A couple of good quotes I heard from Keith Olbermann recently.
“We as citizens must at some point ignore partisanship, not that we may prosper as a nation, but that merely we may function as a nation.”
“You Are Campaigning As If Barack Obama Were The Democrat And You Were The Republican” – (video below)
On a little tangent, gonna talk about a soccer player from Stevens who graduated and is playing professionally in Cyprus. Unfortunately I only really got to see him play here for a year but when I did he simply played like the field was his to dominate and that he did. Nick “Niko” Gkionis was a center back for the Stevens Ducks from 2003 to 2006 and was named a first-team All-American by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America his senior year. He also sent me a link to the 35-second preview for a soccer mix-tape that he has been working on and I have that embedded below. I can’t wait for the entire thing to be released. He has also been working in conjunction with Brian Granata of Stevens Athleticsto provide an inside look at life on the road and life as a professional soccer player through a weekly blog entitled “Beyond the Pond.” His most recent post is from yesterday, make sure to go take a look.
I had so many things I had saved up to write up in one post instead of cluttering with multiple posts everyday but that all got lost in a Firefox beta update. So here goes what I could find on the fly right now.
First my deepest condolences to Vivake for the loss of his hero who just happened to be the governor of New York. That is certainly said in tongue-in-cheek but what a tough and sad piece of news to handle for a guy who had apparently built himself some legacy and certainly would have ran for the Presidency one day… no more.
Also was visited by Jimbo today which certainly I did not expect. Good to see him after the longest time (although it could be that I had seen him last before I saw Mike Cloonan). Sad part on that is Mike and I go to College together. Go figure.
First let’s start off with a comic that were one of the many things that the good friend of the blog Krishna continues to send me on a daily basis. I only wish I had the time, or heck, even less laziness to blog about some of the article he shares. Maybe if he has some free time on his hands, he’ll guest blog? Well here is the comic.
Then here is a clip of Shaq that I saw live over the weekend while I was in Brooklyn… and by live I mean on tv. The hustle to save the ball and the jump are all remarkable but if you look at it from the a different angle (the second video), you can see that there are very young children sitting in that front row and for a guy the size of Shaq to see that and to be able to jump over and completely avoid causing any harm to those kids is simply remarkable.
Finally this last one is about Differential Geometry. I was working on a homework today that I had long put off and certainly this picture does not show everything that was done but this is one that I ran across when I tried to integrate a curved surface. I won’t go more into detail for fear of losing the few readers that I do have (but mostly because I myself don’t know the details) but it was fun to do it anyways.
Just an FYI, baseball season is around the corner and I will get around to doing my season previews soon hopefully. Not that I claim to be an expert or anything but it is certainly fun to go back and see how well you did. I will do the same thing once the March Madness starts.
I am just full of random things in this post… my good friend from Ireland comes home in exactly a month (31 days to be exact) and that happens to fall on my birthday. Cool.
P.S. You better enjoy the amazing math up there… I even put off talking to my buddy from Reading, Pennsylvania just so I could do that amazing piece of art up there.
A truly inspiring segment aired on CNN earlier talking about Porter Ellett, a one-armed high school student who is a starter for his basketball team. I included a video below and this kid can really do it all… knock down 3 pointers, grab rebounds and steal the ball from the opposition.
To see Porter Ellett warming up for a high school basketball game, he looks out of place and you would expect to see him sitting on the bench, instead of the starting for Wayne High School.
“It’s kind of fun to see people’s reactions when they doubt you and they see you walk out on the court and wonder why you are even playing; then you get to go out and prove what you are worth,” Ellett said.
Porter lost his right arm in an accident when he was a young boy. While having only one arm to compete with is a disadvantage, Porter likes the challenge, scoring 16 of his team’s 50 points, with steals, rebounds and a blocked shot. His coach, Kade Morrell, calls him a natural leader for the team.
“He’s got a winning attitude and he’s a prime example of how far attitude can take you. It’s not what happens to you, but how you react and how you deal with it that matters in life,” Morrell said.
While the spotlight is on Porter much more than his team, he is the first to credit his teammates for helping him win, both on and off the court. “My teammates, my friends, I wouldn’t be anything, they are my support. When other people knock me down, they are always there. They’ve always been positive, always told me I could do anything.”
Slightly different than the one I posted a week or two ago. Noticeable changes include pomegranates and pineapples are much higher for me taste wise while peaches, plums, blueberries and cherries take a big dip. Strawberries, grapes and green apples certainly are quite favorable as not only do they taste good but are not very difficult.
Want to make your own Fruit Graph? Visit Here. I am not sure if the comments let you submit pictures or what not but feel free to share your graphs.
