In case you’re not familiar with this program, you can learn a lot about it at the official website of FIRST or you can watch the kickoff ceremonies Saturday. I’d urge you to do both, if you’re curious about it.

The program is a High School-aged competitive Robotics program that culminates in robots from all over the world trying to win the events in the Championship held this year for the first time in St. Louis MO.

But winning is just a goal. The real challenge is the whole process for the season. The kickoff both unveils a game the robots must play to compete in, and is the start of a six-week period when the teams are allowed to build their robot. At the end of the six-weeks, it’s hands-off and the robot is sealed for shipping to the competitions starting in march.

Every team is given a basic kit of parts and the same information about the game. They must figure out how to play the game, which is played by an alliance of three robots against another alliance of three robots. You need to cooperate with your alliance-mate, who are from other teams and schools that you may have never met before to prevail over the other alliance. But don’t beat them too badly, they might be you alliance partners in the next match held in round-robin fashion.

The team must analyze the game and determine what they want their robot to be able to do. Every game has too much to do. A common pitfall is trying to do it all and ending up doing it all poorly.

Then they must design a robot that does what they want it to do. Coming up with ideas and solutions, building prototypes, debugging them and getting the final result built all in six weeks is a daunting task. The team works every day they can for the six weeks. Our team works Monday through Saturday. We’d probably work Sundays, if we could get into the school!

This is the 20th Anniversary of FIRST and the program has grown to well over 2000 teams today. Our team, The Warlocks, Team 1507 from Lockport High School, is in it’s seventh year. A really neat page with the history of all the past seasons can be seen here.

To get into the game and see the Kickoff as it happens, the best place is NASA TV, which is carried on DirecTV on channel 289, Dish Network on channel 212, many cables systems (check you listings) and online by NASA TV. If you have your own satellite dish, there is information on getting it directly on the NASA page as well.

As we left, someone at the door was passing out sample CDs from Scott Celani, The Corrections and The Filter Kings. It was an EP and a couple of the songs on it were Christmas songs. I remembered that those groups had a show at the Tralf recently and said so to my wife. She said, “Is the Tralf still around? I haven’t heard much about it lately.” Of course it is, but I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to the shows there of late.

So, I went online and checked their web page. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of exciting (at least to me) shows coming up in the next few months.

I’m not going to list every one. They have their own web site to do that! I’ll just comment on the ones I really like and let you know why.

In the very near future Robert Randolph and the Family Band is playing there. I’ve seen them a couple times and their high-energy show is always worth seeing. I’d imagine, with their show in December, they may include some Christmasy music, especially since their roots are in gospel-based music. It should be a Holiday show to remember.

Also coming up is Tom Stahl and the Dangerfields. I’ve seen them several times as well, including a holiday season show at the Tralf. It must be a tradition! They’re a local group and a popular band in the area. Tom is a gifted songwriter with a vast catalog of original material that will make you think as you tap your toe.

In January, there was a surprise that has me really excited. Eddie Cain Irwin has a show. I’ve never seen him live, although I’ve listened to and seen many of his video songs online. I even interviewed him for my old podcast. He had a project where he composed a song and shot a video using it each day for a year. It was called Eddie’s 1 Minute and it was such a cool, innovative project, I had to feature it on the podcast. I know he does play around the area some, usually small venues, such a Clarence Center Coffee, but this is the first big show I’ve heard of and I really want to go and see it.

At the end of January, a little-known legend is coming: Popa Chubby. He’s originally from NYC, but lives in France and is huge (no pun intended) in Europe. I came across a review of him on a web site somewhere and really liked his music. He’s an amazing guitarist, playing blues, psychobilly, and straight up rock. He’s married to his bass player, Galea a very interesting personna in her own right. Hope she’ll be there with him. Lockport band, Wanted By The FBI is the opener.

Those are just a few highlights of what is listed on the Tralf site. Typically, the further away dates are sparse, but more fill in as they get closer. Rarely a week goes by without three or four good shows there. You just have to check for them.

The first show I saw had so much promise. It was the episode featuring a CEO of Hooters. When he found a manager who was mistreating his female employees, and exposed him for the misogynist he was, I thought the show had a future. Besides the fact that I would have dropped my cover and fired him on the spot, if I was the boss, it looked like the show would be interesting.

But ever since, it has gone downhill. I just don’t get much out of watching it anymore. Here’s why:

It’s too soft. They really don’t go very far to see the real company and uncover many issues. It’s clear that the locations and employees are carefully chosen to cherry-pick them. Whether it’s to show the companies in a favorable light, or they don’t want to face any liability if they show an employee in a less-then-flattering way, the show has been coming off as too feel-good.

The Bosses are lightweights. Most of the time they go in there and look like they wouldn’t last a day on the job. That’s sort of to be expected. Any employee’s first day isn’t usually much to write home about, but they are only there for a day. It would be nice to see them spend a week at one job and see if an executive could hack a real-world job.

It’s too Disneyland. At the end, the employees that the boss worked for get brought into the office for the big reveal. Sometimes, it’s funny, but usually not. Then the boss thanks them for something they taught him and rewards them with some vacation, donation to a charity, scholarship fund, or promotion that they didn’t expect. Some of the time, I wonder if they might not be worse off afterward.

One time, I thought they would actually do something that would change things for the better for all the employees. It was an episode about an airline where all the employees had taken a pay cut to keep the business running. One employee talked passionately about their sacrifice and urged the company to restore the cuts now that they were profitable again. While it was hinted that they would look into it, and the individual employee was rewarded, nothing was done.

It’s too religious. Episode after episode, we’ve heard how religious the boss or the employees are. Who cares? I’m not saying that those values shouldn’t be followed in the business world, but do we have to showcase it in the show? Shouldn’t treating people the right way be automatic, not something only tied to religion?

I want to like the show. It’s better than the bulk of reality TV we’ve been force-fed. But I’m just lacking much satisfaction once I’ve invested the hour watching it. I think there could be a lot of potential for the show to be entertaining and do good things for workplace conditions at companies at the same time. But what I’ve seen so far is just too sanitized to be real.

My last gripe is not with the show, but it’s time slot. It’s really an issue with the network not the show. As I said, I DVR it and watch it later. I really hate that it gets bumped 15-30 minutes many weeks by football games that go into overtime. Wouldn’t it be nice if the network could figure out that sometimes games go over and build a cushion into their schedules that let them get back on schedule quickly? Here’s a suggestion on how to do it: Cut commercials. Starting with the football game. Once it’s clear that the game will be running late, stop. You’ve already paid the bills, don’t pile on. After that, yes there are commercial ads that pay the bills and have to be aired contractually, but at least cut out the self-promotion. At least half of the commercials every break are freebies – they are for the network and promote other shows, usually the ones they are delaying. If they dropped that half of the commercials, they could make up at least 10-15 minutes every hour. Don’t run an ad for the program that is being delayed by the ad itself. It only infuriates the person who tuned in to see it.

I know it’s a complicated problem. There are local commercials that get inserted at certain times, but there must be a mechanism to handle the timing of it all. We’re in the 21st century, after all. We have the technology.

I have the utmost respect for the Native American culture and beliefs. Unfortunately, I don’t see where exploiting a situation where certain commodities prices have become high, in part due to taxes, should be exploited for the profit of a few Native Americans. That’s not what we should learn from their culture. Maybe it’s what they’ve learned from ours…

And just what is a “Native American” anymore, anyway? I was born here. My parents were too. So were my Grandparents. I don’t know how many generations I would have to go back to actually find an ancestor from Europe. Am I as much a “Native American” as some blonde-haired, blue-eyed person who has a Great-great-grandmother that was born on a reservation?

We all live together. Many of us work together. I worked with several card-carrying Native Americans where I was formerly employed and they were hard-working, honest, good people. But New York is in a jam, financially and needs to collect the taxes, rather than think up new ones.

Native Americans – at least around here, I can’t speak for the rest of the country – enjoy the same government services as everyone else, roads, schools, welfare, police protection, and on and on. Sure there are some Indian Schools on the reservation and Tribal Police, but they’re a small, token part of those services. Native Americans should contribute their share towards the cost of those services as being the right thing to do. I know they are a proud people and wouldn’t want it any other way.

And, the state isn’t even talking about the Indians paying taxes. It’s about collecting sales taxes on sales to non-Indians who go to the reservation to escape the sales taxes elsewhere. It’s hurting non-Indian businesses and creating an unfair advantage for businesses on the reservation.

I think it’s time to just say no to this fight and not do it at all. Let’s not fight over who gets to pay taxes and who has to collect them. They’re an inevitable part of life here. Let’s stop this us vs. them thing and become all one tribe. I’m not saying to dissolve the Indian Nations, or to assimilate them. Heck, maybe they should assimilate us. I think in many ways their values and teachings would be better than ours. They might do a better job than our politicians in Albany. Lets just say we’re all in the same boat and deal with it together.

Of course, they’re not perfect either. Some of the guys in Armani suits with bolo ties I’ve seen on the news with some of the casinos are probably just as shady as any politician. I guess money corrupts universally. But I still think rather than dividing us, we should be working out these issues together. Let’s stop this fight over taxes and do the right thing. We all benefit from the services the taxes provide, so let’s all pay our share, do our share to collect them and work on getting rid of the corruption in Albany so we can get the most for our tax dollar and maybe someday lower those taxes for all of us.

[I know I'm gonna get some hate mail for this post, but it's got to be said. This separate nation, treaty thing just isn't working anymore and we're headed towards some ugly conflicts because of it. The reality is, we are all living together, lets start acting like it.]

I ended up riding to Middleport and stopped for lunch at a diner there next to the canal. I’d been there before, on one of the bike club centuries I rode a few years ago. It’s always a convenient place to stop.

Just for the heck of it, I decided to ride back on Route 31, aka Telegraph Road and see just how bad the Bike Route 5 was. Surprisingly, it wasn’t all that bad. It was exactly as I expected, heavy traffic with cars and trucks pretty much constantly going by. But the wide shoulder was smooth and clear as can be expected. The riding was actually faster than taking the canal path and it’s crushed stone.

I kind of enjoyed the uphill ride. Most of it seemed to be gentle uphills folowed by gentle downhills. Not even enough to call rollers. The last hill up the escarpment was harder as you would expect, but an easier route then going up the hills on either Market Street or Clinton Street next to the canal.

When I got back to Lockport, I stopped by the Canal Street gazebo to see who might be playing there. It turned out to be Mike Petralgia, a friend who I knew from work. I hung out for an hour or so listening to him play.

From Fun on the Canal

The gazebo shows are a nice idea, but attendance always seems to be really low. In the not weather, there just is no shade and no one wants to stay there. Today, it was slightly more comfortable and a few people wandered by to watch. Some even took pictures at the Canawlers cut-out.

Ride mileage was about 29 miles.

Click on the photo to go to my Picasaweb album,