Just getting back from Memphis after attending what will undoubtedly be the most boring bowl game of the year for most folks. If you are not a UCF fan or a MSU fan, you probably fell asleep by the third quarter. We had a group of ten though and managed to have a great time regardless of the score/play.

On the game
We knew going in that Kyle Israel was going to have to play well for us to be able to put it away. Turns out, that was highly prophetic. MSU played almost as poorly, but reigned it in when it mattered most. Congrats to Croom on their turn around this season. 10-3 was the final score, with MSU scoring a touchdown off an interception late in the 4th quarter. That's right. We spent 95% of the game tied at 3-3. Fascinating.

On Kyle's play
Kyle has had a pretty solid senior year. He's a great kid and a hell of a student athlete. I'm thankful for what he has done at UCF and I think he will make a fine ambassador for the program.

However...

This may have been one of the worst first half performances I've ever witnessed (I've already blocked the USF game from my memory). Kyle typically makes great decisions (60% completion rate prior to Saturday), but for whatever reason he tends to get overly excited when facing a 'name' opponent. Telegraphing his throws, missing open receivers all over, passing into tight coverage and over/under throwing balls. This kind of thing plagued us the majority of the game. Three interceptions, two of them being completely poor decisions and completely inexcusable. (That last one was just a great defensive play by MSU. I think he got hit right when he released and it was pretty tight coverage.) One dimensional play isn't going to win a bowl game.

Here's what MSU's Derek Pegues had to say about his interceptions after the game;

He just threw it right to me both times, and I was lucky to catch the ball.

My thoughts exactly.

If I were in GOL's shoes, I would have put in Greco for at least one series after that second interception just to mix it up and see what happens. On the other hand, Bowl games are rewards, and Kyle deserves to play his last game.. It's just... man... I guess the backup QB is always the most popular.

On Torres missing two FG's
He has been automatic all year. People are allowed a bad game. It's unfortunate that his happened to be Saturday night, but he's not to blame for this one. Plus, the momentum argument is simply to hypothetical for me. No doubt the misses hurt though.

On 24k
The SEC homers are trying to play it up as Kevin being shut down. Limited, sure, but If hanging 120 on one of the best rushing defenses in the country is being shutdown, especially with 9 in the box and zero concern for the passing game, then Kevin is truly one hell of a back (keep in mind, McFadden ran for 88 on MSU). I'm not sure what game they were watching but in mine I saw a running back get hit in the backfield and still get positive yardage more often than not. He had a fumble that from our vantage point looked like either a strip or a bad hand off, I couldn't tell but I'm sure the DVR will hold the answer. That many carries with no pass relief and its bound to happen. We also got Kevin involved a bit more in what little passing game we had. I hope we see a lot more of it next year.

On UCF's defense
Outstanding. It helped that MSU was having a terrible offensive game, but still some of the best pass rushing I've seen from the Knights. We still can't seem to handle mobile quarterbacks well, and I think MSU would have been better served giving Dixon a few more touches in the middle. He would have had a much bigger night.

When your offense gives up 4 turnovers, and it's still 3-3 late in the fourth, the defense has done its job. We should be even stronger next year.

On cowbells
Talk about over-hyped. They weren't banned cause they are loud (they really weren't), they're banned because they're f'n stupid. It would seem that MSU fans forget to yell and instead rely on what ultimately sounds like locusts. For weeks all we heard were these jokers talking about cowbells like they were some sort of magic. 55,000 of them and I was completely unimpressed. From the hype you'd have thought my ears would have been bleeding. Not that I'm disappointed, but I'll take a 100% steel constructed stadium any day of the week. Add 20,000 to the top of Brighthouse and it's going to be deadly.

And seriously. Cowbells for bulldogs? And yeah, I know the story about the cow wandering on to the field and beating Ole Miss 80 years ago, but that only makes it seem even more sad.

On MSU fans
Most of the folks we met were mighty fine, but man. The more some of those backwoods frat types drank on Beale, the more I realized how thankful I am not to live in Mississippi. President Eisenhower pushed for the highway system specifically so people there could leave. The smart ones did, the rest started breeding. Then again, Southern Miss fans have never really seemed to bad. Maybe there's just something in the water in Hattiesburg that saves them from Mississippi's burgeoning idiocracy. Either that, or I haven't experienced enough Southern Miss fans.

On Memphis
When we got off the plane, we weren't sure if we should adjust our clocks to central time or to 1988. The sweet smell of charcoal BBQ was immediate and welcomed though and the towns support for the Memphis Tigers was great to see.

I had been warned that Memphis is pretty ghetto. After living in not-so-nice areas of D.C, I didn't really think much of it. I should have. The city has a we'll-rob-your-ass-in-broad-day-light vibe to it. During the game, a couple people in our group had their hotel room broken into through the window and everything was taken. We went out to Silkie's and ran into a friend from DC (an MSU fan). They had some dude come flying into their table, and then somehow or another some girl hit someone they were with. It turned into a little huffy puff and they were looking to press charges. The bouncer told her that it was simply "the manner of the town" and the cops didn't seem to give a shit. Nice.

Basically, the downtown area looks like every last penny was spent on a two block area. The rest of the town looks like a pre-storm 9th ward. Evidently, the apathy towards crime and shit poor behavior is just as bad. It's sad to see a town with such strong history and culture completely accept their crime as simply, as the bouncer put it, the "manner of the town."

It's great to know that whoever wins C-USA is rewarded with such an awesome destination. I think next time we'll try staying in Nashville.

On Silkies...
The same bouncer told me that there were in fact goats there, but they were behind the tents and you couldn't get to them. I didn't see them, and therefore I do not believe that they exist. If any place wasn't worth the cover, it was this joint anyhow. Unless you're meeting someone there (like we were), don't bother.

The best bars seemed to be B.B. Kings and Pat O's. Both are chains, and both are in Orlando. That was really really disappointing. We did see an Elvis impersonator sporting a disgusting male camel toe at club 152 though. That's gotta be worth something. Just not $5 cover.

On Graceland...
Graceland was so fantastically awful and cheesy it's beyond words. The museum of jump suits is now one of my favorite places on Earth. The captions talk about how stylish they were for the time, but Kat accurately pointed out that no one else was wearing such things. They seemed to get more elaborate and eccentric with every pill Elvis popped and you can totally tell when the bedazzler was released.

I really don't mean to keep ripping on Mississippi, but I'd be neglectful if I didn't point out that the MSU fans seemed to be really really into it. It was hard to make it through the mansion with all of their photo taking. I'm pretty sure at least one of them is putting together some sort of Elvis scrapbook to sell on eBay in an attempt to pay for their trip. Sure was a classy place, eh bulldogs? Enjoy your new commemorative plate.

Trip Highlight
For me, it was the food. Ryan arranged for a get together at Central BBQ before the game. The ribs were pretty dang tasty and the pulled pork was top notch. We didn't get to Rendevous, but I'd certainly recommend Central BBQ. On Sunday, we went to Gus's for fried chicken. Probably the best I've ever had. Definitely worth the time if you find yourself in Memphis. Corky's was okay, but I enjoyed Central more.

Anyhow.. It was fun and I value the experience, warts and all. We'll see you again next year, Liberty Bowl ;)

Wow. What a great event. Gregg, Jason, and everyone else (update: larry!) who put in the time and effort to pull this thing off -- massive props.

Taste was packed. Not just packed, but standing room only packed, but in a not all that uncomfortable way. The presentations were of great quality and entertaining. There is a massive amount of talent around here, and it's a true joy to see everyone come out of the woodwork for something like this. Can't wait for the next one.

I gave a brief presentation on coworking, or as Chris Scott suggested, "cow orking", which I used for the title (and it still makes me giggle -- thanks chris!) It was sort of a local-centric warm up for Friday's blogOrlando local session track. I tried to show the co-working video with Brad/Chris/Tara talking it up, but couldn't get sound working (thats what I get for trying to be fancy). For those interested, here's a link to a Florida Creatives post with the embed of the video. Also, here is the direct link to the Coworking-Orlando google group.

Suggestions for future barcamps:

• Probably going to need a bigger venue ;) More space for side chats would be nice. Side room worked well, but there were a lot of us.
• More interactive presentations, less talk-at-you presentations. It's barcamp. Joke around, interact, ask questions of the speakers and from the audience. Heckle. If I had any complaint, it'd probably be that. I can only take so much powerpoint.
  
• Might want to break up the lightning talks/full on presentations and intermix them. Change the pace around to keep people active.

Overall though, a very successful first barcamp.

But wait, there's more! The week is not done yet.

Registration ends Monday at 10pm for blogOrlando. A bunch of great speakers from all over the country are coming here this week for an unconference Friday at Rollins College. It'll be a great time. I'll be leading a session on the local scene. Things I plan on discussing -- likemind, Florida Creatives, coworking, user groups, barcamp, local tech startups, community building/expanding, general Orlando/Central Florida/Middle Florida discussion. My buddy Alex Hillman will by flying down, which gives us a great opportunity to ask coworking related questions. I'd love it if you could join us :)

I've been tagged by Finke. Since everyone else is doing it, who am I to refuse?

Here's the history of it so far -- Me » Chris Finke » C.K. Sample » Jason Calacanis » Amanda Congdon » Michael Ambs » Rick Rey » Steve Woolf » Steve Garfield » Jeff Pulver.

Five Things You Don't Know About Me

#1. I have a dental implant. The doc's had to do a sinus bone graft, let that heal, then put in a titanium post, let that hell, then build a cap around it. Next up, boobs.
#2. I co-founded my first internet startup when I was 12. My brother, myself, and a couple of our friends took a 1 line BBS I ran out of my bedroom, got a loan from a bank, and added 3 more phone lines and some additional computer equipment. We grew it over the next 5 or so years into a small local ISP. We tried to hold onto our roots as a multiplayer gaming network / chat system for as long as we could, but ended up mainly selling dialup internet access. Eventually, everyone else had gone to college or taken positions elsewhere. I discovered girls, and we sold off the remaining assets. Online Illusions BBS (1993-1999ish), 407-722-5020. Word.
#3. I have way to strong of an affection for Morgan Freeman. I constantly argue with Gavin trying to convince him to let us name our servers after Freeman characters. I'm not sure why.
#4. I was very active in my college fraternity, so much so that I was named an "International Top Teke" in 2003. Up until our recent move, I was still involved as a Chapter Advisor at the University of Maryland chapter. LLT fo' sho'.
#5. I met my now fiance at a bar. Huh.. Didn't see that one coming... ;)

So, there are five things about me you probably didn't know. ;)

Gavin, Celly, Mike, Ryan Price, and Jason Alba at JibberJobber -- Tag, you're it.

Ryan Price just let me know of a Happy Hour at Dexters in downtown Orlando for the "Florida Creatives" group. It's on Monday, Dec 18th, 5:30-9pm. I doubt I'll stay until 9, but I'll certainly roll by for awhile. Especially now that I live like, 500 yards away ;)

More Information Here

I don't get to play games all that often.. but... Finally.

Like, seriously.

This should have happened a long time ago. Give this man a million dollars.

We intended to do it a long time ago, it's just been one of those things.. Do we write a flexible template engine? Or do we write about writing a flexible template engine on a blog that no one's reading?

Well, now, we have a flexible template engine, and people are reading.

So, really, there's no more excuse.

Follow along at home, leave your feedback, and be the first kid on the block to subscribe to the rss.

Exciting times are ahead.

Click here to Read the Emurse.com Blog

Now that it's the weekend and we have a bit of radio silence, that means we can fly through some changes.

We're working on a number of bug fixes, performance upgrades, usability enhancements and a handful of the most requested features. Mainly polish type stuff at this point, but we might try to sneak in a couple of high flyers. Working on the promotional materials for the resume reviews, and really really hoping to be satisfied with our initial hResume support for Chris and Alex as well.

If I've been slow commenting on the blog posts and responding to e-mails, just remember that it's for a good cause -- It's coding time. ;)

Holy Crap.

I woke up to a phone call from Gavin (he's three hours ahead these days) telling me that Solution Watch posted a review of Emurse. For where we are at right now in our development cycle, I'm not sure if it could have been anymore positive.

Next thing you know, we're listed on del.icio.us popular, posted to Download Squad (and not by our own meddling.. for those that don't know, Gavin and I have a connection to the Blogsmith, the software that runs them), Lifehack, and countless personal blogs

We had a fairly ugly bug that snuck its way in, we think via a copy and paste mishap. It's fixed now. Basically, existing resumes would download not as the resume, but as the resume type... Yeah, I know, lame, and its our bad. It's behind us now, and our test cases are that much more improved ;)

The numbers are looking great though, and I think we have a winner on our hands. The 1000% jump in the rate of signup's today isn't nearly impressive to me as the close to 1000% jump in the number of people who came back to emurse from the past to update their resume. This to me signals that people are getting it, which is fantastic.

We are continuing to mature the platform as well. We're introducing elements of hResume per Chris Messina, as well as Brian Oberkirch, suggestion. We're really excited about it -- hopefully we can help push the standard some. There are a few aspects to it that don't really mesh with what we have going on. We're trying to keep things really open ended, which makes the microformat tough to fully support. We'll get the important fields online for sure though, and that will generate a ton of new hResumes right away. Exciting stuff.

As always, we welcome your thoughts, and help us continue to spread the word! :)