Congratulations Green Bay Packers on your victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV. You overcame a lot of adversity and doubt to make it all the way, and you out-performed a very challenging team. I am glad to have been behind you all season (well, all seasons since I was old enough to know you). Thanks for a great season, and I’ll see you for many more. Again, congratulations Super Bowl XLV Champion Green Bay Packers!
Based on a t-shirt that I own, I thought I’d make my announcement in a similar fashion. After not riding for over a month, I’m back on the bike.
My intention was to get out for an easy-pace ride for about 30 minutes. I definitely got 30 minutes in, but there wasn’t anything easy-paced about this ride after the first 5 minutes. Although I started off slow, it felt so good that instead of maintaining a slow speed, I decided to kick it up a notch. Perhaps I did that a bit too soon.
The Wisconsin Historical Society again produced its list of Wisconsin’s top 10 stories of the year. Although not all of it is good news, I’m glad that the Historical Society noted the accomplishments of Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers (item 3). It also noted the breakthrough on stem cell research (item 2) and the accomplishments of the UW Badgers men’s basketball team (item 6).
This is the official Brian Shah Web site. I consider myself an average joe that likes to write, especially about things that move me. Whether any of it makes sense or not is a different story.
This site is a way for me to share information about mysefl, my thoughts and my experiences, and my pictures. I intend to share updates on my life (as unexciting as it is) and issues that I care about.
I also invite others to share their comments on my posts, but I require that you to keep it clean and non-defamatory. Personal attackes are not permitted. I want to maintain a safe haven for others to share their ideas, even if I disagree. That’s what democracy and free speech are all about.
The Wisconsin Historical Society compiled the top ten stories from the state in 2005. Amazingly, several of these events happened outside of Wisconsin, but had influences from the Badger State.
I found the following site through my friend Jason’s web site. It’s great for those math lovers that just love messing with numbers (I’m an occasional math geek myself, sometimes). It has many interesting articles and an RSS feed.
Last week, Wisconsin had its share of press. First, the Governor’s budget included a provision that mandated Internet-media vendors to collect taxes for purchases downloaded by the State’s residents (you know my position on this). Second, the killer of a federal judge’s husband and mother killed himself… it turns out that he was a resident of West Allis (a suburb of Milwaukee and one place I worked as an intern). Third, the State is considering allowing farmers to shoot feral cats (house cats that have adapted to live in the wilderness). It’s been a busy week.
So to add insult to injury, yesterday a 45-year-old man opened fire on churchgoers in Brookfield, Wisconsin (an affluent suburb west of Milwaukee). This tragedy resulted in four innocent bystanders that died on the scene and three that died after arriving at the hospital, four seriously injured people, and the man’s suicide. Investigators are still trying to determine what motive the man had to shoot others. I personally abhor such an act, and hope this does not become some kind of twisted trend.
I don’t know what’s next, but it looks like March in Wisconsin is off to a very bizarre start.
iPod tax articles:
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article: Doyle proposes sales tax on Internet downloads
CNN: Wis. legislators to fight ‘iPod tax’
West Allis suicide/Chicago judge’s family slaying articles:
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article: Check the back for answers
Reuters news article: Chicago Judge Case May Be Tied to Wisconsin Suicide
Hunting feral cats articles:
The Capital Times article: Humane Society rips feral cat hunt
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article: Cat-hunt plan has promoter in cross hairs
MSNBC/Reuters article: Open season on cats in Wisconsin?
Brookfield murder/suicide articles:
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article: IT’S HUMAN CARNAGE
MSNBC/The Associated Press article: No motive found in church service shootings
For those of you who live in southern Wisconsin, you know that we’re finally receiving some much needed snow. This gives me an excuse to make my regular annual gripe about drivers who seem to forget how to drive around the white stuff. As I drove along the expressway to work this morning, I was stuck behind a slow driver, despite the fact that there was no precipitation and the expressway was clear. I couldn’t go around because the other two lanes were moving slower (we were traveling at 40 miles per hour; the posted limit is 55). Finally, that driver moved out of the way, and I managed to safely get up to the speed limit. As Dave Barry says, “If you are not passing, GET OUT OF THE LEFT DAMN LANE (emphasis and language original).”
My drive home tonight was seriously slowed by the amount of snow we received during the day. Road crews were unable to keep up with the accumulation, which made driving conditions difficult. Although I managed to get the car up to 40 mph during on the expressway, traffic came to a standstill a couple of times. The city streets were worse, since the snow made for slippery driving. Even then, I was able to accelerate up to a fairly safe speed.
So we’re getting pounded with more snow tonight and tomorrow, and the weather forecasters tell us to expect up to ten inches of snow by the end of the winter storm. It’s not the beating that Indianapolis, Ohio, and Pennsylvania saw (19-34 inches), but it is still a lot of snow for one day. It makes me wonder how people will drive when we receive some real snow.
I’m not suggesting that people can drive at regular speeds in snow, because that’s just dangerous. But if roads are already cleared and well-traveled and there is no precipitation, it does not mean that you need to drive extremely slow. Driving in this weather requires adjusting for conditions (slowing down if the roads are sloppy) and allowing plenty of space between you and the vehicle in front of you. The important thing is to not be intimidated by the snow, but it is still important to be cautious.
I managed to make a few fixes to the site. One thing I’ve noticed is that the cascading style sheet (CSS) for the error page doesn’t work very well inside a folder. Hopefully no one will encounter this, but it’s difficult to avoid mistakes once in a while. I’ll keep working on a solution. Fortunately, the site passes the World Wide Web Consortium’s validation for both HTML and CSS, and most other items work so far.
One other thing I’ve noticed is that although you can see the validation symbols at the bottom of the pages in Microsoft Internet Explorer, you cannot see them in Mozilla Firefox. If you are having problems seeing them in Apple’s Safari (I don’t have a Mac so I can’t check this), please let me know.
I have a last-minute update to make, so please be patient as I continue to make minor changes.
It just dawned on me that I’ve lived in Madison for four years as of today. I haven’t really reflected much about it recently. I did write a soapbox article on living here after one year, but I haven’t written about living here since, other than in blogs. But in the past couple of years, I’ve changed jobs, tried things I hadn’t tried in years (like softball), took up a new hobby (Xbox), dedicated myself to playing more guitar, and overall just continued to grow up (if at all). In three days, I celebrate four years in state service. It’s been a roller-coaster ride for the last year, but so far things are going very well.
