Google Speech

I did my informative speech on Google and how it was created. It started with Sergey Brin and Larry Page. They were two college students at the University of Stanford who were pursuing their Ph.D's. They, with the help of other students, created a system called PageRank that ranks webpages by how important they are. This is the system that Google still currently uses and it is why Google is the most visited web site in the world. When they first invented this system they applied it to the Internet right away and made their very own search engine. They then dropped out of Stanford to work on Google more and more. They moved into a garage and then Google started to become more and more popular. They got a lot of help from investors who donated money to help Larry and Sergey buy more computers. Google now has about 2 billion searches a day which is about 23000 searches per second. Overall i think i did very well on my speech. I think that I presented the information well but I should have made more eye contact. I also should have not moved around so much during my speech.

-Andrew

March Madness

Last Monday marked the first day of March which means March Madness. Sectionals are being held this week here at St. Anthony and Friday night Robinson takes on T-Town for the Sectional Championship. It should be a good game as T-Town will try to shut down Myers Leonard, the seven footer who's going to be playing at University of Illinois next year. And Speaking of college basketball, next weekend the NCAA conference tournaments will be going on. Next Sunday will be Selection Sunday in which we will be anxiously awaiting to see what teams will be in the Big Dance, the best sporting event of the year in my opinion. Only 65 teams get into the big dance and the winners of their conference automatically get in. The NCAA tournament will full of last second finishes, upsets, and more. It is the sporting event of the year that everyone gets into. A lot of gambling goes on during this tournament and this is why the tournament is so much fun.

Sta vs. T-town

This Friday, our Varsity basketball team is going to face T-town in the regional championship game in Shelbyville. This will be the third time we've played them this year after losing one very close game at the NTC tournament and another here at home that went into three overtimes. Hopefully we'll be able to pull out a victory Friday night at Shelbyville. We've been close to beating them twice now and I think this is the time we will beat them. It is hard to beat a team three times and that is what T-town would have to do in order to win regionals. We also in a sense have history on our side since in former teams both teams have won at least one game. You can almost be sure that this will be a close and very exciting game--no matter who comes out with the win.

Will Brett Favre return to the NFL next season

Brett Favre and his Minnesota Vikings lost a tough NFC Championship game Sunday to the New Orleans Saints. This battle went into overtime after Brett Favre threw an interception with just a few seconds remaining in the game. Had he not made this turnover the Vikings' kicker Ryan Longwell would have had a shot to make the game winning field goal to put Brett Favre and the Vikings into the Super Bowl. Brett Favre has said the past few years that he was going to retire but came back each time causing him to play for three different teams in three seasons. This season with the Vikings was by far the best one Favre has had in a while. Their regular season record was 12-4 and they won the NFC North Division. After their heartbreaking loss in overtime the big question is whether or not Brett Favre will return to the NFL for the 2010 season. It is hard to imagine that Brett Favre could walk away after his great season that ended in such a devastating loss. Brett Favre could not retire now considering his last throw was an interception that probably lost the game for the Vikings. Although Brett Favre is fourty years old he played this season as if he was twenty. I don't think he will retire considering he could have some bright seasons ahead of him.

AFC Championship game

The Indianapolis Colts have had quite a season this year going 14-2, and they won their first game in the playoffs against the Ravens. They will play this weekend for the AFC Championship game against the New York Jets. The Jets came into the payoffs with a record of 9 and 7 and they won their first game against the Bengals. Their second game game was a nail biter against the Chargers in which they only won by three. The Colts won their first 14 games of the season before losing their last two. Peyton Manning, a twelve year veteran, may be leading the Colts to their third Super Bowl win in franchise history. These two teams met on December 27 of this season and the Jets came out victorious which got them into the playoffs. This win ended the Colts chance of a perfect season. The Colts were playing their second string players for most of this game which is probably why they ended up losing. The Jets have a lot of momentum going into the championship game after winning their first two games of the playoffs but I think they will fall short in their battle this weekend. The Colts have a great team and their offense at times seems unstoppable. Peyton Manning has much more experience than the Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez who is a rookie. The Jets do have a great defense but I don't think it will be good enough to stop Peyton Manning and the Colts. I'm sure this championship game is going to be a close game no matter who comes out with the win.