In order to follow the rest of the herd and see what the new pasture looks like, I've set up a profile over at Multiply. Instead of "TopShelf", I'm going by Forechecker over there, as that's the nic I'm using for my blog and assorted other online venues now (TopShelf comes from a column I wrote over 10 years ago)... so if you see a Forechecker knocking on your Multiply door, you know who's coming.

After getting delayed a week, Sunday's hockey article at the NY Times cites my hockey blog, in a piece discussing the relation (or lack of one) between physical play and scoring. It's nice to get that kind of recognition after having just gotten this blog rolling in the last six months...

This is nice, I just got off the phone with a sports editor at the NY Times, and they'll be mentioning my blog in this Sunday's hockey article, focusing on the lack of any correlative link between NHL teams that out-hit, and teams that out-score their opponents.

The uber-brawl between Colorado and Detroit occured 10 years ago today, and back in those days I wrote for a hockey website called In the Crease (where "Top Shelf" was the title of my column, and became my /. nick). It was a purely "by the fan, for the fan" endeavor, but we had garnered enough credibility that I was issued a press pass to cover this, the most anticipated regular season game in ages. I've posted the original piece I wrote that evening over at my blog (complete with a link to some video of the game), since ITC is no more, only to be found over at the Internet Archive.

Enjoy...

Google announced today a partnership with the National Basketball Association to provide a new "NBA Channel" on YouTube, featuring game highlights and videos featuring NBA players. The new arrangement isn't as extensive as that between Google and the National Hockey League, which provides full games for online viewing, but marks a significant new addition to YouTube's partnership-driven content.

The NHL repeatedly gets blasted for perceived marketing failures, so it's interesting to see the media-darling NBA following in their footsteps in this case.

I thought this was supposed to happen on Monday mornings, but I'm just in pissy mood today:

1. Weight loss has steadied off around 188, down about 20 pounds from where I started (and not going back up), but it's been hard to get back into the 3-workout-per-week routine, particularly after coming down with Strep last week. My original goal was to get down to 175 by early March, and it looks like I'll miss that by a fair margin.
2. Our hockey team, which is much improved this season, lost last night 5-3, and I had a couple bone-headed blunders that, while they didn't lead to a goal against, didn't help things.
3. We're not making as much headway on paying off our debts as I would like. We decided to go with minimum payments during the holiday season, but now we're having to catch up with some things (car repair, vet bills, etc.) that are getting in the way.
4. I found out yesterday (indirectly) that I'm not going to the user conference for the ERP system I'm implementing - although the CIO and a VP who's in charge of an entirely different system are going. I had specifically asked to attend this conference a couple months ago.
5. For our implementation project, we need to get IT training rolling to support our internal development plans, but HR is requiring every aspect of this plan (who's getting trained in what, and when) to be nailed down to the gnat's ass, with objective justifications as to why various people are getting trained and why some aren't, etc. Protecting the company from doing something that will get us sued is one thing, but they keep taking this way too far. We need to get the damn training going...
6. Our ERP vendor blows chunks. We're two months into a massive development effort (think many many man-years) with is due in Q3, and they still don't have a complete plan of how they're going to make it happen, and are still lining up resources. Oh yeah, and the bulk of the work is being done in an offshore startup (not outsourced, as it's their firm, but halfway around the world).
7. I'm realizing more and more that I hate project management. Nagging people to make sure they get $hit done is excruciating to me. Some people are great at that kind of thing, but I'm not one of them. Give me the analytical/architectural problems, and I'll do a great job.
8. WTF, Red Foreman? Where'd ya go?

Not everything is woe and misery. My writings are getting quite a bit of run over at Fox Sports these days, including my recent finding that there may well be a lefty/righty matchup advantage that coaches should utilize during shootouts.

Gotta go, time to flesh out this f*cking training plan for back-to-back meetings coming up...

Well, this is annoying - both Technorati is down, and Blogger's not serving up my blog, or allowing new posts.

I sense something terrible has happened...

You'd think with all this exercising (mostly involving lifting Red Foreman's karma out of the gutter) I'd be making quicker progress on the weight front, but the going is slow. Of course, it didn't help that I got access to a suite for Tuesday's Ducks/Predators game in Nashville. Open access to wings, hot dogs, popcorn & chips was just too big an indulgence to pass up, plus I missed a workout that would normally occur that night.

I made up for it this morning though, heading in to the Y before work. It's definitely been harder getting focus back after the holidays than I thought, however. Down 1 more pound this week, still a couple away from my peak low right before Christmas...

After hitting a bump in the there in late December, the weight loss plan is back on track - down 2 pounds over the week back down to 186, and resuming the routine of 3 workouts a week at the Y, with the odd 15-minute walk during the workday thrown in. The new hockey season starts in a couple weeks, so the more I can drop before then, the better...

Gotta get back to watching the rest of the Steve Yzerman jersey retirement night. Wow, what an event...

Starting today, if you head over to Fox Sports NHL, you'll see selected posts from my blog included in their feature content. The first piece they've grabbed covers unassisted goal scoring...

Whoohooo!!!

Man, the holidays just seem to fly by so quickly, it seems like it's been ages since I've kept up with things here. Really quickly, then (as I've got some CD-based training to get through in the last couple hours here at work):

1. Weight loss has hit a (predictable) plateau around 188, mostly due to a 4-day excursion to my in-laws, where the good cookin' just keeps on coming. I'm back in the saddle now, though, but will have to work hard to get to my goal of 175 by early March.
2. The media tie-in for my blog is signed, sealed, and delivered, now I just have to wait for them to post my first piece sometime in the next couple days. It's been quite a rush, really - I started dedicating more effort to the blog about 3 months ago, and I'm already about to be featured on a big-time site.
3. Bethanie's getting divorced? I missed that one, until browsing through the JE's just now. My oldest brother divorced earlier this year with 2 kids in the middle, and while it was as amicable as any divorce can be (he lives in a new place just blocks away and everyone gets along), you can tell it's going to be a work in progress for quite a while. Best of luck to all parties there...
4. The Xmas haul was less than in previous years, which is perfectly OK, as we're climbing out of a debt hole and have better things to spend money on, but my wife got me a nice jacket, and I pooled monetary gifts to get an LCD monitor for the home PC and pay part of my dues for the upcoming hockey season, which starts in two weeks.

Also pertaining to Christmas, we had our "Worst Online Shopping Experience Ever" this year, with Lillian Vernon. First, they got our credit card number wrong, but since their system doesn't run the credit check right away (strange), we didn't find out until an email arrived hours later saying "call customer service". We got on the phone, corrected the mistake, and a few hours later, got another email. We called again, corrected the mistake AGAIN (someone mistyped our expiration date), and were told everything would be OK. After a couple days, however, my wife checked the order status online, and shortly thereafter, got another email saying "call customer service". She calls, and finds out that someone had cancelled our order, but their system didn't have any notes or tracking information to suggest who or why (this at a time when she was at a spa, and I was at work, so it wasn't us). By this point, we're just a couple days from the holiday, so she gets a manager on the phone, who apologizes profusely, and offers to "manually override" the order and give us expedited shipping for free, in order to get our gifts on time. The packages are being sent to her parents' house in Indiana, since that's where we went for the weekend.

So we get to Indiana, and the goods aren't there yet. Saturday morning comes and goes, still no delivery. We call them yet again, and this time, the manager says the packages are currently in West Virginia. Evidently, the previous manager we spoke to gave us the "expedited shipping discount", but didn't actually flag the order for expedited shipping, so instead it went regular USPS, and was due to arrive on the 30th!

Fortunately, the kids still had a great holiday without those particular gifts, so we're refusing delivery and will get a full refund of our money. I imagine Lillian Vernon must have had terrible problems this season (perhaps a new ordering system?), as it seems we hit so many different bumps along the way, that I doubt ours was an isolated case.

Over at the blog, I've posted our holiday card for this year. Head on over and check out the Little Forecheckers.

OK, /. - help my marriage make it through the holidays. The wife is ready for a new phone (Sprint network), and is looking for something that can integrate easily with a calendar & task list application. She's currently using Hotmail for her main email, and she's open to switching to Gmail instead, but when looking through the cell phones that are available, the choices are many and the detailed information on how they interact with PIM's is slim. So what do you folks recommend? Help me, nerdy Slashdot readers, you're my only hope...

Oh, and Treo's are right out - there's only so much money to spend, after all.

The last couple weeks have been very busy, and as far as weight loss goes, I've hit a bit of a plateau - still making progress, but it's definitely slowed down. Mostly it's because we've been so busy that we've not gotten to the Y quite as often as we should (although I went before work this morning, and we'll go tomorrow). Hopefully I'll get back on track and drop a couple more pounds before the next session of our hockey season picks up January 8th.

As far as hockey goes, our team finished dead last, and I'm hoping for some major roster turnover. Basically, I'd keep a core from our current group, our captain, our goalie, two forwards who actually hustle, and one of our two female players. Hint: one of the two is in that picture, and she's the one to keep.

On the blog front, I'm still waiting for the media company to send over their content sharing agreement. Supposedly it's still working its way through their legal department...

Progress So Far
9/8/06: 209
9/15/06: 204.5
9/22/06: 206
9/29/06: 201
10/6/06: 197
10/13/06: 195
10/20/06: 194
10/27/06: 193
11/3/06: 193
11/10/06: 191
11/17/06: 192
11/22/06: 189
12/1/06: 188
12/15/06: 187

I'm just a lemming, aren't I?

1. What is your occupation?
Director of ERP Systems at a wholesale distribution company.

2. What color are you socks right now?
Black, like my shoes and belt.

3. What are you listening to right now?
The clack, clack, clack of my keyboard and the constant whirring of the HVAC...

4. What was the last thing that you ate?
Burger, fries and a lemonade at Sonic with the wife and kids...

5. Can you drive a stick shift?
Absolutely - it's been 3 years, and I miss it so!

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Orange. It's always been my favorite color.

7. Last person you spoke to on the phone?
My wife, reminding me of something I need to do this afternoon.

8. Do you like the person who sent this to you?
Yup!

9. How old are you today?
36... 37 in March. My brother turns 42 today (gotta call him, doh!).

10. Favorite drinks?
Pepsi, beer, lemonade, whiskey sours, orange juice, white-chocolate mochas...

11. What is your favorite sport to watch?
On TV - football, because it has been so optimized for that experience. Live, hockey.

12. Have you ever dyed your hair?
No.

13. Pets?
Ozzy the Dog, a corgy-mix. I think my wife preemptively named him Ozzy before any of our kids came along....

14. Favorite food?
Coney Islands, as found nearly everywhere throughout the Detroit area. Damn, it sucks that I live in Tennessee...

15. What was the last movie you watched?
Crash.

16. Favorite holiday?
Christmas. With the kids being 4, 4, and 3, they're in the sweet spot for that kind of stuff.

17. What do you do to vent anger?
Save it for my hockey games. There, if I screw up, I can just break a $20 stick in a kathartic spasm of rage.

18. What were your favorite toys as a kid?
My Atari 400.

19. What is your favorite: fall or spring?
Fall - it's all about the leaves, the chill in the air, and knowing that winter (my favorite) is right around the corner.

20. Hugs or kisses?
Hugs.

21. Cherry or blueberry?
Cherry...

22. Do you want your friends to send this back?
Just keep it pinging around /.

23. Who is the most likely to respond?
Good Q, there have been dozens already so it's hard to say.

24. Who is least likely to respond?
Osama Bin Ladin - he never seems to reply to my messages.

25. Living arrangements?
Rented house with the wife and 3 kids. Hopefully we'll buy it in a year or so.

26. When was the last time you cried?
Dunno - perhaps on my wedding day.

27. What is on the floor of your closet?
Lots of laundry to do.

28. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you're sending this to?
N/A, JE on /.

29. What did you do last night?
Put up lights outside, decorated the house, put the tree up, etc.