MIKE'S COMMENTARY
COMPUTER CLASSES AND COURSES
ADVANCED USERS CLASS NOTES
NEWS & NOTES BY SUE FOUST

MIKE'S COMMENTARY AND SOME BITS OF WISDOM

On Monday  On Monday there were people fighting against praying in schools  On Tuesday you would have been hard pressed to find a school where someone was not praying  On Monday there were people trying to separate each other by race, sex, color and creed  On Tuesday they were all holding hands  On Monday we thought that we were secure  On Tuesday we learned better  On Monday we were talking about heroes as being athletes  On Tuesday we relearned what hero meant  On Monday people went to work at the world trade centers as usual  On Tuesday they died  On Monday people were fighting the 10 commandments on government property  On Tuesday the same people all said 'God help us all' while thinking 'Thou shall not kill'  On Monday people argued with their kids about picking up their room  On Tuesday the same people could not get home fast enough to hug their kids  On Monday people picked up McDonalds for dinner  On Tuesday they stayed home  On Monday people were upset that their dry cleaning was not ready on time  On Tuesday they were lining up to give blood for the dying  On Monday politicians argued about budget surpluses  On Tuesday grief stricken they sang 'God Bless America'  On Monday we worried about the traffic and getting to work late  On Tuesday we worried about a plane crashing into your house or place of business  On Monday we were irritated that our rebate checks had not arrived  On Tuesday we saw people celebrating people dying in the USA  On Monday some children had solid families  On Tuesday they were orphans  On Monday the president was going to Florida to read to children  On Tuesday he returned to Washington to protect our children  On Monday we emailed jokes  On Tuesday we did not  It is sadly ironic how it takes horrific events to place things into perspective, but it has.  The lessons learned this week, the things we have taken for granted, the things that have been forgotten or overlooked, hopefully will never be forgotten again. (written a few days after 09/11/01) ~Author Unknown~

 

Celebrating the Jewish Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur September 12* - September 22, 2007 1 Tishri - 10 Tishri 5768 *begins sundown September 12  (Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown September 12,  Yom Kippur begins at sundown September 21)  The Jewish High Holy Days are observed during the 10 day period between the first day (Rosh Hashanah) and the 10th day (Yom Kippur) of Tishri, the seventh month of the Jewish calendar. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the most important of all Jewish Holidays and the only holidays that are purely religious, as they are not related to any historical or natural event. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is celebrated the first and second days of Tishri. It is a time of family gatherings, special meals and sweet tasting foods. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the most solemn day of the Jewish year and is observed on the tenth day of Tishri. It is a day of fasting, reflection and prayers. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the most important of all Jewish Holidays and the only holidays that are purely religious, they are not tied to historical or natural events. They are observed in the fall season of the western calendar and the seventh month of the Jewish calendar - Tishri.  Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is observed on the first and second day of Tishri, the seventh month of the Jewish calender. Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement, falls on the tenth day of Tishri. It is the most solemn day of the Jewish year. Rosh Hashanah begins a 10 day period, known as the High Holy Days or Yamim Nora'im, a time of penitence and prayer that ends with Yom Kippur. Jews worldwide are given these 10 days to repent for their sins and ask G-d for forgiveness.  "May you be inscribed in the Book of Life" Is the common greeting during this period as it is believed that on Rosh Hashanah the destiny of all mankind is recorded by G-d in the Book of Life. On Yom Kippur the Book is closed and sealed. Those that have repented for their sins are granted a good and happy New Year.

 
 
 

HISTORY OF AMERICAN FOOTBALL  Football historians, those who have studied the game and its origins, place the game’s beginnings in rugby, an English game played with many similarities to football.  Rugby began in eighteen twenty-three at the famous Rugby Boys’ School in England.  Another cousin of the game of football is soccer; its beginnings can also be traced to English origin, being played as early as the eighteen twenties.  COLLEGE FOOTBALL:         ITS BEGINNINGS  At the same time, a group of students at Princeton began playing what was then known as ‘ballown’.  First using their fists to advance the ball, and then their feet, this game consisted mainly of one goal: to advance the ball past the opposing team.  There were no hard and fast rules applied to this earliest attempt at the game we now call football.  At Harvard, the freshman and sophomore classes competed in a football-type game, played on the first Monday of each school year; this event came to be known as ‘Bloody Monday’ because of the roughness of the game.  Pick up games, similar in style to that played on ‘Bloody Monday’, soon became popular on the Boston Common, catching on in popularity around eighteen sixty.  Soon after the end of the American Civil War, around eighteen sixty five, colleges began organizing football games.  In eighteen sixty seven, Princeton led the way in establishing some rudimentary rules of the game.  Also in that year, the football itself was patented for the very first time.  Rutgers College also established a set of rules in eighteen sixty seven, and with the relatively short distance between it and Princeton, a game was decided upon by both universities.  A date was chosen, November sixth, eighteen sixty nine; Rutgers won by a score of six goals to four, and thus was played what has become known as the very first intercollegiate football game.  In eighteen seventy three, representatives from Columbia, Rutgers, Princeton, and Yale met in New York City to formulate the first intercollegiate football rules for the increasingly popular game, still being played with many of the rules of soccer.  These four teams established the Intercollegiate Football Association, and set as fifteen the number of players allowed on each team.  Walter Camp, the coach at Yale and a dissenter from the IFA over his desire for an eleven man team, helped begin the final step in the evolution from rugby-style play to the modern game of American football.  The IFA’s rules committee, led by Camp, soon cut the number of players from fifteen to eleven, and also instituted the size of the playing field, at one hundred ten yards.  In eighteen eighty-two Camp also introduced the system of downs.  After first allowing three attempts to advance the ball five yards, in nineteen six it was changed to ten yards.  The fourth down was added in nineteen twelve.  Tackling below the waist had been legalized in eighteen eighty-eight.  Within a decade, concern over the increasing brutality of the game led to its ban by some colleges.  Nearly one hundred eighty players had suffered serious injuries, and eighteen deaths had been reported from the brutal mass plays that had become common in practice.  In nineteen hundred five, President Theodore Roosevelt called upon Harvard, Princeton, and Yale to help save the sport from demise.  At a meeting between the schools, reform was agreed upon, and at a second meeting, attended by more than sixty other schools, the group appointed a seven member Rules Committee and set up what would later become known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or the NCAA.  From this committee came the legalization of the forward pass, which resulted in a more open style of play on the field.  The rough mass plays, which once caused so many serious injuries, and even deaths, were prohibited by the committee.  Also prohibited was the locking of arms by teammates in an effort to clear the way for their ball carriers.  The length of the game was shortened, from seventy to sixty minutes, and the neutral zone, which separates the teams by the length of the ball before each play begins, was also established.  Today, almost one hundred years since the inception of the NCAA, the sport of college football flourishes as one of the most popular of collegiate games.  Colleges and universities are placed into three divisions under NCAA guidelines and each division has many conferences.  Seasonal and conference play leads to post-season bowl games, where the champions of conferences meet to play in front of a world-wide television audience.  At the NCAA top level of football, the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (known as Division I-A from 1978 until 2004), teams must earn the right to be bowl eligible by winning at least 6 games or by having a winning record (a team that finishes 6-7 is not bowl eligible, although 13 game schedules are not common) during the season.  They are then invited to a bowl game based on their placement and the tie-ins that the conference has to each bowl game.  As per NCAA rules, 6-win teams without an automatic bowl tie-in cannot be picked above an available 7-win team.  Bowls are popular among coaching staffs because the NCAA allows college teams going to bowl games extra weeks of practice they would otherwise not have; they also provide many teams a chance to end the season on a winning note; in addition bowl games sometimes offer huge sums of money to the teams involved; these facts make even minor bowl games popular among teams.  For the 2006 season, 64 of the 119 Division I-A teams will play in a bowl game.  At lower levels, bowl games are typically only the national championship game. Also, unlike the current BCS system, the majority of bowls kept strict agreements with certain conferences to invite teams from those conferences.  For example, the Rose Bowl traditionally invites the champion of the Pac-10 and the Big Ten conferences.  These conference tie-ins often led to situations where the top-ranked teams in the country could not play each other in a bowl game.  The BCS attempts to match up the top two ranked teams in the country to determine a single national championship; in effect this creates a two-team playoff for the championship. PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL:       ITS BEGINNINGS  Professional football was first played soon after the demise of the Intercollegiate Football Association, around eighteen ninety-five.  In nineteen twenty, the American Professional Football Association was formed; one year later it was reorganized and in nineteen twenty-two was renamed the National Football League.  Unlike the APFA, which handed out franchises far and wide with little discretion, the NFL, from nineteen forty-six to forty-nine, was limited to ten teams.  The APFA, on the other hand, consisted of twenty three teams in the year between its inception and the change-over in becoming the NFL.  A merger in nineteen seventy, fifty years after the inception of the first pro football association, combined sixteen NFL teams with ten AFL teams to comprise one league with two conferences.  In the nineteen eighties, further expansion was proposed and by the ninety three-ninety four NFL season, approval was given for a thirty-team league.  The next step towards growth of the league would be to realign the NFL into eight different divisions, each with four teams.  Pro football, like its college counterpart, was not without its failures.  Among the number of competitive leagues that have folded in failure are the All-American Football conference, nineteen forty-six to forty-nine and the World Football League, nineteen seventy-four to seventy-five.  Arena Football, an indoor league played in the spring with eight man teams, debuted in nineteen eighty-seven.  It is still played, but does not enjoy the popularity or success that is found in the National Football League.  PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL TODAY:         A BUSINESS  From its humble beginnings in eighteen sixty-nine, when the first intercollegiate game was played between Rutgers and Princeton, football has become a multi-billion dollar business in its professional form.  Once watched by no more than a handful of loyal sideline enthusiasts, football is now available for worldwide viewing.  With the advent of cable television, dozens of high school and college games can be watched over Friday and Saturday afternoons.  Pro games are televised on Sunday and Monday nights, with at least half a dozen games televised each weekend during the season.  At the end of each NFL season, champs from both the National and American conferences meet in the Super Bowl to determine a national champion.  This game, always played in January, has been called the most watched sporting event of all time, with a viewing audience from around the entire globe, watching and listening to the televise in dozens of languages.  Although television commercials foot a very large part of the bill, the competition between networks for the coverage rights highly inflates the value of NFL franchises.  In nineteen twenty, a franchise cost one hundred dollars.  By nineteen sixty, each was worth approximately two million dollars.  In nineteen ninety three, when the league decided to expand, selling teams to Charlotte, North Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida, the cost rose to one hundred forty millions dollars per franchise.  In the same year, the NFL signed a five-network, four year television contract, totaling almost four and a half billion dollars.

COMPUTER CLASSES AND COURSES
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KCNET CLASSES STARTING SOON:

A+ Computer Hardware When: September 10, 17 & 24 Time:   4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Cost:  TBA  Call KCnet 893-8111  Intermediate Windows When:  September 11, 13, 18 & 20. Time:   Noon - 2:00 PM Cost:   KCnet Members $35  Non-Members $40 Instructor:  Wayne Smith Wi Fi Basics (1 and 2) When:  September 18 & 20 Time:  08:30 AM - 10:00 AM Cost: KCnet Members   $20  Non-Members  $25 Instructor:  Ron Calhoun  KCnet Photo Club When:  Third Monday each month Time:  06:00 PM - 08:00 PM Cost::  $30.00 per year or $5.00 per month Leader:  Bill Raco Advanced Users  When:  Meets every Wednesday  Time:  09:00 AM - 11:00 AM Cost:  Members $0.00    Non Members - $2.00 Leader:  Mike Foust

ADVANCED USER CLASS NOTES:

NEWS AND NOTES WITH SUE FOUST:

KCnet is in the beginning stages of developing a broadband, downtown WI-FI network and a community network access portal.  This came about as a result of a request from Lock Haven University.  The University campus has WI-FI, but when students came into town, they couldn’t use their laptops to “get back to” Campus eMail and classes.  University President Dr. Keith Miller feels that more students will use the City shopping and eating area if they can stay connected to the Campus. Therefore, in cooperation with the City of Lock Haven, Clinton County Government, Lock Haven University, Immaculate Conception Church and Lock Haven Hospital, work on phase one has begun and will be completed by September 30. This Phase #1 will be done in the spirit of technology, education and economic development, expanding the distribution of valuable Internet access services - community news, health information, youth and adult education, etc.  Residents and visitors within this Phase #1 footprint, covering the corridor from the Downtown Lock Haven University Store to the railroad tracks at the East side of Campus, will have access to broadband, service on demand. Portal links will be accessible to network users free of charge at all times, every day throughout the year.  Secure, open access to the Internet beyond the portal links will be available for free, 12 hours each week, Sundays 9 AM to 9 PM! Our final portal will look similar to this: If you have a laptop and come to Lock Haven, have a seat at one of the park benches on Main Street or on the dike near the Catholic School.  View Network Connections and you will see “In Tune Wireless.”  KCnet has developed a partnership with In Tune Wireless and the network connection will soon be will be KCnet WI-FI Network.     Evelyn Rhine This isn’t the way we, at KCnet, usually see Evelyn Rhine!  However, I must surely say that I am not surprised to see her having a good time.  Evelyn loves life and she loves people.  She is a joy to have at our reception desk at KCnet.   Evelyn and husband Larry enjoy cars and car shows like the line up behind Evelyn. This show was on Main Street Lock Haven in conjunction with a recent Friday Night Musical Presentation at Triangle Park.  Their pride and joy is a home constructed street rod.  But the newest edition is this "bar stool scooter" that they tow to the shows. Then Evelyn or Larry just "scoot" about.  It features a mini beer keg for the fuel tank.   The next time you are in town, stop in and tell her you saw her in the newsletter!   Until next time… KCnet Board Of Directors Officers:   President Bill Raco, Vice President Bob Rolley, Secretary Jon Ahrens,  Treasurer Don Miller and Past President Judy Yoho.   Other members of the board:  Carolyn Carl, Lori Hoy,  R. Keith Kelly,  Tom Livingston, Ray McGill, Tom Piergallini, Ray Rathmell, and John Way .

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