Sunday, February 19, 2006

Exhale.org - It's Funny Who You Meet at The Gym

I just got back from working out at the gym. As the facility is smack in the middle of the Lake Merritt Neighborhood of Oakland, everyone comes there. But few really know each other because, well, some folks don't talk much. Now, I'll have to say the African Americans there talk to everyone and each other, so we pretty much know who the other black person is.

But I digress.. I met this cool lady who I joke with once and awhile, as our conversations started when we were in the same room as this guy who, in trying to park his car, almost ran into me. So I called him on it in a very friendly way, and she and I started talking, but I never knew what she did.

Well, today, I found out that she runs a company called "Exhale" and they have a talk line for women who have abortions. It's a really novel idea that frankly I never considered personally but is very logical. It's been in existence since 2000 and has this website at www.4exhale.org where you can learn more about them and contribute online.

Go do it!

NFL-Bound Texas QB Vince Young Already Making Critical Business Mistakes

Not even days before the NFL Draft and Vince Young's making critical business errors that could negatively impact both the position where he's selected in the draft and his overall endorsement income.

While Matt Leinart, Young's NCAA Football National Championship Game counterpart, makes his meetings and shows up at events like Leigh Steinberg's A-List Party, shaking hands and chatting with everyone including this author, Young misses meetings.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Young hired a family attorney to be his agent and his uncle to handle his business matters. Neither have NFL experience, and according to the article...

"several companies have expressed interest in talking to Mr. Young about endorsement deals, including MasterCard, American Express, Nike, Reebok and the urban clothier Rocco Wear.
Former Dallas Cowboys scouting director Gil Brandt knows that Reebok is one of the companies, because Mr. Brandt helped set up a meeting between Mr. Young's team and Reebok officials in Detroit on the Saturday before Super Bowl XL.
According to Mr. Brandt, Mr. Young and his management team never showed for the meeting, and it had to be rescheduled.
"Promise and responsibility are big things," said Mr. Brandt, who talks to Texas juniors in Austin every year about their NFL options at coach Mack Brown's request. "And if you have a business meeting set up, you've got to make sure you're at the meeting because people are anxious at spending large amounts of money."
Mr. Brandt also gave Mr. Young, Mr. Adams and Keith Young tickets to a party thrown by NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue before the Super Bowl. Mr. Brandt did the same for USC quarterback Matt Leinart.
"Leinart was there, dressed nicely and making a big impression on everyone he met," Mr. Brandt said. "I didn't see Vince there. Everybody who's anybody is at the commissioner's party. When you impress somebody, it opens a lot of doors. All these things, Vince has kind of missed the boat on."
Keith Young and Mr. Adams didn't respond to calls seeking comment on Mr. Brandt's statements. Last week, they said they're simply taking their time and working at their own pace. They said they don't want to rush into any deals."


This is a remarkable error. First, if anyone gives you a ticket to the NFL Commissioners Party, you take it and go. Every heavy hitter in sports and its related industries is there. What Vince's family fails to understand is that the part of the sports business they're in rests on relationships. If I were them, I'd call Gil Brandt and do some fence mending.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Krugle - I just joined "Krugle" So I Guess I'm A Developer

I just learned about Krugle, the self-described search engine for developers, and went to the website. I've got to admit, the intent of the product aside, it looks great. They've got a flair for simplistic design.

Now, as to the product itself, I wonder how they plan to make money as I've not seen the actual search engine. But that written, it's a good idea to have a device that allows me to look up code quickly. I'm still a novice in my book, even though I've managed to learn quite a bit -- HTML, FML, some Java -- over the last three years. It's also good to have a specialized search engine rather than walking around Google in frustration.

Well, let's see how Krugle comes along.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Ernie Stautner Passes at 80 - I met him at Dallas Cowboys Headquarters in 1979

I am watching NFL Network -- or more accurately, it's playing in the background as I work -- and just learned of the passing of Ernie Stautner. To some, he was the great defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers. To others, he was Defensive Coordinator of the Dallas Cowboys. To me, he was the person who first introduced me to technical football.

In 1979 I was a huge Dallas Cowboys fan. This started because my Mother knew Oakland Raiders Defensive Tackle Otis Sistrunk. At the time, I had nothing in common with him, so I figured I'd better read about pro football. In the process of carrying out that objective, I found a book called "The NFL's Encyclopedic History of Pro Football." At the back of this dense tome was a chapter on the evolution of football strategy. One of the pages there was devoted to the Dallas Cowboys and Tom Landry's innovations: The Flex Defense and the Multiple Offense. I was attracted to what the book reported as Landry's use of engineering principals in the development of his plays and philosophy. Landry's technical approach to the game made it OK for a geek like me to get interested in football.

I became such a fan that I subscribed to the Dallas Cowboys Weekly, and -- thanks to Mom -- attended a preseason Dallas Cowboys / Pittsburgh Steelers game in 1979. But earlier that year I wrote a letter to the Cowboys and Mr. Stautner which asked what the "keys" were that Middle Linebacker Bob Breunig looked at to determine where a play may be going. In response to my contact, Mr. Stautner wrote back, inviting me to visit the Cowboys offices.

I could not believe it! A 17-year-old kid. Me.

It was easy to get to Dallas, as Mom worked for United Airlines, so travel was free at the time -- well, $20. The real concern was if the Cowboys were serious. Well, I called, and asked them about this letter -- they were. So, I made plans to go down there by myself for one day.

I arrived at 10 AM at the Cowboys offices, dressed in a dark blue suit. It was a hot August day. I got off the elevator of the 11th Floor at 6116 North Central Expressway, walked about 10 feet to the long hallway and turned left. The office I was to be at was at the end of the hallway.

Man, I was nervous. I thought I was dreaming.

I finally got there, introduced myself, and sat down in front of the secretary's desk -- a nice lady named Marge. There was a defensive backfield meeting, and as it ended, some of my favorite players at the time came out into the office area: Mike Hegman, Cliff Harris, Charlie Watters, and some others I didn't recognize. I just looked and sat there -- frozen. I didn't dare ask for an autograph, as that was not what I was there for and I didn't want to get kicked out of the office. At least that was what was going through my head.

Finally, Mr. Stautner came up to meet me. He said he would be with me in a moment, as I recall. The secretary escorted me into a large conference room, with a long dark wood table -- about 25 feet long. I was placed in front of a projector and with six reels of film: Dallas Defense vs. the I formation - One, Dallas Defense versus the I formation - Two, Flex Strong - Quality Control, Flex Weak Quality Control, Dallas Defense Reel One, Dallas Defense Reel Two.

I was also presented with a copy of the defensive playbook -- no, not for me to keep. What surprised me at the time was how thin the book was -- about 60 pages. (Well that's small to me.)

So, I set up the film and got started. I would run the film and go back and forth watching plays unfold. It was fun -- until the film spliced and I thought that was it. I was scared. So, after sitting in the dark for a good five minutes, I decided to tell the truth and called Marge. She sent a guy named "Gus" -- a fatherly African American man who assured me there was no problem at all. He came back just five minutes later with the reel fixed.

Whew!

I resumed my work of analysis until finally Mr. Stautner walked into the room. He asked I had any questions, so I inquired about how the Flex Defense worked. He diagrammed the defense and showed how each defender had responsibility not just for an area, but really for a gap, and also what stance they were to be in. He asked me what I saw on the film.

I told him that it seemed an offensive lineman who was really quick off the ball could block a defensive lineman before that person moved to there gap, thus causing a hole for the running back. I saw this in breaking down a play where the Cowboys were in Flex Strong and the New England Patriots were in a "Brown Formation" with the fullback -- Sam Cunningham -- behind the quarterback and the halfback behind the weakside tackle.

Pats' QB Steve Grogan handed off to Cunningham and as he headed for the weakside center / guard gap, Offensive Guard Charlie Hannah hit Defensive Tackle Randy White so hard he litterally froze him. Meanwhille the other defenders moved into their gaps, making a large gaping hole that "Sam-Bam' ran through on the way to a 56-yard touchdown.

I showed this to Stautner, who gave me praise for discovering that. We talked more technical football, and then he thanked me for coming.

That was the begining of my intense interest in football strategy.

I will never forget how this famous player and coach took time with this nerdy kid. It was a dream come true. May he rest in peace and enjoy Heaven.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Dr. Mark Dean - Computer Scientist & Pioneer

This was sent to me via my friend Ronald Salaam

You may not have heard of Dr. Mark Dean. And you aren't alone. But almost everything in your life has been affected by his work. See, Dr.Mark Dean is a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is in the National Hall of Inventors. He has more than 30 patents pending. He is a vice president with IBM. Oh, yeah. And he is also the architect of the modern-day personal computer. Dr. Dean holds three of the original nine patents on the computer that all PCs are based upon. And, Dr. Mark Dean is an African American.

So how is it that we can celebrate the 20th anniversary of the IBM personal computer without reading or hearing a single word about him? Given all of the pressure mass media are under about negative portrayals of African Americans on television and in print, you would think it would be a slam dunk to highlight someone like Dr. Dean.

Somehow, though, we have managed to miss the shot. History is cruel when it comes to telling the stories of African Americans. Dr. Dean isn't the first Black inventor to be overlooked. Consider John Stanard, inventor of the refrigerator, George Sampson, creator of the clothes dryer, Alexander Miles and his elevator, Lewis Latimer and the electric lamp.

All of these inventors share two things: One, they changed the landscape of our society; and, two, society relegated them to the footnotes of history. Hopefully, Dr. Mark Dean won't go away as quietly as they did. He certainly shouldn't. Dr.Dean helped start a Digital Revolution that created people like Microsoft's Bill Gates and Dell Computer's Michael Dell. Millions of jobs in information technology can be traced back directly to Dr. Dean. More important, stories like Dr. Mark Dean's should serve as inspiration for African children. Already victims of the "Digital Divide" and failing school systems, young, Black kids might embrace technology with more enthusiasm if they knew someone like Dr. Dean already was leading the way.

Although technically Dr. Dean can't be credited with creating the computer -- that is left to Alan Turing, a pioneering 20th-century English mathematician, widely considered to be the father of modern computer science -- Dr. Dean rightly deserves to take a bow for the machine we use today. The computer really wasn't practical for home or small business use until he came along, leading a team that developed the interior architecture (ISA systems bus) that enables multiple devices, such as modems and printers, to be connected to personal computers. In other words, because of Dr. Dean, the PC became a part of our daily lives. For most of us, changing the face of society would have been enough. But not for Dr. Dean. Still in his early forties, he has a lot of inventing left in him.

He recently made history again by leading the design team responsible for creating the first 1-gigahertz processor chip. It's just another huge step in making computers faster and smaller. As the world congratulates itself for the new Digital Age brought on by the personal computer, we need to guarantee that the African-American story is part of the hoopla surrounding the most stunning technological advance the world has ever seen.

We cannot afford to let Dr. Mark Dean become a footnote in history. He is well worth his own history book.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

C-SPAN Gets The Weirdest Calls


I'm working on adding content today, and C-SPAN's on in the background. Rep. Frank Pallone's D-New Jersey's being interviewed and someone just called in from New Jersey, and said "Hi, how are you?" When the Rep. said "Fine," the voice, which sounded like a male playing a female, said "Are you stroking your....."

The Representative kept a straight face, thanks in part to C-SPAN's quick trigger on the "delete call" button. I gotta admit, it gave some spice to an otherwise mundane conversation.

Video: Oakland Raiders Re-Hire Art Shell as Head Coach!

I had the pleasure of attending the press conference to annouce the hiring of Art Shell as the 15th Head Coach of the Oakland Raiders. Only on this occasion, I took my new camcorder to record the event and produce the "podcast" you're about to see. By the end of this week, you will be able to download the video into your IPod for viewing as well.

The link is:
Art Shell Press Conference

....Just scroll down and you will see the text link for the QuickTime movie itself. (Make sure to download QuickTime if you don't have it.) If you don't want to listen to 48 minutes of talk, you can just read the web page.

This is my first official use of the camcorder for this purpose. It marks a new direction in my personal "Internet Technology learning process" where I apply what I learn to the SBS site. In this case, one thing I will remember in the future is to take a tripod -- holding a camera for a long time hurts, regardless of how much I work out. The idea is to continue to make the site "sticky."

The next Podcast will be of the Fox Sports Baseball Luncheon and the speech given by MLB Players Association Executive Director Donald Fehr. I think it marks the first time a Fox Baseball luncheon has been filmed in this way.

Your feedback is appreciated.