Nov 01
Ray PierceSports college football, football, Kansas Jayhawks, Lubbock, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Oregon Ducks, Texas, Texas Tech Red Raiders
It wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t smooth, but it was a win. With all of the injuries that Texas Tech has suffered this year, I think I’ll take that.
Seth Doege’s first career start didn’t come off all that well. I think that Brandon Carter hurting his hamstring on the second play of the game had a lot to do with that. When Carter came back in the game in the second half, the offensive line got a lot better. In the first half, I think Doege was on his back more than he was upright. That’s not to say it was Doege fault. The O-line weren’t really blocking very well with several people playing out of position.
In the second half, Leach brought in Taylor Potts. When Potts was pulled in the Texas A&M game, the student section started chanting “No More Potts”. I still don’t think he’s the long term solution at Quarterback, he’s serviceable if he’s not pressured. That’s a big IF of course. He didn’t instill much confidence in me when he threw yet another interception on this first series he was in. For the remainder of the game though, he played decent. From what I’ve read so far, it was Potts checking down to the appropriate run plays that got Baron Batch those 3 touchdowns in the second half.
On the whole though, neither QB had great success with throwing the ball. It seemed to me that Doege had a bigger tendency to throw the deep ball than Potts does. I hope that we continue to have a few shots down the field instead of everything in the 10-15 yard range.
Both teams defenses played really well. Texas Tech needed to get some redemption from the game we shall not speak of. We played a lot more aggressively it seemed. Always around the ball and making a lot of plays behind the line of scrimmage. Our secondary covered Kerry Meier very well, we kept him to only 3 receptions. Kansas’ O-line didn’t seem to be able to come up with an answer for our Defense. Jamar Wall had a highlight hit on Jake Sharp that’s worth showing again and again.
I didn’t get to see a lot of stadium shots, but when I did those new sections sure seemed empty. I wish Tech could generated the fan support that say the Oregon Ducks do (66 game sellout streak), or Nebraska (47 year sellout streak). We’ve got a good thing going with coaching staff and recruits. We need the fan support to continue it.
Oct 29
Ray PierceSports Big 12, Box Seats, college football, football, frustration, Lubbock, Mike Leach, observations, Texas, Texas A&M Aggies, Texas Tech Red Raiders
Even after several days to think about it, I’m still having a hard time figuring out how to sum up my trip to the Tech / A&M game this past weekend. I heard a guy in the stands say, “It’s worse in person, than it is on the radio.” I can’t really even put the frustration and pure bewilderment into words. Only cool thing were the seats and the associated parking pass.
50 Yard Line Box seats
I guess here are a few key things/observations from this weekend:
- Taylor Potts does not function well with pressure. At all.
- I know he (Potts) doesn’t do it on purpose, but some of those throws to the other team sure look intentional.
- Potts, Do not blame your line for not blocking over 15+ seconds. Especially on a play you over throw a your running back outlet by 5 yards and throw an interception to a wide open defender. They will start using a lookout blocking scheme.
- Tech has a Jeckyl and Hyde type of Defense. As of late, it just hides.
- Leach makes more press with his comments about Fat Little Girlfriends than the butt whooping we took. That’s just wrong
- Doege needs to simmer on the bench a bit more, but shows that he can be serviceable. We’ve got no other viable option at this point.
- Sheffield, please heal quick.
I’ve had a humility check this week from my A&M friends. Thanks guys, I always knew I could swallow my pride.
Jul 01
Ray PierceWork aquire, Austin, bankruptcy, benefits, contract, job, Texas, Work
I thought it was time to write something up about my job situation. You may have read about the trial and tribulations I’ve had in the past few months here.
So how this all played out. My old company went bankrupt, filed Chapter 11, and while in bankruptcy decided to sell off all of it’s assets even though they didn’t file Chapter 7. In the process of doing all of this they lost the bid on the 10 year contract we were working on. That sort of wraps up the basics leading up to now.
At this point we were pretty much in limbo as to how things were going to turn out. Were we going to have positions? How long would we have them? How would we find new jobs in this economy? Would they start scaling back immediately? These are all questions that were running through all of our heads, plus many more. Our competitor on the rebid process ultimately became the lone company vying for that contract. Draw your own conclusion there.
So the fire sale at my old company continued. Our Public Services group, which includes all Federal, State, and Local Government contracts was sold to a large auditing and consulting firm. Hugely complex deal because there hadn’t been a company like ours go into bankruptcy before. So a lot of how things transpired in Bankruptcy court were happening for the first time for everyone. There are still some issues that need to be resolved with PTO, but that’s a completely different rant. Long story short the auditing/consulting firm that bought Public Services had audit conflicts with our particular contract. They weren’t allowed to own it. So they went shopping for a bidder for this contract.
What makes sense for a company about to win a 10 year contract with the remainder of the contract up for sale? Well of course you snatch up that contract and get the ball rolling to make a good impression to the clients you are about to be servicing. At this point the competitor in the rebid process buys the remainder of our contract. The problem with that is that there was a lot of negotiating between the audit/consulting firm and the buyer about who owns what Intellectual property, how to do charge backs, who’s going to work for who, etc. etc. The one thing that I left out was the the audit/consulting firm was also a subcontracting consulting for pieces of the rebid effort. Plain and simple that just made things complicated. It’s almost like a chicken and the egg scenario. A huge problem for myself and coworkers was that during this 4-6 process there was next to nothing being communicated to us. Everyone was pretty panicked, so they all went out and were looking for jobs. In the end everything was worked out for the two companies, at least theoretically. Nothing ever turns out to be the same in reality or logistically like it’s supposed to.
Neither company were obligated legally to hire the people that were working on the contracts, but it made sense for both of them to hire most of the current staff to work on it again. There were definitely some cuts made, but they were fairly limited and strategic from my point of view. Then again, I wasn’t the one getting laid off this time. Of course there were a few selections that I question and I think they would have been really valuable for the company. So as it turns out, I got my offer to work for the new company, same title and salary. They will more than likely be the winner of the new contract for the state portal. (again not official yet) They own the remainder of the current contract for the state portal (ends at the end of the year). Things are looking pretty rosy, I’ve still got a job.
During our on boarding meeting we found out a lot of information about the new company and how they operate. There’s no other way to describe their benefits other than “killer”. They are paying for out parking up to $150/mo., our insurance (health, dental, vision, life) for employee and dependents, and to top it off they put in free soft drinks and snacks in the break room. This almost sounds like the dot com days. I mean who wouldn’t want those benefits. So I essentially got a $5000 raise without doing anything. SWEET!!!
Granted there are a few growing pains involved. I had to give up my window view of down town Austin, and I’m now in the loudest part of the building. We will be moving again for a short duration to another floor in the building due to some bankruptcy issues with office lease still being owned by former company. Long term we will be moving yet again to another building that hopefully isn’t so drab. It’s still being worked out so we’ll see soon enough how it pans out.
Work wise, I’m doing exactly the same things I was doing before. I’m actually getting to work on some projects that I wanted to work on. I’ve got some upcoming projects now that I’m really excited about working on. I’m going to get to use some new technology that’s applicable to other job situations that I may encounter over my career. I’m still working with a great development team. All in all this has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It’s only been a month under the new company, but I hope that it lasts.
May 25
Ray PiercePhotography caprock, farm, flat, Great Plains, Levelland, Texas, wind mill
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Some pictures of the panhandle of Texas.
Date: May 3, 2009
Number of Photos in Album: 38
View Album |
Apr 18
Ray PierceFood, Photography BBQ, day trip, Food, Hill Country, Llano, Photography, photos, Texas
Well after much talk, Johnny Harvey and I finally went to take pictures and get BBQ at Cooper’s in Llano. We started out taking Hwy 71 up to the Perdenales River, hoping that it wouldn’t rain on us. We stopped and took a few shots there. We were really amazed at how low Lake Travis is.
From there we proceded up to The Narrows on Lake Travis. I hadn’t ever been there before, but I had seen the signs for it quite a few times. 
On our way out there we came across a pasture of Longhorns right next to the fence. I think we actually got some good shots between the 2 of us.
It took us forever to get to Llano because we kept stopping to take photo’s. The pay off was getting some great BBQ. Cooper’s BBQ is one of the best BBQ places around in my opinion. Part 2 of the BBQ is hopefully going to explore Lockhart’s offerings. I hear nothing but good things, but that’s for another post.
From there we tooled around Llano for a while taking some shots around the Llano River and the dam/bridge area. I wasn’t really happy with most of the shots that I took there. I took over 70 shots and I really found four that were worth posting. I took 20 waiting on those kids to jump and got one with them in mid air.
From there we started working back home. The only real good shots from there came from Spicewood Vineyards. The vineyard was closed, but we were still able to take some photos of the grapes. The more interesting thing was that we found a sign for our friend Nathan Friemel for a choice destination for his bachelor party.
All in all it was a really good trip. It got me back shooting again, and as you can tell I actually processed the shots. I’ve got quite a few pictures sitting on my hard drive that have never even been looked at, much less processed.
You can click here or on one of the photos to see the entire album.
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