Every dollar counts.  Every thoughtful gesture counts.  Every prayer counts regardless of your religious beliefs.

Also, don’t forget to check with your employer as they may provide a charitable matching gifts program.

Back to my indefinite hiatus from blogging because I didn’t get the memo that (full) blogging is now lame and you should (micro) blog in less than 140 characters per entry but at a higher frequency.

This loss in no way diminishes the great season the Yellow Jackets had in 2008.  I honestly expected Tech to go 6-6 mainly due to the introduction of the new coaching staff, new offense, and being the youngest team in the ACC.  A 9-4 season with some great wins (especially to U[sic]GA) brought Tech some high-profile coverage of its season and games.

I intend to keep up with whatever news that comes out about Tech during spring practice like I did for last year.  I am biased but I think there are some great things ahead for the GT football program in the years to come.  I can’t wait to see what our guys can do after a Spring and Summer of maturing with this past season under their belts.  It’s great to be a Tech fan.

Happy New Year!

Admittedly, I think some angles make it look worse than it is.  For example, the camera angle actually on the field in slow-motion does undoubtedly make it look like the referee pushed himself toward Garcia.  The normal TV camera doesn’t make it look as bad.  In the end, I think it’s all about the referee’s position as an umpire.  According to wikipedia:

The umpire (U) stands behind the defensive line and linebackers, observing the blocks by the offensive line and defenders trying to ward off those blocks — looking for holding or illegal blocks. Prior to the snap, he counts all offensive players. … As the umpire is situated where much of the play’s initial action occurs, he is considered by many to hold the most dangerous officiating position.

So according to that definition of an umpire, it looks like Hackett is out of position but on the other hand it could have been because he thought the play was developing to his left and stepped to the right and didn’t realize that Garcia would counter the run to his side.  On that same token though, this is not the first time I’ve seen a run that was originally supposed to develop to one side and instead the running back or quarterback tries to make an adhoc play of its own.  Anyway, I’m a huge football fan and it’s the first time I’ve seen this type of thing happening except for in this Buffalo Wild Wing commercial.

]]> http://www.johnhwang.net/200810/referee-hacket-tackles-usc-qb-garcia/feed/ 0 http://www.johnhwang.net/200810/georgia-tech-lost-today/ http://www.johnhwang.net/200810/georgia-tech-lost-today/#comments Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:18:33 +0000 john http://www.johnhwang.net/?p=455 Don’t comment telling me I’m wrong because I am talking metaphorically and the title was for rhetorical purposes.  In reality, Tech got the W today and are 5-1 overall now but it’s very difficult to consider today’s win a victory because it could have easily gone either way and came down to a barely tipped field goal that prevented the game from going into OT.  Were we playing a team in the ACC?  Nope.  Tech played Gardner Webb, a Division I-AA team that our program scheduled because Army pulled out of a home-and-home contract last year.

If you are a Gardner Webb fan, I don’t mean to say that just because GW is a Division I-AA team that it has no credibility or chance to beat a I-A team (for example, Toledo beat Michigan today) but let’s not pretend that this is the first time you’ve read this game should have been an easy game for Tech.  Because, it should have been.  Even after reading somewhere that GW was a great rush-defense team, I admit that I didn’t think much of it and wouldn’t have been able to believe that they would be able to hold our rush-oriented offense to 79 yards on the ground.

Now for Tech fans, let’s not use the “but it’s our third-string QB” excuse because that doesn’t explain why we only had 79 yards rushing.  That doesn’t explain why Calvin was sacked two times and he was the leading rusher at the end of the game with 35 yards rushing on 19 carries.  I am going to be blunt here so be prepared for that: our offensive line just plain sucked.  Coach Paul Johnson said in his radio show last week that they were working a lot on their punt-return team but did he let the offensive line take a week off or something?  CPJ also said after last week after Duke’s game that the offensive line needed to play lower and launch off of the line of scrimmage… but did they instead lay down on the ground and play dead?  I wasn’t able to watch the game since it wasn’t televised but I did listen to it live on radio and I just could not believe that our blocking was so bad that our running game couldn’t even muster 80 yards; don’t forget 35 yards came from Calvin who is more of a pocket-passing QB.

What’s even worse is that after reading this column from Terence Moore at the AJC, it seems as if 80% of our offense failed to show up for this game because aside from our non-existing offensive line, our wide receivers were running wrong routes.  Seriously?  Out of any of the games that the wideouts could be running the wrong routes, they do it on a day that Calvin finally starts a game.  Calvin, who is so easy to root for because of he is so team-oriented and unselfish?  Come on!

In my mind, Coach Paul Johnson and the Georgia Tech football team lost today.  They are 4-2 in my book.  We can say a win is a win all we want but we all know Tech coaches, players, students, and fans were disappointed by our lackluster offense today and know that our offense can do better than they did today.  Tech didn’t take GW seriously today and it’s going to hurt the team’s credibility.

How about the glass half-full stuff?  Our defense played decent which is better than piss poor.  This can be used as a good learning experience for our young team so hopefully this game will make them stronger and more focused.

I have to say that I’ve never felt so bad about a grown women before in my life but I feel so sorry for Sarah and her family.  I feel like she jumped into this without realizing how deep the muddy political well is and she only thought about the positives of being the Vice President of the United States and neglected everything else.  I feel sorry for her because she probably thinks that there is no way out now considering she is already in the spotlight and taking the backdoor out of the spotlight will make her look like a quitter.

On the other hand, after watching the debate between Joe and Sarah, I was surprised that she didn’t make any ridiculous mistakes and I applaud those that planned and coached her for this debate because they clearly had a plan.  Oddly enough, she basically stated her plan within the first few minutes of the debate; she said that she may not answer questions as the moderator or Joe would like her to answer.  She did exactly that.  Sarah rarely responded directly to the questions at hand and instead made the points that she wanted to make.  This is smart for two reasons.  First, it forces Joe to be on the defensive side of the fence because he wants to respond directly to her answer which may not be the same thing that the moderator had asked.  Second, due to the fact that she forming her responses regardless of the question asked most of the time, highlights of the debate to be played over and over again until next Tuesday’s second Presidential debate will portray her in a better light than this past week with her interview with Katie Couric.

So who do I think won the debate?  Well, let’s see… if there was a rubric of all questions asked as rows and two columns for Senator Biden and Governor Palin, I think I would have more relevant notes jotted down in the Biden column while I would have more questions marks on the Palin column.  If you cut out each candidates replies and replayed them randomly without the moderator’s question, I think both did a good job of getting the point across that their Presidential candidate would have liked them to get across but I still would give Biden the edge.

In the end, why even bother reading this?  I’m sure it’s on YouTube by now so go watch it and make your own decision.

Allow me to continue my sarcastic tone; operating refineries in the hurricane prone Gulf Coast isn’t like finding the cure for cancer or finding the Holy Grail, is it?  A refinery that is shutdown due to a Hurricane isn’t a mysterious puzzle, it should be an expected technical problem that any decent company should be able to resolve with the only question being how many man hours it would take to get it done.  In stark contrast, it would be a completely different thing if the monster from Cloverfield popped up out of the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed all the refineries there.  That would be considered, say it with me those that are responsible for managing these refineries, un-ex-pect-ed because no one in there right mind would have ever imagined that scenario.

So my rant on refinery operators is done.  Of course, I’m not trying to shift the blame away from consumer panic caused by what seems to be a rumor but coming up on the third week of the gas shortage in Charlotte, I can’t help but think that there is some flaw in how the gasoline is distributed in the Southeast.

Less than two years away from 2010, where are the flying cars?  Better yet, where is Mr. Fusion?

To the right is one of my first attempts at High-Dynamic Range (HDR) photography.  It was easier than I expected so I would highly encourage other photography enthusiasts to give it a go.  I set my alarm for 6:50AM because sunrise was supposed to be at around 6:57am.  I woke up either by accident or because I received an email and my phone beeped.  Either way, I just grabbed my camera and tripod and grabbed a couple dozen shots on this wooden walkway.

After the three exposures were HDRified, I made some minor edits using Photoshop like darkening the sky and upping the contrast and sharpness overall to give it a more dramatic look.  I kind of wish there were more clouds in the sky, I think that would have looked spectacular.

GT is now 2-0 and 1-0 in the ACC conference.  I realize that beating Jacksonville State and BC (in such an ugly way as Paul put it agreeably) doesn’t really match up to some of the ranked teams in the nation.  Yet still, considering that earlier this year and probably up until the final play clock ticked down in Chestnut Hill today, there were plenty of sketics questioning Tech’s chances of being successful; I think our offense did okay.

A win is a win regardless of how ugly of a win it was but obviously with three fumbles, two of which I attribute to the poor execution of the offense, we still have a long road of improvement ahead.

GO TECH!  THWG!

Again, one of the most unique things about the triple-option offense is that a play can be called without anyone knowing who is going to end up with the ball and where because there are several ‘options’ the quarterback has when running the play from center.  It’s in no way foolproof but if executed properly, it’s a system that can chew up a lot of yards on the ground and give the offense the ability to control the clock.