I've got my work cut out for me

With Jon Huntsman Jr officially declaring for the U.S. Presidency today it got me to thinking a little bit about this race and how it is heating up.  I don't know who I would vote for.  Do you?  Mitt Romney has been a prominent player since his failed bid in 2008 and being from Utah, you just know who Huntsman is.  But what does each bring to the table?  What about the other Republican candidates?  Well, I know it will be my job to learn as much as I can prior to November 5, 2012.

Romney

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Huntsman Jr.

This Space No Longer For Rent

I decided recently that I need to consolidate some of my thought on what's going on into one place so I can keep it collected.  This was my solution.

Comic-in-chief

It appears the President thinks he's a pretty funny guy.  I think he's outrageously inappropriate.  Check out the link here.
This is the second inappropriate joke he has made recently.  Here's the first one.

Politics, politics, politics

We're coming up quickly on mid-term elections and I realized last week that I'm grossly unaware of the demand for a changing political landscape in Utah. Bob Bennett, a three-term US Senator was narrowly defeated this past weekend because of his recent voting history with regards to the Health Care reform as well as the TARP program. As candidates lined up to take his place in Washington DC, I began to take notice that the status quo was being rocked. I put together a list of all the candidates running for office in or representing Utah. I only included candidates that represent my voting district, but I've included links to find out who represents you. I hope this begins to help and I hope that as I find time to study each candidate that I will also be able to post on here a little about each candidate. In case you didn't know, the offices being elected for in this cycle are for US Senate, US House of Representatives, Utah Governor, Utah State Senator and House of Representatives, and Utah State School Board.

A quick update

I just wanted to share a quick Happy Birthday shout out to my little princess Leah. She's 3 and and she had a great birthday. Melanie blogged all about it so check it out here: http://thequinneys.blogspot.com/.

Happy Birthday princess (April 16)

Fry Sauce is Always a Recipe for Success

Would you like this?

Or this?

What’s the difference you might ask? Well, it’s as simple as this?

Struggling to tell the difference?

If you ask most people who have had the opportunity to taste a burger of any proportion from In ‘N Out Burger (I personally recommend the 3x3 with extra cheese) they will tell you they either love it or hate it. Until recently, I hated it. But I digress. A few years ago a new company moved into American Fork that served a similar menu called Chadders. Set side-by-side, the burgers are nearly identical, but in my opinion, there are one or two little things that make one better than the other. Comparing these pictures of the Utah Jazz’s Mehmet Okur seems unsubstantial; in fact, they were taken only two months apart. The first one is Memo hitting a huge shot in the dwindling minutes of a game against the Lakers just before All-Star Weekend and the second is Memo getting scored on by a short-handed Golden State team in a game we should have easily won.

I’m still struggling to see much difference myself. They are both tasty and delicious and writing this makes me want to drive to West Valley or American Fork and grab another hat trick with double cheese, fries, and a Coke. The differences are so negligible as not be noteworthy. One huge difference in my esteemed opinion is the fry sauce. What? I said fry sauce.

Fry sauce makes everything better. It’s awesome and it makes a world of difference. What goes into fry sauce varies, depending on the maker. I usually prefer a little Miracle Whip (gotta love the zip), BBQ sauce (its tangier than ketchup), some limejuice, and a little pickle juice if available.

But the subtle differences between the Jazz of the longest win streak in more than a decade and the one that couldn’t even beat an eight man rotation of a lottery-bound Warriors team are more glaring and obvious. Several that come to mind include defense (or a serious lack of it), a lack cohesiveness stemming from all the injuries, Sloan says they need “nastiness,” and a not-so-apparent lack of commitment to the overall goal. So what is the recipe for getting back to that team that beak Los Angeles barely two months ago? Let’s just call it fry sauce. You mix in a little bit of this and a little bit of that and you’ll have fry sauce. This fry sauce needs some “nastiness.”

What recipe might you suggest for the Jazz’s secret fry sauce?

By the way, I prefer Chadders . . . in case you were wondering.

Blog update

To all who have been following this blog, I urge you to check out this one (if indeed you love sports as much as I do.)

http://cbacsmack.blogspot.com/

Ode to the 18th row

So last night, Melanie had Young Women's and they were at the Conference Center downtown so I took Leah out and we went shopping for Christmas stuff . . . stocking stuffers, candy, etc. While perusing the aisles at Wal-Mart in Taylorsville, my phone starts to ring and my buddy Drew is on the other line. He's calling to offer me a ticket to last night's Jazz game against Portland.

Andrew: "Its lower bowl, wanna come?"
Matt: "Can I put Leah on my lap without paying for her?"
(Muffled voices in the background while he asks) "Yes."
"Then I'm in."

He and his two brother's-in-law met me and Wal-Mart where we transferred Leah's carseat and headed to the game.

I will tell you this much: I love going to Jazz games. I've never enjoyed them as much as I've enjoyed going to football games (on any level where it matters) but last night rocketed up my list in a hurry.

Sorry, its a little blurry, but this is what you get from a cell phone:

(Picture of the Jazz bench during a timeout)

The tickets were on the 18th row! The game was close all night, the fans are more attentive in the lower bowl, and I think with all the extra noise from above you poring down from the rafters just adds to the environment. What a fantastic surprise to end the day.

Thanks to Andrew and his brother's-in-law.

More BCS Mockery

I'm not the only one complaining. Of course, the Pac-10 isn't what's keeping USC out of the NC game; its that loss to OSU. But all it takes are a few coaches from BCS teams to really get the ball rolling to get this subject into the mainstream. You go Pete!



USC's Pete Carroll finds humor in BCS
Carroll injects some levity after the Trojans drop from No. 5 to No. 7 in the aftermath of their third shutout victory in four weeks.
By Gary Klein

November 3, 2008

Coach Pete Carroll typically avoids commenting about the Bowl Championship Series standings, let alone inviting questions about them.

But even Carroll could not help injecting some gallows humor Sunday after the Trojans dropped from No. 5 to No. 7 in the aftermath of their third shutout victory in four weeks.

"The more we win the worse we get," he joked.

USC, a 56-0 winner Saturday over winless Washington, maintained its ranking in the coaches' and Harris Interactive polls.

But the Trojans' weak Pacific 10 Conference opponents, coupled with the strength of the Big 12 and Southeastern conferences, hurt them in the computer component of the BCS formula.

USC dropped from sixth to 10th in the computers, as Texas Tech and Florida jumped the Trojans in the BCS standings to Nos. 2 and 5, respectively.

Carroll dismissed concern about the standings -- "I don't even know how to figure that out," he said -- but he acknowledged that this week's game against No. 21 California offers the Trojans an opportunity to prove themselves against a respectable opponent.

USC's defense remains the top-ranked unit in the nation, but the Trojans' three shutouts have come against Arizona State, Washington State and Washington, which are a combined 3-22.

"The real tests are the teams like the Oregons, Arizona, those kinds of teams that are putting up a lot of yards and points," Carroll said. "Cal's one of those teams."

The Golden Bears improved to 6-2 overall and 4-1 in the Pac-10 with a 26-16 victory over Oregon.

The win moved the Golden Bears back into the top 25 -- they are 21st in the Associated Press media poll, 21st in the Harris Interactive poll and 22nd in the coaches' poll.

Carroll did express concern about the Trojans' continuing penalty problems. USC was flagged 10 times against Washington, the third time this season that the Trojans were in double figures for penalties.

Penalties cost the Trojans in their loss at Oregon State and could cost them again if they continue unabated.

"The wrong one at the wrong time . . . can be devastating," Carroll said.

Here's the link: http://www.latimes.com/sports/college/football/la-sp-uscfyi3-2008nov03,0,1371850.story

Oh, the irony!

Everywhere you turn, you hear, "Cougar fans are so arrogant" or some other shtick like that. And sometimes, I really can't blame the complaining fan; Cougar fans like to hang their hats on their team and their successes. I can't count how many times I've heard someone bring up the NC season, though admittedly, it has tapered off with the recent Fiesta Bowl visit from the Utes. But nothing is ever made of the Ute fans as they love to sit back and play the victim card. To be certain, it reminds me of PK on the DJ and PK show on 1320 KFAN every morning. No matter what happens, they are always the victim of some rude BYU fan. The problem is, PK is playing; most Ute fans believe their innocence.

 

The following link shows the hypocrisy of the typical Ute fan. They sat back and talked about how arrogant BYU fans were with the "Quest" and the "BCS talk" and all the attention while their team quietly went about winning games. Nevermind that they were winning; they all focused on how BYU was arrogant. This link just reiterates the irony of the Ute fan that believes he has been put upon because the "team down south" is perennially in the spotlight and their team is not.

Click here to hear the irony

What's with the polling system anyway?

(No, I'm not a FSU fan.)

Why the heck do we let the polls dictate who is the best college football team in the nation? If we let polls dictate everything in life, we may as well just inaugurate Obama to president now. I mean c'mon!

My little rant this week goes out to the outlandish slide from potential BCS buster to has been status of our beloved BYU football team by the BCS powers that be this past week. As a fan of the team, I certainly enjoyed the 7 and 8 rankings the team was receiving week after week, but as a realist, I knew we weren't that good. We were unproven, untested, and consequently, over valued in the polling. Again, why do polls mean anything? BYU didn't deserve a 7 ranking (even before getting wiped out by a superiorly better prepared TCU team) but they also aren't so bad they are only good enough to be ranked 21.

We don't have rankings for the NFL, the NBA, or any other major sport. What do we have? A playoff system. Tell me how its fair that unfair competition in the NCAA rewards a team for beating a bunch of pancakes just to have a chance to dance with the big boys. The original BCS Buster University of Utah team would have likely steamrolled any team in the nation that year. The next to bust the door was that Boise State team that shocked the world and beat Oklahoma. But all that did was open the door for a team from Hawaii to score an unimaginable amount of points last season only to get rolled in their "reward" game. And then this year, BYU was rolling through their own pancakes (despite a nailbiter in Washington) and were thusly rewarded with an over-inflated ranking. (We'll leave the discussion of the UW penalty as well as "playing the teams on your schedule" for another day because I could go one forever with those.)

Tell me how its fair that TCU beats BYU, could likely go to Rice-Eccles next month and lose, then watch BYU roll into Rice-Eccles and beat the Utes while we all sit back and watch Boise State roll through a miserable conference once again and get rewarded with a BCS game they will get destroyed in? Can you honestly tell me you think BSU is better than any of those three teams in the MWC?


(FCS already has a playoff system, so it seems to me that it works.)


Its high time the NCAA did away with polls and instituted a playoff system. In the major league sports, the top team from each division (and sometimes the next best team as well) regardless of strength of the division get to head to the playoffs. That is when the weak teams are exposed for who they are. I'm sorry, but if you are only the 5th best team in your division, you don't deserve to play in the post season. Yes, I think the MWC gets a perennial slap in the face each time we have to match up against Oregon or UCLA in the Vegas Bowl.

Play a playoff system and let the teams land where they may.

Excuses

Much has been made over the past few days regarding the call made by the officials at the end of the BYU/UW game this past weekend. The following article is posted on the Cougarblue.com website: http://www.cougarblue.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=4572&sid=5b7eba76db315c986c224074dc5f4103. It's attributed to being posted on the UW message board.

BYU fans - lets make sure we don't ever come under this sort of scalding criticism.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This game epitomizes what has become a halmark of Husky Football -- UW fans, coaches, and players rationalizing performance and complaining -- its a culture of excuses.

From players to fans to Softy Dave Mahler to "expert" Hugh Millen -- there is no accountability, just excuses. And the Culture of Excuses peaks against BYU.

1984: One-loss UW gripes and complains to this day about a national championship that just plain wasn't earned ON THE FIELD. UW lost a game -- don't make excuses and rely on voters, take care of business on the field. UW lost, BYU didn't. The trophy is in Provo, and forever will remain there no matter how much spittle Husky fans expell making excuses and complaining.

2008: Leading up to this game -- all I heard was MWC disrespect, and that UW deserved a national championship. No talk about the actual game -- just more excuses and complaining. It's a culture at UW and it's systemic through the fanbase and team. When UW can stop worrying about referees, voters, the Mormon religion, and whatever other excuse strikes their fancy -- maybe they can exert enough attention on the field, and at an administrative level to take their program back to the winning tradition UW once had.

BYU played 11 on 17. Huskies have ABSOLUTELY NO JUSTIFICATION complaining about officiating on an admittedly stupid call that was still technically by the book, when the PAC 10 officials took every opportunity to ignore pass interference calls and blatant holding calls in favor of the Huskies. UW CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS!

BYU out-rushed UW. BYU out-passed UW. BYU out-physicalled UW. BYU completely manhandled the UW defensive line, who didn't lay a finger on Max Hall. The only team that kept the game close was BYU with self-inflicted mistakes, a fumble on the goal line, and a dropped pick-six that went the other way for Christmas-gift bobbled reception eventually leading to a UW touchdown. Then on UW's final drive, UW gets a blatant holding no call on a 4th down conversion down the sideline -- which everyone saw. How come no complaining on that?

Now as the excuses mature and develop -- Even idiots corso, holtz and an herbie-douche-street are trying to explain that the ball didn't really get "thrown" up in the air, it defied gravity and accidently slipped out of Locker's hands 30 feet in the air in a magically tight spiral.

BYU simply outplayed the Huskies and beat the Pac-10 officials at the same time. While the rest of college football has begun to consolidate officiating crews to achieve more objectivity and consistency, the pompous Pac-10 continues to mandate a biased Pac-10 only officiating policy -- and Karma came back to bite the Huskies in the ass as their own homer officials called a by-the-book penalty, which DID NOT LOSE THEM THE GAME.

That's right -- BYU won the game on the field. UW had a straight shot PAT, to tie (not win), and BYU's Jorgenson blew by his husky blocker and blocked the kick ON THE FIELD! It's a method of winning that UW needs to learn. EARN IT ON THE FIELD!

And what is almost most upsetting of all was the the complete lack of class by Husky coaches and players, who with the exception of Willingham and 10-15 other players, entirely refused to shake hands with BYU players after the game and just retreated to the locker room? Is that what UW is about? Disgusting. But I'm sure UW will have an excuse for that as well.

BYU may not be a "BCS" program, but they seem to have a coach, a team, and a program that accepts responsibility, doesn't rely on excuses, and demands accountability. No ammount of BCS talent or credibility can compensate for class. And UW showed neither class nor responsibility -- just a culture of excuses.

Exciting News

Check out Melanie’s blog for our exciting news. In fact, continue to check back as we add updates.

I wanna watch football

Pretty busy weekend of football. Without getting into too many specifics, let me just cover what sticks out most to me.


1. BYU at Washington

We can call it whatever you want, but lets just use "The call heard round the world" to get going in the right direction. Anyone you talk to will tell you PAC-10 refs are notoriously awful. The conference itself is ludicrous for requiring that its officials officiate all PAC-10 home games when the rest of the nation brings in non-conference officials for inter-league games. That being said, this one a poorly officiated game, punctuated by a necessary yet improper call. It is insane to "enforce" a celebration call against a quarterback who just lead a young team back to a last second score to potentially tie the game against a ranked opponent at home. The crowd was going nuts, the team was going nuts, what was wrong with him getting a little excited. The officials missed calls and made other bad calls all game long; why did they suddenly feel the need to make that one?

Don't get me wrong, I'll take the bittersweetness (I made that up I think) of the victory. I just am surprised that a crew of PAC-10 officials would make that call at a home game against an "inferior" opponent (as the FSN commentators repeatedly alluded to) when we've seen more egregious miscarriages of officiating from them in the past (for evidence, see the Oklahoma/Oregon game from two seasons ago.)

All in all, the game was entertaining (much more so than the semi-snoozer last week against NIU), it was well fought, and despite the obvious choices for my MVP of Max Hall, Dennis Pitta, or Harvey Unga, I'll go with a less obvious one in Scott Johnson, left CB. That dude was on point with every tackle and defended well against the passes in his area all game long. A few things that worried me would include the lack of containment on Jake Locker (Brian Johnson of Utah will have a field day with us if we don't fix that), the multiple dropped passes by Collie (I'm sure he'll be back next week at home againtst UCLA), and the several long yardage first downs we game up after some good stints of steller defense.

Next up:

versus

Kickoff is at 1:30 pm at LES. Game will be televised on Versus

2. Fantasy Football

In all the years I've been playing fantasy football, I've never seen my team under perform and underwhelm as much as they did this weekend. I know that putting stock into Yahoo's predictions shouldn't hold much water, but its a generally close gestimate of what to expect. So when your team under performs by nearly 100 points in a week predicted to score twice that many points, you get a little frustrated. It will be tough this week to not hold a fire sale and bail on my team. I still stand by the fact that I have a good team; they just need to get week one out of the way.

That being said, I'm glad I'm in two other leagues on ESPN; both of which my teams performed as expected or better and I should prevail. Bring on week 2.


3. "Daddy, I wanna watch football."

Bless her heart and the patience she allows me to veg in front of any football game I can, but Melanie's tolerance for football watching will never rival Leah. Tonight we got home after 10 from dessert at the McGee's and I sat down here to evaluate the fantasy football weekend and I hear Leah mumble something after I've just turned the TV off (Leah had turned it on without consent from either of her parents and it was bed time.) Next thing I hear is Melanie asking, "Did you hear what Leah just said?"
"What Leah?" I reply.
"Daddy, I wanna watch football," comes the sweetest little voice.
Can I tell you how many times she jumped up and down celebrating with me during BYU's game yesterday? She's a great little football companion.

Moving on up

BYU moved up in both polls from the preseason, despite a dull third quarter that saw multiple fumbles by the offense (attribute two to "new" players in the system and a third to a blind side QB sack in the end zone landed in part because a "new" left tackle didn't make a block. The Cougars moved up to 15 in both polls after starting the preseason in the AP at 16 and the USA Today/Coaches Poll at 17.

Some bright spots for the Cougars . . . .
Dennis Pitta 11 receptions for 213 yards
Max Hall 34 of 41 for 486 yards

Up next . . . Washington Huskies in Seattle Washington

VERSUS

The Huskies lost to Oregon on opening weekend 44-10, despite watching the Ducks play with their third sting QB. The Huskies start 10 freshmen and sophomores, including the speedy and athletic QB Jake Locker. BYU has been notorious the previous three seasons for starting slowly early in the season on the road and this game will be a test of the meddle that Coach Mendenhall has instilled in his team this season.

The Quest continues on Saturday at 1:00 pm on FSN.

Fantasy Football Rules

As promised, there will always be fantasy football updates here. This one is courtesy of Melanie.
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/8477146. The rules are below, but the description is key. Check the link for more info.

1. Avoid picking a terribly cheesy team name
2. Get on your commissioner's good side
3. Whatever you do, do not give up on the season until it's all over
4. Keep track of the waiver wire
5. Don't pay much attention to the "fantasy football experts" on TV
6. Write at least one clever message board post per week
7. Don't draft too many guys from your favorite NFL team
8. Don't blabber all day at work about your fantasy team
9. Don't wear the jersey of your first-round pick to the sports bar
10. Never refer to yourself in the third person or by your first name and the word "man" attached to it

If I were the Jim Rome of banking, I'd say "Rack Em!"

My buddy Eric posted this on his blog recently and it was too good not to share. I can't count how many times you here this and want to just tell them this same thing.

There's only one rule if you overdraw your checking account . . . .

DON'T COME IN TO MY BRANCH AND TELL ME THAT I OVERDREW IT!!!!! I don't have the capacity to write a check for you at the liquour store when you don't have any funds in your account. I also don't have the pleasure of eating out at 5 different fast food restaraunts per day like you do......somehow, when you spend more money than you have you overdraw YOUR OWN account, I'm not the culprit so please refrain from using phrases such as: "You overdrew my account" or "You bounced my check to my mortgage company and now I have all of these problems because of you!" :-) I only return your item when you have no money. I know, I know.....it's hard to understand. You had $20 in your account and you spent $1,387.57.....go figure! You were close. Only $1,367.57 off!

Anyway, that's about all I have to say about that . . . .

"Rack em!"

Austin Collie

4th and 19? No problem. It seems to be a
habit for Utah to let BYU find open grass at
the end of the game now.

I wish I could claim writing this article but I didn't, and that's fine because I would never make the claim he makes about the "requisite two-year mission". But that's okay cuz I like the rest of the article. It can be found here (http://www.fantasycollegeblitz.com/player-spotlight-austin-collie-byu-wr/) but I wanted to post it directly here.

It would be one of the worst puns of all time to say that BYU WR Austin Collie (right, ICON SMI) is a man on a mission, but it looks true to me this year. Collie has taken a circuitous route to play major college football (at least for those outside Provo) and looks ready to be a top 20 fantasy WR in 2008.

First, the requisite background - Collie was the Mountain West Conference (MWC) Rookie of the Year way back in 2004 (caught 8 TDs from John Beck ), then did the requisite two-year mission that all LDS Cougars are asked to do, he just got assigned to Argentina.
In 2007 he returned out of shape , so you didn’t notice him until November when he ripped off 100+ yards in five of the last six including the bowl game win over UCLA - give him a pass as he was getting reacquainted to football plus was working with a brand-new starter at QB in Max Hall .

2008 sets up much better…

The BYU offense is loaded not just with QB Hall but also one of the best young RBs in the game in sophomore Harvey Unga and another in a line of excellent TE Dennis Pitta , so there will be few times that Collie will see the double team. Hall should have plenty of time behind one of the largest and best offensive lines not just in the MWC but in the country -given time for Collie to get behind some DBs I also expect his YPC to be even better than the 16.9 from last year.
Add to that a very weak first six games and Collie should help any fantasy team get out of the gates quickly:

Aug 30 - Northern Iowa
Sep 6 - at Washington
Sep 13 - UCLA
Sep 20 - Wyoming
Oct 3 - at Utah State
Oct 11 - New Mexico (HC)

Now that he is back in the rhythm of the game and Max Hall enters his second year at the helm I expect a huge junior year of double-digit TDs and 1000+ yards. The first run through of my wide receiver cheatsheet has him at #20, and with a bullet.



Here is one more article on Collie. Yeah, I'm psyched for the season. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695269025,00.html

Harvey Unga

http://www.byucougars.com/Profile.jsp?ID=2486

The article is not as interesting as Max Hall's, but Hall is the QB so that is to be expected. Besides, it doesn't appear that Unga ever tried to hit someone with his carrying arm. Doesn't matter; he's a stud and he's going to carry us to V I C T O R Y this season.

Max Hall

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/sports/ncaafootball/24byu.html?_r=3&scp=1&sq=max%20hall&st=cse&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Check out the article. If this kid truly only took 4 games to get comfortable playing D I football and we're 10-0 since, this season really will be a great season. Once he can pick up those weak side and safety blitzes, he's gonna be awesome! Yeah, Saturday can't come soon enough.