College Football Week 4

I was able to watch lots of football Saturday. It was great to see Michigan get another victory. The sting from the first two losses is lessened with each victory from here on out. The schedule looks favorable for the next few weeks so for the time being Michigan seems to be back on track. My friend put it best two weeks ago. We are both very emotionally involved with the football team and how they play. He said after each of the first two losses it felt like there was something physically wrong with himself and that people kept pointing out that disability. It was just a terrible feeling but like I said, at least for now that has passed.

There was a bunch of near upsets and some actual upsets. I was really hoping Ball State would complete an upset of Nebraska but Nebraska has a way of escaping close calls- I'm reminded of the gam against Missouri 8 or so years ago with the last minute play in the endzone and an intentional kick and a lucky reception. Louiville apparently isn't nearly as good as people thought. After falling to Kentucky last week they followed up with a terrible defensive showing against Syracuse who hadn't beating anyone. Brian Brohm has over 550 yards passing and lost- I didn't realie that was possible.

Wisconsin was the recipient of several favorbale calls and was able to hold off an Iowa team that looked like it had fixed its problems from the previous weeks loss at ISU.

One thing I must mention is the Georgia-Alabama game. A great game with a great overtime win for Georgia. One of the funniest thigns that happened though was after Alabama scored in overtime and Georgia was taking over. About 15 seconds before Georgias first overtime snap the announcer asked "What is wrong with Britney?" The other announcer, completely shocked literally had no idea what to say and after a few seconds said something along the lines of "I don't care, I'm more interested in football". I'm gonna go surinf online and see if anyone else is commenting about that.

Apparently I wasn't the only one to notice this and this clip is on youtube. I've included it below.


I think Amy and I are going to the raspberry farm today to get some berries and take some pictures with the Holga.

Sharpton and the Jena 6

I've never particularly liked Al Sharpton. I think he is the epitome of racism in the country and does very little but hurt the causes he so vehemently fights against. (I'd also note that I wanted to put up a picture of Sharpton smiling but the only one that I found was with Ann Coulter- I thought that was just to weird to use.)

When the rape charges were finally dropped against the Duke lacrosse players I was drawn to Sean Hannity's open criticism of Sharpton. Using honest and accurate descriptions of Sharpton's past actions Hannity was able to paint a very convincing picture of his racist ways. Hannity chastised Sharpton the most for his handling of the Tawana Brawley case and frequently played clips with Sharpton uttering antisemitic remarks such as "diamond dealer". Hannity also constantly challenged ol' Al to step to the plate and debate him. When Sharpton FINALLY accepted, the debate at the National Action Network Convention was filled with more of the same; Sharpton's denials and dishonest answers aimed at creating hate.


At the center of the argument was Hannity wanting Sharpton to admit his mistake and to apologize for the things he said about the Duke lacrosse players which of course he refused to do. If some rich white kid's life gets ruined by Sharpton he probably had it coming right?

Around the same time was the Don Imus controversy which would have never been a controversy were it not for Sharpton. Of course there was Sean Hannity again asking where the outrage was for blacks that used the same speech in the same derogatory manner? AFTER all this was of course when Sharpton began to speak out about hip hop culture. No doubt that the only reason he took the stance at that time was because his hypocrisy was becoming apparent even to the most casual listener.

So today I was reading up on what is being dubbed the case of the Jena 6. Again Sharpton is jumping into the spotlight saying that the justice system must be based on the crime committed not who committed the crime- a fantastic point by the way. But what I discovered is that this is not what he is actually arguing at all. The comparison is between a case which happened recently of white kids who hung nooses over a tree limb vs. a group of 6 black kids (the Jena 6) who allegedly beat up a white kid.

Now this is not to say that the actions of the people with the nooses wasn't reprehensible. The prosecutor stated that based on the evidence there wasn't anything he could charge the boys with. (Which DOES seem hard to believe). But how can that be compared to attempted murder? Why is Sharpton jumping to the defense of a group of young black men accused of physical abuse when he has always jumped on the side of the prosecution when the races are reversed. His antics do nothing but enrage and his actions cause nothing good. Why doe Sharpton make cases about WHO did it rather than what the crime was. The hypocrisy is baffling.

Is there something I am missing about this Jena 6 case? Why are the two cases even being compared? I sure hope I'm missing something and this isn't just another vulturisitic attempt by Sharpton to steal the spotlight using a red herring race argument.

Please help me understand this!

True Cost of Transportation

Travel Choice Developments or Transit Oriented Developments (TOD) are quickly becoming the "in" thing for land use and transportation planners. TOD concepts have crept in to the urban planning mindset and are considered by some, including me, to be the best way of completing a livable urban framework. Actually adding transit service is often a deal breaker which makes otherwise livable communities, filled with sidewalks, benches and outdoor restaurants, incomplete.

In Michigan there is considerable talk about adding a commuter rail line between Ann Arbor and the City of Howell. There is also discussion about adding TOD at each of the rail stations. As part of this venture, I am looking to compare the true costs of transportation via auto compared to a ride on the train.

We often only consider the direct costs associated with transportation. For drivers that is the cost of gas and toll's, for transit riders it is fare.

Now there are two ways of looking at the TRUE cost of transportation. One way deals with all the indirect costs or "societal" costs such as the cost of automobile crashes. This method includes everything from air pollution to delay. This is a reasonable method but flawed when we try to look at a users cost.

For example, we may use, as a rule of thumb, a value of time of 10 dollars an hour. This means that an average user would pay 10 dollars to make their travel 1 hour faster. We can relate this by saying if you wait in traffic for a half hour per day your cost is 5 dollars per day. But you aren't really PAYING 5 dollars. You could also consider this lost productivity at work so that if you are paid 30 dollars per hour than society is losing 15 dollars of productivity. If you think about it though the time spent in traffic not at home or not at work would more realistically be turned into time watching TV or time Googling your own name.

The alternative way of measuring the true cost of transportation is a hybrid of direct costs and societal costs, however, from the societal costs I pull out "indirects". These are costs that can easily be attributed to each user.

I'll use this alternative method as I go back to the auto vs. train comparison.


There are two gentleman who live in Howell Michigan, we'll call them Tom and Peyton. Tom and Peyton both have new jobs at the Google Adwords facility in downtown Ann Arbor.

Lets look at each of their days and analyze their transportation costs.

After Peyton has had his coffee and sent the kids to school he jumps in his car for an exciting day of work. Peyton travels down US-23 which is packed with traffic however Peyton doesn't mind the hour commute because he enjoys his alone time in his vehicle listening to Drew and Mike in the morning on WRIF. Peyton gets off the freeway and parks his car in downtown Ann Arbor, he uses his parking pass to get in and out of a structure each day. After a day of meetings, Peyton returns home for a nice dinner.

Peyton's true transportation cost for the day - $25.75

Peyton makes a modest salary of $50,000 a year. To earn that salary Peyton spends approximately 1 hours worth working each day to fund his transportation.

Let's look at how that $25 is spent.

Peyton owns a new Ford Fusion which cost him 20,000, he plans to drive it 15,000 miles per year because be drives 60 miles per day to and from work, 5 days per week. He assumes he can sell his car for 5,000 in five years to a reputable dealer. So we take 15,000 dollars for the cost of owning the vehicle for five years which is a little more than 8 dollars per day.

Peyton's Fusion gets incredible gas mileage and he can do the round trip 60 mile trip and only use 2 gallons of fuel. At $3.00 per gallon, he pays 6 dollars per day to operate the vehicle.

Peyton has always been reliable and he expects the same from his automobile. To ensure this Peyton gets regular oil changes at Victory Lane and spends on average about an additional 250 dollars per year on vehicle maintenance. This works out to be about 1 dollar per day but Peyton is happy to pay this because of the added reliability. This also ensures he can get top dollar for when he trades his car in.

Ever since Peyton got a speeding ticket when he was 16 he has been very careful to do everything by the book. He knows that to legally operate his car he needs vehicle insurance. Plus, if Peyton gets in to an automobile crash he'll need to have his car replaced. The average cost of car insurance in the US is a little under 1,000 dollars per year. Since Peyton's car is relatively new he conservatively estimates his annual car insurance rates to be about 900 dollars. This is about $2.50 per day but a small price to pay for piece of mind.

Peyton's birthday is coming up in a few weeks and he just got mail from the Secretary of State with a bill for $95 dollars to register his vehicle for the next year. Registering his vehicle costs Peyton about .25 cents per day.

There was more mail; another bill, this time from the Ann Arbor DDA. Peyton pays 175 dollars per month to use the DDA parking lots each work day. This works out to about 8 dollars per day.

In review, total cost $25.75

Tom wakes up each morning and walks his kids to the school down the street, he usually has five or ten minutes afterwards to spend with his wife in their new condo before he gets on the train for work. Tom only has about a 3 minute walk to the train that takes him to Ann Arbor where he transfers onto a Bus that takes him within a block of the Google Adwords building.

Tom either brings his lunch or goes somewhere to eat in Ann Arbor. Today, Tom happened to go to the Parthenon which was his favorite Greek restaurant. Tom had a big lunch but by the time the rain dropped him off about 5:50pm he was ready for dinner. Fortunately for him, his wife made lasagna.

Toms true transportation cost for the day - 12 dollars

Where did we get this number from?

Tom doesn't own a car. Since he lives in a well planned TOD he can walk or bike to anywhere he needs to go. It also allowed Tom and his wife to remodel their garage into an extra living room adding about 350 square feet to their condo.

Tom purchased a monthly pass to ride the train each weekday. The pass costs him 260 dollars per month or 10 dollars per day. When Tom transfers to the Bus in Ann Arbor his transfer is 1 dollar. Tom also pays one dollar to rider the bus back to the train station.

In review, total cost - $12

Tom also makes $50,000 per year but since his costs are lower he only works for about 30 minutes to cover the cost of his daily transportation.

This also means Tom spends $15 less per day then his friend Peyton to get from the same town to the same job.

Each year Tom has an extra $3,900 dollars for not using his car to go to work each day. This year, Tom plans to use the money for a new 42 inch TV, to remodel the guest bathroom and to start a college fund for his kid.

The point of all this is to point out the TRUE cost of transportation to you, not by inflating numbers and assigning societal impacts to the individual user. I'm not trying to convince anyone to move or change their lifestyle. I'm just pointing out how expensive transportation is and especially how much it is in our automobiles. Transportation is a part of our daily lives and our daily bills that we often take for granted.


ALL ABOARD!

Petraeus Propaganda?

It's been a few months since good ol' boy GW essentially put the fate of the USA's heightened involvement a.k.a the surge in General Petraeus' upcoming report to congress.

Well, it's "P" day and Petraeus is getting grilled and lambasted by the dem's and being kissed up to by the G.O.P.

This is my favorite quote SO FAR!

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said:

"I am distressed by the accusations leveled by some in the media and by some members of Congress during hearings like these calling into question the integrity of our military, accusing the military of cherry-picking positive numbers to reflect a dramatic decline in sectarian violence... Some in Congress accuse you, General Petraeus, of presenting a report that is simply White House propaganda."

Perish the thought!

I'm always surprised at the right's attempt to equate anything "anti-surge" and anti-Iraq war as anti-military. I never believed the scare tactics accusations the left gave but, the more quotes I hear like this that put down any challenge to the validity of the military involvement in Iraq, the more they look like scare tactics to me.

I'm not sold on all the accusations that Bush is in Iraq to profit and its all about oil etc etc. BUT, I don't believe that he would have put as much faith in the Petraeus report if he didn't already know it supported his position. Why would he set himself up for failure by emphasizing the importance of this report months before it occurred?

But back to Ros-Lehtinen's quote. My question to her is "Are you serious?" I think that if the report comes back with anything short of; its not working, you have EXACTLY White House propaganda. Maybe propaganda is the wrong word, maybe not. Thats for you to decide.

Petraeus said that military objectives are in large measure being met. What the hell does that mean? Even if Petraeus were to say that Iraq is a failure, would we really pull out? Would we cut the surge and leave a smaller contingent? I'm guessing no, and if I'm right then it doesn't even matter what he says.

I guess thats the only other explanation for why Bush pointed to this report. He either hedged his bet and knew what was to be said, or he's been bluffing and hoping for the best.

Either way Ms. Ros-Lehtinen's quote continues to make me laugh. And the pictures GW must have of Petraeus must be worse than anything anyone has on Larry Craig.

Ruby

As I continue work on my website at home, despite the help a WYSIWYG program like Dreamweaver gives, I've come to a point where there is no hiding the fact that I need to expand my computer language proficiency. HTML seemed to have been a good starting point and it seems that having a better understanding of Javascript and AJAX and PHP is the appropriate next step. I took a little bit of a sidestep when I came across Ruby. Specifically the Ruby website here.

"This is cool stuff", I thought. I can download the ruby interpreter and I can make the computer type my name backwards and arrange numbers and do simple math. It reminded me of 1st grade where we were exposed to "basic" programming. What fun that was! We even used basic programming to control the movement of a small robot (damn those Ann Arbor school districts were ahead of the curve).

Having "passed" the mini ruby tutorials I was confident that before I try to teach myself something else, I am going to focus on Ruby. In addition, I had seen lots of Ruby on Rails books that claim to have you more or less "up and running" in minutes...whatever up and running means.

So I went ahead and got a Ruby on Rails for Dummies book. I usually try to stay away from the dummies series, mostly because thats admitting I'm a dummy. While I usually don't have a problem with that, when it comes to buying how to books at the bookstore, I do.

About a year ago my boss was amazed when she discovered that none of us "kids" new programming. Shocked that we eluded programming classes in our Planning programs. I wasn't sure at the time but I wouldn't be surprised if she was talking about punch cards...I digress.

So I started following along in my dummies book... This stuff is confusing the hell out of me! I spent hours just trying to make sure that I had everything installed properly and configuring my database ((Mysql and Mysql administrator (yes those are two separate programs) have proven to be a beasts in their own right). In addition I have taken the first steps to creating a facebook application but so far all you get when you visit that is an error message. Mind you, I'm laughing as a type this.

Anyway, just like MICHIGAN I will not be deterred, it will be a bumpy road with embarrassing losses but hopefully I'll be able to create some things I'm proud of and ultimately add some flair to an otherwise static website.

puts "goodbye"
goodbye
=> nil

"Ryan".reverse
"nayr"

Oh what fun!

Wish me luck and feed me advice!

Michigan Pride

What a difference a day makes. I remember finding out when Michigan's final spot was filled by Appalachian State. Another cupcake, but a win is a win, or apparently not.

While I am tempted to point out the Comcast curse (last time a game wasn't televised on Comcast was Ball State) I'm going to take a different route-acceptance.

You can't change history, good or bad, while this game was bad, Michigan fans can't forget the good either. While my open allegiance as a wolverine fan will undoubtedly "haunt" me over the next week and to a lesser extent the next several years, thats ok, I'm ready. I don't think anything was taken away from all the good in Michigan's history, just another chapter added with an unfortunate result.

It happened; Michigan lost to Appalachain State. It happened; Michigan lost on a last second hail mary from Kordell Stewart. It happened; Michigan hasn't beat Ohio State since the "100th game". It's ok. Life will go on and the Michigan-Oregon contest will happen.

Boy its easy to want to throw in the towel as a fan but I am not taking that route. I'm taking the, "can still win the big ten", route. It's only one game and as disappointing as it is, it'll be ok.

So, just as I wrote last week, I'm still excited about the season and looking forward to the next game, not next year, not yet.

More thoughts to come,

Go Blue!