Pac-10, Week 2, KYL

Tonight, we lost to Stanford 6-0. It was very upsetting that our offense wasn’t going anywhere. I was really moping for a long time after the game, feeling like a terrible coach.

Why we lost:

• Our defensive line wasn’t putting any pressure
• Our corners weren’t containing the outside run
• We had a few bad snaps (Center-to-QB)
• Our offensive line wasn’t blocking like they should; if we tried to pass, our QB was hurried way too many times
• As a whole, we can’t tackle when it counts
• Our backfield isn’t efficient; it’s not fast enough to cause misdirection
• A few guys showed up late, so that brought a lot of the team vibe down
• Some of our running backs don’t hold the football securely enough; one of them tried to pitch it when he was going down – why!?!
• Linebackers don’t come up for the tackle; in other words, they wait for the runner to get to them, not the other way around

Ideas:

• Do some hitting drills. Javy suggested I do “Gladiator”. (I won’t explain it in detail, but it requires everybody to hit hard.)
• Tell the corners to take three steps forward off the snap and angle themselves to make the runner choose (if it goes their way).
• Get the center and QB to take a bunch of snaps every practice (maybe before or staying after). Perhaps 25-50.
• Get the QB to be quick and smooth with his handoffs (or fakes) to the runners.
• Get the runners to know which side of the QB their running on. Inside/outside handoff?
• Apparently, we need to review where the holes are, and numbers the running backs correspond to.
• Get our defensive to have signals, where linemen and/or linebackers would shift on certain signals (which I’d yell from the sidelines).
• Perhaps I should consider a passing offense? Well, except against UCLA. If I were to pass against them, keep away from those corners, or overload one side. Um, yeah, I don’t know.

I feel bad for anyone reading this, especially if you’re wondering “what’s going on?” But, I don’t know any coaches that would be writing like this in a blog format, that’s for sure. For the record, I’m doing this to keep me sane and to put my thoughts out there, in case a knowledgable coach wants to help me out a bit. Thanks for reading – I’ve got another long day tomorrow.

Wells Fargo checking issues

I just took care of some Wells Fargo checking account discrepancies. It was a long battle, but it looks like I’ll be okay.

Story

I keep my checkbook reconciled with MyCheckbook. It all started almost two weeks ago Saturday night. My register said I had money available – the ATM machine didn’t. Fine, I won’t touch it. I deposited my check, and waited for the funds to be available.

Monday night rolls around, and I leave class wanting food. (I usually don’t get a chance to eat before.) I tried my card, and it got rejected. My balance was not just in the hole – it was way in the hole! At that point, I incurred at least $333 in overdraft fees and charges! What!?!

Fast forward to today. I didn’t touch my account at all until today, when I got my paycheck. I took part of my lunch break at work to go to the Wells Fargo branch closeby. I was directed to the branch manager, in which after pleading my case, removed the bulk of the charges so I was only in the hole $13. I didn’t care – I must’ve made a mistake somewhere, but nothing that justified so many charges like that, right?

He never did explain why those charges all came up, but I didn’t care at that point. I was just glad he reversed them. 

Lesson

Personally, I’m not going to use my card so often anymore. I’m going to withdraw money instead, then use cash whenever possible. That way, I’ll have less to reconcile.

Also, keep your checking account balance as high as possible. If you go in the hole, you’ll have to jump through some hoops to fix things. An example would be that part of the check I deposited today will be on hold for two business days because I was in the hole. Basically, I can’t use that money until it clears. (I was able to take $80 from my paycheck, so I wouldn’t be messed up with all that.)

I’m going to rethink about my using MyCheckbook. Am I using it correctly? I’ll probably go through the manual later. I hope you learned from me!

Simple bibliography creation with RapidCite

“RapidCite is one of those sites I wish I had available for me when I was in college. Being an English major, I had to write so many papers I lost track. So what is RapidCite? The site offers an extremely simply way of creating properly formatted works cited pages without ever having to look at a handbook or memorizing all the rules. All you have to do is put in the proper information like the name of the book or publication, name of the author, edition number, and so on, and RapidCite will create a Microsoft Word file out of the information and send it to you. The service supports MLA, APA, and Chicago formats. Best of all, the service is completely free, no catch.”

(Golf clap: TipMonkies)

Story of the Year concert

I just came back from the Story of the Year concert. It was at the Avalon Theatre in Hollywood. (I forgot my camera in my car, unfortunately.) In any case, they were awesome! Oh yeah, and their new album that’s coming out on October 11th? Those songs are really good. I wasn’t let down tonight, that’s all I’m saying. I hate the pit, though. Lots of dumb people that kick and swing their elbows more than mosh around, that’s for sure. Anyway, I’m off to shower, then straight to bed. Phew!

Successful troubleshooting

I just came from a customer’s house. I clean installed Windows on their system and returned it last week. She uses a Logitech Cordless Elite Duo via USB, but I guess the BIOS was set to halt if there was a keyboard error. (I’m not sure why it’s been working for the past year and 7 months, though.) I left to research it, then to return tonight. I changed the setting not to worry about any keyboard errors (All, but keyboard) and zip past the boot screen. Once I was in Windows, the keyboard was just fine and I was able to install the Logitech drivers. She’s happy, I’m happy, and she shouldn’t mess up her system like her son did. ;)