Week 8: Too much chaos for a cute byline

Sunday, October 28
Indianapolis @ Carolina
Detroit @ Chicago
Pittsburgh @ Cincinatti
NT Giants @ Miami (@ London)
Philadelphia @ Minnesota
Cleveland @ St. Louis
Oakland @ Tennessee
Buffalo @ NY Jets
Houston @ San Diego (@?)
Jacksonville @ Tampa Bay
Washington @ New England
New Orleans @ San Francisco

Monday, October 29
Green Bay @ Denver

Lessons learned

If you've been watching the news, you've learned that Southern California is ON FIRE!!1!!one! Below are a few thoughts on living through a minor natural disaster.

1. Reverse 911 is a life saver. In the future, municipalities will need to register cell phones to cover the young and landline-less.
2. TV news cannot deliver actionable information fast enough to make it worthwhile. Watching the same 3 pictures again and again (house on fire, tree on fire, reporter in front on fiery treehouse) is useless. Their maps could have been drawn by a drunk first grader. Local news media do their best, but network news is completely useless. It is utterly devoid of anything but the broadest information ('Southern California is a living hell!') and the shallowest emotion ('It sucks to evacuate in the middle of the night!')
3. In terms of staying informed, blogs and interactive maps combined with good radio are the way to go.
4. Americans love to help: Qualcomm has been turning away donations since Wednesday afternoon. There are currently more volunteers than they can use.

San Diego County can relax a little, but we're not out of the woods yet. There are still more mandatory evacuations in some rural areas, but the major population centers are (relatively) safe.

California Fires

Is there an election coming up or something?

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Fox_advances_theory_that_CA_fires_1024.html

In case anyone was wondering...

Danielle and I are quite all right. My work is pretty smoky inside and it's hard to see across the Interstate 5 canyon. But we're nowhere near the fires, neither my work (La Jolla), her work (Kearny Mesa) or our apartment (Mission Valley/Serra Mesa.)That's cold comfort for many of my coworkers at PLJ, who live in the "evacuation" area. Pray for them, if that's your thing.

So far, we have experienced a very small earthquake and there's been a rather large landslide near my work. The fires are simply completing the troika, as far as I'm concerned. I have yet to see any locusts or trumpets.

Week 7: Anyone think Bruce can get back in this?

Cause I tend to doubt it. Only one way to find out, lets pick 'em!

Sunday, October 21
Baltimore @ Buffalo
Atlanta @ New Orleans
San Francisco @ NY Giants
New England @ Miami
Tennessee @ Houston
Tampa Bay @ Detroit
Arizona @ Washington
Kansas City @ Oakland
NY Jets @ Cincinatti
Minnesota @ Dallas
St. Louis @ Seattle
Chicago @ Philadelphia
Pittsburgh @ Denver

Monday, October 22
Indianapolis @ Jacksonville

Week 6, why didnt we think of this years ago?

Because man, if we would have i'd have 3 years of data to analyze, figure out who picks what way, and be able to design a program to beat up on everyone. As it is I have to continue to pull scores out of my... well, you get the idea... i score the same way ND does. On that note, Bring on the picks....

Sunday, October 14
St. Louis @ Baltimore
Minnesota @ Chicago
Miami @ Cleveland
Washington @ Green Bay
Houston @ Jacksonville
Cincinatti @ Kansas City
Philadelphia @ NY Jets
Tennessee @ Tampa Bay
Carolina @ Arizona
New England @ Dallas
Oakland @ San Diego
New Orleans @ Seattle

Monday, October 15
NY Giants @ Atlanta

I made the cut!!

Well, I thought I'd update everyone on the layoffs at Amgen. It was a pretty ugly day.... The Director of Chem. called people individually into his office, sat them down and with the HR rep. standing by, explained that they were no longer needed.

The package was pretty good, 6 months salary and a prorated bonus.

Looks like it's going to be another tough year to get a job in "big" pharma/biotech.

Well what do you all think? Does small molecule chemistry have a future? Can you retire in the industry or is it time to retool?

Good luck,

Mike

Emmanuel Lewis and the SAT

Dan Dierdorf quote during the Patriots Game:

"If Webster had a definition for the word 'competitiveness' it would include Trent Green."

Interesting weekend

Two major upsets in my town ... Los Angeles. Stanford beat USC 24-23 ... That was unbelievable. Then, Irish finally won their first game against UCLA. A tough weekend for Los Angelinos and my family I supposed, but not for me! My friend was in the rose bowl for the game, and she was rooting for the Irish despite the fact that her boyfriend was a hardcore bruins guy. Go Irish!

Week 5 and the dramatic leveling of the field

Its Thusday, and you know what that means... but first, a bit of a recap on what happenned last weekend.

ITs really pretty remarkable how after 62 games first and last place can be separated by only 4 games. Just when it looked like Dave and Bruce might start to lag, they both stormed back with 4+ points each. SO what does that mean this week, obviously Dave and Rick will now have the great weeks and we'll all be tied at 12 come monday night. Think it will happen, I guess "Thats why we play the games!"

Sunday, October 7
Jacksonville @ Kansas City
Arizona @ St. Louis
Atlanta @ Tennessee
Detroit @ Washington
Cleveland @ New England
Seattle @ Pittsburgh
New York Jets @ New York Giants
Carolina @ New Orleans
Miami @ Houston
Tampa Bay @ Indianapolis
San Diego @ Denver
Baltimore @ San Francisco
Chicago @ Green Bay (Editors Note: Chicago may have the most prime time games of any TERRIBLE team in a long time)

Monday, October 8
Dallas @ Buffalo

a gator at tOSU