Vandy wins yet I still feel like I got screwed.

Vandy is 1-3 now with a 38-9 victory over TSU. They played very well yesterday but that should be expected from a 1AA team.

It was a rainy start but I was still exited to see the game cause the TSU band was going to play at halftime. Well due to field conditions they played form the far endzone from where I was seated. They sounded good but part of seeing this bad is how they move and act.

So we where robbed. Denied our chance to see on of the best bands in the country.

Oh well Vandy won so I guess it wasn't a total loss.

If you wanna hang out you've got to take her out

I got to get my hands on some of this



Product Website link.

Getting Your Pirate on...

"Tis a fine way t’be speakin’, and if ye’ disagree I may make ye’ walk the ol’ plank and send ye’ ta’ ol’ Davy Jones’ Locker!"

Arrr, today Talk like a Pirate Day.



Ahoy, har is a link t' a pirate speak translator

"The Physical Manifestation of your Piratude"

Pictures for the Vandy Football Game.

Vanderbilt was unable to pull off the victory after a failed Field goal at the end of the game. We lost 21-19. This maybe a another dismal season of almost victories. We should have beat Alabama last week and we needed to beat Arkansas this week. So now with out 0-3 season beginning we shall see where this goes. Quarterback Chris Nixon looked good. As a sophomore I think he will be a good quality quarterback in the future.

Here are some pictures and a some crappy video taken from my awesome season ticket seats:


Pregame picture from my seat.


A Vanderbilt offensive play sometime in the second quarter.


Arkansas second touchdown taken with my Cell Phone Camera


Chris Nixon's Rushing touchdown in the third quarter. Taken with my digital camera


A big play for Vanderbilt but I don't remember when I took it. Taken with my digital camera

Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner to Speak at Vanderbilt Today

Today The Vanderbilt Discovery Lecture series starts with 2002 Nobel Prize winner Professor Sydney Brenner speaking on the next 100 years in Biology at 4PM (CST) in 208 Light Hall.

Professor Brenner shared to 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on "discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death". He also discovered messenger RNA and proved the triplet code with Francis Crick. The triplet code is the normal version of the genetic code in which a sequence of three nucleotides codes for the synthesis of a specific amino acid. He also worked at the Cavendish laboratory at Cambridge University where 27 other Nobel laureates have worked including James Watson and Francis Crick who discovered the DNA double helix structure. He also established the use of the round worm C. Elegans as a model organism for the investigation of animal development.

This is free and open to the public and I urge anyone interested to attend but if you cannot make it the Vanderbilt Website will Webcast it starting at 310pm(CST). I will be there and will post notes on the lecture and a link to the archived webcast.

Update: Vanderbilt has posted the speech online win WMA and Real Audio format. (just over an hour long)

Write up in the Vanderbilt Medical Center Reporter

Holy Crap??

I think these speak for themselves:



For Boys:



And for Girls:



For 49.95 you can get some for you kids. I think the hat makes it. I wonder if there are eye holes in it?

When I Grow Up.

I was asked today by a co-worker what I wanted to be when I grew up. After thinking for a few minutes I could not remember if I ever had any ambitions to be anything. So I went in to the story about how I got to where I am today.


In 1992, as a junior in high school I wanted to be a fighter pilot in the Navy. My dad was a Navy veteran and had lots and lots of stories that he told me about things he had seen and done. I was always fascinated with airplanes and flying and to follow my dad’s footsteps I decided to try and enlist in the Navy. This was also during the first Gulf War and I was worried that there may be a draft. My plan was to join and decide where I wanted to go instead of getting drafted and handed a gun to fight. The draft never happened but that’s a different story altogether.


One day the navy recruiters stopped by my high school in Nebraska and gave a talk to all of us people who did well on our ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test. I scored highly and was pretty much qualified for most any military job. I first asked what where my chances of being a pilot. They told me I could not for 2 reasons. One, I am 6’2” and two, I wear glasses. So that was out.


Later that summer I decided I would go ahead and take a physical, at a recruiter’s strong suggestion, to see if I could get in to what they called Delayed Entry. I could enlist in-between my Junior and Senior years of high school and guarantee me a spot in the school I wanted right after my High School graduation. I was taken to Denver, Colorado to the Navy Recruiting place and given a military physical. I passed so the next thing I needed to do was decide where I would go to school and what I wanted to learn. First they asked if I wanted to be a Navy Seal. I said no way. Too much danger. Second they asked if I wanted to take the Nuclear Engineer test. I said sure since Physics and Chemistry was one of my stronger points in high school. I didn’t pass that test. My recruiter later told me I missed it by 2 points. Not sure I believe him. After that they asked me what I wanted to do. I called my dad and after a long talk he told me that if I was going to do this that I needed to make sure I did a job I could do after I got out. The recruiter suggested being a Corpsman. The Navy’s hospital people. I asked if I would see any combat as one of those since I knew the Marines got their corpsman from the Navy. He said most likely not but maybe. So I said no. Next I asked if there was a job I could do that would be scientific in nature. He showed me a job description of what they called an Aerographer mate. These guys were the Meterologists/Oceangraphers of the navy. He said I would be going to school at the Naval Air Station in Chicago, Illinois (Great Lakes Naval Training Base) and most likely be stationed on an aircraft carrier. Sounded cool so I enlisted, swore in and went back home to finish my Senior year in high school.


After making this decision I was excited. I had planned to do my 4 years of service and then try to get a job either with the National Weather service or at the Hurricane Center in Coral Gables, Fl. That was all well and good until I got sick in December (92) with later was diagnosed as Ulcerative Colitis. A very painful version of Irritable Bowl Syndrome. The Navy Doctors decided that I would not be a good candidate as a recruit. I received my Medical Discharge letter just prior to my graduation that May. That kind of screwed me. I had not taken my ACT or SAT and I had not even applied to any colleges. I missed most all of the deadlines by then and didn’t know where to go.


My dad was a Methodist preacher back then and one day he received a letter from a small college in Tennessee called Martin Methodist College. It was offering Methodist church members all over the country a tuition paid scholarship, one per state. My dad and I filled out all the paper work and sent it off. Surprisingly enough I got the one for the State on Nebraska. That August my dad drove me from Pawnee City, Nebraska to Pulaski, Tennessee through the Mississippi River flood of 1993.


Once in school I had to pick a major. My first choice was to be an Athletic Trainer. The school had told me that they would have a program set up after I finished all my 2 year prerequisite classes. Well a year into it I found out that the program had been scrapped. So now what? I thought about Aeronautical Engineering. Too much math. Next was Medical School. I thought about that for maybe 10 minutes and said no freaking way. Too much dedication. Back then Martin Methodist was in the process of switching from a 2 year school to a 4 year school. At the end of my second year I decided that I needed to get out of there and I transferred to Columbia State Community College to continue taking classes till I figured out what I wanted to do. That was in 1995.


That year I decided to take some more science classes and I also took a EMT Basic class, which was 2 semesters. I figured I should get a job skill that would get me through college since I didn’t have a scholarship or money from the parents (dad was a preacher supporting a family of 4 on a preachers salary and my mom was sick). I took a job with an ambulance company in Columbia and ended up dropping out of school due to financial and emotional problems I was having with the girl I was living with. I was very young and stupid back then. But again that’s a whole different story.


A year later I moved to Nashville and started working for a private ambulance service in town doing convalescent runs. We did lots of dialysis patients and nursing home runs. I really didn’t like this since there was not really much excitement. I thought about trying to be a Fireman or going to school to finish my Paramedic Certification and working with the Fire Department as a Paramedic. These thoughts all ended one Friday afternoon in May of 1997. I had a really bad accident on the way to refuel my ambulance prior to getting off work. I was not hurt but my partner was pinned in the ambulance and later needed to get a lot of glass out of his arm. Two other cars where involved in this accident. Everyone survived with minor injuries. It happened on Church and 18th ave and made the news that night and the front page of the local news section in the Tennessean the following Saturday. You may remember that if you lived in Nashville then.


After that the ambulance company fired me and I got another job with a different ambulance service in town but was not allowed to drive. I applied for a job at Vanderbilt and started as what they call a Care Partner. Basically it is a Nurse Tech, or Nurses Bitch, type job. I worked on an Orthopedic/Urology post surgical floor. So I did a lot of helping people get out of bed, feeding, dressing changes and helped the Physical Therapist with walking patients. I really hated this job because it was a low paying, high workload and high stress job. I kept my job cause I got accepted to MTSU and they where willing to work around my school schedule. I basically could pick my hours. Plus Vanderbilt had a tuition reimbursement program.


I spent 3 and a half years at MTSU. I first wanted to get in to nursing school. I did one semester of that and had an epiphany on vacation in Destin Florida. I thought to my self, “What the fuck am I doing? All I will be doing is basically the same job I do now but with more responsibility and not much more in pay”. That next Monday I went and changed my major to Biology.


I finished my Bachelor’s degree requirement and received my BS in Biology with a Chemistry minor in Dec of 2001. I applied for a bunch of jobs that spring and was turned down for most all of them. I was trying to apply for a job I thought I would be qualified for.


A friend of mine that I used to work with at the ambulance service was working at Vanderbilt as an EEG (Electroencephalogram) tech. They are the ones that administer the brain wave tests on patients that have seizure disorders. It was a very interesting job. I got to see all kinds of seizures. We did EEG’s on all types of patients, even the neonatal babies. I was always scared of them. A guy of my stature handling babies that fit in the palm of my hand was nerve racking. I did that job for a year and one day I got an email from a researcher a Vanderbilt who got my resume the year before and asked if I wanted a research job. I said yes.


Now, 3 years later, I am working at Vanderbilt in a research lab doing very important things and enjoying my job. I do plan on going to graduate school soon. When I was in my last year at MTSU I was asked to be an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant for the Chemistry Department. Along with a Graduate Teaching assistant we taught freshman level chemistry labs. It was during that time I realized that I wanted to be a teacher. A college level teacher. All it took was one student’s “I understand” light bulb go off. Only took me 7 years to figure out what I want to do. Now I'm on that path.


My future? Graduate school.


So that my winding path to the present day. Interesting how a simple question about what you wanted to be when you grew up can remind us of our path. In my experience most people’s childhood aspirations are not what most people are doing in adulthood.

A Human Face of a Tragedy.

Kenneth M. McBrayer. Died Septemeber 11th 2001 at the World Trade Center at the age of 49.



Who was he? A husband, a friend, a son who was tragicly taken on that Tuesday morning. He worked for Sandler O'Neill and Partners.

I did not know this man but he impacted many lives.

Remembered as an excellent high school student, an outstanding Naval Academy graduate and a fine man.

Robert M. Cason, former teacher

I dated Ken while he was at USNA and I a student at the University of Maryland. He was still settling into the military culture when I knew him-so much of what he wrote and talked about reflected that ambivalence. Yet, I knew he would become a good officer because he cared about people. I believe that my relationship with him had an impact on my own military career. I pray for his family and hope that they find solace in memories shared by those who knew Ken.

*** Posted by Peggy Chamberlain Wilmoth on 2005-08-18 ***

Before the planes hit that day, Kenneth M. McBrayer had already called his wife, Marsha, three times. That was the usual pace of their long-distance arrangement, with him living in New York City, and working at Sandler O'Neill & Partners, during the week, and then joining her on the weekends in Washington, where she is a third-year law student at George Washington University.

"We were just very close," she said. Even when they had lived in the same city, it was not uncommon for them to talk by phone about 10 times a day. She saved the last message he left her, and for the past seven months has been playing it over and over again: "Hey, babe. Just checking on you. Nothing special."

Mr. McBrayer, 49, grew up in Georgia, and was an accomplished student and athlete. "He was always a committed kid," said his father, Max McBrayer of Alpharetta, Ga. "Everything he did he tried to do it the best he could."

Married since 1990, Kenneth and Marsha thrived on making each other happy, she said. They were living in New York when she decided to go to law school. She told him she would go to Fordham University, to keep her close to home. "He said, `No, go to the best law programs,' " she recalled. "He was that kind of guy. He was happiest when something good happened to me."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on May 5, 2002.

Man, It's Friday.......

This is how I feel right now. This week has been messed up. If it could go wrong it did.




From Office Space.

Cause I'm A Rock-IT-man

OK since Nashville is talking posted a messed up video of a German country band singing Outkast's Hey ya I figured I would post this performance of William Shatner doing Elton John's Rocketman at the 1978 Sci-Fi Movie Awards. Believe me it is well worth viewing.

Mini Takes the States-- My 2 Days on the Trip

You may have noticed a bunch of Mini Coopers in Monday(8/27) and Tuesday(8/28). They were part of the Mini Takes the States Tour that left from Monterey, Ca on August 21st and ending in lakeview CT on September 24th. A friend of mine, who owns a Mini, asked if I wanted to go with him for the Nashville, TN to St. Louis and the St. Louis to Indianapolis, IN legs. I expected to see a bunch of cool tricked out Mini's and maybe talk to a few people. I didn't expect to have as much fun as I did. Here is the synopsis of what we did.

Tuesday 8AM. We arrived at Centennial Park to check in. We walked around looking at the Minis parked there. A group of them left and we jumped in and it turned out that we stayed with them for the rest of the trip. After driving up toward Clarksville, Tennessee the group leader got lost. I volunteered to lead the group up through Land Between the Lakes Park. I have spent a lot of time up that way.

We stopped for a few minutes at the Visitor Center. There I had a chance to meet some of the people in the trip. I met a girl, Minipenny, who had quit her job in San Francisco, Ca just to go on this trip. I also met two of the coolest people from Miami, FL,who came up for part of the tour. I met Sue from Houston, TX who left the trip after St. Louis. We took off form there and zipped up through Land Between the Lakes toward Metropolis. IL.

When we got to Metropolis IL we stopped off to see the huge Superman statue there.

We hung out there for a few hours and then stopped over at Harrah's Casino for lunch. The buffet was awesome and only cost 8 bucks. We took off form there and met a few more people at the Sonic, Becky from Charleston, SC and Rene from Texas. Cool people. The next part was the drive up to St. Louis.

After checking in to the hotel in St. Louis we got a phone call saying that were extra tickets to the Cardinals - Marlins baseball game at the new Busch Stadium. The Marlins won 9-1. I'm not sure who I have to thank for that but who ever it was, thank you sooo very much.


The next morning we stopped off at the Gateway Arch for a group picture of the people. A documentary crew that filmed the trip had us leave in a big line and they filmed us driving out of St. Louis. We passed maybe 3 or 4 cameras and a van was driving with us that had a camera mounted on the outside of it. I tried to yell and make myself noticeable but don't know if I will make the film.

We stopped off in Valdiala, IL at a big metal dragon that some guy built that breathed fire. When we got there there where probably 70 to 80 Mini's parked underneath it. I took some video but it does not show the impact it had in person.

I took this with my Camera Phone. We then left on our way to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. When we arrived there were about twice as many cars then left St. Louis. There must have been about 300 Mini's parked. They let us drive on the Track at the Speedway. That was incredible.

This was taken as we came off the straightaway. The track is about 2 miles long and when we were getting on the track the front of the line was just getting off. There were 2 miles of Mini's on the track.

I am really glad my friend Dave invited me. I want to say to all the people I met, even the one I forgot to mention there, on that trip that I am very glad I got to meet you guys and thanks for being so nice to a guy who doesn't own a mini. I hope the rest of your trip was as awesome as my two legs were.

Keep on Motoring.

Below is the link to the other Video I took and a link to all the pictures I took on the trip.

This is a Classic

From Jezebug's Photo Blog.

to buy this and related stuff