If you haven't seen NASA's World Wind Software and you have a highspeed connection (it's a 250 MB download), you should check it out. It's written in .NET, and you can basically see any place in the world you want to see. As you zoom in on areas, it hits NASA's servers to get clearer images. Pretty cool.

Some of the images are older, and I'm not sure how old. I did see a lot of cars outside of an old meijers in the area that made it appear that the store was still open. It's been closed for at least 3 years, and was recently torn down and replaced by a Home Depot. I was able to see my house, though. Granted, my house was built in 1899, so I'm pretty sure every satelite image of the area would include my house.

After a pathetic week last week, I'll drag myself up out of the doghouse and try again. Of course, looking at the match ups, I think a coin toss would be a better choice than me picking them. My loan bright spot (besides the fact I'm not actually using real money on this stuff) is that I have been right on all three of my rock solid pick of the week. Note: this pretty much ensures I'll be wrong this week.

Without further ado, let's get started.

• New York Giants vs. Green Bay (-7): Green Bay is 1-2. First, they put up 24 points against a tough Carolina defense. Then they lost to Chicago. Ouch. Then they rebound, but still lose. If the team that played Chicago shows, they'll lose. I'm counting on the odd week team showing up in week 4.
• Philadelphia (-9) vs. Chicago: Three weeks in a row now, Chicago's been given 9 points. In the past two, I've picked thier opponent and Chicago has managed to cover (winning one of the two games). This week, I'll try again. Why? Well, Philly is much better than both Green Bay and Minnesota. I'm probably setting myself up for failure, but oh well.
• Washington (-3) vs. Cleveland: Cleveland doesn't have the defense of Dallas, and yet Washington put up points against them. No reason to assume they can't do the same against the Browns. Cleveland's offense has slowly deteriorated (scored 20, then 12, then 10), but the defenses have gotten worse (Baltimore, Dallas, and then the Giants). Odd.
• New England (-5.5) vs. Buffalo: New England hasn't lost a game in over a year. And they still remember the 31-0 shellacking Buffalo gave them the first game of last year. Interestingly, both teams are coming off a bye. I have no idea what that means.
• Oakland (-2.5) vs. Houston: Houston beats Kansas City in KC. Then Oakland comes to town, and they can't even be the favorite? I don't think that's right. Look for Houston to not only cover, but win.
• Indianapolis (-3.5) vs. Jacksonville: Will anyone care when Jacksonville has the ball (except for Fred Taylor and Jimmy Smith fantasy owners)? The marquee match up is the Indy O against the Jags D. Of course, this only means the game will be decided by either the Colts D or one of the two guys previously mentioned.
• Cincinnati vs. Pittsburgh (-4.5): Pittsburgh is 2-1, but they've only beat Miami and Oakland. Cincy beat Miami too, lost to Baltimore (as did Pittsburgh), and lost to the Jets. I'm not even sure previous match ups matter, but my gut says both teams will be 2-2 at the end of the weekend. Of course, look where my gut got me last week!
• Atlanta vs. Carolina (-3.5): Carolina isn't a Super Bowl team this year, but their defense is solid. And Atlanta's offense is still trying to find some cohesiveness. A tough defense won't help that search.
• New Orleans (-3) vs. Arizona: A Ross code of betting: never pick Arizona. So far that strategy would make you 1-2. But those two have been spreads of 9+ points. This is only three, and Arizona hasn't been closer than three yet.
• New York Jets (-6) vs. Miami: I'm not big on Miami. I think putting in Feidler is a good move. He's 36-18 all-time for Miami, but has been sitting on the bench in favor of Feeley? Did Ricky Williams see something we missed, and that's why he retired?
• Denver (-3) vs. Tampa Bay: Wow, only three points? As Chick (of Bob and Tom fame) says, "THAT'S NOT ENOUGH!"
• Tennessee (-3) vs. San Diego: Again, only three points? Yes, most likely McNair won't play, but San Diego still isn't good enough to beat the Titans.
• St. Louis (-3.5) vs. San Francisco: I doubt San Fran will get shut out this time, but beating St. Louis? I doubt it. By the way, who's making schedules here? San Fransisco on a Sunday night? I could have told you that losing your offense would make the 49ers a boring team to watch. St. Louis should take them to the house (over and over and over and...well, you get the idea)
• Kansas City vs. Baltimore (-5.5): Now this doesn't look like a great match up for Monday night, but I'll give the NFL the benefit of the doubt. This was a good paper match up at the beginning of the season. Now? Well, everyone is waiting for Kansas City to finally win one. Could this be the game? I doubt it. Jamal Lewis can run, and KC just seems to accentuate that fact for most running backs.

There's something odd about this week that I noticed as I put this together. 10 of 14 games have road teams as favorites. Only Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Carolina and Baltimore are home team favorites this week. And I'm not convinced that Pittsburgh should be.

Anyway, this could be a big week for the roadies, or it could be a bad week for oddsmakers! We'll find out by Monday I guess.

My wife and I have been keeping a secret for a few weeks now, and after yesterday, we're finally able to spread the word. You see, yesterday, we had a doctor's appointment and heard the heartbeat of our newest edition to the Ross family. Hearing that really cements the fact in our mind that everything is going along fine, so it's time to tell the world!

My wife is pregnant! And we'll be bringing another wonderful baby into the world. She's due in April, and I couldn't be happier!

Why the title? Well, that's how we told a few people. Maddie wore a shirt that said on one side "I've got some big news" and on the other side, "I'm going to be a big sister." Then we sent her out and waited to see how long it took people to notice. It was a cute way to see how well people pay attention.

For those who care, Tina also spent a LOT of time over the past week or so updating our website, which she maintains. She did an awesome job!

After going 19-12 in the two weeks against the spread, I started to feel pretty good about my abilities. I even wondered how people couldn't make money at this. And contemplated what putting actual money on the games would be like.

Then on Saturday, I started wondering what happens if my picks suddenly took a drastic turn for the worse. Then Sunday, it happened. Let's review first:

• Pittsburgh 13, Miami 3 (-1.5): Not having a reason to pick a team is a bad thing.
• Jacksonville 15, Tennessee 12 (-6): Jacksonville appears to be the real deal, and obviously, McNair getting hurt didn't help things.
• Cleveland 10, New York Giants 27 (-2.5): Wow. Was this the Kurt Warner from 1999 - 2001? 27 points from a mediocre Giant team is...what? Good news for New York, or bad news for Cleveland? Don't ask me. I can't even predict the outcome of one game!
• Baltimore 23 (-3), Cincinnati 9: My first correct pick. Baltimore's defense is too good, and they have a decent offense.
• Houston 24, Kansas City 21 (-9): The biggest shocker of the week. I picked Houston, but KC to win - obviously that didn't happen. Remember all the talk of how weak the Chiefs defense was, and how it was blown off because the offense was too good? Well, the offense has come back down to earth, and the defense has fallen further. 0-3 is not a good sign for KC. Houston has lost to San Diego and Detroit, but beat KC. Does that mean Kansas City is worse than the Chargers?
• New Orleans 28, St. Louis 25 (-7): Ahh, the revenge of the squib kick! Squibs are good in two situations: 1) The other team has to drive the whole length of the field and score a TOUCHDOWN (note: touchdown does not equal field goal), and 2) When you're feeling generous and want to give the other team a chance. Given that St. Louis was up by three at the time, the Saints didn't have to go the full length of the field to tie the game. Obviously, Mike Martz was feeling generous. Apparently winning records aren't a major concern for the Rams.
• Chicago 22, Minnesota 27 (-9): Same mistake, different week: see Week 2, Chicago vs. Green Bay.
• Philadelphia 30 (-4), Detroit 13: I loved the discussions on the local radio stations about the Lions. Are they for real? Can they beat the Eagles? I remember the same discussions back in the '90s when the played Washington in the Conference Finals. And the answer was the same. Nope. But Detroit could be. They have potential - Roy Williams is GOOD.
• Arizona 3, Atlanta 6 (-9.5): Yawn. Did anyone actually watch the whole game? And I mean anyone? Maybe the coaching staff? But I even find that hard to believe.
• San Diego 13, Denver 23 (-10): I guess Quentin Griffin isn't what he seemed to be. I guess that KC defense makes every running back look good, even if they aren't. Anyway, my lock-solid pick was right (a sole bright spot for the week). Of course, for the spread, it doesn't count - matched spreads are thrown out (another, slightly dimmer, bright spot).
• Green Bay vs. Indianapolis (-6.5): What a thrilling game to watch. Not exactly a football purist's type of game. But to see the offense put up in that game was awesome. Just think: Manning was on his way to a 900 yard passing game after the first quarter. And despite the loss, Favre looked good. Indy is just too good.
• San Francisco 0, Seattle 34 (-11): The first time San Fran was shut out in a long time. I guess losing your coach, quarterback, wide receiver, and running back can hurt a team. Who knew?
• Tampa Bay 20, Oakland 30 (-3): I can't believe this was a Sunday night game. This was the best match up (besides the Monday night game) the NFL could find? And don't tell me it was at the beginning of the season, because it wasn't. This one would have stunk last year too!
• Dallas 24, Washington 21 (-2.5): Washington had it's chances. Gibbs made a few bad choices, and by the end of the game, they didn't have any timeouts left to kick a game tying field goal. Parsels 1, Gibbs 0.

So there you have it. All of 4 games picked correctly. Very solid! Overall, here's where things stand:

I alluded to a new way to track how well my picks are going. I was too busy with work, so I didn't get to it. I probably won't get to it next week either, as next week will be a 60+ hour week, on top of my wife's birthday.

CodeSmith 2.6 has been released. I've used this tool on numerous occasions, and it's awesome. I'm downloading it right now. We've used it to generate our data layer, our data entities, and our stored procedures. It works great. Flawlessly! Eric has done a great job with this tool.

I've even seen the benefit of CodeSmtih Studio! I don't purchase many tools, but after seeing the Studio (our client purchased it), I was impressed. I'm going to push to get it purchased for us to use in house.

It looks like most of the improvements are in CodeSmith Studio, but I'll be interested to see what the Visual Studio enhancements are.

You can download it here.

Amazon.com came through a little earlier than expected. I got the Trilogy yesterday, just one day after getting an alert that it had shipped. Expected arrival was October 1st, so this was an unexpected surprise when I got home yesterday.

I don't usually watch much of the extras that come with DVDs, but this one, I probably will. There were a couple of things that looked pretty interesting, including the XBox demo level. I haven't had an urge for a new XBox game since I got Need For Speed Underground, but this one looks pretty good.

Hopefully, I'll actually get a chance to watch the DVDs soon. Work has been eating up all of my spare time lately.

Week three is on us already. Can you believe it? The season is already over 11% over! A lot has been going on, so let's get to the picks.

• Pittsburgh vs. Miami (-1.5): Both teams haven't looked good. I picked Miami because they are at home. No other reason, really.
• Jacksonville vs. Tennessee (-6): Tennessee is a great team. They got up on the Colts, who eventually got back into the game. Of course, the Jaguars offense isn't quite that of Indy. Jacksonville's only put up 20 points total. The Titans should score more than that on Sunday.
• Cleveland vs. New York Giants (-2.5): Cleveland is a confusing team. First, they beat a good Baltimore team soundly. Then they lose to a mediocre (in my opinion) Dallas team. I'm counting on week one Cleveland showing up here. Combine that with the fact that the Giants aren't very good, and you have an easy "upset" for the Browns.
• Baltimore (-3) vs. Cincinnati: Two 1-1 teams matched up here. Cincinnati just got done playing a very boring game, and Baltimore is a very defensive team. Don't look for a high scoring game.
• Houston vs. Kansas City (-9): I think Kansas City will win, but by nine? No, Houston will cover. They should have a field day running against the KC defense.
• New Orleans vs. St. Louis (-7): I'm turning sour on the Rams. I'm not convinced they will be contenders this year. The Saints aren't great, but they should be able to beat St. Louis.
• Chicago vs. Minnesota (-9): I made the same mistake last week, and I'm going to try it again. Pick the team giving up a lot of points against the Bears. But I think Minnesota will be angry after last week. And Marcus Robinson will want to show the Bears what they lost.
• Philadelphia (-4) vs. Detroit: Detroit is 2-0. So is Philly. It's the only undefeated match up this week, although it's a little decieving. Detroit has played Houston and Chicago. Philly's played Minnesota and, well, the Giants. At least they played one tough team. I don't think Detroit is ready for a team like the Eagles, but who knows.
• Arizona vs. Atlanta (-9.5): Mike Vick is good. Enough said. Usually, a spread of almost 10 points is a sure cover for the 'dog. But not when it's Arizona!
• San Diego vs. Denver (-10): Here's the Ross code 10 point spread rule. San Diego covers, and Tomlinson will have a big day. Of course, so will Denver's offense.
• Green Bay vs. Indianapolis (-6.5): Green Bay covers, but Indy will win. Green Bay should rebound from last week, but Indy is very good.
• San Francisco vs. Seattle (-11): Again, the Ross code of 10 point spread rule applies, so the 49ers will cover, but lose.
• Tampa Bay vs. Oakland (-3): Another "Who cares?" game this early in the season. I don't see either of these teams as a contender later down the line.
• Dallas vs. Washington (-2.5): Parsells vs. Gibbs. Two old timers, meeting up. This should be a good game. As usual, the early part of the season offers up good Monday night match ups. We'll talk again in November about this though!

So there you have it. Another week of picks. When I lay out the results, I may just have a new plan to look at success. But who knows. I may be lazy and not do it at all.

This site has potential. If enough people get thier best code review practices up there, this could be very useful.

I especially like the // REVIEW: comment style. Doing code reviews, and providing reasons for why it should be one way over another is always a challenge.

Thanks to Omer for the info.

Robert Scoble recently posted about getting your blog noticed. That's a goal of mine - sort of. I also don't want to do things just to get noticed. I would like to think that I have enough interesting content to be appreciated without shamelessly going after publicity. But there are some valuable lessons to learn from his insights.

Why is getting noticed important to me? Well, it really isn't although I think I could provide some people with some decent content that they may be looking for. Some people. Not everyone. Another reason to try to get noticed? Sagestone has started a fresh blogging site for employees, and it gets very little traffic right now. Sagestone is an awesome company, but no one knows about us. Of course, I admit our blog content isn't very good right now. Everyone is just starting out there, so it'll probably take some time to get good content out there, which is what will really allow them to take off.

Anyway, here's a short summary of what he says will get you noticed. His quotes are in italics, and not complete quotes. Not taken out of context, just not complete quotes. There'd be no reason to follow the link if I quoted everything right?

1) Link to other people. Lots of them. And then click each link on your own blog. I'm horrible about this. I rarely post anything that relates to what others say. Why? Most of the time I agree, or someone else has beaten me to the punch to disagree. So why post to say "I agree." Of course, I guess some may not have seen it. I should get better at this, and I know it. It would also help me get in to more of a groove of posting regularly, something I also struggle with.

2) Email a blogger you like. Don't just go for traffic. Go for the quality. I whole heartedly agree. For example, my content probably isn't interesting to Scoble (for the most part). He doesn't seem to be a coder, and I've never heard him mention football. That's basically what I post about. Some things, maybe. On the other hand, people interested in continuous integration may find some of my stuff useful.

I don't usually email other bloggers though. I just post a link in the comments of their blog. Most get an email anyway. I have received a couple of emails, and am always more than happy to answer them too. One rule: don't beg for a link. Interesting - by commenting, the other guy doesn't even get a chance to decide if the content is worth a link or not. Maybe email is better.

3) Put your blog in your email signature. Done.

7) Write comments in other people's blogs. The last time Robert noticed my blog was when I said I would start posting blog posts rather than comments on other blogs after reading a post of his. Now he's saying to comment again! Of course, I still comment every now and then, so I do this too. And hes' right - it has to be an intelligent post.

8) Appeal to your favorite blogger's Feedster and Pubsub searches. Good bloggers are building lost of Feedster and Pubsub searches. I'm not a good blogger! I've never used a feed search utility. Time to check it out I guess!

I'd add more to this: If you are a popular blog, link to someone you know who wants (or you think deserves) more traffic. For instance, I linked from my Geek Dojo blog to this one, and to my Sagestone blog. Now, I'm not the reason that Geek Dojo is as good as it is, but a link from there generates traffic.

I've never had huge plans for my blog, so getting traffic is a "nice to have." If I was the only one reading this, I'd probably still do it. And that's how I think it should be looked at: if you think about only you reading it, you're much more likely to post exactly how you feel. And if the readers come, they come. If not, oh well. It's all the same.

I don't want to spoil it, but it was a good week. Let's review:

• Denver 6 (-3), Jacksonville 7: So Jacksonville will rely on their defense this year, while convincing the offense to just enough to get the win. With their defense, that's not a bad plan, but it won't hold up all year (oh yeah? Tell that to 01-02 Ravens!).
• Pittsburgh 13, Baltimore 30 (-4): I knew something didn't look right after last week's loss to the Browns. Looks like they fixed that problem, huh?
• Houston 16, Detroit 28 (-3): I somehow overlooked the Harrington / Carr match up here. Granted, Joey gets better protection than Carr does, but I would say Harrington won this one. Oh yeah. Roy Williams is the real deal, and I look forward to hearing "Harrington to Williams....touchdown!" for years to come.
• Indianapolis 31, Tennessee 17 (-2.5): I started watching this one, and the Colts looked bad. I switched to the Lions, and never looked back, so I missed Indy's second half, which I hear was something else.
• Washington 14 (-3). New York Giants 20: Seven turn overs? Hard to blame this on Mr. Gibbs, but a shame it ruined his perfect record in the new century.
• San Francisco 27, New Orleans (-7.5) 30: I told you New Orleans wasn't good enough to warrant a seven point spread. Of course, losing McAllister to injury didn't help.
• St. Louis 17, Atlanta (-2.5) 34: Mike Vick looked pretty good. He looks comfortable in the West Coast Offense too. St. Louis' reign as a perennial contender could be coming to an end.
• Carolina 28, Kansas City 17 (-6): I sense a theme here. One that should make KC scared. Here's the formula: Running Back + KC Defense = Big Day Rushing. First it was Quentin Griffin, and now its Shaun Foster. While KC has a solid offense (17 points against the Panthers is pretty good), their defensive woes will hurt them through out the season.
• Seattle 10 (-2.5), Tampa Bay 6: I didn't watch this game, but come on. Combining for 16 points? How exciting can that be? Of course, the award goes to Denver and Jacksonville, but that one at least had good defensive play.
• Cleveland 12, Dallas 19 (-5): Dallas may be better than I first thought. Or Cleveland could be worse than I thought. I didn't see the game, so I can't say one way or the other.
• New England 23 (-8), Arizona 12: My lock-pick of the week was right on. New England's winning streak runs one higher, after beating a pathetic Cards team. They couldn't even get a running game going against a weak run defense for the Patriots.
• Buffalo 10, Oakland 13 (-3.5): I picked the wrong bottom feeder. One key note: Jerry Rice ended his streak of consecutive games with a catch after 20 years. 20 years! That's longer than most player's careers. Of course, getting passes from guys like Joe Montana and Steve Young doesn't hurt either.
• New York Jets 34 (-3), San Diego 28: Curtis Martin continued to show that he doesn't know how old he is, running for another 100 yard day. Tomlinson didn't have the day I'd hoped for, and their offense was more productive than I thought they would be, but the Jets are riding high right now. It's almost too bad they are in their bye week already.
• Miami 13, Cincinnati 16 (-5): I watched the end of this one. It was a yawner. But there was one thing I saw in it: Marvin Lewis called a timeout right before the ball was snapped for a field goal. Yeah, Marvin Lewis called it. From the sidelines. A rule change. No one even knew the timeout was called until after the play was over! And then he had to rekick it. Look for other coaches to employ similar tactics, and the rule to change back next season.
• Minnesota vs. Philadelphia (-3): I'm writing this as the game is going on. I just saw T.O.'s "touchdown" catch, and the discussion of instant replays is starting up again. From the replays, it doesn't look like he even had possession. And the extra point was kicked fast, so there was no chance for Minnesota to realize they should challenge. And the MNF crew brings up a good point: Let replays on touchdowns happen until the kick off occurs. Why not? What would that hurt? Anyway, here's what I've noticed so far: the Philadelphia defense's plan to blitz Culpepper worked. They were getting to him on every snap. Many times the guy is untouched. Culpepper did a good job of avoiding a lot of it, and actually turning a few of them into decent gains. As is usually the case, the marquee match up of Culpepper / Moss vs. McNabb / Owens didn't really turn into anything for either side. Neither player really contributed until the game was almost over. Yeah, T.O. had a "TD", but he only has four receptions. Moss, well, I've been watching since half time, and I've seen him catch three passes (yes, a TD, but too little, too late).

Right at the end, I saw the tribute this weekend to Pat Tillman. I talked about Tillman's death before, but the sentiment still stands. I am glad that the NFL is honoring him, but every single man and woman who has given up his or her life for the freedom of this nation is a hero in my eyes.

Anyway, here are my updated stats so far.