When is the point quoting Napelon Dynamite in everyday conversation jumped the shark? Alex.

I got the following email yesterday afternoon:

Hi, Kyle

On behalf of Dean Stuart Bell, I would like to invite you to a special luncheon with Expo speaker Doug Shane and other engineering alumni

Noon to 1:30 p.m., Friday, Feb. 25
In the Phillips Boardroom at the Adams Alumni Center

Please RSVP by Feb. 22 to Amy Wierman (awierman@ku.edu) or 864-2930.

Dean Bell and Endowment Development Director Colleen Zimmerman will be able to provide transportation to and from the luncheon. Please let Ms. Wierman know if you will need a ride.

-- Jill

Jill Hummels
Director of Public Relations
University of Kansas School of Engineering
Eaton Hall
1520 W. 15th Street, Room 1
Lawrence, KS 66045-7621
(785) 864-2934; fax (785) 864-5445
jhummels@ku.edu
www.engr.ku.edu

For those out of the know, Doug Shane is the V.P of Business Development/ test pilot at Scaled Composites, my absolute most ideal employer ever. In other words, he's got one of the coolest jobs on the planet. And I'm having lunch with him for a full 90 minutes next Friday. Many, many, many props go out to Katie for getting me this invite. I have no idea how I will go about getting a job with Scaled, but I imagine groveling will be involved.

sorry for the delay, here's my personal account of the big game

4:25 Terry Bradshaw Interviews Tom Brady and Donavan McNabb, they both say all the right things. What is up with McNabb’s facial hair? It’s a neck beard for Pete’s sake.

4:30 George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton show up on fox’s pre-game show to pitch tsunami relief stuff. JB tries to get their predictions for the game. Bush picks the Pats by 14, Clinton dances around it and still manages to sound sincere and alluring. JB might as well of asked them to recreate the ‘92 presidential elections, because they just reenacted their campaigns.

4:45 Pre-game concert kicks off, Gretchen Wilson performs to a few hundred fans on the field, and I’m convinced that none of them are men. It’s a sea of pick and pale blue designer shirts.

4:47 Hey, I saw one…no wait, that’s a security guard.

4:50 Charlie Daniels gets rushed through an abbreviated version of “Devil went down to Georgia” Dude must feel like a one trick pony now, or maybe he’s just happy to performing and getting paid. Not a whole lot of money in the southern bluegrass/rock band pool these days. The Black Eyed Peas do that song on the damn Ipod commercials prompting me to question the wisdom of showing 100 slightly overweight booty dancing white girls on camera. This also gives us the greatest unintentional comedy moment of the night. For the last hurray everybody gets on stage to finish off the last verse of Earth Wind and Fire’s “Shining Star” and the lead singer of the Black Eyed Peas drops the required shout out to his co performers “Give it up for Earth Wind and Fire *Insert Crowd Applause Here* Charlie Daniels *Insert Crowd Applause Here*” He then looks right at Gretchen Wilson and forgets here name, so he pauses momentarily, and you can see on his face that he’s trying to remember who she is, but he can’t come up it so he skips over her and belts out a long “Blaaaaaaaack Eeeeeeeyed Peeeeeeeeas!” She stared him down so hard afterwards I thought I was going to turn to stone. You never scorn a southern woman, it’s like crossing the mob, you just don’t do it. Everyone knows why.

5:15 Have I ever told you how good goldfish and coke is?

5:20 Will Smith introduces the Eagles in a pre-taped promo, because he it, in his own words, “West Philadelphia born and raised on the playground is where I spent most of my days”

5:25 Promo for that semi-new House MD show on fox, unfortunately there was no “This patient has rights!”

TOG’s official final prediction 27-20 New England

5:40 Kickoff

5:43 Eagles 1st possession: 3 pass plays including a turnover sack and a punt.

5:47 Pat’s 1st possession: Punt, we got a real barnburner here.

5:55 With the exception of 2 Terrell Owens check down passes, the eagles have negative yards, and Donavan McNabb hasn’t thrown a good-looking ball yet. Still no score, but it doesn’t look good for the eagles.

6:10 Eagles get a 30-catch to T.O. because the ‘People’s Champion Idiot’ Freddie Mitchell set a blatantly shameless, wind-up, form-tackle, shoulder-jack-to-the-face, pick on T.O.’s defender as he was running across the middle. That’s illegal by the way, but I’ve never, ever seen it called. If the roles were reversed, and somebody laid Freddie Mitchell out, it’s a personal foul and probably a 10,000-dollar fine on Monday morning for hitting a ‘defenseless’ receiver. But, since this is the Patriots’ secondary, and they got away with ‘murder’ in last year’s AFC championship game, TO is just good.

6:12 McNabb throws an interception, but it gets negated by illegal contact penalty on the other side of the field. McNabb throws another interception on the very next play, no penalty.

6:22 At this point, Philly’s offense shouldn’t even come on the field, McNabb almost through another int. but the defender dropped it, 2 plays later LJ Smith gets the ball stripped and hands it to New England anyway. The most successful option for offense success right now is apparently praying for a NE penalty, because the sure aren’t going anywhere on their own. However the Philly pass defense has be impressive. Numerous deep balls to numerous receivers against numerous defenders on numerous different routes, all seem to be well covered. I think I’ve underestimated their secondary, even though little pressure seems to reach Brady they’ve haven’t been picked apart. This game could be more interesting than I thought.

6:24 Unfortunately, when you drop 6 into coverage, Corey Dillon can run down your throat. Which he promptly does. Philly seems content, if not down right excited, to give Dillon 5 yards a carry. They sure enjoy taunting him afterwards though. Celebrations are certainly in order when you stop the leagues second leading rusher in the backfield, but I’m not sure they have any place when he blows through your line every play. Ye football gods do not regularly reward such behavior with championships.

6:34 Where the hell did that Philly drive come from? Everything the tried, worked. They ran, passed all over the New England D like it wasn’t even there. They’ve get a little momentum and put some points are the board 7-0

6:42 Now the NE offense awakens smoking the blitz with 2 consecutive screens and a big dose of Dillon and Kevin Faulk. Driving from their own 13 down to the Philly 4 before Brady coughs up the football through nobodies fault but their own. The NE defense holds and forces the punt.

6:51 These color commentators suck. Twice now I’ve heard comments on the absolute “dominance” of Philadelphia. It’s like they just take a look at the scoreboard and decide pick some adjectives and adverbs to make it sound dramatic. It’s like we’re not even watching the same game.

6:56 Another New England drive, now Brady starts to pick them apart. The Eagles’ D taunts again after the 1st two plays of the drive. Its like NE didn’t just drive 83 yards on them 5 minutes before, and they weren’t on their own 37-yard line. I feel some Brady revenge coming.

7:02 Tom Brady to David Givens, 4-yard TD pass, 7-7

-- Half Time --

7:20 The Halftime show is just Paul McCartney. A good, safe choice, aside from the fact that he’s British and this is Football, not commie-ball soccer futbal, but that’s very minor. I’m glad MTV got axed from producing the half-time show, not because I saw a 40-year-old boobie, but because the shows were awful. Always seemed like they were trying to hard, always trying to get the biggest names in pop culture and throwing 1800 different artist out there and having them do each other’s songs. The stages and gags were always way to extravagant and got in the way of what little talent they actual had. I always found it a bit ironic though, putting MTV in charge of the music for halftime. This is MTV we’re talking about, the entity singularly responsible for the death of real pop music. I bet they paid a lot less to get Sir Paul to play three songs this year than they paid for the cluster-fuck of music noise extravaganza last year.

Again though, they brought out fans on the field, it looked better than the pre-game stuff, but there were still a majority of women and none of them were wear team paraphernalia. I’m guessing they probably had sign up booths in the stadium where fans could sign up to be on the field for the show. All the men there probably shelled out thousands for the tickets and were there for the game, and the women were probably there as dates and don’t give a crap about football and just wanted to see Paul up close. Yes I made a generalization, heaven forbid you be offended.

In general a good halftime show, I got to hear ‘Live & Let Die’ one of my top 10 favorite songs, and probably the most underrated Beatles tune ever. The show served it’s function, I was entertained and didn’t get pissed enough to change channels like last year. I give it a B+.

7:45 On the fist possession of the 2nd Half, Belichick out coaches Any Reid easily, putting to rest all the hype about Reid’s record when he’s got 2 weeks to prepare. You know something like this went down in the respective locker rooms; Reid: “They’re killing us with the run, Stop them NOW!” Belichick: “They’re pissed that we’ve ran on them, they’ll stack the line, Throw over them” The result? Tom Brady completes 5 of 7 for 73 yards and a touchdown pass to Mike Vrabel.

7:55 Ensuing Philly possession, we get another glimpse of the coaches halftime speeches; Reid: “We can’t get anything going on the ground, Run on them Damnit!” Belichick: “They’re pissed they can’t run, they’ll try even harder, put 8 in the box” So for the next 10 minutes they attempt to run against an 8 man front with no success.

8:07 Reid finally abandons the run and starts to move now that McNabb has decided not to throw the ball to the players in the white jerseys. It’s amazing that when you attack the weak spot of an opponent good things happen for you. I wonder how long until somebody from the Fox squad calls Reid a coaching genius. 14-14

8:20 Critical point of this game, New England 3rd & 2 on the Philly 45, I get feeling that the outcome of the game may hinge on the on this play. If Philly holds, the New England defense will have to come out again on little rest and face an offense that just through all over them. If New England converts, I feel a clock killing drive for the go-ahead score and the ability to dictate the game from here on out. These are the situations that the pats have owned for the last 4 years. Every time they’re on the ropes, they come up big. So I’m fully expecting the Dillon run that yields the 2 yards that’s needed.

8:26 The near-inevitable New England TD comes. Couple of big series coming up, unfortunately for the Eagles, they go 3 & out on 2 badly thrown passes and a run for –6 yards. Not exactly the best way to start the defining quarter of your 1st Super Bowl in 20 years.

8:42 Philly holds the pats to a filed goal, its not quite over…yet. 24-14

8:48 2nd chance a defining series for the eagles, and McNabb throws a pick. Does he even want to win this game? On the bright side for him, he may just have the worst 350-yard passing game in history. I couldn’t tell you where all the yards came from, because he’s certainly not putting on a clinic.

8:51 The Eagles D holds, because there is a rule that the Pat’s can’t win any game by more than 10 points, it’s in the NFL bylaws, I looked it up just now.

8:59 Somebody in the Eagles play-calling chain of command sucks. The entire team is huddling up and walking around with 2:28 on the clock and they’re down by 10. They’re consigning themselves to an onside kick, IF they score. They do know they only play 4 quarters in the National Football League right?

9:01 I cannot explain how bad of a job of game management the eagles, as a group have done. These things do not happen to super bowl champs.

9:05 Philly finally takes advantage of the half-ply toilet paper thin Patriot secondary. At this point, over the 5 defensive backs on the field, only 1 was starting in week one. Why every team since hasn’t exploited this is mind boggling, it’s got something to do with Belichick’s schemes, but I can’t tell exactly way, and that says something to its complexity.

9:07 The Pats recover the onside kick, but fail to get a first down. A pooch punt puts the ball on Philly’s 4-yard line. There is an awful lot of green between them and a field goal. They’ll need to catch somebody sleeping in the New England secondary if they even dream of pulling this off. But, seeing as how we’re in the last 2 minutes of the game, the pats will likely be beyond perfect for the remainder of the game.

9:15 1st & 10 own 4-yard line, 46 seconds left in the Super Bowl, staring down a vaunted defense. These are the times that turn good quarterbacks into legend…Unfortunately McNabb decides that a 0-yard pass play to the middle of the field, followed by a ugly incompletion and a picked-off floater to the 3rd option receiver covered by the two best defensive backs on the field is the best way to win this game. He is, as one would expect, mistaken in this belief. The Pats therefore, win and move into football lore as one of the best teams ever.

Somehow, I never really expected any different.

SAE makes me tired. I've never spent so much random thought time on anything in my life. Not only have I been sitting down and planning out airplane components for six-hour sessions four times a week. I'm also thinking about attachment plate design as I fall asleep, lightening hole design while eating lunch, endplate aerodynamics in the middle of a shower. I've been absolutely consumed by this competition and I'm loving every minute of it.

I'm planning on writing a Superbowl Diary on sunday, much in the line of my Draft Day Diary

Also, I just realized that I only have the 2003 draft diary posted, even though i typed up one for 2004. I'll definately have to find and post it if I can.

Today the Kansan printed what is arugably the worst opinion page in the history of journalism. I'm not talking about slanted or disagreeable points of view, it contains 3 articles that were simply poorly written, indefensible, nonsensical, arguments about non-existent issues. Bad articles in a college newspaper are normal, but to present 3 seperate opinion pieces which are equally bad in every possible aspect is truly momentus. My middle-school newspaper was better than this.

I've all but locked up a job in Dr. Hale's lab making some composite mirrors once the SAE airplane is done. You have no idea how stoked I am about this, I'm tired of being unemployed.

To say "I love you" one must first be able to say the "I."
-Ayn Rand

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities
-Ayn Rand

Everyone knows of Ayn Rand quotes about virtue wealth, selfishness, and the mind, however relatively few understand her work as something beyond a retro-conservative soundboard. There is a unique philosophical flip side this coin, an epistemological consistency unrivaled in modern times. It is ideas like hers that make me long for the days of philosophically based political debate.