Geohashing

Okay, so some people have probably heard of Geocaching - where GPS nerds get a set of coordinates off the Internet and go find it / them and make a little game out of it. But I doubt anyone has heard of Geohashing yet, since I think it was invented earlier this week when the folks at the totally nerdy web comic XKCD posted this comic:
Essentially, the date is combined with the Dow Jones Industrial Average's opening value, put through an md5 hash algorithm, split into two numbers, converted from hexadecimal to decimal, and then added to the end of any set of whole number (no decimals) latitude and longitude coordinates.

Still with me? Okay, good. Since I am going to Grand Junction this weekend, I put Saturday's date (2008-05-24) into the map lookup and click on Grand Junction. The results of the hash must have been 0.126648 and 0.547534, which, when added to the nearest latitude and longitude of N39 and W108 result in the coordinate location 39.126648°, -108.547534° or N39°7'35.93", W108°32'51.11", which turns out to be about one-half a mile north of H Road on 27-1/4 Road, just West of the airport, Walker Field. Seems like it should be pretty easy to get to.

Here is the group participation part of this extremely nerdy game: there is a "meeting" every Saturday at 4:00 p.m. at the randomly determined location in each graticule (area within the integer lat, lon lines) where, if anyone shows up, you have a little party. Or something. Apparently, Denver has a relatively active Graticule (four, actually, but you can read about that here), so you might actually see someone there. GJ, on the other hand, does not, so its gonna be lonely if I actually make it there on Saturday at 4 o'clock.

Not sure if this little concept has any staying power once the novelty wears off, but if you just need a random place to meet someone within a certain geographic area, it should work pretty well, as long as the place is accessible, that is. Since, by the very nature of this thing, it is random, the coordinates might end up in a lake, the ocean, military base, cliff, inaccessible mountain, etc. If that happens, I suppose you can either wait for a better location or just put in another date and see what happens.

Sorry, that was too nerdy not to share! Check it out!

Sonny Lubick Day!

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter announced today that this Friday, 08 February 2008, will be declared "Sonny Lubick Day" in honor of the former head football coach of my alma mater, Colorado State University.

The official ceremony will take place Friday afternoon in the governor's office at the State Capitol in Denver.

Sonny is one heck of a good guy, and he deserves every bit of the $259,000 that CSU still owes him. His teams were a force to be reckoned with on the field and I don't know if there was ever a nicer, more considerate person in his position. I'm glad that the athletic directors chose a former Ram, Steve Fairchild, to succeed Sonny, and I can only hope that he will carry on his legacy.

Rockies Sweep! World Series Baby!

Rockies 6, Diamondbacks 4.
The Colorado Rockies have swept the National League Championship Series and move onto the World Series!

Yeah, baby!!!!

(I should not have stayed up this late to listen to the end of the game!)

"Un-Freaking-Beleavable" -- Go Rockies!

Yay! The Colorado Rockies just won the sudden-death tie-breaker game with the San Diego Padres, 9 to 8, to clench the National League Wildcard spot in the post-season playoffs. This was only the seventh one-game playoff in the history of Major League Baseball.

It took the Rockies 13 innings, 10 pitchers, and four hours and forty minutes to beat the Padres in a genuinely wild game. Now they travel to Philadelphia to take on the Phillies on Wednesday in the first round of the NL playoffs. Tonight's game was the 14th win of the last 15 games, so you know the Rockies are playing some really good baseball, and with an MVP candidate and a Rookie of the Year candidate on the roster, I hope they keep it up!

Even if they get swept in Philly, this has been the winningest season in team history, and this season saw a club record eleven-game winning streak just a couple of weeks ago. This is/was a great year for baseball in Colorado.

And this great finish the the regular season just a few short months after people were calling for the Rockies' manager's head on a platter. Oh, what a difference a few wins makes.

The last time the Rockies won the NL Wildcard was twelve years ago, today. Just for a little perspective, that was 1995, the same year that OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder. I think the state of Colorado needs a win!

Rockies rally to beat Padres in NL wildcard thriller - Guardian Unlimited Sport

Rockies' hard work rewarded big-time - The Official Site of The Colorado Rockies

VCU Beats Duke (Just for Katie)

Yesterday, in the only upset of the first round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, Virginia Commonwealth beat Duke 79-77.

As the Wall Street Journal Reports, VCU's efforts were lead by 6' 2", 165 pound sophmore Eric Maynor:

...Mr. Maynor scored eight of his team's final 11 points, including a jumper with 1.8 seconds left, to beat the Blue Devils, 79-77, in the only significant upset of the tournament's opening-day slate of 16 first-round games. He finished with 22 points and eight assists.

Mr. Maynor's clinching basket came after Duke tied the game on a stunningly uncontested layup with 10.3 seconds left. He declined to call a timeout to set up that final shot...

You can watch the video on YouTube.

UNC vs E. Kentucky

So for the first time ever, and thanks to Facebook, I filled out my Men's College Basketball Tournament bracket this morning. I have no idea how this works, but I do know that if I had picked anyone but UNC to win, I might get injured.

Here's their first round preview:

Video painstakingly scheisted from Facebook.