Baseball and football. There are no other sports.
The Boise State Broncos take on the Washington Huskies this evening at Alberston’s Stadium, Boise. This is the first time former Bronco coaching legend Coach Petersen will be on the visitor’s side of the field in the stadium he helped to build. We’ll be respectful of the legend, but all of Bronco Nation will be rooting for his demise tonight. GO BRONCOS!
Football
This weekend my son’t team played hard and hung with the team they played but were eventually overpowered by a well disciplined, larger team. Our kids played with great heart and courage. My Boise State Broncos played hard too and came away with a blowout win. It’s hard to say they are that much better, only that they were able to beat a team they were expected to. It was good to see the trickeration plays again on offense. My Chicago Bears played horribly and lost to the Lions. The other teams I follow in the NFL have done well and remain unbeaten – Seattle and Denver. Picture shows my son missing a tackle on a kid who went down the line to score.
Writing
On Friday during my lunch break at work, I completed the first draft of The Rising, Book 2 of the Star Saga. This weekend I exported it out of Plume Creator and into LibreOffice Write for draft two, which is usually the draft that my beta readers see. I’m giving my mind a week or two to forget the story and then coming back to it will full read through and rewriting where necessary. In the meantime, I’m hashing out the outline for the novella that will deal with the Votainion Empress that takes place in the same time frame as Book 2. I’m really stoked to write this one. But only if I can fit it in between the edits for The Rising and outlining Book 3, Counterattack. We’ll see how that all plays out. But if I can write two books in one year, that would be great. Picture shows the book in Standard Manuscript Format.
Homestead
We’re prepping for the installation of new wood floors in the common areas of our home. It involves much planning, packing and moving of large heavy items. Very similar to actually moving. Last week we had a banister and post removed and this week they will drop off the wood to be used for the flooring. This weekend we’ll be painting the base boards white and then next week they will do the floors. We so can’t wait to get rid of this nasty, 20 year old carpet.
Next Saturday’s BSU Homecoming game is going to be a black out. Uniforms will change from blue to black and all the fans are being asked to wear black. This is a first for Boise State.
The helmets have the new horse head logo and player’s number and are matte black. The jersey’s have blue and orange trim and the numbers are the new age blue and white fade. The shoes are silver and black.
I’ve always been a fan of new and different college uniforms. I think it brings excitement and color to the college football game. I’ve really liked the new horse head unis that BSU has now made their standard model, from the all white away uniforms to the all blue home and all the combinations in between like the gray shirts on the blue this past weekend.
This special Nike made black uniform probably won’t be used much if ever again, but as long as Nike is willing to make cool looking one-off uniforms, I’ll be there to enjoy them as a fan of college football in general and BSU in particular.
You can see the uniforms in full at KTVB‘s website.
Titans over Warriors 14-6. Jack played CB on the right hand side of this picture. He got one sweet tackle and batted down the Hail Mary ball thrown in the final seconds of the game. Not too bad.
To the victors goes the shade. Tough game. It was getting into the 90’s by the time the game ended.
It’s football season already and Friday night I’ll be over at a friend’s house watching our beloved Boise State Broncos play their first game of the season. All the big games we tend to watch in packs for support. We’ve seen many, many close games and this season starts with another big match up.
I don’t know if BSU will win all their games this year but the odds are against it. The good news is that they could lose this first game and still win the conference for the first and last time. Nobody expects the Broncos to get into a BCS Bowl this year, and next year they will be in the Big East and so will be a BCS team.
I’m just looking for a close game in which our young team is tested by a really good Big Ten team. GO BRONCOS!
I’ve recently taken to watching movies on line through Amazon’s streaming video. I can watch them just fine on my Dell XPS with Ubuntu. However, I wanted to try and push them to my HDTV and watch them on a large screen.
When I tried it, the video was fine, but no audio. Then I found this blog post. Your mileage may vary, but for me, I just told the audio settings to use the HDMI output and it worked fine. Now I can watch movies on my big screen TV.
I did need to purchase an HDMI rat tail adapter and some HDMI cable, to make this possible. That was not inexpensive. I was able to get these items at my local Best Buy.
Another thing I did related to this, was purchase the NFL pre-season pass for $20.00 so I can watch all the pre-season games on demand. Normally I’m not that big of an NFL fan, but so many of my favorite BSU football players are on different teams this year, I wanted to see how they did in professional football. This too works fine on the Dell.
Our Cub Scout Pack was selected to participate in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl Opening Ceremony this year. My sons and I both jumped at the chance to be in the formation of Scouts seen at the singing of the National Anthem. It was a fun opportunity to walk on the Blue Turf of BSU’s home stadium and get to see the game for free.
We practiced last Sunday afternoon along with all the other volunteers who participated in the on-field festivities. It was cold, but the kids had fun and were looking forward to actually doing it for a live crowd. When game day arrived, the kids got to shine in front of 28,000+ football fans. There we were in the first and second rows representing the Cub Scouts of Idaho and all dressed up in our uniforms. Such an honor.
When the flight of two Air Guard A-10’s buzzed the stadium, they flew right over our heads. Way cool for any kid in the stadium and most of the adults too! After the anthem we walked single file over to the south end zone to form a tunnel for the players to run through. The kids were really impressed with how big the players all were. Some of the Cub Scouts played Optimist football and they couldn’t believe that they would ever be that huge one day.
We filed off the field and took our seats in the south end zone and were treated to a great game that eventually led to a come from behind victory for the Ohio Bobcats. During the halftime break, our scouts got to high five the Bobcats as they filed off the field and headed to their locker room. It was very nice of the players to do that for the local kids. They will remember things like that for the rest of their lives.
My kids and I had to leave in the third quarter of the game due to the cold. We went out to diner and kept checking the for the final score of the game on my cell phone. When the kids found out that the Bobcats had won, my oldest proclaimed, “I’m never washing my gloves again! We high five’d all those Ohio players!”
The O2 Titans cruised over the Vikings 34-6 this afternoon in what Defensive Coach Ty Akers called the most complete game of the season to this point. Once again the Titan defense had a shutout going until late in the 4th quarter. But the Offense was on fire today with five touchdowns and two point after attempts.
Running back Brooklyn Akers got his first rushing TD this afternoon in a thirty yard sprint into the endzone. Joey Banks picked up two touchdowns and Kelvin added to the total with his own impressive charge into the endzone.
Defensive efforts included knocked down passes, blocked punts and very aggressive three and outs all day long. The Titans improved to 5 and 1 and now enter their final game of the season next Saturday with one of the best records in their division. Quite the turn around from the 2 and 5 record of last year. Great game coaches and players!
The O2 Titans stepped up their game this week and played hard against the Blue Eagles. The Offense had it working this week, even picking up their first PAT on the first scoring drive. In his first game as QB, Joey Banks broke open a keeper and scored a thirty yard TD run. Kelvin Cobbley got a rushing TD and Banks added a third for the most offensive might we’ve had in several games.
But the day still belonged to the Dominating Defense. The Eagles were throwing the ball all over the field and it cost them. The Titan defense snagged three interceptions divided among both corners – Jack and Dalton and the middle linebacker, Kaleb Severns.
The Eagles tried running up the middle all day and the Dominant Titan Defense denied them every time. On a reverse play, corner Jack McConnell was faked out, but he ran down the back and made the stop. In another play, McConnell blitzed around and nailed the runner five yards behind the line of scrimmage with a powerful open field tackle. The other impact hitter for the Titans was the venerable Talon Floyd. You could hear Talon smack pads all over the field today.
The 22-6 win moves the Titan’s record to 4-1 on the season. Players have improved immeasurably from last year. The kids have given their all and now only have two more games left in the season. Keep it up kids, you’re doing awesome! A SPECIAL THANK YOU to Coach Banks and his staff!
The O2 Titans went up against the Tetra-Tech Titans in an epic football battle this morning. The TT Titans were bigger and more intimidating, but the O2 Titans were scrappy, and patient enough to pull off the victory 18-14. The O2 Titans got on the board with the very first play of the game when Joey Banks returned the kickoff for a TD. No point after try (PAT) was earned.
The TT Titans came right back and scored on their opening drive and earned a PAT. The game was pretty evenly matched, despite the low final score. The O2 Titan Defense stripped the ball at mid field and Joey Banks ran it back for the first defensive TD of the game. After a missed PAT again, the TT Titans drove the ball down to inside the ten and then caught a TD pass for the score. Their PAT was stopped by the O2 Titan D.
After another ineffective stand on offense, the TT Titans got the ball and started marching down the field. But the O2 Defense stepped up again, stripping the ball and running back their second TD of the day. This time is was big #72 Talan Floyd who lumbered half the field and stretched across for the TD. Yup, the PAT was missed again.
With time running out in the forth quarter, the O2 Titan Defense was backed up inside their ten yard line as the TT Titan Offense pressed for the kill. On the third down, the TT Titans ventured a pass that was intercepted by O2 Titan’s corner, Dalton Simpson. With the ball back, and up against the goal line, the O2 Titans ran down the clock and the game was over.
Congratulations to both teams for battling tough for the whole game. The O2 Marketing Titans are now 3-0!
