Saturday

This looks like it could be the perfect early Fall day. Bright sunshine. Cool , but comfortable temperatures.

I moved my potted annuals and indoor plants (that had spent the Summer outdoors) to the garage for the night based on a frost warning in the weather forecast. It was a good move as the car windows were lightly iced-over this morning. The good news is that the front was a one-night-stand as we're supposed to be back in the 80's most of the next week. But I have some work to do get those indoor plants prepared for the return to the house.

The critics who labeled ND as racist for the firing of Ty Willingham three years ago are thumping their chests with the dismal early results of this year's Charlie Weis-led Irish football team. I said at the time that it was a results, not race, driven action by ND. I do think that the ND administration mistakenly thought at the time that they had their football savior in Urban Meyer within their grasp, and that they needed to have the head coaching position open for him to accept. Their information on that account was obviously in error, and Weis was definitely their second choice. Whatever. Willingham was never going to be the answer in South Bend.

I don't understand why Weis is so under-talented at this point in his tenure. This is his third recruiting class ( although I will give him a pass on the group that would now be juniors since he was late starting for that class). He may need to steal a coach from Iowa. Ferenz consistently constructs an offensive line that can compete with anyone. With ND not having scored an offensive TD in it's first two games, I'm venturing a guess that the O-line is looking for volunteers.

The availability of personal information on-line is getting even more wide-spread. I saw an article the other day where Facebook pages are now (or soon will be) searchable by Google and Yahoo. The theory here is economics. More hits yield more dollars for advertisers. (Apparently, there is a security election that each Facebook user can choose which will disable the general search access for his/her page.) I suppose that these pages have already been available to the accomplished hacker, but this new policy makes those not-for-public-consumption pics and comments there for the world to see. Check your archives.

Similarly, electronic surveillance of everyone's activities just keeps becoming more widespread. All of those fancy gadgets from The Italian Job and Enemy of the State are being used by private investigators, suspicious lovers, and, of course, the divorce attorneys, for leverage in whatever the dispute. A story in today's NYT mentioned a device selling for $49 that can be loaded on another's computer that will automatically send a picture every 15 seconds of what is showing on the screen of the bugged computer. Ouch! Now that's cheatn'.

Before anyone spends the time, effort or dollars on any such investigation of me and my pal Roy, let me save you the trouble. We're guilty. I have no money. And Roy's prenuptial agreement is ironclad.

Get out and enjoy the day. Good luck in Ames. To both sides.

BCOT