You have shined light in scary places, allowed me to read when night falls, helped me find my way while driving through dark countrysides. Now my ideas will have more a florescent glow about them.
With the passing of a new energy law, by Congress, the old school incandescent bulb will be phased out in U.S. markets by 2012. This will make way for the longer life, energy saving
CFL bulbs.
Here is an article on the phase out and some commonly asked questions about the new
CFL bulbs.
Personally, I think it is for the best, and as mass manufacturing occurs for these bulbs I am sure the price will come down.
Labels: conservation, environment, governement
Illini Smelling the Roses
This last weekend a surprise in the bowl
announcements occurred when the 9-3 Fighting
Illini were invited to the
Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA to face the
USC Trojans on New Years Day. The
Illini had finished the regular season tied for second with Michigan in the Big Ten and ranked 13 in the nation. There were several teams ranked ahead of them that did not get an invite to a
BCS bowl and had less than 3 losses. Throw on top of this that Michigan had beat the
Illini earlier in the season (a game I had the
unfortunate privilege of seeing first hand) and were invited ahead of them.
The reasoning that the
Tournament Of Roses bowl committee gave was that, traditionally the Rose bowl invites a PAC-10 team and a Big Ten team to compete in this annual bowl. Before the
BCS (Bowl Champion Series) was implemented in the 90's it was always the case that the best team from each conference would attend. Once the Rose Bowl joined the 6
BSC bowl games this began to change. Since the Championship game will be played for the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans and the (eye role) Ohio State, who finished first in the Big Ten will be playing for a national Championship, the Rose Bowl had to choose the next best team in the Big Ten. This left them to choose between Illinois and Michigan who both tied, in record, for second place. Even though Michigan beat Illinois, the committee decided that
Illinois had played a better season over all and had the best chance of making an exciting game against the heavily favored Trojans.
So now Illinois is slated to take on a Trojan team that is currently a 14 point favorite. Not many experts are giving Illinois a chance in this game siting USC's consistent experience playing in big games, a relatively higher talent level from player to player, and that Illinois has a fairly young and inexperienced group of players. I argue that Illinois has shown (at times) some real confidence and maturity beating Wisconsin when they were the number 5 team in the nation and later upsetting number 1 OSU. So they definitely have the tools to pull off a major upset.
Ultimately though, no matter what the outcome it has been an amazing run for this year's Illini. After winning on 4 games over the past 3 season prior to this one, Coach Zook has engineered a major turn around not only for this season but for the entire Illinois football program. This team will have even more talent coming in next season with experienced young players already on the roster, they should be one of the top ten teams in the nation starting next season. After enduring some really embarrassing seasons as an Illini fan its great to see our program moving in a positive direction. Now, lets just hope that coach Zook doesn't pull a Bill Self on us and use his success here as a stepping stone to another program. It would be great to see him show loyalty to a program and fan base that admires and gave him a chance after Florida gave him the boot.
I - L - L!!!!!
Labels: college, football, Illini, sports
Birthday Dinners, Movies and Christmas Concert!
Well this last weekend was a busy one. For well detailed write-up you can go to Kelly's blog under the post "
packed weekend." I thought I would just
highlight a few other items in my post.
First off, for those of you who didn't know, last Saturday was my 32
nd birthday. Originally we thought my parents were coming into town on Saturday, so Kelly decided to celebrate on Friday night with me by taking me to a posh downtown eating establishment known as "
Vermillion." They specialize in a Latin American/Indian fusion style food with a trendy, minimalist atmosphere. We started the meal off with tapas that consisted of a banana croquet and an Indian style
empenada. For dinner, Kelly had a the lamb chop and I had the surf and turf (
fillet and a small lobster tail). It was delicious.
Earlier on Friday, we got word that my parents were no longer going to be able to make it into town because of the bad weather. On Saturday I got up to a huge surprise. Kelly had bought me an advent calendar a few weeks before. Since it was December 1, I got to see what was behind the first door. To my confusion there was a printed out picture of a civil war cannon. Just as I was turning around with a puzzled look on my face Kelly came around the corner with a wrapped present. She had gotten me a brand new Cannon Digital camera. This is no run of the mill camera either. It is a
Cannon Eos Rebel XT! After that we spent the day cleaning up around the apartment and relaxing in front of the TV. Later in the afternoon I came found out that the movie the The Golden Compass was playing in
Evanston's movie theatre. It is not supposed to be released until next weekend, but apparently they opened it in a few select markets for this weekend. We decided to brave the nasty weather and check it out. It was a very good movie and I noticed no anti religious themes like all the mail forwards I have been getting lately claim. I guess it just goes to show that you should believe random email forward (that you have no idea the source for) and trust your own judgement. The movie was just another good fantasy movie, nothing more, nothing less.
On Sunday, we got up and made it over to the gym for a quick work out on the
elliptical machines and some 1-on-1 basketball. From there we grabbed lunch and went home to get ready for the
Trans Siberian Orchestra concert later that afternoon. We left about an hour and fifteen minutes prior to the 3:00 PM show to compensate for traffic and weather. Traffic was fine until we were about 1 mile from the off ramp for the Allstate Arena. There was a massive bottleneck all the way up into the ramp and were barely moving for what seemed like an eternity. We finally paid the
exorbitant amount of $15 to park and hustled our way to the building at 3:05 PM so we would minimize how much of the show we would miss. Once we got up to the ticket taker we were dismayed to find out that our tickets were for the 7:30 PM show. I am not sure how I messed this up. I thought I had bought the tickets for the 3 PM show bust must have selected the wrong option on the drop down menu when ordering the tickets. So there we were after just spending $15 to park trying to figure out what to do so we wouldn't have to pay to park again later. We decided to just wander over to the Target that was near by to look around. While we were there, Kelly confirmed that we could leave the car in the lot until the next show so we walked over to the Chili's and had dinner and killed some time. We then wandered back to Target and then over to
Krispy Kreme's and watched them make their delicious doughnuts as well as sampling a couple. By then the show was ready to begin so we head back to Allstate arena and settled in for a spectacular show. The put on a great performance of their rock versions of Christmas and Classical music complete with laser light show and pyrotechnics. It was amazing. If you ever get a chance I would recommend seeing them.
Labels: birthday, concert, entertainment, Movies, weekend
