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Kopaka's Ice Engineering

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  1. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Nope, this isn't the earth-shattering announcement. It's not Saturday morning (except for you, <dd> ).
     
    I should mention that Grace Presbyterian is one of the few, if not the only, team in the league with red uniforms. Since red is the color of a winner, you'd figure they'd be better or something. But they're rusty, and they were short-handed tonight.
     
    The line score:

    Grace Presb. 0 0 1 0 0 0 1   2 FBC Kenner   1 2 3 2 2 0 X  10 F
     
    And once again in the Kenner box score, batting 11th
    No.  Name       Pos.   H-AB  R BI .... 47   Foret       C      2-3  0 2
     
    What can I say, except that I was playing inspired.
     
    Came up with runner on third and two out in the bottom of the second. Grounded through the pitcher, and the shortstop would have had to make a SportsCenter play to get me out, but he kicked the ball. Ruled an infield hit. Out 6-4 with the next batter, though with the lead I had, if I hadn't rocked back to first base on contact, I would've been safe.
    Came up with runners and second & third with one out in the bottom of the fourth. Grounded to shortstop, ruled a brain fart on the part of the first baseman who wasn't covering the bag. Everyone safe with no throw, gets scored as another infield hit. Advanced to third with the next atbat, but ended up stranded there.
    Oscar (who pulled his quad last week) led off the sixth with a double. I came up and worked an 0-2 count full before grounding out 1-3. Moved Oscar over, but he didn't score.
     
    I'm now batting .211 on the season: .500 against Grace Presbyterian and .077 against the rest of the league.
    Our record is now 6-1-1, .812 winning percentage.
     
    What was it that inspired me? Well, it wasn't Aaron Broussard this time. You'll find out tomorrow morning.
     
    -KIE
  2. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    First things first, I have never been more ashamed to be from Louisiana than I am today: William Jefferson (D-LA), who I toed the line in denouncing in my blog back in November, was indicted today on federal bribery & corruption charges.
    I will not address that topic for another couple of days, so that I don't post anything I will later regret. Just know that it did not go unnoticed.
     
    We won a game I didn't expect to win: Riverside is having an off year, it would seem...

    Riverside  1 0 0 1 0  2 FBC-Kenner 5 5 4 4 X 18
    I went 1-3 with a run scored.
    Grounded out 4-3 to lead off the bottom of the second inning.
    Grounded to short, yet beat the late throw, (and eventually scored) in the third inning
    Grounded out 3-1 to lead off the bottom of the fourth inning.
     
    Yeah, Riverside is a lot better than that usually, but not this year.
    Our winning percentage is now .900 (4-0-1), which, if I say so myself, is one of the softest .900's ever. ONLY if we win the next two games will I believe that we are that good.
     
     
    To justify the category, I must tell you what happened Thursday. Thursday, I did a habitual check of my "to get" list at Newegg, and I noticed the total price had dropped by about $240. "Uh oh", I think, and surprise, surprise, Newegg decided to pull the graphics card I picked out. I panic, and start rifling through ASUS' website to find another vendor: 5 O'Clock computers. Considering myself fortunate, I bought a card right then and there.
    Behold, the ASUS EN7950GT 512MB DDR3 Splendid card. [gallery]
     
    My buddy Terrance (more than likely not his real name), who encouraged me to get the XFX equivalent, says this graphics card has as much processing power as my current machine. I could install this into my current box and it'd be twice as good.
     
    I won't do that, however, for two reasons.
    1) It'd be an insult to the card.
    2) The current box doesn't have any PCI-e x16 slots, necessary for the installation of this card. Yes folks, I'm THAT far behind the curve.
     
     
    -KIE
  3. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    This entry is not directly about the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Brady bill, the National Rifle Association, the events of April 16, 2007 in Blacksburg, VA, or any gun control movement.
     
    This entry is, however, directly related to the intent of some people to make money hand-over-fist with no regard to the consequences of their actions.
     
    Would've posted this yesterday had I seen it before the server got all ouruboros.
    From yesterday's Times-Picayune:
     

     
    Something tells me that's the genetics talking when Ms. Farlander comes to her brother's defense there at the end: if you've been shut down already by the feds, you should know better than to put yourself at the risk of being stung, like at the gun show.
     
     
    Got a softball game tonight. Probably going to post tomorrow with the results, and another computer component (with an open, unsolicited endorsement!) early next week.
     
    -KIE
  4. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Black & Gold nation hereby welcomes:
    Robert Meachem, junior from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville Usama Young, senior from Kent State University Andrew Alleman, senior from the University of Akron Antonio Pittman, junior from the Ohio State University Jermon Bushrod, senior from Towson University David Jones, senior from Wingate University and
    Marvin Mitchell, senior from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville to the New Orleans Saints football club. Congratulations.
     
    Don't think getting drafted means you've got a job lined up. You're going to have to work to get on this team.
     
     
    Oh, and Mr. Meachem, please maintain a better attitude than the last first-round wide out that came from your alma mater to New Orleans, a one Donté Stallworth. These are not the same Saints that he played with.
     
     
     
    -KIE
  5. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Image borrowed from Wikipedia.

    Dune III it is not.

    Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn was the game that all but made the RTS genre. Released by Westwood Studios and [the now defunct] Virgin Interactive in 1995 as just "Command & Conquer", it had every element of turn-based strategy, but without the turns. Pitting a military arm of the U.N. called the Global Defense Initiative against the quasi-religious terrorist group the Brotherhood of Nod, this game packed a lot of effort into such a, by today's standards, lowly package.

    And Michael & I bought that game back in 1995. I played the good guys; he played the bad guys.
    Neither of us got around to finishing the game, until we "rediscovered" it in a drawer at the house.

    So, I brought it back to the apartment Sunday, and I'm ashamed to say it, but I haven't been on Ultima Online since. I was up to 1:30 AM Monday morning, and 11:30 last night, playing this.
    I'm kinda hung up in the Hungary scenario (GDI level 9), and I really need a break from it. I mean, I missed out on a launch of a new piece of Virtue armor in UO over the weekend.

    I'm such a slacker. And that's not even considering the time at work spent to draw up this entry.

    -KIE
  6. Kopaka's Ice Engineering

    Listing

    By Kopaka's Ice Engineering,

    No, I'm not compiling a bulletted set of points. Listing is what the Cruisers season is doing.
     
    I left 3 touchdowns and 14 points in Josh Scobee on the bench, to fall miserably to the Metairie Mudbugs.
    At 5-6, any hope of the playoffs is on life support. 2 games out with 5 to play has become 2 games out with 3 to play, and I can't say I have much confidence this week, hosting the Harvey Hooligans.
    The Hooligans are a dead team: the owner hasn't checked the team in a month. However, with Tom Brady, Frank Gore, Deuce McAllister, and the Chicago Bears defense, they've been very good unawares.
     
    If I don't upset the Hooligans, my season is done. Which stinks, because I'd have Rex Grossman playing a couple of chumps in weeks 15 & 16, which are the FFL playoffs.
     
     
    That sweet potato recipe I posted a few weeks ago? I prepared that last night. Going to take it at lunch to the church for a potluck Thanksgiving meal tonight. I'm on the cleanup crew, so don't expect much out of me tonight.
    Or tomorrow, as I'm driving back to Lake Charles for Thursday & Friday.
     
    It's been a substandard week, really, and it's only going to get worse. So insanely busy.
     
    -KIE, who STILL hasn't gotten his flu shot
     
     
    P.S. Schizo, how's that logo coming along?
  7. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    No, Dokuma, not every entry in my blog deals with food. In fact, despite my having eaten two Italian chicken sandwiches for lunch both yesterday and today, you've just read every food reference to be found in this entry.
     
    The Moss Bluff Cruisers are favored by 20 points over the visiting Caribe Sharks in this weekend's matchup. Yet I don't really care about perhaps breaking the .500 barrier for the first time this season. If I weren't sick, I'd be packing my bags for the weekend and getting on I-10 right now, headed to St. Patrick's Hospital, the same hospital where I was born 27 years ago, to visit a former classmate.
     
    Damon Guillory has been diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. He has nearly died twice since the onset of this initial flareup, and he had an ileostomy a couple of days ago. He was just recently been moved out of ICU. Damon is 27.
     
     
     
    I have ulcerative colitis. It's been dormant for the past 3½ years, but I know it's still there. It crosses my mind every time I head to the bathroom. My future children have a 10% increased risk of colon cancer because of it.
     
     
     
    Though Damon and I weren't terribly close, either in graded school or college, I feel a sense of obligation to him, with us both having forms of IBD. I'm going to visit him in a couple of weeks, but if it were up to me, I'd be on the way now.
     
    -KIE
  8. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    The Cruisers defeated the Knights over the weekend, 53-35. Now at 4-4, the Cruisers are early 1½ point favorites over the visiting Caribe Sharks (third and final company principal, also 4-4 on the season), in a must-win-to-stay-within-striking-distance for both teams. Why? The Sharks lost a bad one to the Poplarville Stallions, and the Kastrators (still can't type that with a straight face) ran into the Dominion buzzsaw. We're both 2 games out with 6 to play, so there is almost no room for error.
    I need it more because Frank (Kastrators) is playing the weaker team.
     
    Still sick. Ran through a gallon of orange juice over 48 hours. I'll OD on vitamin C yet, just you wait. Started on Ny/DayQuil. The green pills do help you stop coughing to get to sleep, I grant you that.
     
    Anyone wondering about the title can click on this link from the Worldwide Leader.
     
    Just got a phone call for a meeting now 45 minutes late. Gotta go.
     
    -KIE
     
    EDIT: 45 minutes later: That phone call wasn't about the meeting; apparently the meeting has been....forgotten. Still, I've got to get something done on this sewer model. I've gotten what I wished for...why can't I get back into the groove?
  9. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Not just reeling anymore: Writhing. In pain.
    I take solace in that there was nothing I could have done to win this past fantasy game against Dahveed's Dominion.
    This week, the Cruisers host the comissioner's team, the Touchdown Titans, in a battle of 2-4 teams desperate to get off 2 and 4 game schneids, respectively. Odds are, I'm taking the loss here. Still only 3 games back, though, as Frank's team didn't show up last weekend, making him 5-1 on the season.
     
     
    In the spirit of the autumnal season, I've created a new blog category as can be seen above. This is will end up being where the recipes I post will congregate, but those entries will not be just recipes, like this one. To celebrate, I pilfered a copy of one of my mom's favorite recipes, for you to try in your kitchen. It's good, and is almost a dessert.
    A high-in-Vitamin-A dessert. With pecans.
     

     
    I added a couple of blogs to the content block. Would add more, but the Evil Lord Survurlode has reared his u-gly head today, preventing my perusal of the archives.
    I think I'll leave the Blog Lists entry as is, and maybe link it later. *shrug*
     
     
    -KIE
  10. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    This week's a busy one, so this might be the only entry this week.
    Wrapping up stuff in St. Tammany parish: this Huntwyck watershed bit is becoming more trouble than it's worth....to me, anyway. How I yearn for the simpler days when I could just piddle with the sewer model all day.
     
    The Cruisers lost, 57-38. Jeff Wilkins and his 6 field goals, Terrell Owens and his 80 yards & a touchdown, and Byron Leftwich and his passing touchdown would've made a difference, but alas, all three rode pine. At least I'll have no quandry who to take at QB the next few weeks.
    Next up: the Cruisers hit the road to face perennial powerhouse Monte Carlo Mudhens, who spanked the Cookie Crunchers 77-58 last week.
    Dead money...right....
     
     
    There's a convention this Thursday and Friday at the Pontchartrain Center: the 2006 Louisiana Civil Engineering Conference & Show. (The 2005 version was cancelled by Katrina.) This promises to be a good two and a half notches less interesting than BrickFest, but at least I get out of the office. Too bad my calves have been knotted up all week, making it hurt to walk.
     
    -KIE
  11. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Geez, give the entire board premier privileges, and the floodgates are opened...what is it now, 120 new blogs today and counting?
     
    I have to post something just to find my blog!
     
    Okay, so what to post about.....
     
    Ah, here we go. Today, we finished the sewer manhole surveys for RPC year 3.
    Let me let y'all in on what the frell that meant: Ever since I got this job, 97% of my time has been spent working on or with a sewer model of Jefferson Parish. It's not exactly what I went to graduate school for, but it is something I'm getting paid for, and I can't complain about that.
     
    What is this sewer model? Well, using a really expensive (but apparently worth the money) computer program, I have most of the sewer manholes and lines between them, not to mention the sewer pumps where they are located, all represented in this computer model.
     
    3 quick notes:
    1) What is the point? Well, once I get the model tuned to what is observed to occur in real life, I can make changes to that model and how, if at all, the conditions improve. It's better to do it in the model first than to do it in real life, because if it doesn't work in the model, it won't work in real life. And if it doesn't work in real life, your mom's & dad's property taxes just got wasted. Elected officials don't like it when that happens, because said moms & dads tend to not vote for someone who wastes their tax money.
     
    2) How big is the model? Big. There are 70 someodd lift stations on the east bank of Jefferson parish, and we set a record for total pumps for Wallingford, I think. A lift station is a pump station where the sewer water is pumped up (in the case of my model) from about 20' below the ground to about 5' below the ground, and closer to the treatment plant. There are more than the usual number of lift stations here because the water table is so high (~8' below the ground, ~11' below mean sea level). Ask your dad or look it up to find out what a water table is, and then guess why it's bad for sewer water to be very deep below it.
     
    3) How expensive is it? It has a hardware lock (Yes, the thing you plug in behind the back of the computer. That archaic thing.), and the program won't even run without it. A hardware lock costs, oh, about $40,000 for a one-year license. Yes, this thing is worth more than my new car. Don't think you're gonna get a copy of it off the net.
     
    Now, about the sewer manhole inspections. No, it isn't pleasant, but it's not as utterly disgusting as it sounds...most of the time. Usually, it entails prying up a manhole cover (that weighs 75 lb. (30 kg)) with a crowbar and a hook that is not sold to young miscreants that would go off stealing manhole covers. (So don't get any ideas.) Once the cover is off, we determine the depths of the pipes coming in and going out of the manhole, and how well the channeling at the bottom of the manhole is holding up, and directing the flow. Sometimes, there is water backed up in the manhole, and that is, um, unpleasant. But you do what you gotta do...and sometimes, what you gotta do can't be done.
     
    Anyway, today was the last time I have to inspect a sewer manhole in Jefferson parish for quite a while. I've got so much work in the office backlogging, I'll be busy through the end of the year, at least.
     
    Longer if I keep wasting time typing this....oh wait, it's already 5:35 PM.
     
    Softball game tomorrow, I'll update the below posting with the results. Y'all root for Kenner, okay?
     
    -KIE
  12. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    Okay, so yesterday I was supposed to meet the cable guy between 1 & 3 PM to get my high speed internet turned on.
     
    The technician Cox sent out is not a local, apparently. While he finished up the call before mine on Metairie Road at 3:30 (already late), he was 6 o'clock getting to my place. Why?
    He apparently was searching for my apartment off of Clearview Parkway, not Transcontinental Boulevard.
     
    Mind you, there's a mile of subdivisions between those two streets.
     
     
    But you know, it's all good, because I got to play Ultima Online for 5 hours last night.
    And life was good again.
     
     
    -KIE
  13. Kopaka's Ice Engineering
    http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/gal...rs_to_Earth.jpg
     
    I've been considering what to do with this little cubbyhole of the internet, and, I'm still considering.
    In the future, expect me to post some stuff about the politics and happenings of south Louisiana.
     
    Also, some news stories & columns I pick up.
    No, nothing that would be rated M for Mature, but some of it would be over the typical high schooler's head. (If it's not, well, I feel sorry for the loss of your innocense.)
     
     
    In any case, the above link is what you look like to the little green men from Mars. Amazing, no?
     
     
    My Astros lost again last night, but it's okay, because Jason Giambi (IF - NYY) is on my fantasy team and Josh Beckett (RHP - BOS) is not. The Moss Bluff Cruisers remain in 6th place (ahead of only the Maddogs and the umpalumpas (sic), dead and utterly hapless teams respectively).
    I was late for work today. However, my computer is just about to finish the work I started it doing Thursday night, so I'm finally gonna get started.
     
     
    Next post will likely be Saturday, after FBC-Kenner (my team) knocks off FBC-New Orleans (the winless team) in softball Friday night.
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