andrew dodson

Earlier this year, in relation to the UK basketball team’s disappointing season, I began wondering this question – What is the worst record in a season by a UK team that won the national championship?  I finally dug up the answer, thanks to a way-cool site (I found while doing a Google search on Cameron Mills’ career statistics).

Seemingly, the worst record was 23-6 in 1957-58 with Adolph Rupp at the helm.  Of the other six occasions, they’ve never lost more than four games during that season (Tubby Smith’s 1997-98 team).  Go here for more information.

For the record, the worst record by a UK team that won the NIT championship was the  1975-76 squad under Joe B. Hall – 20-10.  I vote we consider ourselves lucky to be in the tournament this year!  Go Cats!

Go here to listen to today’s service at The Point:

The Point Community Church – March 12, 2006

This one’s for faithful blog-reader & friend, Chuck Adams:

Seems as though police can get a bad rap in most towns. Except, of course, in New York City where all emergency personnel gained the respect of the nation following 9/11 (deservedly so). A perfect example of a force with a bad reputation is in Los Angeles. For the most part, people are intimidated by police, or they think they’re arrogant, and so on.

I’ve heard not-so-good things about Lexington’s police. Lot’s of stories about arrogant officers. From my experience of living in Georgetown, I can say their police don’t have a lot going on. In turn, they’ll pull you over for anything. I experienced this after a couple of minor traffic violations (only one ticket). I wouldn’t say they treated me poorly, but since there’s not much going on in Georgetown, they can be very picky about pulling people over.

We’re lucky in Frankfort. Through my job at CLS, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a large number of officers from the Frankfort Police (we keep t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats & other items on hand for them). I’ve been highly impressed that most of the officers fit into the “good people” category. Most notably, they don’t suffer from the arrogance that usually comes with the job. This can be said about everyone from the newest officers, all the way up the line to the top. I’ve spoken with Chief Wilhoite on several occasions, and he’s always seemed to be a stand up individual. It’s easy to respect authority when you know the authority respects its citizens. Keep up the good work FPD!

In case you’re normal (i.e., not a baseball nut), you probably haven’t paid much attention to the World Baseball Classic.  Since I’m not normal, I’ve been keeping up with Team USA through good ol’ XM radio.

The Classic is a potential substitute for Olympic baseball, which will be dropped from the Games in 2008.  Teams are playing in locations across the globe.

Seemingly, thanks to help from Team Mexico tonight, and with a win tomorrow, Team USA will advance to the next round.  This was in doubt until Mexico’s upset of Team Canada tonight.  However, the USA, with Roger Clemens taking the mound, must beat South Africa tomorrow to advance.

I don’t see anyone topping the Dominican Republic, though.  An absolutely jam-packed team, full of Major League stars (Pujols, Pudge Rodriguez, Alou, etc.).  Go check it out!

If anyone out there is wondering what they could buy me as a gift, here it is. This thing is stinkin’ cool.

In an effort to prove evolution, it seems those responsible for this story are overlooking a huge reason why this Turkish family walks on all fours: “The siblings, the subject of a new BBC documentary to be aired on March 17, suffer from a genetic abnormality that may prevent them from walking upright,” (Yahoo.com; emphasis mine).

In short, they don’t walk on all fours due to not evolving.  They walk on all fours because it’s physically impossible for them to walk upright.

Family Walks on All Fours

Another article

To continue my praise of XM, I’ve decided to highlight some of my favorite channels:

1.  Highway 16 (16) – New Country Hits:  I never thought I’d say this about a country station – I actually like it.

2.  MIX (22) – Modern Adult Hits:  This has become my favorite station to listen to at work.  The playlist is almost a little too repetitive for my taste, but it’s still enjoyable music.

3.  The Blend (25) – Adult Contemporary Hits:  Similar to MIX, but it plays more “older” favorites from the 80s, 90s, and so forth.

4.  XM Cafe (45) – Adult Album Rock:  Good tunes, good station.

5.  The Loft (50) – Acoustic Rock:  Good tunes, good station.

6.  Music Lab (51) – Jam Bands/Progressive:  I get to hear some of my favorite jam bands – String Cheese Incident, Phish, etc., as well as progressive groups like Rush & Dream Theater.

7.  Soul Street (60) – Classic Soul:  Who doesn’t love old soul music?  The golden age of Motown.  Good stuff.

8.  Real Jazz (70) – Traditional Jazz:  Perhaps my favorite station.  I can’t get enough of it.  They never play a bad song.

9.  Beyond Jazz (72) – Modern Jazz:  This station can get a little “Weather Channel” from time-to-time, but they play Charlie Hunter, Medski Martin & Wood, and modern jazz groups that I enjoy.

10.  XM Chill (84) – Chill Music:  Great new station on the XM lineup.  Nice to listen to in the car, driving at night, or to put on before going to bed.  Music to listen to when you want to relax (only if you enjoy electronic music when you relax).

11.  Hear Music (75) – The Sound of Starbucks:  The name says it all.  Want to feel like you’re always at Starbucks?  Listen to this station.  Very eclectic.

12.  XM Pops (113) – Classical Pops:  Great classical station.  Another good “when I want to relax” channel.

After this comes the news, comedy, entertainment & sports channels.  I’m sure I’ll listen to them from time-to-time (especially MLB baseball coverage), but most of my listening will happen with the music channels.  After a couple of weeks, I’m definitely hooked on this satellite radio thing.

After experiencing XM radio for close to a week now, I can honestly say that I’m happy with the music & radio industry right now.  There are, however, exceptions.

Hip Hop – never before has rap been more annoying & cheesy.  No, I’m not saying this because I’m a white kid who grew up in a middle class family, so I can’t relate.  Everyone knows I have a wide respect for all kinds of music, and there is a decent amount of rap that I like.  But, when hit songs say things like, “shake your laffy taffy,” I can’t respect that.  I mean… what?  Come on!

Theologically incorrect – God bless Avril Lavigne for trying to write a song that mentions theological issues.  However, she’s wrong on one of her latest releases.  The lyric says, “she’s lost her faith, she’s fallen from grace.”  The girl in the song may be going through a rough time, but she can’t “fall from grace.”  Maybe a topic for another blog entry??

Overall, good – Maybe it’s because XM gives me a bit more control over what I listen to.  However, there’s a lot of enjoyable music being played on the radio currently.  I’m actually surprised.  Several years ago, I basically gave up on radio and started listening to CDs and MP3s almost exclusively.  I thought radio was going downhill quick.  Seemingly, not.

For all of you AOL users out there, I have some information.

Several times, I notice (or hear) my Windows computer doing something when I’m not doing anything else on the computer.  I knew it had to be some sort of program running “behind the scenes.”  I decided to check the system processes currently running (ctrl + alt + del, and then click on “processes”).  There, I saw a pesky file called “AOLHostService.exe” seemed to be doing an awful lot, at times peaking at 25% of my computer’s current running processes (the most usually being “System Idle”).

I chose to end the process, and sure enough – that did it.  My processor stopped making the “I’m doing something right now” noise, and all was calm.

The lesson here?

I’m deleting AOL from my Windows computer.  I’ve never liked the controlling nature of the new Security Edition releases with the virus scanning, spyware scanning, etc.  Sure, it’s a nice gesture, but there’s other programs out there that do just as good of a job, and not in an annoying way (see: AdAware, and other good FREE anti-virus programs on the net – I use AntiVir Guard).  I don’t like things going on behind the scenes that I don’t have control over.

I have AOL on my iBook, but AOL doesn’t make a Security Edition for Mac.  It’s just a nice, neat version of AOL that doesn’t do anything annoying.  I’ll stick with that!