Meet your new Pens!

There's nothing like trade deadline day in the NHL to get the blood flowing. The Penguins were arguably the most active team and for once weren't just dumping salaries. Here's the breakdown...

We got:

• Gary Roberts - LW
• EDIT: Gary Roberts is going to be wearing number 10... JERK!!
  
• "Big" Georges Laraque!!! - LW/Muscle
  
• Nolan Schaefer - G
• Joel Kwiatkowski - D
• Minnesota's 2007 3rd round pick

We gave up:

• Dominic Moore - C
• Danny Carcillo - W/undersized goon
• Noah Welch - D
• 2007 4th round pick
• 2007 7th round pick
• 2008 3rd round pick

My commentary:

• I'm not a big Gary Roberts guy, but if he can produce in the playoffs (assuming we make it) then I will be okay with him. He allegedly agreed to re-sign for next season too. I do think it was too early to give up on Welch, but we shall see.
• Losing Dom Moore hurts a little, but the other acquisitions gave us too many forwards plain and simple. Something had to give.
• I think Schaefer could end up being a huge get. I expect him to take over the backup role from Thibault next season and run with it. Just give us 15-20 quality starts.
• Freaking Georges Laraque!!! This makes it all worth it! I personally was not a part of the evergrowing group of people that felt the Pens needed an enforcer. But if you can bring in arguably the toughest guy in the NHL and he can actually play... I'm all for it.
• I was hoping for a top 4 defenseman and got nothing. I think that will come back to haunt us in the postseason. But if you told me in September that that would be my biggest complaint this season I would have taken that gladly.

Here's a little BGL in action:

Who has the coolest birthday?

So I was checking out all of our birthdays on Wikipedia just to see what kind of cool things went on on those dates. Some pretty cool stuff. I'll let you see for yourself and then you can decide who has the "coolest" birthday. I'd highly encourage you to look this stuff all up on Wiki if you have the time. Be careful though, you can get sucked into that thing pretty fast.

Ainsley – January 18:
Events
* 336 - Marcus elected Catholic Pope.
* 1778 - James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands."
* 1788 - The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia arrives at Botany Bay.
* 1827 - Joseph Smith, Jr. marries Emma Hale.
* 1886 - Modern field hockey is born with the formation of The Hockey Association in England. * 1896 - The X-ray machine is exhibited for the first time. [Sadly, lead underwear was still months away from production.]
* 1903 - Theodore Roosevelt, the President of the United States, sends a message of greetings from a Marconi station built near Wellfleet, Massachusetts to King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, marking the first transatlantic radio transmission originating in the United States.
* 1911 - Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco harbor, marking the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.
* 1919 - World War I: The Paris Peace Conference opens in Versailles, France. Ignacy Jan Paderewski becomes Prime Minister of the newly independent Poland.
* 1943 - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.
* 1944 - Soviet forces liberate Leningrad, effectively ending a three year Nazi siege, known as the Siege of Leningrad.
* 1958 - Willie O'Ree, the first African American National Hockey League player, makes his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins.
* 1964 - Plans are revealed for the World Trade Center in New York City.
* 1964 - The Beatles appear on the Billboard magazine charts for the first time.
* 1974 - The Six Million Dollar Man debuts on ABC. * 1975 - The Jeffersons debuts on CBS.
* 1983 - The International Olympic Committee restores Jim Thorpe Olympic medals to his family.
* 1990 - Washington, DC, Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting.
* 1993 - For the first time, Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is officially observed in all 50 United States states.
Births
* 1782 - Daniel Webster, American statesman (d. 1852)
* 1813 - Joseph Glidden, American farmer who patented barbed wire (d. 1906)
* 1849 - Edmund Barton, 1st Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1920)
* 1882 - A. A. Milne, English author (d. 1956)
* 1892 - Oliver Hardy, American comedian and actor (d. 1957)
* 1901 - Ivan Petrovsky, Russian mathematician (d. 1973)
* 1904 - Cary Grant, English actor (d. 1986)
* 1922 - Bob Bell a.k.a. Bozo the Clown, American clown (d. 1997)
* 1933 - Ray Dolby, American inventor (Dolby noise reduction system)
* 1938 - Curt Flood, baseball player (d. 1997)
* 1955 - Kevin Costner, American actor [Can't win 'em all Ainsley]
* 1961 - Mark Messier, Canadian hockey player
* 1970 - DJ Quik, American rapper
* 1971 - Christian Fittipaldi, Brazilian race car driver
* 1979 - Brian Gionta, American! professional hockey player
* 1980 - Julius Peppers, American football player

Kaylee – February 24:
Events
* 1803 - The Supreme Court of the United States, in Marbury v. Madison, establishes the principle of judicial review.
* 1839 - William Otis receives a patent for the steam shovel.
* 1868 - The first parade to have floats is staged at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana.
* 1868 - Andrew Johnson becomes the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. He is later acquitted in the Senate.
* 1909 - The Hudson Motor Car Company is founded.
* 1920 - The Nazi Party is founded.
* 1925 - A thermite (magnesium) bomb is used for the first time to break up a 250,000-ton ice jam clogging the St. Lawrence River near Waddington, New York.
* 1946 - Juan Perón is elected president of Argentina. [Don't cry for him Argentina]
* 1970 - National Public Radio is founded in the United States.
* 1975 - Hard rock band Led Zeppelin release the classic double album Physical Graffiti.
* 1983 - A special commission of the U.S. Congress releases a report that condemns the practice of Japanese internment during World War II. [How big of them.]
* 1989 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini offers a USD $3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.
* 1989 - United Airlines Flight 811, bound for New Zealand from Honolulu, Hawaii, rips open during flight, sucking 9 passengers out of the business-class section.
* 2002 - The Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah end.
Births
* 1500 - Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1558)
* 1557 - Mathias, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1619)
* 1709 - Jacques de Vaucanson, French inventor (d. 1782) [the man invented the robot!!!]
* 1874 - Honus Wagner, American baseball player (d. 1955)
* 1885 - Chester Nimitz, U.S. admiral (d. 1966)
* 1921 - Abe Vigoda, American actor
* 1938 - Phil Knight, American sportswear manufacturer
* 1943 - Terry Semel, chairman and CEO of Yahoo!
* 1943 - George Harrison, English songwriter, guitarist and member of the Beatles (d. 2001)
* 1947 - Edward James Olmos, American actor
* 1951 - Debra Jo Rupp, American actress
* 1955 - Steve Jobs, American computer pioneer
* 1955 - Alain Prost, French race car driver
* 1956 - Eddie Murray, American baseball player
* 1963 - Mike Vernon, Canadian ice hockey player
* 1970 - Jeff Garcia, American football player [if it looks like a rat…]
* 1971 - Brian Savage, Canadian ice hockey player
* 1972 - Manon Rhéaume, Canadian female ice hockey player
* 1973 - Alexei Kovalev, Russian ice hockey player
* 1977 - Floyd Mayweather Jr, American boxer
* 1977 - Bronson Arroyo, American baseball player

Chris – June 5:
Events
* 70 - Titus and his Roman legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem.
* 1851 - Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.
* 1864 - American Civil War: Battle of Piedmont: Union forces under General David Hunter defeat a Confederate army at Piedmont, Virginia, taking nearly 1,000 prisoners. [no word on how many were UT grads]
* 1917 - World War I: Conscription begins in the United States as "Army registration day."
* 1924 - Ernst Alexanderson sends the first facsimile across the Atlantic Ocean (to his father in Sweden). [the lengths kids go to in order to bum money...]
* 1933 - The U.S. Congress abrogates the United States' use of the gold standard by enacting a joint resolution (48 Stat. 112) nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.
* 1944 - World War II: The two largest invasion fleets heretofore in history sailed that morning on opposite sides of the world. Most of the ship were United States flagged vessels.
* 1944 - World War II: More than 1000 British bombers drop 5000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.
* 1944 - World War II: Rome liberated by the Allies
* 1945 - Allied Control Council, military occupation governing body of Germany, formally takes power.
* 1947 - Marshall Plan: At a speech at Harvard University, United States Secretary of State George Marshall calls for economic aid to war-torn Europe.
* 1956 - Elvis Presley introduces his new single, "Hound Dog", on The Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the audience with his suggestive hip movements.
* 1968 - U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California by Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy dies the next day.
* 1977 - The Apple II, the first practical personal computer, goes on sale.
* 1981 - The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that five homosexual men in Los Angeles, California have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS.
* 2001 - Tropical Storm Allison makes landfall on the upper-Texas coastline as a strong tropical storm and dumps large amounts of rain over Houston. The storm caused $5.5 billion in damages, making Allison the costliest tropical storm in U.S. history.
* 2002 - Mozilla 1.0, the first 'official' version, is released.
Births
* 1850 - Pat Garrett, American Western lawman (d. 1908)
* 1862 - Allvar Gullstrand, Swedish ophthalmologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1930) [I can see this post thanks to Allvar!]
* 1878 - Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary (d. 1923)
* 1919 - Richard Scarry, American children's author (d. 1994)
* 1920 - Cornelius Ryan, Irish-American author (d. 1974)
* 1925 - Art Donovan, American football star (d. 2006)
* 1934 - Bill Moyers, American journalist
* 1941 - Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots
* 1956 - Kenny G, American saxophonist [Guh!]
* 1965 – Bob Probert, Canadian hockey player [simply the best!]
* 1967 - Ray Lankford, baseball player
* 1968 - Ron Livingston, American actor
* 1969 - Brian McKnight, American musician
* 1970 - Martin Gelinas, Canadian hockey player
* 1971 - Mark Wahlberg, American singer and actor
* 1976 – Tory Holt, American football player
* 1983 - Marques Colston, American football player

Landon – July 30:
Events
* 1619 - In Jamestown, Virginia, the first representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convenes for the first time.
* 1729 - Baltimore, Maryland is founded.
* 1733 - First Freemasons lodge opened in what will become the United States.
* 1930 - In Montevideo, Uruguay win the first Football World Cup.
* 1932 - Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, the first Academy Award winning cartoon and first cartoon short to use Technicolor, premieres.
* 1953 - Rikiduzan holds a ceremony announcing the establishment of the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance.
* 1954 - Elvis Presley makes his debut as a public performer.
* 1956 - A Joint resolution of the U.S. Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing "In God We Trust" as the U.S. national motto.
* 1965 - US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.
* 1974 - Watergate Scandal: US President Richard M. Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so by the United States Supreme Court. [But he's not a crook!]
* 1975 - Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again. [A crime in Detroit? Get outta here!]
* 1990 - The first Saturn automobile rolls off the assembly line.
* 2002 - Los Angeles Sparks center Lisa Leslie became the first woman to dunk in a WNBA league basketball game. [Booyah!]
* 2003 - 490,000 Rock Fans attend Sarsfest concert at Downsview Park in Toronto, Canada, Headlined by The Rolling Stones, AC/DC Rush, The Tea Party, and 12 other major rock acts. Births
* 1863 - Henry Ford, American industrialist (d. 1947)
* 1890 - Casey Stengel, American baseball manager (d. 1975)
* 1934 - Bud Selig, baseball commissioner
* 1936 - Buddy Guy, American guitarist and singer
* 1947 - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austrian-born American actor, body builder, and Governor of California [womanizer]
* 1948 - Jean Reno, Moroccan-born French actor
* 1960 - Richard Linklater, American director
* 1961 - Laurence Fishburne, American actor
* 1963 - Lisa Kudrow, American actress
* 1963 - Chris Mullin, professional basketball player
* 1964 - Jürgen Klinsmann, German football manager
* 1971 - Tom Green, Canadian comedian and actor
* 1971 - Christine Taylor, American actress
* 1973 - Markus Naslund, Swedish ice hockey player
* 1974 - Hilary Swank, American actress

Christa – November 18:
Events
* 1095 - The Council of Clermont, called by Pope Urban II to discuss sending the First Crusade to the Holy Land, begins.
* 1307 - According to legend, William Tell shoots an apple off his son's head.
* 1477 - William Caxton produces Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, the first book printed on a printing press in England.
* 1865 - Mark Twain's story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County is published in the New York Saturday Press.
* 1883 - American and Canadian railroads institute five standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.
* 1916 - World War I: First Battle of the Somme ends - In France, British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig calls off the battle which started on July 1, 1916.
* 1918 - Latvia declares its independence from Russia.
* 1928 - Release of the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon, directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, featuring the second appearances of cartoon stars Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
* 1943 - World War II: Battle of Berlin (air), 440 Royal Air Force planes bomb Berlin causing only light damage and killing 131. The RAF lost nine aircraft and 53 air crew.
* 1943 - Holocaust: Aktion Emtefest: Nazis liquidate Janowska concentration camp in Lviv, western Ukraine, murdering at least 6.000 surviving Jews. German SS leader Fritz Katzman declares Lviv (Lemberg) to be Judenfrei (free from the Jews).
* 1978 - Jonestown incident: In Guyana, Jim Jones leads his Peoples Temple cult in a mass murder-suicide that claims 918 lives in all, 909 of them at Jonestown itself, including over 270 children.
* 1999 - In College Station, Texas, 12 are killed and 27 injured at Texas A&M University when a huge bonfire under construction collapses.
* 2001 - Luigi's Mansion makes its launch for the Nintendo Gamecube introducing two new characters: E. Gadd and King Boo [The Gadd family tree would never be the same!]
Births
* 1923 - Alan Shepard, American astronaut (d. 1998)
* 1948 - Jack Tatum, American football player
* 1953 - Alan Moore, British comic book writer and novelist
* 1956 - Warren Moon, American football player
* 1962 - Kirk Hammett, American guitarist (Metallica)
* 1963 - Len Bias, American basketball player (d. 1986)
* 1967 - Jocelyn Lemieux, National Hockey League player [Made the list of top 3 NHL Lemieux's for the 1990's]
* 1968 - Gary Sheffield, baseball player
* 1968 - Owen Wilson, American actor [The Owen WIlson face was born just a few days later.]
* 1969 - Sam Cassell, American basketball player
* 1970 - Peta Wilson, Australian actress
* 1975 - David Ortiz, Dominican Major League Baseball player
* 1983 - Jon Johansen, Norwegian software developer

I was pretty happy with my own birthday until I saw Kenny G. I still think Bob Probert and the Allied Invasion of France overcome that.

The lows of higher education...

So this week ended with all the excitement of a big, flaming turd! The fall schedule for school came out and it was less than good. As it stands now I am going to be taking classes this summer after all so that I can put myself in a comfortable position to still graduate next spring. The upside is that next spring semester will be pretty light/easy.

If that wasn't enough, I also totally tanked my Fundamentals of Technology quiz. I knew I made a bunch of dumb mistakes, but man... My professor also made it abundantly clear that he's not really into partial credit, to put it mildly. I won't tell you my exact score because I don't want to be come just a number in your eyes. Just take my word for it that it wasn't pretty.

I guess my dramatic re-commitment to school came a week too late. Overall I feel like school gave me the Peter Crouch treatment this week.

What do you mean summer school?

On the bright side, Michel Therrien is doing everything he can to create a full-blown goalie controversy in Pittsburgh. Oh wait, that's bad too... At least Amazing Race is on tonight. Either the bald guys or the coal miners are outta here!

Rafa's not playing for the draw!

When people use the phrase "best case scenario" in the near future, today's Champions League match between Liverpool and Barcelona should get a mandatory mention. Liverpool headed into Nou Camp wanting a win, but knowing that a draw would serve them just fine heading back to Anfield for the second leg. Well, the boys pulled out a huge 2-1 victory in very ironic fashion...

Earlier in the week a story came out that Craig Bellamy attacked John Arne Riise with a golf club in the middle of the night because he wouldn't throw down in a karaoke contest a few hours earlier. The team was pretty quiet about the incident (never denying it), but the media took the story and ran with it. There was even a story posted less than 24 hours before the game that the team plans to sell Bellamy over the summer (and they still may).

Surprisingly, Bellamy got the start today against Barca and he made the most of it. He scored just minutes before the half to send the boys into the break tied at 1. Apparently he even celebrated his goal with a mock golf swing. Stay classy Craig! If that wasn't enough, Bellamy then set up, naturally, Riise for the eventual winning goal with about 15 minutes left in the match.

Suck on it Barca!

This puts the Reds in great shape heading home for the second leg on March 6th. As good as they are at Anfield, the boys should definitely be able to lock up a trip into the round of 8. This was such a great win it even takes some of the sting out of Liverpool falling out of the hunt for the Premiership title.

Pick up skate wrap up

So I managed to skate for 2 whole hours without having a heart attack or getting maimed. I had no legs at all though. I was understandably rusty, but I made some decent plays and managed to put a few pucks in the net. My shooting accuracy was actually better than I expected, even though my sticks felt pretty dead. Maybe I'll have to spring for a nice $200 composite stick...

The older guys there were all pretty cool. We all got a kick out of watching the hot shot teenagers strut their stuff. One of the guys on my team told me that you "totally can't tell" that I hadn't played in 7 years. I'm pretty sure that was a compliment. Another guy told me I look like a cross of Sergei Zubov and Darryl Sydor. Well, at least I've got that going for me...

My two dads?

All in all it was a good time though. I'm looking forward to going back. I can't wait until my hands and my legs catch back up with my head. It'll be like the mid-90's all over again!

Keeping my head on a swivel!

I'm going to play pick-up roller hockey tonight. I'm finally dragging my butt out to do it after planning to for a couple months. It should be interesting considering I haven't played in like 6 years. Can't wait to see how sore I am tomorrow morning...

Ushering in a new era in Texas athletic excellence...

So Christa and I somehow got roped into coaching Ainsley's soccer team. It's not that big of a deal except that since I have class on Saturdays I will probably make it to somewhere around zero of the games. Still, it should be fun though. Any excuse to get out and kick the ball around for a little bit is just fine with me.

24: The world is full of retards!

Let's get right to it:

• Morris is a bum. How could he give the terrorists a working detonator when he knew Jack was right outside? I mean, he'd already been drilled once, what's another hole or two in the grand scheme of things.
• Jack's sister-in-law/former flame is a bum. She let's him waltz right into a trap and doesn't give up his evil dad just to protect her dopey, ninja son.
• CTU is a joke. They'll let just about anyone wander through that place freely. I mean really, how is Jack's dad not a suspect after all that has gone on? I'm convinced at some point we'll see a 4th grade field trip passing through CTU during a crisis.
• Our government sucks. Can they all stop trying to stab each other in the back long enough to keep me from getting nuked? I mean honestly, throw me a bone here!
• On the plus side, pretty soon Jack will be fighting Russians... it's like the 80's all over again! I can't wait.
• Oh, and 24 is so much better without commercials it's not even funny.
  

Oh and the Penguins won again last night. This is getting to be ridiculous.

This is getting to be like Groundhog Day!

Well the Pens have done it again. Shaking off their OT loss the Montreal, the Penguins rebounded by beating the top team in the NHL 4-1. I have to tell you, I could not be more in love with this team unless I was on it. Hopefully Shero will add a top 4 defenseman before the deadline. Even if he doesn't though, with Flower playing the way he is and the Sid Show at the other end... this is a team I would not want to face in the playoffs (yes, I said the P-word!)

Insert Stanley Cup here!

Is that Mack Brown on the phone?

So Landon had his 6 month well check this week and, as we already knew, he is huge! Here's the stat line:

• 75th percentile in height
• 85th percentile in weight
• 95th percentile in head size

insidetexas.com already has Lanny penciled in as the starting Left Tackle for the 2024 Longhorns. That scholarship will come in handy too since tuition will probably be over $20,000 per semester by then.