I actually have quite a bit of space now that I’ve cleaned up some of the clutter in my apartment. It’s a nice feeling. I’ve been thinking about doing a site redesign for a while now, but I haven’t started on it yet. I think I should be able to find time during the coming week though.

I didn’t watch any of the playoff games this past weekend, but it’s definitely cool to see a bunch of fresh teams in the NFL playoffs. CNNSI’s Peter King gives a pretty good rundown on this week’s match ups.

Incidentally, Jeff Robinson, one of my dad’s former players, scored a touchdown for the Rams in yesterday’s game against the Vikings. He was a starter for the Ferris basketball team that finished second in the Washington AAA state tournament in 1988.

Webmonkey has a nifty new article discussing the sweet new features version 4 is bringing to PHP land.

While listening to some talk radio during my lunch I got an interesting perspective on the six year old Cuban boy situation. The guest on the program I was listening to was a Cuban American woman who had immigrated to the United States back in 1960. Her feeling was that any parent, especially one living in Cuba now and that truly loved their child, would sacrifice their happiness if it meant their child could have a better life and the freedoms the United States provides. Her speculation was that the boy’s father was a pawn Fidel Castro was using for his own polical machinations.

The thing that keeps going through my mind is that his mother made the ultimate sacrifice and if Elian is returned to Cuba that will have been in vain.

The Quake 3 Arena vs. Unreal Tournament debate continues! Shawn McClung, the 23 year old teenager responsible for Slightly North of Tomorrow has his take on the whole deal.

It’s looking like this weekend is going to be a big Christmas shopping weekend for me. With high school basketball practice or games immediately after work (I volunteer coach at the high school my dad coaches and teaches at) Monday through Friday it’s been hard to find the time to shop. I can’t believe we’re halfway through December already.

For the XML inclined Mac users out there, simple/CHAOS has released an alpha version XML editor called SixPack. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to play with it this afternoon.

Well, it’s Apple Cup weekend here in the state of Washington. Today’s game will be the 92nd meeting between the WSU Cougars and the Washington Huskies. Unfortunately I’m going to have to miss the first half because of basketball practice.

Speaking of basketball practice- yesterday I was made painfully aware of my lack of physical conditioning when I had to take part in several basketball drills and full court play with the Ferris JV team. Too much computer time the last several months I think.

Back to the Apple Cup: Washington coach Rick Neuheisel’s comments on the 1999 Apple Cup.

Up to the minute stats on Apple Cup 1999. Game time is 12:30 pm PST.

Today was pretty uneventful. I came home and took a nap.

Tomorrow I make my summer coaching debut with Team III at 6:10pm out at SCC.

I took Mary to her first couple Ferris summer league basketball games tonight. We started out the evening with a Team I victory over Shadle Park I in an overtime game where they played as poorly as I’ve seen them play this summer.

In the second game Team III ended up losing by about 10 to Lakeland.

My dad finally got to meet Mary as well which was good.

Team III lost another game tonight against Newport, but Team II was victorious against Coeur d’Alene II.

Ferris II beat G-Prep II by about 20 tonight and I assume that Team I beat Medical Lake (they were playing at the same time).

My mom finally got to meet Mary this evening when we went out to pick up the tape my parents made of Pirates of Silicon Valley.

Pirates was pretty good I thought, although it definitely over dramatized some characters and was factually incorrect in some ways. Still I think it did a good job of capturing the essence of the times and people.

Ironically, with Mary gone this week I ended up only having one day of basketball games and that day was today.

I spent the first game videotaping Team I playing G-Prep. They didn’t play all that great and lost, although Erik Benzel was awesome! He scored 25 points single handedly on shots he mostly created for himself.

In the second game of the night Team II handled Davenport pretty easily and won by about 20.

Work was kind of interesting today.

I started exploring the web publishing aspects of Filemaker Pro 4 and came away fairly impressed. I can’t believe it had never occurred to me to try it out in the last year or so that I’ve been interested in connecting web pages to databases. I think it’s totally something that the School of Education (where I work) could put to good use.

I’m of course still very interested in Frontier and Perl as backends to websites. Definitely plenty of stuff to keep me busy for a long time to come.

Team III had another game and once again struggled against an older and more skilled opponent. We did manage to come alive in the fourth quarter and get it down to two (after a 10+ point deficit) before finally losing by four. The good news is that they have a week of camp to turn things around prior to their next game.

Another busy basketball night. Once again Team III lost (in their defense they are in a pretty tough league) and Team II squeaked out a one point victory against Shadle Park II after squandering a ten or twelve point lead.

Tonight was a big night for basketball as Ferris Teams I, II, and III all had games. Team III lost again, Team II played well and won, and I left prior to Team I’s game.

Mary and I spent the evening working on special bead necklaces for all 18 of the children she works with in the mornings. It was fun, but tiring work concentrating on all those little beads.

Today was the first day of summer league basketball. Team III really impressed me by playing Reardan’s number one team close and only ended up losing 45-46. Team I cruised to a 62-26 point victory against University.

I spent the majority of the day down in hot sunny Pasco watching the Pasco Invite track meet. Thanks to ample doses of sunscreen I even avoided significant sunburns which is always a plus. Overall Ferris didn’t do all that well, but it was fun all the same.

Today we finally had the end of season team dinner at Applebee’s. It was okay, but it wasn’t quite the same as when they follow the last game of the year. Actually it turns out it will be the last dinner of its kind since the school district has determined that dinners such as this are an improper use of ASB funds.

Today was the pretty good overall. I got to watch Breanna do some ice skating in the afternoon. I had dinner with my grandparents this evening (excellent stuffed tomato) and then I went to the Ferris boys basketball awards dessert.

What a great year for Ferris boys basketball. A 14-0 freshman team, a 20-1 junior varsity team, and a 26-3 State 2nd place varsity team!

The trip back to Spokane was pretty uneventful.

I felt a little sadder about the loss today then I did last night. Ferris is losing an outstanding group of seniors.

We have a great nucleus of young players coming back though. I’m looking forward to seeing what they can accomplish next year.

I believe with a lot of hard work a return to State is a very attainable goal.

State Tournament Championship Game.

We played our worst half of basketball of the season and were never able to get closer than 10 in the second half. Walla Walla ended up winning by 16.

Despite the disappointing end to the season the guys have nothing to be ashamed of. They had a great season (26 – 3) and their number two finish is the best for Ferris in five years.

State Tournament Semifinals.

Ferris defeats Eastlake to advance to the finals against Walla Walla.

State Tournament Round Two.

Ferris defeats Lincoln to advance to the semifinals.

In Tacoma.

Ferris beat Decatur handily in the first round of the State 4A basketball tournament. Decatur’s coach wore a crazy orange jumpsuit!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Ferris won their first Regional Championship ever last night by beating Davis 66-55.

Ferris’s next game will be at 7pm Wednesday against Decatur in the first round of the State Tournament.

Tacoma here we come!

On to State! Ferris clamped down on Walla Walla’s 3 point shooters and managed to win an exciting game 43-29.

Next up: Davis at 8pm for the regional championship game.

Despite six previous trips to State in the 90’s Ferris has never won a regional championship.

Today Ferris plays Walla Walla at 9pm with a state berth on the line. Both teams are 21-2 headed into the contest. Should be a good one!

Ferris started off regionals with a 39-24 win over Ike. Next up Walla Walla.

My old mac clone is acting cantankerous. Ugh! Time to install Linux permanently.

Today was kind of annoying at work. Dale and I have yet to successfully resolve all the printing issues that go along with working in a mixed platform environment.

GU took care of business tonight and rolled over Santa Clara on their way to a berth in the NCAA tournament. Excellent!

Hopefully Ferris will do equally well tomorrow against Ike.

My cool html color palette poster arrived today. Now I just need to get a frame for it.

Today I’m going on a serious apartment cleaning spree. For some reason I woke up at 6 AM this morning and actually got up rather than going back to sleep.

I’m even thinking about finally getting Linux up and running on my other machine!

The Ferris boys basketball team beat LC 51-39 yesterday to win the GSL district championship. Nice job guys!

I’ve started fiddling with the sidebar and I’m running up against the ever so annoying browser implementation differences. IE 4.5 for the Mac doesn’t recognize the fact that I’m overriding the sidebar link color (it should be white, not blue), while Netscape Navigator 4.07 gets that part right, but munges the sides of my nested table. As Dave Winer always says Still diggin’!

Found a fix for things.

Tonight at 5:30pm Ferris plays G-Prep in the Spokane Arena.

Both Ferris boys teams closed out the season with wins yesterday.

Nice job gentlemen! I didn’t think this year’s JV team could top last year’s 19-1 season, but by bouncing back from a season opening loss and winning 20 straight, breaking 100 points once, and going undefeated in league they did just that. Now it’s time for the Second Season.

I got an email back from Anneke and she definitely rates high on the Jason coolness scale : ).

New Layout In Progress!

It took me a month to get to here, but at least I’m getting somewhere finally.

Rubber Chicken Part II. Tonight Ferris takes on south hill rival LC to bring the regular season to a close.

Once again I’m up much later (earlier) than I should be!

I’ve never met Anneke or even communicated with her in any way, but based on her webpage she strikes me as a pretty cool person.

The Ferris boys teams won both their games against Mead yesterday.

My neighbors at Lewis & Clark HS beat G-Prep yesterday in what had to be the most brutal game I’ve seen this season. LC will be our final opponent of the regular season on Thursday.

I’m doing surprisingly well considering how small my total sleep time has been in the last 24 hours. I guess I don’t need as much sleep as some people like my buddy Nichole.

On a visit to Everything today I discovered a mathematical explanation for the story of my life.