It's not that I want to, I've known this group of folks for the majority of the time I've lived here. It just seems they can't find the time out of thier busy schedules to give me a simple call. Makes you wonder you know?

I have already made the decision to move out on my own in the spring. I figure, my own place, my own rules. I've had 26 years of other people's rules.

But, back to my boredom. I'm watching the Sonics-Kings game right now, so, that's curing my need for entertainment for the time being. It helps that the Sonics are up double figures.

It seems though that even the things that are fun to me are becoming boring. I'm not sure what to think of that quite yet. But, it sucks not having a car. Won't have one of those until early next year sometime. So, I'm really limited in what I can do. Usually I have work to keep me from getting bored, but I'm in the second day of a four day streach where I don't work. In a way, that's a good thing. It gives my body a chance to heal. My muscles especially. Between my jaw (I have TMD) and my back, the time off has been good. Besides, the weather sucks right now. Last time I checked, it was raining and we have a windchill of 25 degrees. There's even a slight chance of some snow over night.

But, anyway, life goes on right? Like Common said, "it's a dog eat dog world, you gotta mush on."

Enough of me bitchin'.

Peace,
Skoo

The Definition of a Man

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis was charged with double murder in Atlanta, Georgia in January of 2000. Those charges were later dropped after a plea bargain.

Since then, Lewis has gone on to dominate the NFL with his play on the field. His passion, heart, and determination has been something I've admired over the past few years. I fully respect Ray Lewis as a football player.

Then comes the war of words between Lewis and Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens. A few days after the Eagles victory over the Ravens on October 31st, Owens was still talking. Getting personal Owens said, "You have a guy like Ray Lewis, who I thought he was pretty much my friend. This is a guy, double murder case, and he could have been in jail, but it seems like the league embraces a guy like that. But I'm going out scoring touchdowns and having fun, but I'm the bad guy."

Now, most people in America would of at least tore Owens apart verbally, if not accually doing it literally. Ray Lewis, however, had this to say:

If I ever as a man offended Terrell Owens, I would definitely have to say I'm sorry. Because my heart wouldn't allow me to offend someone... who as a man, if you haven't found yourself in a dark place in life... if you find yourself there, call me. What I went through four years ago was real. We're talking about people's families that he's bringin into this situation. You know, when you speak about things so loosely and unselfishly... so, do I take it personal? No. But, what hurts the most is, I'm tellin this person "I have nothing against you brotha. Never will, never have. I enjoy your game. And don't look for your praise through man, don't look for nobody to praise you. Man only builds you up to tear you down." So, when he scores all these touchdowns and he's arguably the MVP right now in mid-season, take pride out of it for a minute. Forget "I". Don't walk in the room with an "I" additude everyday. Walk in the room with how I'm going to get my team better.This room was struggling with how to get my team over the edge. And, that's what I think he's missing. He's missing that "forget me".
T.O. man, I'm going to always love this guy, because, he brings a different energy to the game of football. He didn't know what he was saying. You know, don't worry about effecting me. My foundation is simple. My foundation is God. My foundation is if you want to go back and pull up my past, be careful. Because, as deep as I've been dug up is as high as I'm about to go. You know, and that's what I wanna tell another young man. Be you and choose what you know is right and that's love. And if T.O. walked into my house right now I'd tell my momma to cook him a dinner. He's my brother. He says, "I thought he was my friend", I'm more than a friend, I'm a brother. And when you don't feel appriciated, and when you do feel attacked, I've been there. My phone number's simple. It's easy to find me. So, as a man when you don't know how to get through that, you can always call me.

After the Eagles following game against the Steelers, Owens announce that he and Lewis had cleared the air. As for Lewis' words, words to live by.

I'm in loooooove with a pothead

Nah, I'm not seriously in love. And no, I haven't smoked weed in a very very very long time. But, I am gonna marry a pothead.

I was talkin with my girl in Cali and I was tellin her I had the munchies. She suggested that I get some salsa flavored Doritos. Maaaaan, these damn things are off the damn ringer. Now, I'm sure someone who didn't smoked weed could of suggested these chips to me too. But, I do believe there's an increased likelyhood that a pothead will find this kind of thing first.

Believe me, I know about this.

I smoked weed before and I always came up with good food. So have some of my high ass friends. I've eaten everything from stuffed porkchops with the sides to go with to salsa burgers with nacho cheese to dip em in. I eat good around weed.

So ladies, if you're cute and you're high, HOLLA!!!!! LMAO!

Peace,
Skoo

Go Vote!!!

Please people, go vote tomorrow, November 2nd. As Sean "P. Diddy" Combs would say, "Vote or Die".

Seriously, if you think about it, "Vote or Die" is a good way to put it. Your life is effected by the choices that our legislature makes. The only way you can have any control over what they do is to vote the people who are going to work for you. The more people in Congress down to your local legislatures that speak the same thing you do, the more your voice will count.

So, GO VOTE! Because, like Martin Luther King Jr. once said, those who do not speak up for the cause are just as bad if not worse than those who are against it.

Peace,
Skoo

Daddy's Home

Back from KC. The whole trip filled up my day, litterally.

We started out for KC at about 9am... got there at around noon. It usually does take about 3 hours.

Once there, we met up with my folks, my aunt and about 9 of my cousins (from 2 generations). We ended up eaten at Famous Dave's BBQ. I didn't really have an arguement with that, because it is good food. But, being that we had a Dave's in Lincoln, I kinda would of rather ate at a local jawn. It wasn't my choice however, and like I said, it's still good food. Had me a pretty good catfish & rib platter. Not bad.

After eating, we went back to my aunt's place, had cake, and recieved more gifts.

After that, it was about 7pm, so we decided to head home. Got in about 10pm... by 11, I passed out. So, that was my day yesterday.

Before I sign this thing off, I received a note from my boy Jai in Chicago telling me one of his childhood freinds was killed in a ridiculous act of violence. He asked for your prayers, I just wanted to second that. The shit is senseless.

Peace,
Skoo

Just some notes

As you can see, I'm playing around with the layout again. Let me know what you think of this by clickin' the comments link below.

Anyway, I'm sittin here at around 8:20 am and I find I have absolutely nothing for breakfast available to me again. No milk, no more frozen sausage & egg croisants, and I'm trying to save money. Still, looks like I'll be hitting BK up on the way to work. Oh, well.

You may have noticed I never posted anything about my birthday. It's not that it went bad, I'm just lazy. Acually, it went pretty good. Moms took me shoppin' (which is by far the best way to give my picky ass presents). Just got a few collectibles and a hat rack. I still may have some other things coming. After shoppin, I ate at TGI Friday's and the Jack Daniels Burger is good eatin'. So, overall a good day.

Tomorrow my mom and I will be heading to Kansas City so see my aunt and her kids. I guess they're treating us to lunch, probley at one of Kansas City's fine BBQ jawns. For those that don't know, my mom's birthday is the day after mine, so we always celebrate together. This year, however, is a special occasion as it's my mom's 60th this year. So, I'm making sure I'm taking part in as much as possible.

I guess that's it for now.

Peesh,
Skoo

Spaceship

I have to start this one off with a verse by Kanye West (the man above if you don't know)...

I've been workin' this graveshift and I ain't made shit
I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky

Man, man, man
If my manager insults me again I will be assaulting him
After I fuck the manager up then I'm gonna shorten the register up
Let's go back, back to the Gap
Look at my check, wasn't no scratch
So if I stole, wasn't my fault
Yeah I stole, never got caught
They take me to the back and pat me
Askin' me about some khakis
But let some black people walk in
I bet they show off their token blackie
Oh now they love Kanye, let's put him all in the front of the store
Saw him on break next to the 'No Smoking' sign with a blunt and a Marl'
Takin' my hits, writin' my hits
Writin' my rhymes, playin' my mind
This fuckin' job can't help him
So I quit, y'all welcome
Y'all don't know my struggle
Y'all can't match my hustle
You can't catch my hustle
You can't fathom my love dude
Lock yourself in a room doin' five beats a day for three summers
That's a +Different World+ like +Cree Summers+
I deserve to do these numbers
The kid that made that deserves that Maebach
So many records in my basement
I'm just waitin' on my spaceship, blaow

I've been workin' this graveshift and I ain't made shit
I wish I could buy me a spaceship and fly past the sky

It seems I'm always playing this song right after I get off work... hmmmm. It's like, you work a bullshit job, because like a man on Comic View once said, "a check is a check is a got damn check". So, you work this job, tolerate the shit and continue goin from check to check. The only thing that keeps you going with this hell hole is the knowing that you're in trianing to do what you really want to do, in my case web design, and that your ticket out will come in due time. But, it's still a grind. The back aches, head aches, and cold glares to your superiors that result from those pains are all a part of the daily process of commerce at work. I say this because really, nobody workin retail is happy, unless you're the store manager. That's the only person involved that benifits from anything in a retail situation. The schedule makers have limitations on hours because there's money to be saved if possible. So, you cut back work, which stresses out the floor managers, who stress out the department people, who inturn give poorer service because well, they're pissed they're not able to get their real work done. Meanwhile the big man in charge is getting the bonuses from the money saved.

But, like Ceelo Green once said, "I'd rather struggle on my feet than to live on my knees". Gotta keep on grindin'.

Peace,
Skoo

R.I.P. Ken Caminiti

On the field, Ken Caminiti's all-out style served him well. Off the field is where it got him in trouble. The 1996 National League MVP, who later admitted using steroids during his major league career, died Sunday. He was 41.

Caminiti died of a heart attack in the Bronx, said his agent-lawyer Rick Licht. The city medical examiner's office performed an autopsy Monday but could not rule on a cause of death until toxicology tests were complete, spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said. That process could take as long as 10 days.

Breaking in with the Houston Astros in 1986, Caminiti's 15-year big league career ended in 2001, five seasons after he led the San Diego Padres to a division title and was a unanimous pick for MVP. But the three-time All-Star third baseman often was in trouble the last few years.

Kenny will be missed.

Pics of Hurricane Ivan

Just a quick announcement. I have uploaded my first photo album in the Pic section. It's a collection of photos my dad took the day after Hurricane Ivan hit Pensacola in September. To check those pictures out, click on "Pics" above, or click here.

Also, feel free to leave your comments below. Just click at the bottom of this post where it says "comments".

Peesh,
Skoo

MLB Playoff Picks

It's the first part of October and that means it's time for the Major League Baseball Playoffs. Unfortunatly, the Seattle Mariners are not involved with this year's festivities, but my NL favorites, the Houston Astros, are. So, time to make my predictions for this year as I'll break it down series by series.

National League Division Series
Astros vs. Braves
The Houston Astros come in playing the best baseball of any team in the majors. Having said that, you have to respect the Atlanta Braves who have just won thier 13th straight division championship. There's just something about this Braves team this year. Their pitching was supposed to be worse this year, the lineup took a hit aswell, but, still the Braves come out on top of the NL East. Still, I don't see a better pitching duo in the NL than the Clemens-Oswalt combo that Houston has.
Pick: Astros over Braves in 4 games

Dodgers vs. Cardinals
The Los Angeles Dodgers did what they had to do to get into the playoffs by winning one game against the Giants on Saturday. The problem is, they had a lead as large as 8 games as recent as a month ago. This was a sign of weakness in my eyes. That's just not going to work against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cards' big three of Edmonds, Pujols, and Rolen are the best back-to-back-to-back hitters in the majors. Also, if the Dodgers find themselves behind in the late innings, they might as well get ready for the next night as the St. Louis bullpen was nothing short of solid this year.
Pick: Cardinals over Dodgers in a 3 game sweep

American League Division Series
Red Sox vs. Angels
In this rematch of the 1986 ALCS, the Angels come in as division champions for the first time since that series. They did what they had to do to win the division as they came into last Friday tied with Oakland for the West lead making the final weekend series a best of three. The Angels took the first two. Thier reward? The Boston Red Sox, who's last playoff memory was watching Aaron Bleeping Boone's game 7 11th inning golf shot soar over the left field corner as the Yankees prevented the Sox from reaching the World Series. I have a gut feeling that Boston is on a mission this year and there's not really much Anahiem can do about it. However, I don't expect the Angels to lay down either. Still, I'm pickin the Sox.
Pick: Red Sox over Angels in 4

Twins vs. Yankees
The Minnesota Twins were nearly left for dead as they were a possible canidate for retraction in 2001. Luckly, for the fans in Minneapolis, those plans were scratched and the Twins have gone on to win three straight AL Central titles. That resume will be tested when they take on the New York Yankees and all thier all-stars in a best of five series starting Tuesday. The Yankess come in winning thier division, again, and having home field advantage, again. Still, if there was ever a place that I feel an upset could happen, this is it. Remember the Rams/Patriots Super Bowl 2 years ago? Everyone counted the Patriots out because the Rams had all the players and all the firepower. The Patriots came in and proved that if a group of guys can put thier million dollar egos aside that they can prevail. I feel the Twins could have the same mentality in this series, and they too will prove that a team can beat a group of egos.
Pick: Twins over Yankees in 5

And there's my first round picks. We'll see next week how right, or wrong, I really am. Until then, for you baseball fans out there, kick back and enjoy the games.

One,
Skoo

Gator Football Update: UF vs. Arkansas

Sophomore Chris Leak passed for a career-high 322 yards and three touchdowns to lead Florida to a 45-30 victory over Arkansas at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium before 90,014 fans. It was the first 300-yard passing game of Leak's career as the Gators (3-1/2-1 SEC) defeated the Razorbacks (3-2/1-1 SEC) for the fifth time in a row. UF scored touchdowns on five consecutive drives in the first half, including a 28-point outburst in the second quarter, to build a 35-7 halftime advantage.

UA scored 23 straight points to pull within 38-30 in the fourth quarter before an interception by sophomore Channing Crowder with 4:24 remaining set up the final scoring play, a two-yard pass from Leak to junior Dallas Baker. Baker had a team-high six receptions on the afternoon for 89 yards and set a personal-best with two touchdowns.

GO GATORS!!!

Ivan Part 2

I never did post an update on Hurricane Ivan after the storm had passed. This is an email I got from my dad a week after the storm hit, the first day he had power.

Finally got power and phone back today. Lost about forty broken shingles, bathroom vent cap, a yard or so of roofing peeled back to the plywood and a 3" hole punched into the roof. Got about two square yards of stained ceiling but no other house damage. The wind snapped off about 100 feet of 6' privacy fence and gave us a 10' x 20' x 6' pile of limbs. I am glad that Carolyn (his new wife) made me cut and trim a few trees earlier this year.

One major lesson learned, don't, under any circumstances, try to eat the "Country Captain Chicken" MRE. Another point, when you pick up a half melted bag of ice make sure you don't have a hole in the bottom of the bag pointed at your pants. We had running water all the way through, just not proven safe to drink and, of course, not heated. I have never heard Carolyn hit such high notes while singing before.

We were in line with the worst wind here on the west side of Pensacola but in the lee of a banked curve on Fairfield Drive which directs the worst of the East Wind up and over the house. We had steady wind around 100 mph for about four hours and kept an eye on the barometer and cheered when it started back up. East windows took in a little water under the pane but nothing major but a couple of towels got most of it. Some of the gusts shook the house for minutes but doesn't appear to have shifted anything. Just in this area about 1 in 6 houses has a tree onto the roof and houses in other areas within two miles just disappeared. We were well above the storm surge and almost too close to the center to see the worst of the tornado spin-offs.

We survived Ivan The Terrible and it looks like Ivan The Tantrum is going well west of us. Thanks for the prayers.

Dad

The picture above is of the auditorium at Escambia High School, which had part of it's roof blown off. EHS was about half a mile from where I lived.

One,
Skoo

Hurricane Ivan

Unless you've been under a rock, you know about Hurricane Ivan. I've mentioned before I grew up in Pensacola, Florida. Hurricane Ivan made landfall shortly after 2am CDT around Gulf Shores, Alabama which is just about 15 miles west from where I lived in West Pensacola. In short this means that the eastern eye wall, or the strongest part of this storm, went right over the Pensacola area. A maximum wind gust of 98 mph was recorded at Pensacola NAS just before 2am.

My father, who rode out the storm in the very house I did alot of my growing up in, has yet to contact me to give his assesment. This was one of those times where I found myself a bit more nervous than usual concerning hurricanes in this area being that for a major part of this storm's life, it was either a catagory 4 or 5 storm. Not that it made too much of a difference, but shortly before landfall, Ivan made a slight downgrade in maximum winds from 135 mph dow to 130 mph. This dropped the storm to just below a Catagory 4. In anycase, this was the strongest Hurricane to hit this area to my knowledge.

My main hope is that as many people as possible are ok. Keep your prayers going and hopefully the worst is over as this storm heads north.

Be easy. ~1~

Shit, damn, muthafucka...

Well damn... it's a bitch to have to disconnect my cable TV just so I can get online and take care of my business. You see, I have something called a cable splitter. For those who don't know what the hell I'm talkin' about... follow me one time. I have one cable that connects to the cable outlet on my wall... at the end of that short cable I have this splitter... on the other end of the splitter there's two more connections, one I use to run another cable to my cable box, the other to run a cable to my modem. Ya underdig? OK, I found that if I run a cable directly from the wall to the modem, I get internet. I also found that if I run a cable from the wall to the cable box, I get all of my cable channels. But, with the splitter hooked up, I get none of my digital channels and no internet service. Ya still smell me here? Basically, the splitter is the problem.

The puzzling shit is that it worked fine 4 days ago. After that... shitty.

So, I'm writing this entry with absolutly no background noise from the Eagles/Steelers game that I'd rather be watching right now. *sigh*

So, if yall don't hear from me for a couple days, you now know why.

Peesh.

It ain't where you're from, it's where you're at

I've heard this saying over and over throughout my life. Another one is "you can take the dog out of the junkyard, but you can't take the junkyard out of the dog". Through the last 10 years there's been an ongoing conflict within me with these two phrases. One side of me still likes to keep a sense of Southern pride where I cling to anything I knew growin up in Pensacola... manly being Southern and Cajun food and sports teams. Then, there's this other side that realizes that I've lived in Lincoln (10 years) almost as long as I lived in Pensacola (14). In this I do notice in alot of ways I've adapted. I catch myself with the double-r syndrome when I talk. Then there's the Huskers memorabilia that vastly outnumbers the Gators memorabilia.

Anyway, as I'm sure you've noticed, I'm reppin' Lincoln with this page now. Infact, I think I might keep this for a while. I had a couple inspirations. One being the old page for Common's Like Water for Chocolate album. Check out okayplayer.com for that. Second was the coming of fall and along with it football season. This is the time of year where Nebraska is on a high from a pride standpoint. Nebraska lives for Husker football... it's second only to God. I even concider Memorial Stadium to be the "mecca" of college football. It's an arogance we have here, much like fans of Notre Dame, Texas, and Ohio State have.

So, welcome to my world... welcome to Nebraska. As I say, "The home of cows and corn". Beyond that, it's the home of Malcolm X, numerous NFL players, Kool-Aid, Crunch-N-Munch, soul food, and, yes, five national championships.

One love,
Skoo

It's been a long time...

I shouldn't of left you, without a dope post to step to.

Ok, let me stop biting Rakim for a minute. Thought I'd write a lil' bit on here before I went to bed.

Obviously, I changed the page. Accually lost some sections in the process, but that's ok. I can always add those in later. Anyway, I just loved this layout so much I had to bring it back. I've had the Nuggets on my mind a lil' bit anyway. For those interested... if you ain't heard, the Nuggets did snag Kenyon Martin from the Nets in exchange for three future draft picks. So, the Nuggs are lookin' really nice for this coming season. Also, I found out about a new TV network owned by the owners of the Nuggets and Avalanche that vows to show at least 65 games of each team this year. The only thing I have left to do is pester Time Warner here in Lincoln about them adding that channel by October.

Anyway, not much else going on with me this summer. I'm taking it off from school, so I'm mostly workin if I'm doin anything.

So, I guess that's all for now.

~1~

Made some changes...

A couple days ago I switched back to Mozilla, an excellent alternative to Internet Explorer. In doing so, I noticed some flaws in the script on my page. So, I used Mozilla's webpage composer to make some edits, so now, things should look right on all formats.

Another change you may notice on the front page is that my "favorite" teams have changed. I've inserted the logos of the Chicago Cubs, Bulls, and Bears. Now, I don't have a love affair with the city of Chicago or anything like that. I've never visited the place infact. Infact, it's pure coincidence that those three teams play in Chicago. I'll explain...

I've started following the Cubs for a couple reasons. First, Eastern Nebraska is home to a lot of Cubs fans. Many of my co-workers are Cubs fans. My cousin and second cousin in Columbus, NE are Cubs fans. It's basically the team here. If anything, I just got sucked into the whole love affair with the team.

Secondly, I've found it to be rather difficult to watch the Mariners. This is not a new idea to me. It's just that now my daily schedule doesn't permit for me to wait until 9 pm every evening to watch baseball where most of the games run to around midnight. I'm working earlier in the day, so, I need my sleep. The Cubs, however, are in the same Central time zone that I reside in, making it much easier to pay attention to the team.

And lastly, Wrigley Field is just plain cool.

Now, the Bulls. I've simply fell out of love with the Seattle Sonics after Gary Payton was traded to Milwaukee in February of 2003. Since then, I've watched the NBA with little interest. So, I decided on draft night a few nights ago to pick a new team. That's when I said "I'm going to root for the Bulls". They have a wonderful history with Michael Jordan and the six NBA championships to fall back on. Besides that, they're the biggest underdog outside of the L.A. Clippers that I could think of. So, when they do good, at least I can't be called a bandwagon fan.

As far as the Bears go, I'm a Florida Gator fan down to the bone marrow. It just so happens that the Bears have 5 former Gators on their roster, including one of my favorites, Rex Grossman, the Bears' starting QB. It's really that simple.

So, now you know what's going through my head.

Anyway, hope you all are enjoying the page. Please, take the time to sign the tag board and always remember I'm willing to look at any content you'd like to submit.

~1~

No cure for boredom

A few days back, about 4 I think, I decided I was going to work on my fairly counterproductive internet addiction. It's not so much the internet I'm addicted to, but the chat lines, Yahoo! in particular. See, the thing is, I would sit there for hours upon hours staring at the screen, chatting with people, who the majority of these folks have no damn sense.

I've found that chat lines are basically where the stupid people go. It's almost like watchin Springer... you go there only to find that there's folks way more fucked up than you are. It's to the point it becomes a relief that your issues are minute in stature to a lot of the Yahoo! population.

So, this is what I've been trying to avoid for the last few days. I'm proud to say I've done this successfully.

In the meantime, I've tried to occupy myself. This is something that's rather difficult on my days off.

It becomes an endless cycle of Xbox, browsing ESPN.com, and playing with the cat.

I'd like to hang out with my folks, but when your best friend has 1) a new girlfriend, 2) an evening job, and 3) priorities with school... that option bites the dust. Lucky, class is out June 8th so hopefully something opens up there.

But, in the meantime, I did take the opportunity to see Shrek 2. Really, it's not a bad movie. It has it's childish parts of course being a cartoon (i.e. a villain and a hero to save the day). But, there's enough adult humor in the movie to keep me entertained. I'd probley give it a 3.5 out of 5 if I wasn't too lazy too put my page back together.

well, guess that's it for now... 2 fingaz

Thoughts on the NBA Playoffs

I know we're only half way home to the NBA Championship, but so far, I have to say these are the best playoffs I have seen.

The first round went by quick. All but one series was finished in 5 games and the one that didn't went 7, that being the Heat and Hornets. And if you think about it, it's a good thing the first round went that quickly, because nobody really cares until the second round anyway.

So, on to the second round. Coming into Thursday, each series was tied at two games a piece. That's somewhat surprising being that the Lakers, Nets and Heat all started down two games to nothing in their respective series.

And that's not the half...

Add in the Spurs coming back on the Lakers from 16 down in the second half.

Then, add Tim Duncan hitting a shot from the top of the key off the wrong foot, over Shaq, with 0.4 seconds left in the game in a tied series. Nice.

But, that's still not it...

Tim Duncan's only mistake (if you can call it that) was leaving that 0.4 on the clock. That's just enough time for Kobe... no, Shaq... no, Derek Fisher to get a shot off just before the neons come on signaling that times up.... money. As a fan of the game, this is why you watch.

As you watch these playoffs, for a second, ignore who you root for... just enjoy the game. This is turning out to be a special year in the NBA. Enjoy.

New Layout Coming

Ok, So I was going to work on my page today. But, it just happened to be one of those cloudy, cool, windy, and damp days that we get here in Lincoln. I don't know about you, but, nothing about a 42º day gets me fired up. So, all I get is this blog which I edited to my liking and that's as far as I got.

So, I'm hoping that I'll have a little energy tonight and get at least a page or two done.

That's all for now.