random facts, tidbits, articles and most importantly my thoughts about things that i find while aimlessly surfing the web...
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
Architecture, College Football, Baseball, Hockey, March Madness, The Economy, Corporate Corruption, Incomptent Leadership, Tulane, Atlanta, Florida, etc.
|
|
|
|
travacado's thoughts
or at least "others'" thoughts that I find interesting...
|
|
| |
Friday, February 28, 2003
Preds win third in row, four points out of playoffs
The Predators used one of the game's greatest players as a mere stepping stone last night.
That's as simple a way as any to describe the improbable state of hockey affairs in Nashville these days.
The Predators continued their torrid late-season play, punishing Mario Lemieux and the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-0 before leaving the ice to a standing ovation from an energized crowd of 13,581 at the Gaylord Entertainment Center.
The win, combined with losses by the Los Angeles Kings, Chicago Blackhawks and Edmonton Oilers, left the Predators in sole possession of ninth place in the Western Conference. They're now just four points behind the Oilers in the hunt for the conference's final playoff position.
All this from a team that went 2-10-4-4 in the first 20 games of the season.
''If you'd have told me we'd be in this situation after winning two of our first 20, I'd have said you were crazy,'' said Predators captain Greg Johnson, who scored two goals. ''But it's a nice feeling. I'm not going to lie. We're just trying to maintain our humbleness and focus because we haven't accomplished anything yet.''
The Predators (25-25-9-4) won for the third time in a row and improved to 7-1 in their last eight contests, reaching the .500 mark for the latest time ever in a season. They also posted their sixth straight home victory, tying a franchise record.
Goalie Tomas Vokoun recorded his second straight shutout and tied the club record for victories with his 23rd of the season. (By John Glennon, The (Nashville) Tennessean) View the entire article
Graham: 'I am the best-prepared to lead'
MIAMI -- U.S. Sen. Bob Graham made one thing perfectly clear when he opened his campaign for president Thursday:
"I intend to be the Democratic nominee for president,"Florida's senior senator said in a statement issued by his Miami Lakes-based campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination in 2004. "I am the best-prepared to lead and the most able to win."
But Graham did not answer another question that Democrats are asking: Should he failin this campaign for the party's nomination next winter, will Graham seek a fourth term in the Senate next year? He hasn't clearly ruled out re-election.
"The senator has said that he is fully committed to the presidential race and expects to be the presidential nominee," Graham spokesman Paul Anderson said. "He has not specifically said that he will not run for re-election. He has not specifically said what he will do if he falls short" in the presidential race.
Republicans are lining up to run, regardless of Graham's ultimate move. U.S. Rep. Mark Foley of West Palm Beach said Thursday, "Floridians deserve a candidate who will support President Bush's agenda in the Senate."
Former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum of Longwood, who unsuccessfully sought a Senate seat in 2000, is offering himself again -- also as a ready ally for the president.
Among Democrats, Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas, U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch of Fort Lauderdale and others are awaiting a green light from Graham. Privately, aides are expressing frustration that Graham isn't giving them the sign.
Graham has enlisted a longtime friend, Lake Wales attorney Robin Gibson, as treasurer for his presidential campaign.
With the filing of his candidacy in Washington and opening of a campaign organization in Florida, Graham now is able to start raising money while he recovers from Jan. 31 heart surgery. A formal campaign announcement is expected in April. (By Mark Silva, Orlando Sentinel)
Don't forget to vote for Amber, our (my) favorite "mega NFL cheer-babe" on ABC's Are You Hot? before 3 PM EST today!!!
TIDAL 6:33 AM
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Yes, Amber U R Hot!
Everyone's (well at least mine) favorite Seattle SeaGal is one of the four finalists from Hot Zone #3 on ABC's Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People. I found out about Amber thanks to FOX Sports Net's BDSSP. She is adorable which is exactly how Mr. Duke, Mr. Lamas and Rachel Hunter described her.
Please vote for Amber
Amber's Are You Hot Profile
Amber at FOX Sports.com
TIDAL 10:29 PM
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Magical makeover
It's a new season. It must be.
Orlando Magic Coach Doc Rivers draws up plays now where Tracy McGrady touches the ball only to pass it to another scorer.
Magic big men get rebounds and finish off plays with dunks now.
A point guard races up and down the court now, hustling and nagging, and his name is not Darrell Armstrong.
The Dallas Mavericks, the NBA's finest this season, followed the textbook on how to beat the Magic on Tuesday night and still lost 98-93 at TD Waterhouse Centre. They took the ball out of McGrady's hands, made him a passer, and Orlando made them pay.
Who ever would've imagined this two weeks ago? This team was halfway to Secaucus, N.J., for the NBA draft lottery.
Orlando received more than two young rookies last week when they traded Mike Miller. The Magic also collected new hope, the opportunity for a second chance. So far, they have relished it. (By Jerry Brewer, Orlando Sentinel) View the entire article
Preds coming on strong toward possible playoff berth
Barry Trotz says the Predators aren't officially in the playoff hunt yet, but they can ''smell the pie from the kitchen.''
The Nashville coach is optimistic about his team's chances after watching the Predators rout Columbus 5-0 before a crowd of 10,412 in the Gaylord Entertainment Center last night.
Nashville is 7-2-1 since the All-Star break and the Predators have scored 19 goals in their past four victories.
''Our mindset is to establish our game, and if we do it really well, we'll win the hockey game,'' Trotz said. ''That's a good mindset to have, and when your mindset is like that, you're going to have some success.''
Nashville (24-25-9-4) moved to within one victory of the .500 mark. It was another important win for the Predators, who are six points out of playoff contention with 20 games left on the schedule.
It was the second shutout of the season for Predators goalie Tomas Vokoun (22-19-7), who has allowed two or less goals in five of the past six games. (By Chip Cirillo, The (Nashville) Tennessean) View the entire article
TIDAL 7:09 AM
Friday, February 21, 2003
Preds rewriting history: Defeat Flames to improve to 5-1-1 since All-Star break
Hey, who are these guys?
In the olden days, or at least the first four seasons of their existence, the Predators always seemed to collapse after the NHL All-Star break.
Not anymore.
Nashville improved to 5-1-1 since the break with its fourth consecutive victory, 4-1 over Calgary before a crowd of 10,872 in the Gaylord Entertainment Center last night.
Denis Arkhipov was the offensive star as he enjoyed the first two-goal game of his three-year NHL career to rally the Predators from a 1-1 tie in the second period.
''If you want to play in the playoffs, you have to play every game like it's the last game,'' Arkhipov said. ''If we play like this, we can make the playoffs. Every game is really important for us right now.''
Calgary outshot Nashville 39-31, but it didn't matter as Predators goalie Tomas Vokoun enjoyed another sterling performance with 38 saves. Vokoun (20-18-7) has stopped 146 of the past 148 shots he's faced. (By Chip Cirillo, The (Nashville) Tennessean) View the entire article
TIDAL 7:14 AM
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Predators get win, fans get free tacos
The Predators were so offensively impressive in last night's 5-1 victory over the Boston Bruins that they had fans looking forward to a postgame meal — specifically, a free one.
Midway through the contest, with the Predators already leading 4-0, a large portion of the 11,207 fans in the Gaylord Entertainment Center began chanting ''We want tacos, we want tacos!''
They knew that just one more Predators goal meant a free Taco Bell taco for all in attendance, and Rem Murray delivered the home cooking, scoring with 6:13 left in the contest to wake up cashiers around the city.
''I think that's the first time I've ever heard them chant that in this building,'' Predators Coach Barry Trotz said. ''We haven't scored five goals a whole lot. Maybe now my wife will allow me to take the kids and go out for tacos.''
Trotz might find fans willing to pay for the rest of his meal as well, with the Predators suddenly as hot as a good cup of chili.
The victory last night was the team's third in a row, improved the Predators to 4-1-1 since the NHL All-Star break and moved them into sole possession of 11th place in the Western Conference. (By John Glennon, The (Nashville) Tennessean) View the entire article
TIDAL 12:34 PM
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Predators growling with win
A Predators team that's floundered down the stretch in years past is starting to look as if it's changing its ways this season.
In beating the Anaheim Mighty Ducks 2-1 last night, the Predators not only knocked off the hottest team in the Western Conference, but continued the strong play they've demonstrated since the NHL All-Star break.
The Predators are 3-1-1 since play resumed, a pretty impressive start for a team that never has produced as much as a .500 record following the All-Star breaks of four previous seasons.
''We're starting to move in the kind of direction that we want to be going,'' Predators captain Greg Johnson said. ''Some of our young guys have stepped forward and played great, and Tomas Vokoun is giving us confidence [in goal]. We've got a lot of ground still to make up, but we're feeling pretty good about ourselves right now.''
The Predators (20-24-9-4) passed a major test last night, beating a Mighty Ducks team that had won four consecutive games and seven of eight. Anaheim was fresh off one of its biggest victories of the season, a 4-2 win in Dallas on Friday.
But the Ducks' recent road contest might have worked to Nashville's advantage early, as the Predators came out flying in front of 16,312 in the Gaylord Entertainment Center — the fourth-largest home crowd of the season. (By John Glennon, The (Nashville) Tennessean) View the entire article
Regional MARTA solution revisited
ARC leaders discuss option rejected in past
Metro Atlanta's leaders are once again talking about regionalizing MARTA, a controversial idea residents of their counties have rejected for 25 years.
Increasing frustration over traffic congestion, the region's unhealthy air and threats to the state's economic future have reached a critical mass leaders say they believe may finally push fear of public transit to the shoulder.
Several years ago, former Cobb County Commission Chairman Bill Byrne floated a proposal within the Atlanta Regional Commission to expand MARTA across eight counties. The proposal never made it out of the planning agency's transportation committee. Byrne's colleagues said the plan would never fly back home, where voters had made it clear they wouldn't ride mass transit and were afraid of those who did.
"There was the political will, but not the political courage, to do it," Byrne recalled. "A chairman can go down into the ARC and pontificate all he wants to, but if he can't go back to his board of commissioners and get a majority vote, it ain't going to happen."
Byrne says he believes times have changed. "In 1996, you didn't have five lanes of traffic on I-575 in Cherokee County standing still. You do now."
Byrne, who left office to pursue an unsuccessful campaign for governor last year, was on the outside looking in as metro Atlanta's leaders made the unprecedented decision last week revive the idea.
In an unofficial vote Friday, the ARC board decided to ask Gov. Sonny Perdue and the state Legislature to create a superagency to manage MARTA and several smaller transit systems in Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton counties. The leaders also want to set up a regional tax that would pay for the new agency's transit work and fund projects to relieve congestion within the region's worst traffic corridors, including the Downtown Connector. (By Duane D. Stanford, The Atlanta Journal-Consitution) View the entire article
For sale: Three teams, slightly used
Hawks, Thrashers, Braves: How AOL runs them, will AOL sell?
On the very day AOL Time Warner announced that it lost almost $100 billion last year -- the largest annual loss in the history of American business -- the company's chief executive was on the phone to Terry McGuirk, who oversees the Braves, Hawks and Thrashers for the conglomerate.
No, not to order McGuirk to whack the teams' payrolls or to commend him on the Braves' money-saving Kevin Millwood trade.
"Dick Parsons called me, an hour and a half before the earnings release, to talk about a player he was familiar with on a New England team," McGuirk said. "It was a player he thought might be available and might be of interest to one of our teams."
That Parsons made the call, particularly on that hectic late-January afternoon, provides a glimpse into the complicated and conflicted place the Braves, Hawks and Thrashers hold in the AOL Time Warner empire -- so small a place that the teams don't merit a line on the company's financial report, yet a large enough place that they were on the mind of the CEO in New York on what must have been one of the worst days of his career.
The Braves, Hawks and Thrashers are so tangential to AOL Time Warner that they might be sold off as "non-core assets," an insulting characterization to their hard-core fans. One such fan, Charles Davidson of Atlanta, bristled: "If Ted [Turner] were still at the helm, he wouldn't view them as non-core." (By Tim Tucker, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) View the entire article
TIDAL 12:53 PM
Sunday, February 09, 2003
Delmore, Preds move past Jackets into tie for 12th
The rest of the NHL may not concern itself with which teams are pummeling one another for position in the basement of the Western Conference.
But for the Predators, every step they take up the ladder is an important one, especially when it comes at the expense of the rival Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Predators grabbed the Blue Jackets by the coattails and yanked hard last night, using a 3-2 victory to surge a point ahead of Columbus in the Central Division. The win also pushed the Predators into a tie for 12th place in the Western Conference, as high a spot as Nashville has held this season.
''That's always important,'' Predators Coach Barry Trotz said. ''In the past, we've gone head-to-head with teams we've been trying to catch, and we'd always end up on the wrong side. So that's a very positive thing.'' (By John Glennon, The (Nashville) Tennessean) View the entire article
TIDAL 5:41 PM
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Scrappy Preds battle back to tie Red Wings
DETROIT — Seeking to avoid the kind of post-All-Star break slump that's plagued them, the Predators made a strong opening statement last night.
But it took them a while to make it.
The Predators spotted the defending Stanley Cup champs a three-goal lead midway through the second period, then scored three unanswered goals — two in the game's final nine minutes — to earn a 5-5 tie with the Detroit Red Wings.
It was as stunning a turnaround as any this season for the Predators, who entered the contest with a record of 1-9-1-1 in Detroit. Nashville's comeback sent the sellout crowd at Joe Louis Arena home in a subdued manner, having watched the Wings surrender a three-goal lead for the first time this season. (By John Glennon, The (Nashville) Tennessean) View the entire article
TIDAL 10:33 PM
Saturday, February 01, 2003
We all hoped today would never happen
Those of us who covered the Challenger explosion predicted for 15 years that this day would happen, hoping it never would but realizing it was inevitable.
When you delve into the nuts and bolts of the shuttle, as we did back then, you realize the intricate dangers that lurk within.
The question with the shuttle, the question that will be rehashed once again, is whether human space flight is intrinsically dangerous no matter the vehicle, or whether the shuttle is inherently flawed to the point it can't be trusted.
Before Challenger, NASA deluded itself with safety predictions that listed the chance of catastrophic failure as one in thousands. After Challenger, a presidential panel destroyed that myth.
Richard Feynman, a Nobel physicist and one of the most brilliant men of the 20th century, said anyone who truly understood the flaws in the space ship would be crazy to fly in it.
And so NASA stopped shuttle launches for more than 2½ years. It undertook a massive redesign of the shuttle, re-engineering everything from the booster that caused the Challenger tragedy to the faulty brakes in the orbiter.
For 87 launches the shuttle flew without serious incident.
That was, in my mind, NASA's greatest accomplishment, even more amazing than the moon landings.
But then came troubling signs from the space agency, indications that it once again was getting overconfident in the reliability of its shuttle.
Less than two years ago, NASA put the odds of a shuttle failure at 483-to-1.
That seemed a preposterous number given that it factored in two potentially explosive booster rockets, a troublesome main engine and all the glitches that can cause a failure -- cracked fuel lines, a wrench left in the engine, the delicate insulation tiles being damaged at liftoff and so on.
As the former chief of quality control at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama once told me, "Everybody talks about the safety record of Apollo. You know why we didn't lose a spacecraft? Pure, dumb luck."
The more times you launch, the greater the odds of that luck running out.
Another indication of NASA's confidence in the shuttle came when it recently cranked back up its teacher in space program. The Challenger panel harshly criticized the agency for putting teacher Christa McAuliffe on what amounted to a dangerous, experimental spacecraft.
The fact that NASA was planning to put another teacher on a shuttle indicated the confidence it had in its space plane.
And in a recent interview at the Orlando Sentinel, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe talked about what a marvelous workhorse the shuttle had become and how it could last for decades more.
Now come the inevitable questions.
Can the shuttle really be trusted?
How thorough of an investigation can we undertake given that there is a space station under construction?
Will President Bush, like Ronald Reagan, set up a panel to investigate? That would add months to the investigation process.
If a panel is not formed, can NASA be trusted to investigate itself? The answer is no for those of us who witnessed the agency's behavior following Challenger. Rival NASA centers got embroiled in backbiting and blame shifting.
Is it possible NASA may have to launch again before the cause of this disaster is fully understood, or before a remedy is undertaken and completed?
How damning will the truth be? I guarantee that whatever went wrong, there will be piles of memos from engineers warning that it could go wrong. Such is the nature of engineered space flight. Each critical component is analyzed over and over, and each worst-case scenario examined.
Will the public and politicians deem that the failure mechanism responsible for this disaster should have been foreseen and prevented? That is why NASA took such a beating after Challenger -- the flaws in the booster rocket were well known and engineers argued the shuttle should not have been launched that morning.
Can the remaining fleet of shuttles service the space station? And if they can't, does the nation embark on building a next-generation spacecraft, or does it throw money into the past and build yet another shuttle? (By Mark Thomas, Orlando Sentinel)
Page One of an 8 page EXTRA edition of today's Orlando Sentinel
Loss of orbiter imperils space station expansion
Tragedy will hinder already strapped program
The already clouded future of U.S. human spaceflight dimmed today, when the shuttle Columbia broke apart catastrophically in the skies over North and East Texas during its high-speed descent toward a Florida landing.
The oldest of NASA's four shuttle orbiters, Columbia was descending at 12,500 mph, within 16 minutes of its scheduled landing at 8:16 a.m. at Cape Canaveral, when communication with the seven astronauts was lost.
Soon after the loss of communications, law enforcement agencies in East Texas began receiving reports of falling debris. At Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center, experts secured recordings of the voice communications and flight data coming to the ground from the stricken spacecraft.
The tragedy matched the previous worst in the 42-year history of human spaceflight, when the shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff Jan. 28, 1986, also claiming the lives of seven astronauts.
Soon after Columbia's breakup today, space agency officials pointed to some sort of mechanical failure as the most likely cause.
The loss places in peril the future of the U.S.-led, 16-nation effort to assemble the international space station. In November, Columbia was to join the shuttles Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour in the rotation of regular missions launched to the ever-growing space station.
Since 1998, NASA's shuttle fleet has served as the primary means of assembling the 240-mile-high orbital base, delivering supplies and fresh crews of astronauts and cosmonauts. It is the only means of returning research materials and other equipment from the station to Earth.
Two years ago, the Bush administration responded to a projected $5 billion cost overrun by instructing NASA to bring construction of the station to a close without the U.S. components that allow the orbital base to grow from a three- to a seven-person facility.
Costs were projected to exceed a congressionally imposed $25 billion development cap by $4.8 billion within four years.
NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, appointed by President Bush to sort out the financial difficulties, was in the process of crafting a strategy to resume a space station expansion, possibly in 2004.
Though the legislative cap includes provisions that would allow more spending to respond to a catastrophic loss of crucial station equipment, the rising costs of the new war on terrorism leaves fewer resources for the space program.
The Bush administration also instructed NASA to overcome rising shuttle costs by cutting back on the flights and trimming back plans for some shuttle safety upgrades.
Together, the near $5 billion-a-year shuttle and station programs account for nearly a third of NASA's annual budget.
In the early 1990s, when the first President Bush was in the White House, national policymakers decided to stop the production of additional shuttle orbiters, concluding the more than $2 billion spacecraft were too costly and at $500 million to launch, too expensive to operate.
This year, NASA began making plans to keep its shuttle fleet flying through 2020 by making a range of equipment upgrades and safety modifications.
The shuttle's were designed in the 1970s to fly 100 mission each.
Work on a new generation of reusable spacecraft that could partially replace the aging shuttle fleet was unveiled earlier this year.
Under O'Keefe's leadership, the space agency was looking at the development of a new orbital space plane that could fly astronauts without cargo to and from the space station. The spacecraft's first flight was targeted for about 2010.
However, previous efforts to find a successor have been unsuccessful as they encountered cost and technical obstacles.
The most ambitious was initiated by the Clinton administration in 1996.
In 2002, NASA canceled the unsuccessful effort in response to costly technical obstacles. The space agency and its partner, Lockheed Martin, poured nearly $1.4 billion into the failed attempt to build the X-33, a prototype for a proposed reuseable rocket. NASA hoped the effort would allow it to purchase launches from the contractor rather than operate the system itself.
In place of the failed X-33, NASA in May initiated a $4.85 billion, five-year effort called the Space Launch Initiative to fund a range of advancements in propulsion, flight control and materials technologies that could pioneer a new generation of reuseable rockets. There was no plan to kick off a full-scale development effort for at least a half-dozen years, and late last year, NASA curtailed the effort.
Citing development costs reaching as much as $30 billion, O'Keefe changed course, electing to pursue the new Orbital Space Plane instead.
The space agency planned on operating its shuttle fleet until the new Orbital Space Plane could take over.
The shuttle's staunchest supporters believe that with the proper maintenance and upgrades the spacecraft has the resilience of the U.S. Air Force's venerable B-52 bomber, which has flown for a half century.
A long service life would depend on extensive upgrades of the shuttle's propulsion, hydraulic steering, auxiliary power and navigation systems as well as its micrometeorite shielding and cockpit instrumentation.
With the prospect of a successor to the shuttle years away, NASA's independent Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel had urged the space agency to press the White House and Congress for the financing to upgrade a wide range of shuttle systems. (By Mark Carreau, Houston Chronicle)
Page One of an 8 page EXTRA edition of today's Houston Chronicle
TIDAL 8:22 PM
|
|
| |
|
|
|
