Thank you President Crow

From The Crawfords in AZ Blog Photos

First off, I would have rather been at ODU tonight with my family watching the girls be Ball Kids for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. From what I hear, they had a lot of fun. On top of that #5 seed ODU beat #4 seed UVA in overtime - Dawn called me at the end and it was CRAZY!!!! GO LADY MONARCHS!!!!

Instead, I had invited my roommate to go to the NIT game with me tonight. As I was getting ready to buy tickets yesterday, the ticket office gets a memo that President Crow had bought 3,500 tickets to be given to faculty and staff on a first come, first serve basis. Well, I was first in line putting away my money and pulling out my ASU Sun Card to prove I was a staff member. Thanks for the tickets President Crow.

So I walked over to the game from work for the 6pm tip and my roommate met me in our seat before the game. The Florida Gators were the fourth seed in our bracket (we were the first seed) and opened up with a barrage of offense against the Sun Devils and put us in a hole quickly. The Devils crawled back and made a great game of it until they had two real close calls in a row go against them at a pivotal point in the game where they had just taken the lead. The mentally broke down and it was over quickly. So the two-time National Champion Florida Gators get to go to Madison Square Gardens for the NIT Semi-finals. So the Sun Devils end a good year with a loss, but have a lot to look forward to next year. Should be fun

Like the picture my new mobile phone can make. I will save the story as to why I have a new cell phone for later. Yes, those are fans with court-side seating across the court.

Biking the canals

From The Crawfords in AZ Blog Photos

Today I turned south and took a nice long bike ride along some of the canals in Tempe, Chandler, Mesa, and Gilbert. One of the nice things about this area is that they cities here have built multi-use trails along the canal system that distributes water to the various cities. Mesa has done a good job of installing lights and rest areas along their multi-use path. However Gilbert is trying to catch up, they are currently installing more paved paths and they are also adding cross-walk signals to make crossing major road easier. Tempe is about to start a new project to improve their section.

These rides are always fun due to all of the sights you see. It is really night to see the back side of various neighborhoods, schools, parks, golf courses, horse corrals, junk yards, power plants, and industrial complexes. If we end up moving to Chandler or Gilbert, I think my daily biking commute will take me along the Western Canal so I can avoid having to deal with traffic. Once you get into Tempe, you have 165 miles of bike paths to choose from, so I am finding getting around to be easy.

I missed going to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament at ODU. My girls were ball kids for the first two games and then got to watch ODU beat Liberty.

Forgot to mention yesterday that as I was heading to the Ren Fest yesterday, one of the buttes was yellow. A couple of weeks ago a lot of the buttes were green because of how wet is has been this winter. Now all of the wildflowers are blooming, and this one was covered in yellow flowers.

Today’s picture is from the Octoillo Power Station and Star Power Research Center. It is along my daily commute to ASU. These panels rotate to always face the sun during the day.

Arizona Renaissance Festival

From The Crawfords in AZ Blog Photos

Out here, there is a really big renaissance festival that lasts several weeks and today I went to it with my roommate and his fiance. We started the day off right by seeing a jousting competition. They had three nights and a pirate competing in several feats of skill culminating in a joust. We also took in several performances including The Lost Boys, a rock and roll band from 1599, and Tartantic, a celtic rock band. I was amazed to see how pirates, fairies, and vikings have made their way in as a staple at the renaissance festival. There was a lot more to do, but that will have to wait till next year when everyone is out here. Did I mention that it was in the upper 80s today.

On the way home, we had dinner at Organ Stop Pizza. This is not just a pizza joint, but an experience. They have a Mighty Wurlitzer organ with 6000 pipes. The guy who plays it plays a ton of music and we heard a Star Wars medley, a Sound of Music medley, and a Phantom of the Opera medley among a lot of other music. This is another place that I will be bringing the family to when they get here.

I have also put a couple more pictures in the AZ Fun album.

ASU beats ASU, 64 to 53

From The Crawfords in AZ Blog Photos

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day and I figured I was just going to have a nice quiet evening at home. Then I get a text message from my roommate that he and his fiance were going out and invited me to tag along. We ended up at Churchill’s which is a british pub and we had a great time - some corn beef and cabbage, some Guinness, and some Bailey’s Irish Cream Cheesecake. One of the nice things about Arizona is that restaurants and malls are smoke free. So this pub was just like the ones in the UK (they are smoke free too). It was great to go out and not come back reeking of smoke.

I decided to go see the opening round of the NIT where #1 ASU was playing #8 Alabama State University (the other ASU). I get to the stadium and I had a great seat, fourth row from the court. Then I realize that it is right next to the Alabama State band - not good. So I avoided going to my seat to early. When I do, I discover that there are only 7 seats in the row - I have seat 8. I got moved to the third row very near center court (much better). The first 16 minutes was an old fashion clinic and beat down. Then the Alabama State coach came out of shell shock, he really looked lost in the first half, and came alive and got his team going. The Sun Devils never trailed and now we get to play Southern Illinois on Thursday at ASU.

At the exact same time the game let out, the baseball game across the street let out too. It was #1 ranked ASU hosting #2 University of Arizona, so it was obviously a big game. So big that they had the Fox Sports Net Arizona feed playing in the Wells Fargo Arena before the NIT game started. BTW, ASU won that one 6-5.

Lazy weekend

From The Crawfords in AZ Blog Photos

I started off the weekend by heading out to Mill Avenue. Think of Virginia Beach’s Town Center except that it is fully developed, larger, and has one of the biggest party schools next door. This being the last weekend of spring break there were not as many people here as normal, so that made for a “quieter” evening. Since it was I on my own for the evening, I had a chance to explore some of the shops and restaurants. I plan on visiting again soon. I was at Z’Tejas having dinner and watching the basketball games when I saw the stunning events in Atlanta with the tornado. The places damaged (The mall that CNN is in & Olympic Park) were places we visited this past summer.

I started Saturday by watching more basketball. I was able to see the ODU Lady Monarchs win over the CAA’s streaming video site. I then headed over to Tempe Marketplace, a new outdoor mall that opened back in the fall and later to Mesa Riverview, which is still building and adding tenets.

Sunday was another lazy day of watching basketball, reading, and doing laundry. I did not go for a ride to day since it is too cold and windy. Well the high was only 62 or so and that is cold - and it was windy. Since Comcast was broadcasting the ODU game, there was not a video stream this time, so I had to rely on ESPN’s web site and Dawn’s IMs to keep up with the game. I am glad they won their 17th straight conference championship. Too bad ASU did not make the Men’s Tourney, I am hoping that they will host a NIT game - I might try to go. While channel flipping, I got to see Tiger tear up the links and make a great final putt to win.

BTW, the blue heron is from last week’s bike ride.

Random stuff

From The Crawfords in AZ Blog Photos

When I was describing the instructor stations in the classrooms at ASU, I forgot to mention that the desk can also be raised or lowered depending on the height of the instructor. This can be done by pushing a button.

I started my car for the first time in ten days this evening. I have not driven since I filled up the car with gas. The price has jumped up over ten cents since then. BTW, I did not drive the car, I just ran it for a few minutes to keep the battery happy.

Today I biked to work for the first time. Takes about the same amount of time as it would to drive it. Having a locker in the Student Recreation Complex makes things easier. Hopefully I can get thing organized enough to workout before work. It appears that I have managed to drop almost 15 pounds since heading out here. I have not been this close to 210 pounds this millennium. BTW, my goal is to get to between 185 and 190. Having a Fresh & Easy market next door also means that I am eating healthier.

Hey Ravingbagpiper, here is your chance to tear a hole in the universe since I am responding to your comment first in the commencement of my comment-commenting. Dude, Lost has spun my head around again. But the Executive Producers have promised that it will not have a Snow Globe ending, but a real one (look up the St. Elsewhere Finale - I was perplexed when I saw the end of that one). Second, I think I manage to never say out loud “butt” when referring to a “butte”, but I sure did think it. BTW, “butte” rhymes with “puke”.

Hey Michael, Fresh & Easy is committed to helping the environment and they want to reward people for having a clean fuel vehicle. The spaces are right up front next to the handicapped spaces. They do not charge for bags, but they encourage you to bring your own. BTW, IKEA charges you a nickel for every bag, but they also encourage you to purchase and use their heavy duty reusable bag.

Hey Chris, I would be the uncle that would be causing trouble and having my niece involved too. Just ask the Dawn & the girls about me being a mischievous.

What a fine MEC this is

From The Crawfords in AZ Blog Photos

As you may have noticed, I do not post many details about what I do at ASU. I tend to err on the side of caution because I often am not sure what is “public information” and what is “internal”. Last thing I want to hear about is someone saying that they heard ASU is doing X and that my blog is the source of the information. Universities like ASU pay big bucks to public affairs professionals to announce stuff.

However, I will say that this week I have been having fun supporting the Microcomputers in Education Conference (MEC). This is a conference that alt^I has been part of and is aimed at the K-12 crowd from all over AZ. Since this event has been going on for well over 20 years and there is a public web site, I have no problem talking about it. My role has been simple, provide technical support for the presenters. I am a member of a team made up of other alt^I folks and excellent student workers who did not leave campus for spring break. I have to tell you that the technology in these classrooms surpasses anything I saw at ODU. The rooms have a fantastic instructor station with everything you could think of: computer, document camera, DVD player, wireless microphones, plug-in for your laptop, Smart Symposium board (think your computer screen and John Madden - draw a little here and BOOM!), and the ability to control the lights and to project onto two screens with two different devices. All of this was touch screen controlled, easy to use on the first attempt, and had plenty of desk space for the instructor to put “stuff”. Then there are the student desks - in some cases, the desks have a panel the can be opened and out pops a Dell or Macbook for the student to use. Geeks can check out the classroom configuration page for all of the details. The rooms we are using are on the lower level of the building, and it is hard to describe how open things still are (I will take some pictures around campus one day soon).

I hope you enjoyed seeing the palm tree above. I have noticed that we have “standard” cell towers when they are near places that already have a bunch of stuff sticking up such as light and power poles. However, when the cell towers are off by themselves, they are disguised to match the palm trees. I wonder what camouflaged cell towers in Virginia Beach would look like?