Back to the EPL though what is it? Well it's a football league in England that is comprised of the best of the best football clubs in the country. Even if you're not a huge football die-hard you've probably at least heard in passing of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal well the EPL is where they play. In trying to explanin it to my fellow Americans I've tried to get them to think of it as the NBA or MLB of football (okay I use soccer when talking to them) in that it is the place where the best football players in the world go to play...period. If you're the best basketball player in Croatia or baseball player in Japan you go to the NBA or MLB. If you're the best football player in the Ivory Coast, you go to the EPL. For some reason this analogy confuses them which confused me until I thought about it more today. It occurred to me that this analogy doesn't really work for Americans because the idea that America isn't the best at something in sports isn't something we're used to. 

Football vs. soccer? Let's get one thing straight in the EPL they play football. It's fast, it's hard, it's intense, and it's the most exciting and competitive that you'll ever see the sport played, for many matches that includes the World Cup.  The fans are as intense as any in the world and I love listening to a whole stadium full of football fans singing to rally their club.  Aside from the traditions though the sport is exciting, anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't seen a topflight match it's just that simple. I think the uninterrupted flow (stoppage time is something else my American sports fans struggle to understand) and scarcity of goals make them much more spectacular when they come. It's like diamonds they're devalued quickly without the scarcity. When you see a goal in a match with two topflight teams and the best players in the world you know you've seen something special.

Man United. Yeah I'm a bit of a Manchester United supporter which is actually pretty weird for me because normally I don't tend to root for the dominant team in a sport.  I don't root for the Yankees and I don't root for the Lakers.  I guess some of my ManU loyalty comes from being a Beckham fan back in World Cup 2004 the rest comes from growing up in America's Manchester and so having some kind of (okay probably manufactured) connection to Manchester, UK. Plus when ManU is at their best it's everything I love about the game, slick plays, great passes, impossible saves, and spectacular goals.  Of course like all sports when they're at their worst it's $$, $$, $$, to many foreign players?, to many foreign owners?, how much for a beer?! and the EGOS. Honestly though find me a sport that couldn't lay claim to those same gripes, but we show up to cheer on the home side and all those other things make for good water cooler chat when they aren't on the field.

The Americans. As a result of the World Cup this year I'm also following Everton and Fulham clubs closely. Tim Howard, goalie for the US Men's National Team plays for Everton and Clint Dempsey plays for Fulham. Of course I try to support the MLS as I can and I absolutely agree that in order for the US to compete internationally we need a domestic league that compete with the likes of the EPL or the German Bundesliga. I think we're a ways form that being a reality and the jury may still have a foot out the door on the matter of whether the MLS is going to be the domestic league to achieve that success. 

How. So how to watch? Well that's a good question ESPN is going to be carrying more games this season as a result of the World Cup success and hopefully that will raise awareness of things here in the US.  If you get Fox Soccer Channel they carry at least two or three games a weekend (most games are Saturday or Sunday morning EDT). If you're nuts like me for $14 a month you can get access to foxsoccer.tv and get near HD quality streams of basically every game played. 

The season started with Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs) vs. Manchester City and the expectations are crazy high for Man City this season (largely because the spent truckloads of $$$) and the match ended in a 0-0 draw but the Spurs had some amazing chances all game and Man City's keeper Joe Hart is to be commended to ensuring the Spurs didn't convert. As many said, one of the better 0-0 games you could have. I then watched Blackburn v. Everton and Tim Howard give up an early gift goal when he dropped a ball inside the 20' mark of the match which ended 1-0. About the 75' mark Fulham decided to put Dempsey on the pitch as a sub and I flipped over to that match to watch it end in a 0-0 draw as well.  Looking forward to two of the big boys with Liverpool facing Arsenal! Beyond that looking forward to a great season beyond and trying to watch as many matches live as I can! 

Piece wise the set has a TON of tiny tiny little angle pieces, 1x1 1x2 flat bricks, etc. which in my opinion kicked the difficulty of the build up a bit. Also if you notice the payload bay doors are 36 individual 1 brick wide angle pieces. Bottom line I'm very pleased with the set so far. I will build out the ET and SRBs over the course of the rest of the weekend. Take a look at the pics of the orbiter!!

First Impressions. Just looking at the height of the box I was very satisfied with the overall size of the set. Once I dug in and laid out all the bags it became clear that this is quite possibly the most ambitious LEGO build I've ever undertaken.  As if to underscore that point I pulled out the instruction booklet and flipped through to see that it is 79 pages. Then I found another booklet of the same size, surely they had given me two of them! NOPE! That was book 2 of 2 at another 79 pages!! GOOD TIMES!!  Slideshow of my unboxing pics below. Let the fun begin! :)

Today as an absolutely amazing day for U.S. Soccer and for the sport in general. I'm not sure I've ever watched 90 minutes of anything as intense as today's match against Algeria. I'll certainly admit that for a while there particularly as the USA had chance after chance well into the second half it looked bleak. I actually wondered why it was that luck had completely abandoned the U.S. side.

This is what makes this sport so great though and more intense than any other. It's the drama. It's the balls that hit the post and could go either way by mere milimeters. It's a clock that never stops for injuries, fouls or any other reason. It's the sport that demands those who dare to play it be in peak physical form, 90 minutes back and forth up and down the pitch, and it makes those who aren't pay dearly. It's cliche but everything hangs on a single goal. Everything focused on that one singular event and when it comes it's instant unbridled elation. 

Today after a tough haul for the USA in this World Cup the moment came. A goal. It counted. The USA has a W at the World Cup 2010! We're Alive! We WON THE GROUP! I love that it as Landon Donovan and I love that it was in stoppage time** no less!! If there is any doubt Donovan is a star it's erased immediately in that moment. I love that it is the names of U.S. players making the headlines tonight, as well it should be. For my part I immediately went and ordered a Donovan T-Shirt and had it overnighted. This is a time for all Americans to be proud and for all U.S. Soccer fans to take pride in our team who's moment has arrived. It's time for the world to take U.S. Soccer seriously. If they don't it's time for the USA to make them pay. 

USA! USA! USA!

OH and what's next?! We move into the tournament or so called "knockout phase." What's that? Oh just a little matter of a SINGLE ELIMINATION TOURNAMENT! That's right insert every sports cliche there is here: "win or go home," "rubber meets the road," there's no losers bracket, there's no next match two teams on a pitch for 90 minutes, when the final whistle sounds one will have won to play another day and one will have lost to go home. You thought things were intense so far HA! This is the World Cup ladies and gentlemen and it's only just begining!

USA vs. Gahanna 2:00pm Saturday June 24th ABC! BE THERE!

(*football - Sorry America but there are 6 billion other people on this planet and the all call it football not soccer.

**stoppage time - stoppage time is a period of time that gets added to the end of the half to make up for the time spent dealing with things like injuries, discipline, etc. usually anywhere from a minute to five.)

When I watched the pilot episode last night I did so without any prior knowledge about the plot or premise of the show. As I was watching bits and pieces were revealed and I found myself getting the chills with excitement, elation and anticipation of what was unfolding. So...NO SPOILERS read on. I will say however that if someone could reach inside my head and then sit down and design a premise and story specifically to appeal to me and bring me in hook line and sinker they probably wouldn't do a good as job as this show. I'm also very happy to see the story seems to be taking a "hard scifi" direction and that is something I've always wanted to see more of in scifi. I hope things stay that way moving forward and we avoid warp drive and little green men, they have their place sure but scifi that emphasizes the SCI over FI would be refreshing indeed. I realize I've been purposely vague but to hopefully build some excitement here's a brief synopsis of the first beat...

The show opens similar to scifi films like "Contact" and "Independence Day" it's quickly established that we're in an academic environment with some grad students well, being grad students, and a professor looking over some recent scans of the sky. His response of "what the hell?" Elicits the interest of the grad students. It appears the scan has captured an unknown object in a beyond earth orbit due to cross paths with Earth. A debate ensues about what the object might be. A probe? Nothing registered with that orbit. DOD? Maybe. One of the grad students then makes a compelling argument that the shape of the object is strikingly similar to that of a Russian Soyuz capsule. Only problem no Soyuz would be orbiting out that far. In any case they all agree it isn't likely to hit earth directly anyways but fly harmlessly by...

Alright so maybe you're not convinced by my unbridled childhood like excitement for "Pioneer One" or aren't a scifi fan but even if that's the case there's another reason why you'll want to pay attention to the future of this series. I've always been an avid TV fan and I've invested in several shows with a great deal of passion and fandom only to have them end up on the network chopping block after a season or eventually actually canceled. It's a storied list that includes such shows as "Chuck", "Futurama", and perhaps the most storied of them all "Firefly."  I've often felt like maybe I just like shows no one else wants to watch. Or maybe mainstream media just doesn't have the stomach for really cool scifi. Either way what if there was a better way? What if a great web series with production quality equal or approaching to that of mainstream TV shows, not unrealistic in 2010, could be produced and distributed online funded by the passionate fans who support it?

In fact "Pioneer One" is attempting to make this pipe dream a reality. The pilot episode was produced on a $6000 budget funded by a campaign for donations by fans (and an ad or two from the looks of it). The show is then being distributed on BitTorrent via the VODO network. Obviously this approach is not without its risks but I've always believed the potential advantages are many. For one there's no network exec loosing patience and deciding the mainstream audience isn't into hard scifi. Creators are in control of their story and vision and if the fans want them to keep telling it all those fans have to do is donate. Will it work? I'm not sure but based on what I saw in the pilot I sure hope so. If nothing else it is the first attempt and hopefully it will meet with success paving the way for future viability of the model.  Here's hoping!

More Information:

"Pioneer One" Website

"Pioneer One" Trailer

"Pioner One" Pilot Episode Download

To be sure it was a day of learning many new things. This was a vehicle that had never flown before it wasn't a Delta IV or a Shuttle this was something completely new. We learned about the importance of things like FTS aka "flight termination system." Not many people realize it but every rocket that lifts off from the cape (including the manned Shuttle) includes an explosives package so that in the event of a failure the Air Force can explode any errant rockets before the land in downtown Orlando. Then we waited for some boats that had wandered into the safety zone to make their way back out. SpaceX commentary was very tight-lipped and Twitter and the KSC scanner feeds served at primary information sources. We also learned that the cape needs a lot more bandwidth, the webcast struggled to keep up with demand.

Beyond learning lots of new things about a new vehicle I was struck in particular by two things. First, during an interview Elon Musk (founder Paypal, Tesla, SpaceX) mentioned in regards to what SpaceX was about to go and do that this was something "only a few countries have done." Think about that for a minute countries, until today launching things into orbit was something that had only been achieved by entire nations* as the result of several billion dollars, tens of thousands of people, and decades of R&D. Today SpaceX a privately held company with a 1000 or so employees and a couple hundred million dolars accomplished that same feat. Make no mistake it is not to be overlooked, a change is coming, there will be setbacks for sure but this was something different, the first hint that a different model may yet exist. A lesson, of today I think is that sure SpaceX is one company but it still takes a tremendous amount of coordination by several different groups and organizations to launch something into space and do it safely with success. Regardless of who's operating it's a feat which should never be taken for granted.

Lastly as I watched some pretty amazing views of the launch of this new vehicle I was struck by the level of emotion I experienced. I've been critical of commercial space and SpaceX's seemingly endless pushing back of the launch up to this point. I'll admit part of me I dunno felt like I was cheating on NASA and the Shuttle a bit be being emotional over a "commercial" launch, but why? Why can't some company do it, why does it have to be any less cool or momentous if they do? I won't say I'm all the way there but as I watched Falcon 9 rise from the pad and then the first stage separate and you could see the Earth behind I did tear up a bit. This surprised me, sure I'll tear up when the Shuttle launches but that's different that's a patriotic thing and the Shuttle is an old friend. This was something new, but I think perhaps that's the point... what struck me was the uniqueness of what I was seeing, the newness, this is something different and it heralds a great deal of potential.

In the end though I had the thought, "Lesson: space is cool no matter how we get there?" Perhaps that is the whole point of this new era we are supposedly moving towards, we have an emotional bond with the Shuttle because it is that old friend, it's all we've known, but going forward is it really about the vehicle? Perhaps the next chapter of spaceflight is not about how we get there, but where we go. The jury is still out but today the defense made a heck of an opening statement.

Once again Congratulations to SpaceX and their entire team and everyone who supported their launch today! 

* Yes I know Boeing/Lockheed/ULA but those are part of the military industrial complex supported by taxpayer defense dollars.

Primarily I interface with the site view one of several bookmarklets. The default "Read Later" simply saves something to your main Instapaper queue. The one I just discovered and wanted to talk about today is "Instapaper Text" it creates a stripped down text-only (with relevant images) version of the current page. This is something that you can access other ways (via the iPhone/iPad apps for example) but it is a handy way to quickly get a distraction free version of the page your looking at right in the browser and I find these versions FAR more readable and even for that matter printable.

What you end up with is this...

Vs. 

"It belongs in a museum!" -Dr. Indiana Jones

I'll start with my thoughts on how I feel about what is most likely to happen to the shuttle next in reality. If you weren't already aware NASA has put out requests for proposals from museums interested in displaying one of the remaining shuttle orbiters. There are technically four orbiters up for grabs, Enterprise (glide test prototype never flew in space), Discovery, Endeavour, and Atlantis. Now it should be noted that it is an all but foregone conclusion that the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Annex in Washington, D.C. will get Discovery. The Annex is currently home to Enterprise and engineers recently gave Enterprise a check-out to make sure that it was carrier-flight ready when the time comes for it to make way for Discovery. So in reality Enterprise, Endeavour, and Atlantis are up for grabs by museums.

This raises the question though what's the best way to display such an amazing vehicle as the shuttle? After all this is the most versatile spacecraft ever constructed and the only manned reusable spacecraft that can land on a runway that has ever been put into service. CollectSPACE has a good article with pictures on some of the proposed exhibits.

"Boy that's the world's greatest electric flying machine I'll tell ya that!" -John Young, Commander STS-1 on landing of Columbia

In my opinion an exhibit must maintain the highest level of respect for the legacy of the shuttle program and the magnificent and really beautiful vehicles. Here are a few proposals I would make for any exhibit:

1. Shuttle Orbiters must be displayed in their own free-standing building or in a dedicated wing of any existing building.
2. No exhibits will be placed around the orbiter that are any higher than the height from the ground to the underside of the orbiter. No exhibits will be hung over the orbiter. In other words the orbiter must stand alone in it's own open space so that it may be appreciated in its entirety from any angle.
3. Under NO circumstances shall the orbiters be carved up or opened up for as a walk-through exhibit of the flight-deck, mid-deck, or payload bays. History was made time and time again on all three and we should respect that and appreciated it without traipsing 100s of visitors through. Note that the ability to provide access should be maintained by the museums for authorized/credentialed historical, academic, or engineering research purposes.

Ideally I would like to see something along the lines of what has been done with the three remaining Saturn Vs the orbiters are no less historically significant and more than worthy of as prominent display. Where would they go? Well with Discovery already going to the Air and Space, that makes sense. Additionally I would like to see at least one remain at a NASA facility. Kennedy or Johnson seem the most likely choices. Geographically Johnson would allow for one in the middle of the country. Lastly Palmdale seems like a significant choice since that is where the orbiters were originally constructed and reconditioned. Exactly locations may be up for debate but I think it would be nice to see one on the ease coast, one some where in the central part of the country, and one on the west coast.

The bottom line is however the orbiters are exhibited it should be with the highest possible level of respect and reverence for the history the represent. While it is admittedly heartbreaking to imagine them sitting in museums instead of up among the starts performing their mission more tragic would be to imagine them not receiving the respect the truly deserve.

"Many said she was old and past her prime. Still, she had only lived barely a quarter of her design life; in years, she was only 22." - Bob Crippen, Eulogizing Columbia after her lost and the loss of STS-107

As we face the end of the shuttle program as a whole many have echoed similar sentiments about the remaining orbiters. It is true that each orbiter was built for a flight life of 100 flights. However this assumes many more flights a year than occurred in reality and that those flights would be completed within a 20 year time frame. In other words our beloved fleet of orbiters isn't getting any newer.

What to do now truly epitomizes the old saying about being between a rock and a hard place. I could not believe more firmly that NASA and all involved are as good at flying the shuttle as they have ever been. Indeed the last several missions have been a testament to that I can't remember any significant technical delays and there have been very few on orbit issues as well.

As if to complicated matters further it is simply a fact there there is no vehicle in existence or on any publicly available design board that comes even close to the shuttle in terms of capability. I simply can't imagine how we would do something like repair Hubble or build a space station without the orbital workbench the shuttle as provided time and time again. Then there's the issue of down-mass, or the ability to bring large payloads and amounts of supplies back down from the space station. That just isn't possible without the shuttle, a huge handicapping of the space station program is the result. The shuttle's fuel cells are also used on orbit to produce large quantities of oxygen, water, etc. for resupply far more than can be shipped up in the proposed capsules. Truly the shuttle was build for station and station was built for shuttle.

I firmly believe the way forward is shuttle derived. We take the SRBs and the Main Engines and the ET we reconfigure them and we could end up with a heavy lift vehicle (which the shuttle already is by the way) and a crew transfer vehicle. If we do it right and reuse enough of the technology and lessons we might yet save large portions of the workforce and infrastructure.

What we need to be doing and we need to be doing YESTERDAY is this proposal. Then we take the X-37B and we expand it make a crew rated version using all the lessons learned and latest in materials science and technology so that it can launch in a stacked configuration and land on a runway and we have something that gives us back some of the shuttle capabilities like down mass, etc.

Needless to say I can't WAIT for Season 4 and I am elated that NBC has decided to stick with such an amazing show, really just watch Season 3.5 and if you aren't convinced well I just don't know. Long live Chuck!! What follows are some very random musings on the finale, it lacks any real structure of a review more rambling thoughts, you've been warned.

I have to say I HATED Shaw with a burning passion when he was trying to put the wedge between Chuck and Sarah in early Season 3. I get why it was important to have that but Shaw I dunno it was hard to find much at all to like about him and I actively cheered when Chuck pumped a couple of rounds into him. For as much as I'd have been okay for him to have been dead (let's face it that isn't the way this show works!) the way he came back is what I've been hoping for from the spy part of the show for a long long time. Very shadowy, intense, conspiracy, etc.  Also for as much as Brandon Routh didn't pull off anything likeable about Shaw his delivery of evil Shaw was amazing and downright bone chilling at times. So cold, so calculating, and perhaps the best line ever when he looks at Chuck and makes a very dry pronunciation of "Mwa-ha-ha" I mean that is just comedic genius right there and such a nod to spy baddies everywhere. And now he's alive with an Intersect so I imagine we haven't seen the last of him, buy a long shot. I feel like Team Bartowski might have a worth adversary in him. Although it was fun to see how Chuck was able to beet Shaw with the one thing Shaw doesn't have...any family or friends. I feel like even Beckman started to realize that more than the intersect that was Chuck's biggest asset.

If I am disappointed by anything spy wise it is that we still don't seem to know anything more about The Ring. What's there deal we have the elder's in custody now but I mean what were/are they up to? Do they have any kind of plan at all? I think Shaw being at the head brings some credibility and I don't imagine that he is going to stay captured for long. I like the way that the captured the elders baiting Shaw into warning them that is Chuck being smart without the intersect and that's always nice to see, though it did seem a little too easy. Although really Morgan w/a machine gun (all be it unloaded) is worth it ;)

Lots to like elsewhere. I really liked the way they brought Ellie in to the spy world even though we're not sure what it means, with by completely manipulating her and using her ignorance against her. And of course she's a Bartowski so she handles it pretty well overall. Morgan and Casey continue to delight and I really really hope Casey's daughter is at least a recurring character in S4 if not a full member of the cast (at least one of the two seems likely based on her apperance at the dinner table at the end) because not only would it be cool for Morgan to get a girl again but the interplay between Casey/Morgan on that would be a limitless comedic gold mine. I don't think they missed a great chance for a reference in the scene where Casey has kidnapped his daughter and the bad guys are arriving. I was absolutely convinced that Casey was going to say "Come with me if you want to live." Of course Morgan and Casey have bonded and that's been fun to watch and I think Casey would probably be cool with it ultimately because he knows Morgan is a good guy at heart. Other great Casey moment's I'm always a fan of Casey and Sarah moments like when he uses her name and tells her she's found a good guy in Chuck...good stuff.

Buy More is gone and for as much as I get that I dunno I miss the geek references of Season 1. The Jeffster video made a good backdrop for the Chuck/Shaw fight and I wonder if we will see any of the fugitives next season. Speaking of the Chuck/Shaw fight it was fairly epic very much along the lines of what we would want for intersect v. intersect. Hope we haven't seen the last of that. I'd like to see them flash between many different fighting styles in the course of battle. Evil Shaw is so evil that I would be okay if he were a commic book style recurring vilian ala Joker or as the creators described him Harvey Dent. Also cool that Sarah got to club Shaw and she got a good shot at him earlier as well. After this episode I think it is abundantly clear where the loyalties of every member of Team Bartowski lie, with Chuck. Even Casey/Sarah who are all for love of country I think have transitioned to being more on Team Bartowski than Team USA, immediately volunteering in the truck to go rouge for him.

Then there's our hero couple and while there's so much else going on in this episode we do get some great moments. Chuck's line that he'll always chose to protect Sarah. The best moment by far though is the scene when Chuck doesn't take out Shaw and Shaw proclaims "That's what makes you weak." Then Sarah, clubbing him "No, that's what makes him great." I think the moments between Sarah and Papa B. were also pretty cool as well. Really all good stuff!

What's next? If I had to speculate I'd say that Buy More is gone to make way in the casting/set/whatever budgets for whatever is coming next season. But let's raise one to Buy Moria!! I think the new "Castle" will be the old Bartowski home and it seems like the new paradigm will be something akin to Knight Rider's FLAG organization kind of pseudo law-enforcement/spy operating acting outside the government. I suppose the Batman analogy could be extended as well. Chuck as more of a superhero than a government agent. Conceptually based on who/what Chuck has become it makes sense on a number of different levels. We'll see if the execution does as well. Perhaps we'll see Beckman feeding the missions or cases while officially the INTERSECT project is off the books entirely. Obviously the promise to Ellie needs to be dealt with somehow and I'm not quite sure how that is going to happen. I hope that we don't go back to the lets lie about everything strategy. I suspect she will be drawn in some how based on what we think we've learned in the finale scene of the episode.

Can't wait for Season 4!!!!!!!! Thank you to everyone who is involved with bringing this great show into our lives!