Principal author of the inaugural 2007 iTest Tournament of Champions and of this year's 2007 iTest, Mathew Crawford has a blog over on LiveJournal that requires a password to view. He made one recent post visible publicly though, regarding an interesting incident he went through recently involving credit scores, an unpaid bill, and the type of clerical errors that occur on a daily basis but end up wreaking havoc on undeserving individuals down the line. Very interesting reading.

Tonight's dinner/event with Jeff Fisher and the other Titans coaches more than lived up to the hype. It was an incredible event that I'll probably remember for the rest of my life.

First, I arrived at Loews Vanderbilt Hotel with my coworker whom I invited (for free, in return for him doing a good bit of graphic design work for the iTest, and then sold the other two passes I had from winning the eBay auction) around 5:30, when the opening reception wasn't scheduled to begin until 6. We were almost the first people into the event, which had already been set up with autographed memorabilia tables and photo area, and the wait staff was busy getting ready to host the dinner in the main ballroom.

Around 6, the reception began, and something interesting started happening - the executive director of the Charles Davis Foundation, the beneficiary of all money raised tonight at this event, started bringing various guests of honor over to introduce to me, as if I was some big shot. This was very strange, but I definitely enjoyed it! This happened because of the overall amount of money spent on getting the four tickets ... never mind the fact that I made more than my share back in selling two of them off. Very nice!

Got pictures taken with the entire Titans coaching staff, which will be physically mailed to me sometime in the next 30 days. Again, very nice.

In the main ballroom, once it was time for the actual dinner, I found myself sitting right next to Jeff Fisher at a large enough table where several side conversations were going on the whole time, freeing me to pretty much talk to the coach for the majority of the next 45 minutes. Items I asked him about included:

- his thoughts on fantasy football (likes it for the attention it brings to the NFL, but doesn't participate)
- his thoughts on Pac Man Jones (unfortunate set of circumstances but unlikely to play for Titans again, although he's likely to play in the NFL again at some point)
- his thoughts on switching Michael Griffin back to safety (not a good idea because Griffin's footwork and speed are ideal for the cornerback position, and Calvin Lowry is poised for a breakout year in the safety position within the defense)
- his thoughts on areas of improvement for the next year (third down completion percentage has to improve, overall points production needs to significantly increase, Keith Bulluck needs to contribute more within the defense)
- his thoughts regarding the Titans' rumored trade for Chicago Bears DE Alex Brown (much closer to occurring than I realized)
- which coach he likes beating the most (Tom Coughlin, Brian Billick, and Jack Del Rio are all prime candidates, and Coach Fisher rued not being able to close out the victory at Baltimore last year but agreed that Brian Billick knew he was outplayed)
- his contractual status (very close to a LARGE extension that will enable him to keep his core coaching staff together for the next few years while the Titans rack up wins and compete deep into the playoffs)

Prior to this event, I had taken it upon myself to do a little bit of basic statistical modeling to play around with how many wins I thought the Titans would get this season, based on my expectations of the team and the other teams within their division and on their schedule. (I came out to 10-6 on the year, making the playoffs, though this deviates significantly from most mainstream opinions that the Titans will be 8-8 or worse.) But my predictions were pretty detailed and covered a lot of ground, though fitting on a single piece of paper. I had a bunch of copies of my predictions with me, and I gave one to Coach Fisher during this period of time, saying "I had something to give him" ... he stopped completely talking to anyone, and spent the next 4-5 minutes reading this sheet of paper in silence, and actually appeared to really take an interest in them. We discussed the core prediction that the team would go 10-6, and then the most interesting thing of all happened: he asked me to get a pen and write down my name, phone number, and other info on the sheet of paper so he could "reference it later." I still have no idea what he meant, but I obviously had no problem giving him my info! :) At the end of the night, as I was preparing to leave, I thanked him again for being part of the fundraiser and he thanked me again by name, saying once again he would "reference my notes" later...

Don't know what the outcome of all that will be, but the bottom line is that this event was just unbelievable. After the dinner, all the Titans coaches had a roundtable discussion where they talked about old stories and the upcoming season, using a lot of particular examples that they asked not be repeated anywhere (for some obvious reasons, like discussing one particular former player's penchant for having lots of women in his hotel rooms, and one team's ownership group that's running their NFL franchise into the ground, among other stories). Very fun just to sit there and soak it all in.

All in all, very much worth the time and money spent on getting the passes to the event and to sit at Jeff Fisher's table. The man is just as personable and friendly as I expected, based on seeing him in the media and in press conferences, which in hindsight is probably rare. Great coach and great asset to Nashville ... I hope we lock him up for a lot of money for a long, long time.

Now time for bed ... and dreaming about another Titans Super Bowl ... later.

I've posted about them here before, but Black Lab is one of my favorite bands ... and, as it happens, they've decided to re-create the Transformers theme song entirely on their own, and set it to footage from the movie. Check it out here ... Mute Math's version takes the song in a different direction, but Black Lab rekindles the original version's feel, and does it well, I might add!

Rapidly moving in on closing on our first home on July 31...and rapidly losing my mind over the number of tasks, some mundane and some major, that have to be completed by then.

Navigating a mountain of mortgage documents.
Moving money around.
Re-routing our newspaper and magazine subscriptions, as well as everything else mail-wise you can imagine.
Changing personal and business tax records within the state to reflect the new address.
Negotiating the final punchlist of items the seller will fix prior to close.
Figuring out all the ways in and out of the neighborhood and driving around the area.
Packing.
Arranging for various work going on in the house prior to moving in.
Determining what work might occur inside and outside the house over the next six months, and planning for how to begin setting that money aside.
MOVING.

We're fortunate that a number of factors are in our favor with this move, and this entire process could be significantly even more complex than it already is. Still...its a grind.

A lot more on this whole "house thing" to come, post-close.

Reason #727,019 to not take life for granted.

Let me recap this week for you:

Sunday - get up around 6 AM to leave Gulf Shores, where I was on vacation with Lori, her sister, and her sister's boyfriend. Mix in an hour of eating lunch with my parents in Birmingham, and we get back into Nashville at around 4 PM.

I had a flight to TX to catch at 6:45, so I had to hustle to get packed (again) and to the airport in time. Flight was delayed, and the subsequent connection flight was also delayed, and I get into my hotel room in Killeen, Texas, at 3:15 AM in the morning. Bad planning on my part turned into a disaster that didn't start the week off right at all.

Great week of training down here at Fort Hood, though. Got to co-teach a course to the fine folks running the military housing there, and it was both fun and rewarding. Maintenance guys, construction guys, and property managers all discussing and learning about how to be even better leaders, utilize various problem-solving tools to correct issues that arise, and in the end, achieve stronger results. Upon completion of the course, got certified as a teacher of the course as well. But the most enjoyable part was seeing a quality team of people function to such an extent that they become almost like their own family. Very strong culture there, similar to Beaufort.

I made the decision when I initially booked the trip to not rush to fly back on Friday, instead delaying flying back until Saturday. This was a great decision because as much as I am looking forward to getting back to Nashville, I came back to my hotel room on Friday completely exhausted.

The final bit of the course concluded around 2:30 on Friday, and I got back into the hotel room around 3. Sent a few emails, relaxed a little bit, and suddenly woke up at 1:30 in the morning! Went back to sleep and ended up getting 12 hours of sleep when it was all over. THAT'S what I'm talking about!

As is posted over on the iTest Blog, a lot is going on right now in preparation for the 2007 iTest in September. It's time to, once again, make that big summer push that's required to have a successful event in September. And this year, we may find ourselves stretched by both the 2007 iTest, the next iTest Tournament of Champions, the launch of the iTest CS, the iTest National Rankings (national high school individual math rankings we maintain from September to April), as well as running the website and handling our Problems of the Month.

We're about to realize the first step of the iTest's vision, which is to assemble a portfolio of academic experiences that we offer to high school students around the country. It might be small, but it's our starting point. I'm ready to dive back into it all, once again...

I posted a month or two ago about the opportunity to meet Jeff Fisher through an eBay auction. Well, as some of you know, I stayed up until 2 AM on the night that auction ended, and narrowly edged one other person up at that hour with me to win that auction. The event was extremely undervalued (in my opinion!) so I was happy to sneak away with the 4 passes to eat dinner with the man himself. He is one of my favorite people in the National Football League and a man that I respect both for his very apparent football genius as well as his high degree of skill as a motivator of people. I am very much looking forward to meeting him, and will, I'm sure, have something to say about the experience in this space after it happens later this month. I also have re-listed on eBay two of those spaces at the dinner, so hopefully some other big Titans fan will help me recoup the investment!

Also, the same week, the Simpsons movie lands in a movie that might significantly surpass whatever the highest grossing summer 2007 movie to-date is. The movie looks hilarious - Hetesh may come up that Thursday to see the opening night premiere with me, and anyone else getting in on that is welcome to...just drop me a line...

Finally, I'll conclude with mentioning that Lori and I are rapidly moving toward closing on a house on July 31, pending no major disasters until then. We'll be very close to Cool Springs (south of downtown Nashville) and in a house that should fit our needs over the next 10 years. I'll post more once it's all wrapped up, signed, sealed, and delivered...don't want to jinx it!

Out here in Killeen, Texas, this week getting certified as an instructor for Lend Lease's "Team Leader" training...so not much time to blog. The training is based off of old TQM (total quality management) theory, and for me specifically, represents a chance just to sharpen my public speaking skills, so that's definitely a good thing.

Transformers: The Movie was very good, although I could've used more acknowledgment of the heritage of the franchise. For example, quite strangely, Mute Math's remake of the Transformers theme song did not play during the credits (the new, horrible Smashing Pumpkins single and some Disturbed song played instead). I agree with what one reviewer noted, that Michael Bay seemed rather disinterested in the history of the various robot characters in the movie - when you leave the movie, you have relatively little clue on the interactions of the Decepticons amongst themselves, and even less understanding of how both the Autobots and Decepticons interact with Cybertron (which isn't even named in the movie, I don't think). So could've been more in that department...but as has been noted everywhere, the action is simply groundbreaking in the movie and was very entertaining even for my non-Transformers fan watching with me (thanks, honey!)

So, not quite the big-time foundation for a bunch of sequels that, say, Batman Begins was...but very solid nevertheless.

Also, changing subjects, here is an interesting article out of E3 this week. The Wii has had (and will continue to have, over the next few years) a tremendous impact on the evolution of the video game industry. Between Nintendo and Apple (in their respective tech sectors), there has never been more obvious examples that fearless innovation can pay off big.

EA CEO calls video games 'boring,' complicated
Riccitiello says sequel games often add little from previous versions

Reuters
Updated: 10:48 a.m. CT July 9, 2007

NEW YORK - Most video games are “boring” or too complicated, and game makers need to do more to appeal to casual players, according to the head of the world’s largest video game publisher, Electronic Arts Inc.

“We’re boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play,” EA Chief Executive John Riccitiello told the Wall Street Journal in a story posted on its Web site on Sunday.

Riccitiello became CEO at EA in April in his return to the game maker. EA’s former chief operating officer had left the company in 2004 to help found Elevation Partners, a media and entertainment buyout firm.

The video game executive criticized the industry for rolling out sequels to new games that add little from the previous version.

“For the most part, the industry has been rinse-and-repeat,” he was quoted as saying. “There’s been lots of product that looked like last year’s product, that looked a lot like the year before.”

The comments were made as the $30 billion video game industry prepares for its annual gathering, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, in Santa Monica, Calif. Anticipation is running high that cheaper hardware and a host of keenly awaited new games will fuel the strongest sales in years.

I had two old computers from my parents' house in Birmingham taken to a computer shop, had the hard drives ripped out of them, and gave the guys at the shop the rest of the parts in exchange for throwing that data onto a backup drive I've got.

When I returned home one night this past week, I sifted through the sizable amount of stuff that came off of those drives. Old pictures, documents, mp3s ... all sorts of stuff. Glad I went to the trouble of doing that - if you've got old computers, don't just throw them away!

I'm sitting here right now listening to some of the old songs I had on one of the computers, that I've completely forgotten about. For example, "I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow" from the Soggy Bottom Boys soundtrack, "Missing" by Everything But The Girl (memorable, haunting song), "From Your Mouth" by God Lives Underwater (one of the better beginnings of a song), and "Orange Crush" by REM (how did I forget about this one??)

Lots of old pictures from family reunions, random events of the past ten years ... all sorts of actually pretty unexpected stuff. Definitely sent me back.

I would continue this post (albeit shifting gears a little bit) in describing the ignorance of people recently wanting to call a "video game addiction" a medical disorder, but I want to go to bed in a good mood. Later.

To iPhone or not to iPhone?

Apple's little device is getting a whole lot of hype. I mean A TON. And the company has got everything riding on this thing.

No buttons - just a touch screen. Incredibly long battery life, particularly if all you do is take calls. But even if you use the internet, it'll run for a whole day without being charged...which means it will meet most people's expectations in that regard.

Mix in the fact that it is ALSO an iPod and you've got something.

Until you find out its $500-$600.

Then you pause, take a deep breath, and find you're still considering it.

The iPhone is going to sell like crazy. It doesn't matter that the phone doesn't do anything too revolutionary. It, like the original iPod, will nail all of the basic features, do well on the new stuff, and crush the competition in the marketing arena.

Just go read any business press or even any mainstream print or internet media. You, without a doubt, will see something about the iPhone.

That's the sound of that Apple marketing machine just getting cranked up. Count on seeing some sort of crazy TV ad right before the June 29th launch, with all the bloggers singing the praises of Steve Jobs (including this blogger).

The guy's just smarter than almost everyone else. I'll go ahead and give him the advantage heading into a critical time at Apple. With the competition having caught up, in most regards, to the iPod in the MP3 player market, Apple's got to blaze a new trail ... and if this one doesn't work, they'll lose that luster of invincibility they've got going and, with the brand hurting, they'll have opened the door to all sorts of problems.

The iPhone simply HAS to work for Apple. And I'm thinking it will.

I have an insatiable hunger for news pertaining to the Tennessee Titans. I read the Tennessean daily, as well as ESPN, ProFootballWeekly.com, and a number of other smaller Titans-related news sources for info.

I have yet to see anyone do a fully broken down prediction of the AFC South teams for next year (other than ESPN's Merril Hoge saying "oh, I think the Colts will win, cause Peyton Manning pwns") so here is my prediction.

(I promise, it's not biased at all! :) )

AFC SOUTH - 2007 PREDICTIONS

Tennessee Titans

Last year, Tennessee went 8-5 in games started by Vince Young (as opposed to the sack, interception, and fumble machine commonly referred to as Kerry Collins) as the Titans went 6-1 over the last seven games of the regular season, narrowly missing the playoffs.

The Titans lost RB Travis Henry in the offseason, which looms as the largest area of concern entering the 2007 season. Will LenDale White stop eating long enough to post a 4+ yards per carry? Or will unproven Chris Henry have to carry the load? Or will the Titans re-sign Chris Brown and mix all three of them together? Will any of these scenarios get the job done?

The Titans also lost WR Drew Bennett and WR Bobby Wade, the departures of which have received way too much attention. Vince Young's mobility and vision on the field created many opportunities for these decent receivers to look good. Bennett will do well in the Rams offense next year, but Bobby Wade won't do well at all in Minneapolis. These were players that Vince Young helped create, not the other way around. (And to some extent, this was also true for Travis Henry, although in Denver he will post BIG numbers next year.)

The Titans have drafted well enough in the past two years to be fine at running back - I do think Chris Henry will become the primary running back once we're into the season and will post surprisingly solid numbers for a rookie. Wide receiver will be forgotten as a concern once the season begins, as Brandon Jones averages over 100 receiving yards per game and scores 10 TD.

Defensively, the Titans have in 2007 what the Colts had in 2006 - an opportunistic defense laden with solid playmakers in the secondary but lacking in defensive line pressure. While DE Kyle Vanden Bosch will have another solid year, the lack of a productive DE on the other side of the line will mean another year of double teams every game and more risk of injury. The Titans will rely on an improved linebacker corps (with the welcome addition of Dallas LB Ryan Fowler, who was just starting to come into his own when the Titans stole him away with a restricted free agent offer sheet the Cowboys couldn't match) and the finally-consistent play of DT Albert Haynesworth to provide the additional QB pressure necessary to create turnovers and help win games.

The X-factor in the Titans season will be what happens with Pac Man Jones. Jones has already been all but exonerated in the Las Vegas shooting, leaving the Atlanta incident as the determinant now of his return to the NFL. The Atlanta case comes before a judge in September, and pending its resolution, Jones will be back on the field on Week 10 of the regular season. (Also, don't forget that Jones dropped his appeal of his suspension with the NFL commissioner, which many suspect is a tactic to improve his standing within the commissioner's office and make it easier for the commissioner to reinstate Jones once he is eligible.)

When Pac Man Jones returns, the Titans' kick return game all of a sudden returns to its 2006 level of being in the top 1 or 2 in the NFL. Jones led the NFL in kick return yards last year - NOT Pro Bowler Devin Hester. And once Jones returns, the defense will be helped out by his shutdown corner skills and the offense will be helped out by the trick plays that the team runs with Jones on the field. While he may be rusty in the first game or two, if the Titans season goes as planned, they will be significantly better entering the playoffs than they were at the start of the season.

One of the reasons Vince Young received so much positive press leading up to his Rookie of the Year award at the end of last year was that the Titans had the most difficult schedule in the NFL in 2006. This year, the schedule gets a good bit easier (with a particularly soft middle third of the season) so the Titans should be in good shape from a scheduling perspective.

This is the year that Vince Young and the Titans continue their evolution into perennial Super Bowl contenders, and because of external factors that cause the Jaguars and Colts to be mired in mediocrity, the Titans WILL WIN THE AFC SOUTH IN 2007. Write it down.

Prediction: 10-6
Rank, AFC South: 1st


Houston Texans

The Texans season will be judged by a single moment during the offseason - the acquisition of former Falcons QB Matt Schaub. Schaub isn't too much better than his predecessor in Houston, David Carr, but has a completely different personality that will be capable of leading the Texans to a winner mentality in 2007.

Right behind the Schaub acquisition is the signing of RB Ahman Green away from Green Bay. Green will provide stability at the running back position, and round out a solid offensive team that also includes Pro Bowler WR Andre Johnson.

Defensively, Demeco Ryans will take another step in leading the underrated Texans defense toward becoming a playoff caliber squad. But the real story will be the improved statistics of DE Mario Williams, who was maligned much of 2006 for being drafted ahead of Reggie Bush and Vince Young.

The Texans were close in many of their losses in 2006, losing 4 of their losses by less than a touchdown. Switch those losses to wins and the Texans went 10-6 last season, not 6-10.

The Texans also benefit, like the Titans, from a softer schedule in 2007 than they had the year before. The difference between which team, the Titans or the Texans, will be in first place in this division hinges on their head-to-head record. And do you really think Vince Young will lose to his hometown Houston team? Or that Bud Adams, who lives in Houston, would allow Jeff Fisher to lose these games? Didn't happen last year and won't this year either, although the Texans will have what most will view as a hugely successful turnaround year although will barely miss the playoffs in the last week of the season.

Prediction: 8-8
Rank, AFC South: 2nd


Indianapolis Colts

The popular media is high on the Colts coming out of the AFC South as the champion of the division once again in 2007. What hasn't made a lot of news in the popular media, though, are the number of defections from the Colts roster to other teams during the offseason:

CB Jason David (signed with the New Orleans Saints)
CB Nick Harper (signed with the Tennessee Titans)
S Mike Doss (signed with the Minnesota Vikings)
LB Cato June (signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
DT Montae Reagor (unsigned as of June 17)
RB Dominic Rhodes (signed with the Oakland Raiders)
WR Brandon Stokley (unsigned as of June 17)

Note that the majority of these free agents who have left the Colts are on defense. The Colts, as a team, had 15 interceptions, 10 of which were by players listed above who are no longer on the roster. Bear in mind that the Colts defense was a bend-but-don't-break, opportunistic type of defense, that is incapable of shutting down opponents but instead looked for turnover chances...and you realize that the Colts defense may really suck this year.

Their offense will continue to click along and put up big statistics, as long as Peyton Manning is healthy.

Last year, the Colts went 3-3 within the AFC South, losing the last three divisional games. Jacksonville crushed Indy 44-17 in the second half of last year, and even Houston got in on the action in upsetting the Colts 24-21. But after the Titans barely lost to the Colts (in Indianapolis) 14-13 early in the year last year, who could forget Rob Bironas' 60-yarder to take down the division champions?

So combine the Colts worst-in-AFC defense with the AFC South's high degree of familiarity with the Colts offense, and maybe mix in a little bit of Super Bowl champion malaise / bad luck, and you get a recipe for a horrendous Colts season that sends the franchise in a completely unanticipated direction in 2008.

2007 Colts Record: 7-9
Rank, AFC South: 3rd


Jacksonville Jaguars

This is a team primed for an implosion in 2007. Characterized by strong defensive play and a fierce ground attack, the Jaguars have long been thought to be close to playoff contention and a potential Super Bowl run.

Last year, though, the seed was planted for a contentious, hostile locker room in which QB Byron Leftwich won't even speak to head coach Jack del Rio after not being allowed to resume at starting quarterback after returning from injury, as del Rio opted to continue with David Garrard at that position. Now, the Jaguars (in their infinite wisdom) are considering bringing in clubhouse cancer Daunte Culpepper, who will do absolutely nothing to improve the QB position but will do a lot to add confusion and disarray to the Jaguars team.

Both of them suck, so it doesn't make that big of a difference. Mix in a strangely inconsistent group of wide receivers, and you have the makings of a frustrating offense that is great at grinding out rushing yards behind RBs Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew, but can't do much of anything else to support offensive production.

On defense, another seed has just recently been planted for ill will in the locker room this year. The Jaguars suddenly released S Donovin Darius, their ball-hawking safety who was the leader of the defensive secondary. He was coming off an injury and was expected to begin minicamps on time, but the Jaguars opted to go younger at that position with their first round draft pick out of Florida, Reggie Nelson.

The Jaguars are a team that lives on the edge. They have long been on the edge of becoming a perennial AFC South powerhouse, but have almost stood in their own way as they tried to accomplish that. Now with these dual offseason issues (Culpepper/QB issues as well as releasing Darius) the team will teeter on the edge of implosion before completely falling apart during this brutal stretch of their 2007 season:

Week 9 - at New Orleans
Week 10 - at Tennessee
Week 11 - San Diego
Week 12 - Buffalo (which will be a very good team in 2007)
Week 13 - at Indianapolis

At best, Jacksonville will go 2-3 in these games, but since they will already be sub-.500 entering this stretch of games, they will fall further out of playoff contention and will lead to at least partial meltdown heading into the end of the season. Jack del Rio will not survive the subsequent offseason and the Jaguars will have to decide whether or not to tear the entire team apart to rebuild, or go after a pricey QB veteran to try to compete in the short term.

Prediction: 5-11
Rank, AFC South: 4th

The iTest / Facebook "Causes" (Cross-listed on the iTest Blog)

The iTest now is a "cause" within the Facebook Causes application. Log into Facebook and search within the Causes application (or send me a friend request and check my profile for a link to it) to find the iTest's new site within Facebook.

Support the iTest by becoming a member of the cause, inviting other friends to the cause, and even donating to the cause directly (and securely) through Facebook.


If you're on Facebook, please either check out the Causes application and find us through there, or check my profile and join up ... this is a huge help for us!

Picture from earlier tonight at the Melting Pot ... Lori and I are celebrating our two-year anniversary this weekend!

I will be posting most of my iTest-related stuff over at the new iTest blog (which will have a different graphical layout soon, don't worry). Head over there and check out the post regarding the recently-completed Spelling Bee.

Wasn't planning on posting, but had to...

LeBron James is simply unbelievable.

I quit watching the NBA after Jordan left, and LeBron's brought me back into it ... but even in rooting the Cavaliers to victory, I wasn't expecting THIS. I am in awe of what I just watched, and so glad I watched the game.

48 points.

29 of the last 30 points.

25 points in a row.

Across the 4th quarter and two brutal overtimes.

Playing great defense the entire time.

Easily the best player in the NBA right now. And here's the kicker...

HE'S ONLY 22 YEARS OLD.

After that last post, I of course had to go to YouTube to see if I could pull up the old trailer for the 80's animated movie...obviously, it was there. SICK.

I didn't realize the movie was released in 1986. So I was 6 years old at the time.

The movie absolutely blew my mind. It took the characters I loved and put them through an actually extremely complex story that involved the death of Optimus Prime, the reinvention of Megatron into Galvatron, and the introduction of Unicron.

As a 6-year-old, watching scenes like this and getting introduced to the concepts of revenge and murder, as well as being introduced to the brand-new concept of indiscriminate, reasonless destruction (with Unicron) was pretty scary.

And can you imagine a 6-year-old watching THIS?? I remember this oh so clearly. I would have to imagine this was the most dramatic moment in a movie from my entire childhood, and I'm sure several readers of this would agree.

The creativity in the movie, from the wide-ranging use of the entire Transformers universe (even the Dinobots were in this thing) to the awesome soundtrack (bet you didn't realize Weird Al had a song in this movie...I completely forgot both about that as well as when his song was used in the film) really opened my eyes up to a new world of storytelling.

Also for anyone else who's really appreciating this post, check out Stan Bush's horrifying 80's music video for the Transformers theme, as well as Weird Al's typically genius Dare To Be Stupid video...he was just as lyrically brilliant 20 years ago as he is today with that Ridin' parody. "Put down the chainsaw, and listen to me..." LOL

I'll cut off my fanboyesque gushing over the 80's movie to reiterate:

THIS NEW MOVIE BETTER NOT SUCK.

I haven't seen a movie in a theater since seeing The Departed back in Beaufort many months ago.

Prior to that movie, I hadn't seen a movie in forever.

But there's a movie coming this summer that will change that.

You know what it is.

TRANSFORMERS.

I saw the trailer for this thing and I think I probably fell over in disbelief. This is going to be INCREDIBLE.

For anyone my age who was in the 5-10 range when the life-changing animated Transformers movie hit the theaters (remember that 80's rock theme song???), or anyone in a wide range both older and younger than me that watched the cartoon series on a regular basis, this movie is highly anticipated.

Note to Michael Bay, the director of this movie that will draw me out of my humble abode and back into the theater for possibly the last time in 2007:

YOU BETTER GET THIS RIGHT.

I'm somewhat of a latecomer to eBay and buying stuff online, as I really only started paying attention to eBay and using it last year. (Which my wife would probably say is a good thing...)

As anyone who uses eBay knows, sometimes you run across items that just sort of leave you there speechless. Sometimes it's a "good" speechless, sometimes it's bad.

Today, I ran across one of those GOOD ones.

Dinner with Tennessee Titans Coach Jeff Fisher at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse on July 24

As I write this, no one has bid on this yet, but I would anticipate the auction to reach between $2,500 and $3,000. So, for four people to attend, divide the potential total by 4 and you've got roughly between $600 and $750 per person to attend dinner and the fundraising event. (The event by itself costs $300, for reference.)

Jeff Fisher is, without a doubt, my favorite football coach at any level and one of my favorite sports figures in any pro sport. I think he represents the city of Nashville with class and dignity, I think he's a brilliant tactician on the football field, I think he does a superb job with player development and in handling the day-to-day operations of the Titans, and his discipline with the media throughout his coaching career is almost too good to be true. He never says the wrong thing, he never ends up posterized in a news headline for saying something brash - he has been a great leader for the Titans for years.

My Seattle Mariners, in stark contrast, are led by a guy named Mike Hargrove who does none of these things well. He mismanages the roster, abuses relievers, constructs inefficient, bizarre lineups and ends up costing Seattle probably 2-3 games over the course of a 162-game season. So the coaches of my favorite teams definitely aren't sacred, by any stretch.

Getting back to the eBay auction - that's clearly a large sum of money for one night out. But it got me thinking: is there anyone else on the face of the Earth, alive right now, that I'd pay that kind of money to eat with? (That I don't see on a regular basis?)

Yes. Off the top of my head, in order of hastily-calculated relative priority:

1) Jeff Fisher
2) Patrick Stewart
3) Bill Gates
4) Steve Jobs
5) Bono
6) Donald Trump
7) LeBron James
8) Vince Young (who also has a dinner opportunity in Nashville in July on eBay)
9) Jack Welch
10) Harrison Ford

If I could snap my fingers and have any musical act in front of me, here in this room to perform an intimate set of their songs of my choice for as long as I wanted, my first choice would be U2. Easily. Strongest rock band in my lifetime.

There's a tie for second, though, which is why I felt compelled to post. Prince and Imogen Heap are two of the most unbelievably creative individuals in the music world right now. They create entire worlds with 3 minutes of composition. I would happily do any number of horrific things if it meant I could sit one-on-one with either of these musicians and watch them perform for a couple of hours.

Prince begins a fairly long residency out in a smallish venue in Los Angeles this summer, playing each Friday night for six or seven weeks in a row. He's starting these shows at 11:30 PM local time, playing a couple hours in front of 250 or so people, and then turning the venue into his own eating establishment by opening it up to his own private chef until 4 in the morning. I am definitely watching to see if prices for that aren't too ridiculous to attend. That would be a once in a lifetime event.

Imogen Heap, on the other hand, is one of the most innovative female artists out there, period. I *highly* encourage anyone reading this to head over to her MySpace page (www.myspace.com/imogenheap) and give the live version of "Just For Now" a listen. That's just her sitting there with a computer, and it is a killer performance. Then listen to "Come Here Boy," a song I actually forgot completely about that she wrote for her first solo album, and is a total masterpiece.

We're lucky to have musicians like both of these people who are tied for #2 in my own personal wish list. Sometimes you have to just sit back and recognize incredible, awe-inspiring talent.

This is my 150th blog post...still waiting on Blogger (or Google now) to come and pull the plug...

Headed to Birmingham within the hour to meet with Dave, John, and Steven on the iTest and talk over what will be happening over the rest of the year. On Monday, Steven and I will meet with the Protective Life Foundation regarding our funding proposal to them, and then I'll scramble back to Nashville to see the 24 finale.

June marks the beginning of the new fiscal year for the iTest and an obvious time to take inventory of how far we've come this year. The iTest website, the rapid acceptance of the Tournament of Champions, the successful deal with the Southern Company to sponsor the 2007 iTest...all of these things have been instrumental in us taking a big next step over the past year.

The next 12 months will involve continued capital inflow and the launch of "the next big thing," the iTest CS. Our annual computer science competition will diversify our organization (moving us beyond just mathematics) and will allow us to have some interplay between our math events and our new computer science event.

We'll also be evaluating how best to implement a new revenue stream in matching up students with willing employers for internships and jobs. We've got the right brand positioning to find students with both great academic qualifications and actual social skills and match them with employers looking to win the global war for talent. This will be a critical new piece of the cashflow that will turn us into a full-fledged, sustainable business.

Figuring out who does what for the iTest over the next 12 months starts tonight at this meeting. Time to hit the road.

RIP Josh Hancock, St. Louis Cardinals RP

Vestavia Hills High School, 1996: 9-0, 0.92 ERA
Auburn University, 1997: Member of College World Series team
Drafted by Red Sox in 1998, with his debut on September 10, 2002
Signed as minor league free agent with St. Louis Cardinals on February 21, 2006

I remember very clearly being a freshman at Vestavia and going to see this incredible pitcher we had on our baseball team. Our baseball teams were in the middle of a run during the entire decade of the 1990's of winning state championship after state championship in baseball, and Josh Hancock was an integral part of that for multiple years. Between 1991 and 2000, over a 10-year stretch, Vestavia only failed to win the state championship one single time, winning it 9 of those years and 7 years in a row at one point.

Over a three-year career spanning from 1994 to 1996, Josh Hancock went a combined 28-1, earning enough wins to put him among the all-time Alabama leaders in career wins according to the Alabama High School Athletic Association.

Tragically, just as Hancock was seemingly finding his way in the major leagues with the Cardinals, this accident happens. RIP.

Logged into my MySpace page earlier tonight, and for some reason I feel compelled to post about what this experience was like.

I suppose I was expecting to quickly ascertain that there has been hardly any activity on anyone's accounts, not much new information, and quickly be able to log off and move on to another part of my internet rounds. After all, this is certainly the case for me - I haven't been to the site in months.

This will probably come as no surprise, but I hardly even recognized my "friends" list (which includes many actual friends, in addition to clubs, politicians, bands I've never heard, and who knows what else since I just summarily accept most friend requests without question). Pictures of the people I actually do know have changed, most people had logged in within the past 48 hours, lots of new blog posts, layouts of pages have changed, etc.

For whatever reason, this really blindsided me. People my age actually customize their MySpace? And keep it updated on a regular basis? People of all different types, backgrounds, careers?

Yes.

How strange!

Not too strange to the mainstream media, which has been on top of this for some time now, and certainly not too strange to the entire generation of core social networking users that makes up MySpace's user base. But certainly strange to me, at least for today.

Someday, actually probably much sooner than I would imagine, they'll be teaching case studies in business schools around the world about MySpace.com...that site used by the 40-year-old administrative assistant, 32-year-old corporate hot shot, the 55-year-old musician/poet, the 22-year-old meth addict, the 19-year-old college freshman, and the 26-year-old blogger :)

You know that favorite hangout you had back in high school? Now imagine that EVERYONE YOU'VE EVER MET WAS THERE.

ALL THE TIME.

EVERY DAY.

And that's what MySpace represents - communication, 24/7/365.

We already live in a world where people don't dare to be different. The mob mentality will grow to new heights in a world of 24/7 interconnectivity. Nothing will be hidden anymore - everything will be transparent and right there, out in the open, caught on cameraphone or recorded by webcam.

As new generations raised on this level of interconnectivity rise up to take positions out in the labor force and in other positions of influence over time, the results will be felt.

Leaders who understand the MySpace era and command the mob will reap rewards of unprecedented power and resources. Medical research will move five times faster than it ever has before, creating new cures. Politicians will be cleaner than ever before, since the cost of a mistake is tremendous and there are no more secrets. Business will seize upon crowdsourced information to polish products and services to a shiny perfection, creating new dimensions for competition we haven't thought of yet and raising the importance of human capital and marketing more than ever. Social causes will continue to escalate in importance, as messages of despair and need travel around the world as fast as you can blink, and efforts to address them get organized almost as fast. Organizations like The iTest will do things never thought possible. The world will move faster than ever before, largely for the better.

But, for now, as I sit and read the poetry of a high school classmate, contemplate the politics of another classmate living overseas, and share the happiness in the new baby of a co-worker and new relationship of an old friend - all thanks to MySpace - it's worth a moment to sit and also think about the bigger picture.

Thanks Mike and Jeff (college friends and former roommates with me ) for the insightful comments to the VT blog.

Satya (member of the Vestavia class of 1999; frequently abused by my fantasy baseball team) has started a blog about medical issues and whatever else he feels like discussing, which can be viewed here.

These three blogs aren't even close to all the blogs I read on any sort of regular basis. But isn't it funny how good blogs are at making us feel like we're listening to someone, almost in person? Blogs are a critical part of the way I learn all sorts of new things, which is a pretty incredible statement if you think about it.

For those people who actually attempt to better understand the world around them, blogs are an unbelievable tool. I can actually read what you think, but at MY pace and as many times as I need to understand your point of view. In real life, if you were saying all that stuff, I'd probably just tune you out. And then where would we be?

I don't think we have a good grasp on just how far communication gets advanced when blogs are part of the equation. It is certainly leaps and bounds beyond where it would've been otherwise.


Now, for an unrelated note: one of my all-time favorite songs, "Dream in Color" by Black Lab, is a song you should definitely download. I remember clearly the first time I heard it - I got the album for Christmas in 2005 after being excited to find out Black Lab had a new album out, and heard the song in my car when I was driving to work one day. I stayed in the car once I got to work to play it through again and have been listening to it frequently since that day.

In case its not clear up front, I listen to a ton of different music. All sorts of stuff. When a song stays with me like this after the first couple of months, I know its something I'll be listening to probably the rest of my life simply because it resonates with me so much.

[Black Lab's first album, "Your Body Above Me," which came out sometime around my 8th or 9th grade year (1994-1995? Somewhere around there. I think.) was spectacular in its darkness and moody temperament, but the second album ("See the Sun") which "Dream In Color" is taken from is just as good. "Wash It Away" was the radio single from the first album, so some people will remember the band from their bit of radio exposure they got early on. A third album just came out recently but I haven't purchased it yet from Black Lab's website, though I will be doing that soon.]

While the lyrics of the song are fairly abstract, the song paints an unmistakable picture of romantic optimism and addresses the ambiguity between what happens in our lives and what we intended...or dreamed. The song also uses imagery of marriage and partnership to make the shared vision that the song discusses even more powerful and compelling.

The song could be dreaming of an as-yet-unfulfilled vision - a dream that hasn't yet come to pass - or the song could be reflecting on a life gone by, made complete through marriage and looking forward to meeting again in the afterlife. Or the song could be at some point inbetween.

The song just explodes musically, thanks to some brilliant instrumentation and clever engineering, which helps illustrate the unbridled optimistic tone of the piece.

In the work environment, regardless of industry or profession, you've got all sorts of people who long since forgot about dreams. Not only do most people lack any sort of vision as to what dreams might be possible to achieve, and the discipline through which they might be attained, but most people even go as far as to seem incapable of deriving any joy from their day-to-day existence at all. This isn't to say these people don't smile, laugh, make a joke, etc...but when you watch them over time, you can clearly see they are making a trade-off out of perceived necessity, and not out of passion.

The post-9/11 world (and I suppose its the post-Virginia Tech world, now, too) we live in is a world that fears any risk exposure of any kind, and craves continuity and stability. People simply can't tolerate the temporary vagueness, the momentary ambiguity, brought on by change. Therefore, people end up stuck in veritable no-man's-land, and they stay there. Sometimes for a career.

"Dream in Color" and its triumphant story is a perfect reality-check for me, helping hold me to the truth that God didn't put anyone here to be complacent, to be lazy, or to not fulfill potential by chasing passions in life. And...we weren't put here to chase those dreams alone.


"Dream In Color" - Black Lab

Kiss me once
Just once
You think it's love
Or something close

Do you recall
you say I was sleeping
but I know what I saw.

There were nights I swear we flew.
Dreaming in color, I was dreaming beside you.
Now the sky has gone to gray;
colors have blurred this picture we made.

Ask me once, or twice,
well, they ring them bells,
they're throwing rice
at you and me.
But it wasn't enough...
say, what more could I be

There were nights I swear we flew.
Dreaming in color, I was dreaming beside you.
Now the sky has gone to gray;
colors have blurred this picture we made.

So sleep all day, and watch TV all night...
pictures playing in black and white.

I close my eyes...
I close my eyes...

There were nights I swear we flew.
Dreaming in color, I was dreaming beside you.
Now the sky has gone to gray;
these colors have blurred the picture we made.

There were nights I swear we flew
Dreaming in red, I was dreaming with you
Now the sky has gone to gray
Colors have blurred this picture we made

I was dreaming in color.

There were nights I swear we flew...

The strange, sad tale of the Virginia Tech shootings became so much more bizarre now with the confirmation that the shooter deliberated over this for at least a couple of weeks and possibly longer. Sending videos of his ramblings and bewildered, angry thoughts to NBC, inbetween the shooting incidents at the dorm and the engineering building where he killed most of his victims, is just insane.

Enough has been said about this lunatic to last several lifetimes, but how do we expand the safety net to ensure that the warning signs people like this give off actually result in restorative action, and not inaction?

I think of an individual who lived on my freshman hall at Vanderbilt. Very depressed, very bizarre behavior, would threaten people and actually spent an alarming amount of time watching and re-watching "American Psycho." This guy (who some readers of this will know who I'm talking about) could've been set off while we were in school and certainly could have committed acts of random violence. It just didn't happen, for whatever reason.

This individual ended up dropping out of school later in that same freshman year, and committing suicide a couple of years later.

Is it a masculinity issue? How much is the presence of violence in our culture to blame? Is it just a random atrocity? Or are we going to have to endure another one of these episodes again in the next 2-3 years? This VT guy cited "Eric and Dylan" from the Columbine incident as his brothers-in-arms, after all...this latest incident could spark even more.

The whole thing is just disgusting and very unsettling. Who knows where it goes from here.

I like to talk in this space about the "global war for talent" - that topic that keeps human resources executives up at night, wondering how to best attract and retain top talent within a company workforce. I like to talk about this issue, and human resources in general, because (as I've noted here before) I strongly believe H.R. is the most important, most strategic business function in the modern corporation.

Almost without fail, when the topic of competing for talent comes up, someone inevitably says "well, EVERYONE is replaceable," like that has something to do with the core topic of avoiding search costs, turnover costs, etc. associated with high turnover. Which it doesn't.

But let's address that statement for a minute:

IS EVERYONE REPLACEABLE?

The politically correct answer, of course, is yes. YES, of course everyone is replaceable. YES, no business is devastated by the loss of one key person. YES, any functional team in business (or any other area of life) can pick up the pieces when someone leaves, and move on.

But is it that simple?

My favorite example here is Michael Jordan, circa 1993, and his impact on the Chicago Bulls. NOW tell me that everyone is replaceable.

The rules of the NBA dictate you can only have five players on the court at once. So, while replacing Michael Jordan on an NBA roster might require two, three, or four individuals to fill those shoes and replace that production, you can't have that many extra people on the court.

In business, this isn't so much of an issue. If one person's loss can only be replaced by adding two people to fill the void, there's only the issue of cost.

There's still a problem, though: if losing a special person requires the hiring of more than one person to fill the void, there's still a FEELING of loss - a nasty pessimism / cynicism - that exists among those left behind within the organization. If that person left, and he/she is so good and so great at what they do, what am I missing by still being here? Those feelings are unavoidable in situations of high turnover, or even low turnover but among key performers. A shadow is cast upon the rest of the group from that point forward. A-level performers should never be put in a position to choose.

So, the business takeaway here is that while everyone is technically replaceable, in reality, this should never be a question that gets asked.

Retention of top talent requires constant paranoia, constant attention, constant asking of "how can we better serve our workforce and make them more productive?" If the question of "is this person actually replaceable?" is a way of life, then the organization has already lost.

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.

Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.

Then, the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.


- Phillip Brooks (1835-1893), Episcopal Bishop



Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.

- Peter Drucker (1909-2005)

Even with as well as the iTest Tournament of Champions is going (Round 3 begins tomorrow, check out some of the problems at www.theitest.com), it's strange to think that between The iTest in September and the Tournament of Champions in March that those will be the only math events the iTest will hold during the year.

Now that both of these events are up and running and have some momentum behind them, we're going to be focusing exclusively on branching out and creating some compelling competitive experiences beyond math. The iTest CS, our computer science competition, will be launching in full force in Spring 2008, and we'll be moving to pilot another competition probably later that year.

Additionally, over the next month, we're going to be kicking off a full-fledged capital campaign as we need to begin raising awareness of the iTest and raising the money we're going to need to take the organization to the next level.

We are partnering with GroundSpring.org on our fundraising site (which is viewable here) and hope to have some success attracting funds from private individuals, corporations, and foundations through this channel.

Nice to see Vandy blow away George Washington yesterday 77-44. On to the next round tomorrow, and if we can beat Washington State, then its back to the Sweet 16. Nice.

The iTest Tournament of Champions begins Monday. This is going to be a huge event. Check out www.theitest.com to see the printable bracket of the top 64 math students in the nation, who will be duking it out head-to-head until one National Champion remains standing.

That person will be walking away with $2,000 cash for his or her trouble. After all, battling your way through a group of students that will inevitably contain people who will change the planet, and coming out victorious and alone at the VERY TOP, is worth something, right?

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about. This is the very type of national raising-the-bar that the iTest was created to accomplish.

I thought I had a pretty strange day.

But this is one of the most bizarre stories I've ever seen. Easily.

Note the not-so-crappy template I'm using for this blog now (thanks Google! You're the best!)Also, the domain for this blog is now http://bradleymetrock.blogspot.com ... so update your Favorites! :)

Just wrapped up the 11-day travel fiesta by attending the Harvard-MIT Math Tournament here in Boston. It's extremely cold up here but the tournament was very well attended. I had a lot of opportunities to speak with various students and teachers about the iTest and spread the word, and the iTest logo and link were in the program as well. Very good event.

The iTest website will be undergoing some renovation over the next week or two as we get ready for the iTest Tournament of Champions. I'll post here when the website has been updated.

Time to rest up, relax a little bit, and head back to Nashville tomorrow morning.

Back in Nashville just for a moment...Lori and I watched one of our favorite shows on DVD (Law and Order: Special Victims Unit) and just rested, as both of us were up since the early morning hours this morning. Tomorrow, off to Beaufort.

"Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?"

- Steve Jobs...to John Sculley, in trying to convince him to leave PepsiCo and come work at Apple. Sculley was an innovator and a strong executive talent within Pepsi, and was on the so-called "fast track" at the company before being talked into leaving by Jobs.

Sculley was the one who conceived and implemented the famous "Pepsi Challenge" marketing piece, which allowed Pepsi to gain significant inroads against Coke in the early 80's.

Jobs talked Sculley into leaving and bringing his marketing instincts over to Apple, and not too soon after, Jobs was dismissed by Apple's Board of Directors and Sculley was handed the reins of the company. While Sculley did some great things (laid the groundwork for marketing Mac personal computers and actually coined the term "personal digital assistant" (PDA) ) he was generally outwitted by Bill Gates and Apple never really fulfilled its potential.

Of course, that's where Steve Jobs re-entered the picture in 1997, and Apple's been moving onward and upward ever since.

Anyway, I just find that famous Jobs quote to be pretty interesting when thinking about my generation's very explicit desire to "give back" something to the world. Social causes are among the top considerations in both Generation X and (especially) Generation Y's decision-making, from where they go to college to where they choose to work to where they choose to spend their money.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

HUMAN RESOURCES IS THE MOST IMPORTANT BUSINESS FUNCTION OF THE MODERN CORPORATION.

And with that being the case, maybe it's time more employers started winning the global war for talent by using that appeal to a higher calling that Jobs used in the quote above.

Lori and I celebrated our own Valentine's Day yesterday, as that was the only time we could get into Melting Pot (and also, as we found out later, I'd be leaving town Wednesday anyway). We had a great time until a huge table of wound-up 16 and 17-year-olds came in and sat in close proximity to us...again, and I know I've asked this before, are we really getting this old? Where we're casting aspersions on high schoolers just being a little loud, and just being normal?

Regardless, it was nice to celebrate our fifth Valentine's Day together since initially meeting in September of '02. Time is flying.

Out here in Tucson for the moment...nice warm weather. And no laptop power cord, which I left in Nashville. That's going to end this post a little quicker than I'd like. Later.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the last day of normalcy before an 11-day jaunt begins on Wednesday that will take me from Phoenix, to Tucson, back to Nashville for less than 24 hours, then to Beaufort, then to Boston, and back home again.

Everything is job related with the exception of flying to Boston for the Harvard-MIT annual math tournament, where the iTest will be sponsoring the event and I'll be meeting with various students and teachers throughout the weekend. This math tournament is one of the most prestigious tournaments, if not the most prestigious, on-site math competition in the United States. I'm definitely pleased that the iTest is a sponsor this year and we will likely be expanding our partnership with this event heading into next year.

None other than Matt Cybulsky sent me this clip of a true prodigy named Jennifer Lin playing some classical stuff in front of a large audience, but to really see what makes this girl stand out, you need to scroll about 2/3 of the way through the clip and see what she does to interact with the audience (and what famous audience member participates in her little stunt) ... very, very incredible. The girl is very self-aware about how she creates her art (listen to her speak somewhere around the middle of the clip) and it shows in her limitless range on the keys and ability to go from graceful, delicate tones to all-out displays of power and then back again. Hard to believe she's only 14 years old.

On another musical note, I caught some of American Idol while waiting for Lori to return from her short course tonight at Vandy and was amazed to see the show allow a 60-something man "audition" by singing a song to his late wife. It was a moment of rare dignity for a show known more for the way it destroys all dignity of various contestants during the audition process. It was jarring to see something of that worth inbetween "the female Taylor Hicks" (don't ask, or watch, for that matter) and "Sparkles" (again, a horrific experience that I would hate to pass along to anyone else who was fortunate enough to not see it).

Tomorrow, off to Birmingham. Now, off to bed.

10-song playlist on the ol' iPod for heading out of Phoenix tomorrow after a great meeting this morning:

John Mayer - Stop This Train
Angie Aparo - Green Into Gold
Black Lab - Dream In Color (one of my favorite songs, like, EVER)
A Perfect Circle - 3 Libras
Billy Joel - Famous Last Words
The Fray - All At Once
Ben Folds - Zak and Sara
White Stripes - Blue Orchid
Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
Guster - Either Way

Relaxing in a hotel room in downtown Phoenix...never been to this city before, but I was a huge fan from the moment I walked off the airplane. 70 degree weather in January is like the gift that keeps on giving...

Memo to MSNBC.com editors: I am not interested in Barbaro.
Another related memo to MSNBC.com editors: I will NEVER be interested in reading about Barbaro.
Another somewhat-related memo to MSNBC.com editors: There are more important news stories to report on than having a column about Barbaro's "legacy" headline your front page for the entire day. We have soldiers dying in Iraq, a red-hot political scene unfolding in Washington, and another awesome 24 episode to report about.

This is a horse. I don't want to see articles opining about the prospects of cloning Barbaro (also to be found on MSNBC.com right now) or anything else pertaining to ANY ANIMAL OF ANY TYPE LEAVING A "LEGACY" ... unbelievable.

To the reporter who actually wrote the column about Barbaro's "legacy," you just wasted hours you could've been reporting on the "legacy" of a soldier that got killed in Iraq today. Or the "legacy" of Hillary Rodham Clinton's failed campaign (oh wait, I'm a couple of years too early here) or the "legacy" of our current President ... or the "legacy" of Jessica Simpson's DirectTV commercials ("I don't know what that is, BUT I WANT IT) ... or not ...

MSNBC, you're generally pretty good about not including garbage on your front page, but not today. Maybe I should publish my own news page and write about the "legacy" of my sandwich for lunch, the "legacy" of my meeting with Qwest tomorrow morning, the "legacy" of my fairly tasty snack on Southwest airlines, the "legacy" of me ironing my shirt in preparation for tomorrow, the "legacy" of this soft bed I'm about to go to sleep on, and the "legacy" of a blog post gone horribly wrong.

Little did I know that the Prince video site I linked to in the last post would be shut down so quickly...here's another link. For those on MySpace, this may be easier to access from logging in and searching for "prince musicology tonight show" or something like that in the videos section.

Try this, for anyone else: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=1375854149

It's just too good to miss.

This week, its off to Arizona for a telecom meeting and then, toward the end of the week, heading with the iTest crew to Columbus, Georgia. Back on Sunday in time for the Super Bowl.

Quick post before heading off to bed...

I'm excited much, much more than usual about the Super Bowl halftime show, for one simple reason: Prince!

Most people don't know anything about Prince. Oh, they think they do, though: isn't he the sexual deviant that wrote "Purple Rain," oh and maybe that one other song that we heard all the time back in 1999?

Uh, no.

The only thing you need to know about Prince is that a) he's the greatest guitar player in mainstream music and b) one of the greatest songwriters alive. Oh, and let's not forget c) he has a classic, old-school thing for practicing and perfecting live performance.

I'd be really surprised if Prince doesn't perform "Musicology" as part of the halftime show, which is one of his most fun, energetic live songs he's written. If you haven't seen the video of him performing the song on the otherwise boring-as-hell Jay Leno show, watch it NOW: http://www.dailymotion.com/tag/prince+music/video/xvfwn_prince-musicology-live-at-jay-leno

Incredible performance. I mean, what can you say about this guy? He is awesome and is surrounded by all-stars on various other instruments. I love watching this video over and over again.

Yeah, usually the Super Bowl halftime show is an automatic turn of the channel ... but not this time. If you miss Prince, you'll be missing what I can guarantee will be an incredible performance by one of the best musicians alive.

Oh, and Bears 24, Colts 21, in overtime.

FORTUNE magazine has just released its 2007 list of Top 100 Employers. This list is always filled with large companies as well as smaller ones that you've never heard of, but all are deserving for the various approaches they take toward attracting and retaining talent.

#1 this year? Google.

They do some predictable things, like allow flexible working arrangements and hours. They do some unpredictable things, like have on-site oil changes and car washes, and even have 11 on-site gourmet cafeterias serving employees meals like fresh salmon, steak, etc. They offer employees $5,000 if they purchase a hybrid vehicle. They just do a lot of creative things within their HR structure.

Of course, they are extremely demanding as well. One problem with Google is a fascination (held by some top consulting firms too) with hiring only Stanford, MIT, or Harvard graduates, and even then, only those with a 3.7 GPA or above. Apparently, it was some big deal when they reduced their GPA requirement from 3.8 to 3.7 ... lol.

They will be denying themselves some top candidates as a result of this policy, but still, this minor error didn't keep them from ascending to the number 1 spot for 2007.

I believe the most important functional area of a company, in the 21st century, is human resources. And I don't think any other business unit is even close in long-term strategic importance to successful companies.

Thanks in large part to the internet, we've moved from a society where employees stayed at one company for entire careers, to one where employees stay at one company for just a few years before moving on. In response, successful HR people realize that retention is now not a reactive game, where employees who receive job offers elsewhere can then be one-upped by their current company and talked into staying, to a PROACTIVE game where companies must always be raising the bar in terms of perks, compensation, and creating a positive culture for success...or else, employees hit the road so fast that there isn't any time to react.

HR is a battle that successful companies have to win on a daily basis. Keeping star talent happy is simply what this economy requires companies to do. Whether its in a football stadium, or in a corporate boardroom, or in the Googleplex out in California, or wherever it is, talent is scarce...and its nice to see FORTUNE magazine acknowledge the companies that hit the HR home runs every year.

The vision for the iTest is to offer free, best-in-class subject tests to high school students across every major academic subject in order to augment the US educational system. If we ever hope to realize that vision, we're going to have to attract premiere talent across every subject area to help us deliver the product we're looking to create. As 2007 is the first year that the iTest is an employer of more people than just myself, I enjoy being challenged by the FORTUNE magazine's list of top employers to offer those giving up their time and energy working for the iTest the best conditions under which to perform as I possibly can.

The iTest staff will be traveling with Vestavia's math team to Columbus, Georgia, in a couple of weeks to observe a math tournament, as well as to have a "corporate retreat" to discuss goals for this year and how we're going to implement them. Additionally, we'll be discussing how best to handle the first true expansion of the iTest - the iTest CS. The iTest's computer science spinoff will go live, permanently, in the Spring of 2008 and we've got to be prepared.

Welcome to the year 2007.

Random thoughts and comments, since I don't have time to sit and write for long:

1) Titans had an excellent 2006 campaign and are the addition of a quality cornerback and defensive end away from a deep playoff run.
2) Boise State's victory over Oklahoma was unreal.
2a) Every year that Division 1-A college football fails to install a playoff system involving at least 8 teams, I will care less and less about it. This year, I haven't even watched more than one half of any game, and I don't see that changing except perhaps for the title game.
3) The Wii is a monstrous homer by Nintendo in its current battle with Sony and Microsoft, and should see some really creative software in the second wave of titles beginning this spring/summer.
4) Go see We Are Marshall.
5) Season 6 of "24" begins on January 14. I am definitely ready.
6) This may be the season I start watching The Apprentice again. YOU'RE FIRED
7) The holidays were great getting to visit family on both sides and having some time to relax as well.
8) Lori and I are contemplating buying a house here in Nashville before this time next year. That will be weird, but is an obvious next step.
9) "Continuum" by John Mayer was the best album released in 2006. Do yourself a favor and go buy it or download it.
10) 2007 predictions: the Chargers win the Super Bowl, the Mets win the World Series, and the economy will hit a snag later this year as the markets top out and the pockets of inflated housing prices collapse around the country.
11) Time to go, I'm tired.

Regardless of your thoughts on abortion - and my own are pretty negative - how can the human race ignore what fetal stem cells can mean in terms of treating and even curing some of our worst afflictions?

Stories like the one below, regardless of the outcome with this boy, get you thinking about what could be the greatest medical breakthrough of our time in fetal stem cells' potential to overcome debilitating diseases.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16159766/

No one really knows when a life begins, but we certainly know when a life ends ... good enough for me to wholeheartedly approve doing whatever it takes to help improve lives with fetal stem cells.

The Titans manhandled the Giants in the 4th quarter of last week's game to steal a victory, but its clear that the Titans are moving toward status as an elite NFL squad once again.

If you believe, like I do, that Peyton Manning simply is incapable of being clutch enough to win a Super Bowl, then its entirely possible that the Titans represent the best chance the AFC South has to win a Super Bowl over the next 5 years.

Jacksonville's got a good team, but this year has introduced a new problem to their franchise: Jack Del Rio sucks. The Jaguars are probably the most schizophrenic team in the NFL this year, going from incredible powerhouse against one opponent to pushover the next week. Matt Jones hasn't appeared healthy all year, but he strangely continues to be the focal point of the team's passing offense. David Garrard plays well, and doesn't turn the ball over, but the Jags still continue to lose close games. When you consider the additional fact that all of this represents a big step backward from the direction the team was headed prior to this year, Del Rio may be gone after this year (as well as Leftwich) and the franchise may be at another crossroad.

I don't even need to address that other AFC South franchise...you know, the one that didn't draft VY or Reggie Bush...and I refuse to dirty up my blog by even mentioning their name.

Anyone who has even half a clue about the NFL and has seen any of the Titans highlights or play over the past few weeks has seen some truly impressive stuff from both Vince Young and Pac Man Jones, the two guys who are quickly getting positioned in both the local and national media as being the dual cornerstones of the franchise. I've been telling everyone who would listen that Pac Man, for as many off-the-field problems as he's had, is undeniably one of the top 5 most explosive players in the NFL ... and possibly at the top of that list. He has literally forced Jeff Fisher to insert him into the offense to get him touches, even though this is probably the last thing that Fisher would typically do, based on watching him for years. He (Fisher) would much rather Pac be fresh for his defensive role at cornerback, but Jones is simply too big of a playmaker. Its really a pretty interesting situation that's evolved in that regard.

Vince Young, on the other hand, has already become a local sensation and has completely changed the complexion of the offense in just 8 short weeks since he's become the starter. He has almost as much impact on the Titans offense, as just a single player, as Peyton Manning does on his offense. You take out Peyton, you've got a completely different team. Same story for VY.

The scenario of Floyd Reese being asked to leave the team after the end of the season, with Fisher staying on and receiving more authority over personnel matters, has really gathered steam locally over the past week and a half. I hope this rumor turns out to be true. Jeff Fisher, much like Vince Young, simply has "it" (whatever "it" is) that enables him to elevate those around him to another level. He's simply one of the top coaches in pro football. Floyd Reese, on the other hand, is a very forgettable executive who has made as many bad decisions as good during his Titans tenure. (Neither Reese nor Fisher were responsible for the selection of VY...that would be Bud Adams, the owner, who made that call.) Fisher is a pillar of the local community and a true Nashville icon...while Reese is basically a complete unknown to anyone else except the most devoted NFL followers. Its not a difficult decision to make, given that Fisher and Reese have clashed more and more over personnel decisions this year than ever before, and it appears like one of them needs to go.

Very good day today: a major company to be named later will be the 2007 iTest's "title sponsor," meaning they will receive top billing on our various marketing materials, website, etc...effectively becoming a key partner in the continued growth of the organization.

I had an opportunity today to discuss the iTest as a capable recruiting tool for reaching the best and brightest across the country with this company's senior VP of talent management. This particular company has got a very sophisticated HR strategy - a strategy we're now a part of.

I'll name the company later, but the important part is that we've again achieved success in the fundraising arena. The iTest has taken a major step forward today.

And now, the first in what will be a hopefully infrequent series of posts that I'd like to call the GOOTUBE HALL OF SHAME:

Picard's Song

Just think about someone sitting there and creating this. If you can.

Tomorrow's Veteran's Day (or at least the corporate holiday equivalent) so I am up late, listening to music, perusing this fine internet we've got, reviewing the day's email (particularly regarding the iTest, as we inch toward closing out the contest year by December 1), and blogging.

Tomorrow, Lori and I head out to Gatlinburg to visit with a couple of college friends of ours while staying at a chalet up there. That'll be a fun diversion for the weekend before heading back on Sunday to see the Titans get back on their winning ways against a difficult Ravens team.

Check this article out. Someone in New York City has started making cubes out of GARBAGE. Yep...goes around picking up trash just right off the street, and sells cubes of it for $100 apiece. Check the part where the guy discusses the importance of packaging...obviously a critical piece of insight there. There is not one single human being on the planet unaffected by corporate marketing; not one individual who is immune from the carefully crafted messages of modern commercialism that are unescapable through the multitude of mass media channels.

Obviously, this is incredible, groundbreaking innovation to do something this radical. But often, its incremental innovation that wins, and not the earth-shattering, mind-blowing stuff like this "garbage cube" story. Think about the jump from the regular iPod to the video iPod, for example. Big step for Apple that kept profits rolling in as they began to slow. Or, at my particular current place of employment, someone had the bright idea to, all of a sudden, start including an updated number of personal vacation hours accrued on the weekly payroll stub. Sounds simple, but really wasn't...but was just the type of incremental innovative step that adds to the company's cultural fabric itself. I could go on and on with other examples.

The basic premise that incremental innovation rules the day over radical innovation, because you just can't wait for lightning to strike, extends well to our personal lives as well. We can't sit there and wait for change ... we have to force the issue where necessary. That one difficult first couple of hours you stop smoking, that unflinchingly difficult first step in the right direction, is the way out...and leads to another couple of hours, another couple of days, another couple of months, another successful story. Obviously, the smoking example could be exchanged for many other scenarios. Just like one incremental innovation in business, the medical realm, the legal realm, or anywhere else ... on top of another ... on top of another, and another, and another ... leads to a successful, best-in-class venture over the long-term.

Who are the innovators out there?

Steve Jobs. Easy one.

Barack O'bama. Any man with a book called "The Audacity of Hope" within him immediately commands my attention.

U2. Innovated so many times that I've lost count, from raising countless new guitar players on The Edge's delay-pedal signature sound to innovating the way that current bands embrace the coexistence of political causes with the realities and necessity of mass marketing.

Warren Buffett. Continues to shape the way we look at investing. A financial rock in the shifty seas of daytrading, get-rich-quick schemes, and other bad ideas.

Kay Tipton. Created a national champion caliber math team program in arguably the most difficult state to do so, Alabama, from scratch. That's innovation.

Bill Gates. Incredibly dynamic leader often mistaken for just another computer nerd, this guy rejected Harvard for a world-changing journey called Microsoft. Imagine telling your parents "no, I don't think I'm going to the best school in the country ... I think I'd rather create a computer in my garage." Right...

My dad. Suffered through the hardships of a family business, then literally started giving the money earned from the sale of the business back to the world through advocating media literacy education and very-public crusades against business practices that harm our culture. I don't know anyone who's done more for the state of Alabama than he has in just a few short years. Many innovations here that were components of the overall outcome.

Hillary Clinton. Definitely an innovator in the way she redefined the role of the first lady from bystander to activist during her husband's tenure. How quickly we forget why she got where she is ... innovation.

Peter Ross. My boss while I spent some time in Beaufort, this man took control of a ship full of holes and almost immediately began using portfolio-leading technology to get occupancy up and instill a sense of mission to the project. Unafraid to incite change and challenge established company norms, he woke me up and got my attention, as well as my respect.

Tiger Woods. This guy is simply amazing. A black man dominating a white man's game, Tiger Woods COMPLETELY rewrote the rules of an entire professional sport while turning himself into his own brand which he continues to successfully use to market anything from Accenture to his own EA video game.

Jim Bradford. Took over as Dean of Vandy's Owen Grad School of Management right as I started business school there, and successfully crafted a magazine-rank-ascending strategy of slanting the school toward the obvious strength of health care management as well as the school's finance program. An incremental innovation, to be sure, but a good one that worked and has paved the way for more innovations later on.

Vince Young. Stared down a USC team full of future NFL players and beat them nearly singlehandedly, and then joined a Titans squad where his ascension into the starting role completely and noticeably changed the entire culture of the team from a downtrodden one into an upbeat, uptempo one. In the world of the NFL, for one guy to have such a profound impact is really amazing. Definitely an innovator.

Al Gore. Held the nation's hand in being the first to successfully articulate the imminent danger of global warming to the masses. But no, didn't invent the internet (THAT joke is DEFINITELY getting too old).

Bill Frist. Changed the way we view our elected officials by becoming the first real Congressional subject matter expert in the field of modern medicine. We have so many career politicians infesting Washington DC that the introduction of a guy who's actually gone and succeeded at another field first is quite refreshing. Another example of an innovator like this would be John Edwards, as well as Arnold Schwarzanegger.

Shigeru Miyamoto. The famous creator of Mario taught the world that video games don't have to be visceral to be captivating. Mario, Zelda, Metroid, you name it, this guy invented those franchises that drove Nintendo to be the only of the big three video game groups that was profitable in FY 06, and continues to spark the inventive culture that pervades Nintendo today.

Weird Al Yankovic. Practically invented an entire genre of music himself by crafting humorous reimaginings of popular songs and gaining popularity in his own right in the process. From infusing his music with polka to his fiendishly clever wordplays that carry his creative song concepts, this guy is as big of an innovator as anyone else in music right now.

I could go on, but why? You get the idea. Innovators are true to themselves, not deviating even slightly from their strategy just because there's skepticism greeting them at every turn. Once they've made up their mind to achieve an outcome, its pretty much over.

Anyway, off to Gatlinburg. Until next time.

I would be completely fine not hearing another word from John Kerry for the rest of my life. What a weak, pathetic man.

As bad as things have gone during Bush's tenure, does anyone really believe things would be better, on the whole, under John Kerry? I definitely don't, even though I've gone on record in this space saying that Bush is right on track to be considered the worst US President in history.

For me, as little attention as I try to pay to politics really boils down to a desire to have strong individuals running our government. Hillary Clinton has a fundamental, repeatedly-demonstrated inability to connect with lower and middle class Americans, but at least she has some backbone, so she might be OK if she softened her image a little bit and showed anything but unbridled ambition for power once in a while. The real candidate with promise within the Democrats is Barack Obama, who is a very impressive speaker who is quick on his feet in speaking and highly culturally literate. The prospect of having an African-American President to me is highly appealing, regardless of party, because I think such an event would provide a lot of positive momentum to effect change. The strongest candidate on the Republican side is our own Bill Frist, who has shown compassion in his office and is himself a strong speaker who talks with conviction.

I won't be voting in next Tuesday's widely-publicized brawl between Harold Ford Jr. and Bob Corker - I've already decided to express my sentiments with complete apathy toward the entire proceeding. Harold Ford Jr. is a member of a family known for corruption, and is tough to take seriously. Bob Corker hasn't done enough to separate himself from the President's failed domestic policies as well as hasn't expressed clearly enough his stance on how to get out of Iraq, but is a self-made entrepreneur who has made a fortune in the business world. (Note to Democrats: that is a huge plus, not a negative. Please note accordingly. The government could use someone who knows how to run a show without swimming in red ink. Thanks.)

And while I suppose the assumption would be that a man that rich would be out of touch, John Kerry comes and reminds us that self-made wealth is not a requirement to not understand basic American culture and have some semblance of respect for other humans different than you, much less our own armed forces.

Whatever. This entire election is a gargantuan waste of time. Until either party demonstrates they have the right goals in mind and the ability to build the bi-partisan consensus required to achieve those goals, I want no part of it. Someone come along and please prove me wrong...the sooner, the better.

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Bradley Metrock, President (bradley@ahsimc.com)

iTest crowns 2006 national champion, announces plans for expansion

(Nashville, TN) - The 2006 iTest culminated today in the crowning of a new national champion math team. "Quagga" cruised to victory in posting a brilliant 97.5 score out of a possible 100 points, besting runner-up "BARK" by a full 9 points.

Quagga team captain Shobhit Vishnoi attends the Hammond Academy in Columbia, South Carolina. Other team members include Yannik Pitcan (Lake Howell High School, Florida), Arnav Tripathy (East Chapel Hill High School, North Carolina), Rui Yang (Miami Palmetto Senior High School, Florida), and Alex Zhai (University Laboratory High School, Illinois).

These team members overcame geographical distances by working together using the internet. For the first time, iTest competitors had access to a variety of collaborative tools built into the competition's own webpage, which all students could utilize in delegating test questions and tracking team progress.

"The iTest combines the collaborative power of the internet with the educational power of team-based problem solving to create unprecedented opportunity for today's students," remarked iTest President and founder Bradley Metrock. "As a result, the iTest has attracted a diverse group of the nation's brightest young intellects to learn more mathematics and build their team-based social skills."

The organization's mission is to augment the United States educational system through competition by providing free contests across a variety of high school subjects; the iTest piloted a computer science competition earlier this year, and plans another pilot of a languages competition for release sometime in 2008.

"As the iTest expands into other subjects, a community where young people can network and meet lifelong friends will be created," noted iTest Chief Operations Officer Dave Cowart. "It's our job to use the social networking phenomenon to positively impact the lifelong education of our nation's youth."

The iTest, a product of parent non-profit organization AHSIMC, is the largest online mathematics competition and the fastest-growing academic competition in America. The iTest is made available for free to all students, educators, and schools thanks to generous contributions by corporate sponsors and charitable interests. High school students also have free access to monthly "challenge" problems, as well as a national ranking system for 'mathletes' to promote competition and continued math education throughout the school year.

###

The iTest announced earlier tonight the impending launch of the iTest Ranking System and the Tournament of Champions to be held in March.

Think "March Madness" ... the top 64 students, as determined by a composite index score based on the iTest, the AMC 12, and the USAMTS (both others are national competitions) will square off in one-on-one seeded matches until one winner remains.

Over the course of the year, the rankings of students based on these indicators will be kept on the iTest website, and virtual trophies will be awarded to students (to be shown on their iTest page profiles) over the course of the year.

It's an exciting new program for the iTest as its both a great way to keep students engaged in mathematics education over the course of the year, as well as a nice opportunity to hold a unique style of competition to bookend the year with iTest events. A competition like this, held online and designed to pit the best of the best against one another, doesn't exist outside of this new Tournament of Champions. It should be a lot of fun to design and implement in time for March '07.

"Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood."

- H L Mencken


Tomorrow marks the last day of the Tri-Command project review, so I'll be leaving Beaufort tomorrow afternoon. I leave with mixed emotions, for a lot of reasons which I could never dive into here.

The good thing, though, is that I am happy to announce that Peter Ross has joined the iTest as the newest member of the iTest Advisory Board. The first member that I've added to the Board in well over a year, Peter brings a wealth of business experience and personal contacts into the fold that should really help us continue to grow.

Off to bed ... later.

Einstein's three rules of work:

1) From clutter, find simplicity.
2) From discord, find harmony.
3) From difficulty, find opportunity.


Headed to Beaufort this week for a Project Review, which is one of my favorite work-related experiences. Its an opportunity to get in on the strategic planning and long-range problem solving that goes on at a military project, which is highly interesting and something I succeeded at while living at the project for six months.

Then its off to Cincinnati to visit Lori's friend Sarah for a weekend.

Then the weekend after that, Hetesh and Evan both head up here to visit.

Busy as usual...and then November begins with the nationwide awards announcement for the 2006 iTest, and the long-range planning for the next competition year begins on the IT side and the marketing side as well.

I guess I'll sleep next year.

The Titans are finally starting Vince Young tomorrow against Dallas, replacing the truly-horrid Kerry Collins at QB. Great move...let the Vince Young era begin!

About a week or two ago, the iTest Board of Directors had a long discussion about whether we should continue to run our student logo-creation contest, our side event where students create logos for the next year's competition from which we select a winner to actually use. I was on the side of continuing to do the contest for the long-term, but am beginning to change my mind.

While the nature of the iTest and the way we implement new features every year - in essence, almost making it an entirely new event every year, to some extent - could call for changing the logo every year, I am beginning to think it may be more powerful and more effective to be able to have a unique visual identifier that stays constant throughout the life of the iTest as an organization.

I got to thinking about this today when I was in Academy Sports and Outdoors with Lori, looking around for some exercise equipment, when I noticed the Nike "swoosh" and got started thinking about what simple symbol the iTest might be able to use like that. I think the "i" in iTest, perhaps with the dot colored like in our current 2006 logo, might be a good fit...

Time to play some Halo. Later.