Long before I started posting trip and hiking photos on my flickr account, I designed websites for my annual trips. After awhile, I started posting them at scottspics.com, where they resided for years. After really embracing flickr however, I dropped the scottspics domain and tossed them over to pics.rscottjones.com to consolidate. However, it’s long been a goal to get them all in one place, and that place recently became my flickr account.

Unfortunately, most of the nearly 2500 photos I just finished transferring are, at best 800×600 resolution (blame early digital cameras and a photo gallery script that forced consistency), but they’re still some of my favorites, like the above shoot of a deer grazing at Hurricane Ridge.

It will undoubtedly take some time to properly organize and tag these photos, but I’m happy to have them finally all in one place.

ASU’s spring football camp is now over, and it was obvious to all observers that things have changed. Discipline, teaching, and hustle defined the practices. A clear break from the Dennis Erickson regime. Nothing has been proven on the gridiron just yet, but the trend is exciting Sun Devil Nation. Time to buy your season tickets.

I was a bit surprised to read today that ASU had an increase of 11,064 attendees per home game, tops in the nation. The Sun Devils, picked to finish second in the PAC-12 South Division and showing off a new athletics logo and uniforms, rode excitement through the first 2/3rds of the season before falling apart in November, a month that ended with the firing of Dennis Erickson.

Arizona, on the hand, posted the steepest decline in the country at 6,455 per game. Not surprisingly given a ten-game losing streak against FBS opponents, attendance was down for the Wildcats, who fired their coach midway through the season.

Given the state of both programs, I’m still surprised to see ASU rank #1 in the country and to see UA fall to worst in the country. With two new coaches, Todd Graham and Rich Rodriguez, in place at both programs, it will be interesting to see how these numbers change next season.

I’d expect, with the angst around ASU and lower expectations for next year coupled with Arizona being the only game in town, that we’ll see a flip in the attendance trends—but I doubt we’ll see ASU at the bottom and UA at the top.

5. Rufus Arizona, UA’s first live wildcat mascot, hung himself from a tree limb on April 17, 1916—just months after being purchased as the school’s mascot. I suspect he was suicidal after he learned the story of how the university adopted the wildcats nickname.

4. In 1885, when the 13th Territorial Legislature awarded Tucson the University of Arizona (instead of the higher prized appropriations that accompanied the insane asylum or the state capital), Tucson citizens were so angry at receiving a university no one wanted that they pelted their returning legislators with ripe eggs, rotten tomatoes and—-foreshadowing their future mascot–a dead cat. Talk about wildcat pride…

3. Nonetheless, U of A heavily promotes that it was Arizona’s first university. What they fail to mention, besides the less-than-proud tradition mentioned above, is that there was little need for a university in the Arizona Territory, which didn’t even have a high school at the time. While the “university” accepted students from its first day of class, the vast majority were placed in a specially established remedial prep school. It took 17 years for university students to outnumber those in prep classes, which were maintained for 23 years. It’s hard not to chuckle when you see a billboard U of A purchased to promote a less-than-proud beginning.

2.  U of A’s original school colors were sage green and silver, representing sage brush and the state’s mining industry. However, in 1900, student manager Quintas J. Anderson was offered, at an extremely low price, a set of used solid blue uniforms trimmed in red. U of A bought the uniforms and changed their school colors to red and blue to match the sale-priced uniforms. So much for tradition, originality, or Arizona pride.

1.  On November 7, 1914, the Arizona “Varsity” football team was shut out 14-0 by the team from Occidental College in California. A Los Angeles Times correspondent Bill Henry, tossing the visitors a bone after a sound defeat, wrote that the Arizona team “showed the fight of wildcats” while getting pummeled by Occidental. For some reason, the fans in Tucson were elated at the newspaper article and eager to adopt the throwaway line of an out of town sports reporter as their school’s mascot. And it’s been Wildcats ever since.

Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.

For the fourth straight year, ASU has improved its Graduation Success Rate, reaching an all-time high. It now sits one point shy of its 80% goal (established when the GSR was created) and only 4 points from second place in the conference.

“The graduation success rate is the most significant measure of student athlete academic achievement that exists, ” said Jean Boyd, Associate Athletic Director for the Office of Student-Athlete Development. “This is the fourth consecutive year that we have improved in our Graduation Success Rate. The 79-percent ranks us in the Top 5 of the Pac-12, which is an elite academic and athletic conference. We are just one percentage point away from our goal of reaching 80-percent and are working hard to reach that goal.”

In addition, ASU’s football team ranks third in the conference, trailing only Washington and perennial leader Stanford. UA, which has often unfairly denigrated ASU’s academics while performing much worse, again manages to rank dead last.

ASU has been helping to set the national lead in academic support services and innovation in the last few years, owing much of its success to Jean Boyd and a renewed athletic department commitment to academics. Kudos to another year of solid improvement.

Steve Jobs died today.

I’m not usually a fan of corporate behemoths, but there was always something special about the way Apple—no, make that Steve Jobs—went about changing the world. You don’t need much more proof of the impact he had on the tech industry, or last generation or two, or the world today than the overwhelming outpouring of emotion after his death. If you were online, you knew. He was the entrepreneur of our generation, and one of the all-time great innovators and visionaries. The 60s/70s had NASA, and the 80s/90s/00s had Steve Jobs.

No matter whether you’re a fanboy or a hater, it’s hard not to argue that Steve’s passing leaves a huge hole in our culture’s soul. Steve and Apple certainly left an indelible mark on my life. He will be missed.

Perhaps one of his more poignant moments came during his Stanford commencement address. I’ve watched this video at least a dozen times over the years. The advice he gives is even more moving today than when I heard it last.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Watch the entire speech (or read the transcript). Either way, I promise that it will be well worth your time.

So let’s go make sure we all have our “one more thing,” moment.

If this video doesn’t inspire your soul and challenge you to get outside and experience the American West more, then I’m not sure anything will.

This photo says it all.

“Vontaze Burfict: What you get when you kick Ray Lewis’ dog.”

This never gets old:

And the video: