Fantasy Football

The 2011 Fantasy Football season is over! Congratulations to People of the Sun and Salsa Sharks (my team) for winning their 2nd championships. Get all of last season's results on the fantasy football website.

Technical Data

Miketilson.com uses a variety of technologies to display the content and create the look of the site. Most pages are ASP or ASP.Net pages, with a few static HTML pages located on the site. VBScript and VB.Net are used as the primary programming languages for these pages.

As of the fall of 2010, I am going through the site to ensure all pages are XHTML 1.0 Transitional compliant. I am also updating the CSS to bring it to level 2.1.

The fantasy football utilizes a relational database on the backend. I use SQL to update, modify, delete, and query the 14-table database. There is also a little bit of JavaScript on most of the fantasy football pages. Dig far enough, and you might find some Flash animations.

Welcome to Miketilson.com

My site's main purpose is hosting two fantasy football leagues (see links on the left). But I've added a few other items that are hobbies of mine: golf, photographs, and music. Apart from the fantasy football, the site isn't updated often. But come back every few months or so to see new additions.

Academy Awards

Check out my preview of last year's Academy Awards show here. Don't think I'll have one for the 2012 show as I haven't seen enough of the movies this year.

Photographs

Here are some photos taken over the recent years:
- 2004: Trip to Hawaii
- 2005: Trips to San Diego, Houston, Prescott, and Pinetop; more
- 2006: Hunter; trips to California, Ruidoso, and Phoenix; more
- 2007: Trips to Little Rock and Ruidoso, two weddings, and more
- 2008: ALLTEL show car and trips to San Diego and Canada and the Oregon Coast
- 2009: Hawaii, Steven George Tilson, holiday celebrations, and more
- 2011: Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Houston
- 2012: San Diego (coming soon)

Progressive Music

For those that know me well, I am a progressive music junkie. Some of the bands I listen to are well known, such as Rush, Yes, and Pink Floyd. Others are not, such as Spock's Beard, The Flower Kings, Pain of Salvation, and Enchant. Still others fall somewhere in between, such as Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, and Marillion. While I am no longer writing reviews, I have put together a page of my favorite albums among other things.

Currently Listening To...

Symphony X - Paradise Lost:
I first tried Symphony X about five years ago after hearing a couple of these songs on a music label promotional CD. They didn't fully capture my attention. I've been listening to a lot of Pandora radio, and this group comes up more than any other based on my preferences. I recently got my hands on a copy of Paradise Lost, their latest CD based on John Milton's epic poem by the same name. As the band's name hints at, there is a symphonic element to their songs that didn't grab me five years ago. This creates a majestic sound through many of the songs, especially on their "power ballads" (for lack of a better term). While I don't recall much of Milton's poem, I do know the basic storylines. The music and lyrics capture this well. Vocalist Russell Allen does an exceptional job of conveying the right mood of each song, especially on angry pieces such as Domination and Serpent's Kiss. And that guitar riff at the 4:10 mark of Domination? It's one of the most unique chords I've heard, and definitely a highlight. I will be listening to more of their CDs based upon this performance.

Transatlantic - Whirld Tour 2010:
I recently received the limited edition documenting the band's 2010 world tour, or as the band said, Whirld tour (a take on their 2009 Whirlwind release). The limited edition includes the complete 3.5 hour long concert on both DVD and CD. It also includes a few extras on the DVD, including a two hour documentary of the tour. Bandmember Roine Stolt mixed the audio, and he did another fine job. The video captures a good amount of each bandmember playing their respective instruments; for once I would have liked to see a couple more crowd shots capturing some of the more emotional moments while the band performed Whirlwind. While the concert is extremely well done, the documentary plays a little too much like a home movie. Two hours was too long, but I'd rather have two hours than none at all.

Golf Diary

My main hobby in life is golf. I've become quite obsessed with the game in recent years. The main purpose of this section of my site is to track my rounds of golf from March 2009 onward. I also have a list of courses I've played, and I'll be adding some photographs of the courses in the near future.

Recent Photographs

January 28, 2012 - Dik diks squaring off at the San Diego Zoo. Alicia and I were fortunate enough to see these two animals go at it for about ten minutes, first butting heads and then one chasing the other around the exhibit. The games ended when the one being chased successfully hid from the other in the exhibit's long grasses.

August 9, 2011 - Alicia and I with our Realtor, John Barchi, on the day we signed our closing documents for our house in Tempe.