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,
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.
Progress is still being made on the weight front, despite the Thanksgiving weekend. I didn't record my food intake for about 4 days, but managed not just to avoid trouble, but enjoy some awesome food in the meantime. Green bean casserole, mashed potatoes & gravy, chicken & noodles, French Silk pie... my mother-in-law even had a tin of chocolate-peanut clusters waiting for me.
Normally I track everything I eat over at Sparkpeople.com (which makes it quite easy), but I kept things under control and still managed to keep the downward momentum rolling.
On the hockey front, our team got smacked again Tuesday, with another game coming up tonight. While we've got a nice bunch of folks, there is simply no organization. We haven't kept a consistent line or pairing together for more than a period, so there is often confusion as to who's playing where, and what they should be doing. Pretty sad, really, as we could probably do OK if we just got our act together. I'll try to push for that when the new season gets started in January...
And on the blog front, the big media company's legal eagles are forwarding over a Content Partnership Agreement, so once that's taken care of they'll start hosting some of my work. As soon as that happens, I'll sound the trumpets!
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
I tend to find most bumper stickers hopelessly trite, but this one caught my attention while driving back to Tennessee from Indiana yesterday:
Frodo Failed.
Bush Has The Ring.
In anticipation of being mostly off the grid over the weekend (heading up to Indiana to stay with the in-laws), I thought I'd post my update today rather than Friday.
On the blog front, an agreement is being drawn up and I hope to see my stuff published on the "big media" site within a couple weeks. It's fun to be part of a real awakening in terms of hockey fans using statistics to a greater degree. Another resource that's making waves is Hockey Recap.
As for weight, things are going pretty well, really, having hit the "20 lbs. lost" milestone. I'm not too worried about the holiday feasting, as I'm really not a Thanksgiving-food type of person. I don't particularly care for turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. Besides, it'll be more of a binge-and-purge type of day watching Joey Harrington and the Miami Dolphins ridicule my beloved Lions before a national audience.
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
What an up-and-down couple of days. Our hockey team got whacked again, a 6-1 affair that was actually a lot closer than it sounds. We had a substitute goalie and got off to a bad start, so after 6 minutes we were down 4-0. From there on, we got outscored in the 2nd period 2-1, and played a scoreless 3rd in which we got plenty of good chances but just couldn't cash in. I was stuck back on D for the night, so didn't get the chance to contribute much offensively - at this point, people aren't used to playing with each other, so when I would jump up into the play, they weren't looking to take advantage of it.
As far as weight goes, I went back up a pound this week. I'm not concerned, as my workout schedule has been disrupted and I ate a little extra the last couple days after giving blood. I'll get back on track today.
But best of all, I got an email from a producer at one of the main sports websites (think big media), asking if I'd be interested in a "content partnership agreement" related to my hockey blog. Hopefully I'll talk to him today to gauge the level of interest. Does anyone out there have any experience with content sharing agreements like this? Any details would be appreciated...
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
Dropped another 2 pounds this week, and actually wore some 36-inch jeans to work today, which I haven't worn in at least 3 years. w00t!
On the hockey front, it turned out that we had to forfeit last week's 6-3 victory due to the use of unapproved subs, which includes striking my 2 goals from the stats sheet (grrrr...). Last night we went up against a decent team, but instead of having 10 skaters (enough for 5 on the ice, and a replacement for each on the bench), we only had 8, and 1 left halfway through the game to puke his guts out in the locker room.
He says it was a stomach virus, but I think he just watched our play too closely. We got smoked 9-1 (I got the assist on our only goal, a feed to a guy in the corner who shot from a steep angle and caught the 5-hole), although I played pretty well. I usually play wing or D, but with the lack of skaters I played a lot of center, which meant taking faceoffs, which I rarely do. On one shift, I must have won 6 straight draws in the offensive zone, generating shot after shot and keeping the play in their end, which was nice (for a minute or so). In the end, however, we just couldn't keep up with the opposition, and we took too many penalties to boot. After a particularly cheap tripping call that I received, I got an extra 2 minutes for Unsportsmanlike Conduct, merely for informing the ref that he surely must have left his glasses at home.
Ah, well - it's still a fun bunch to play with, and there is a personal goal to play for. We'll have an All-Star game at the end of the season (just before Xmas), and if I play well over the next few weeks I could earn a spot from our team. The kicker is that the game is played at the Gaylord Entertainment Center in downtown Nashville, after a Predators NHL game. That would be a nice treat....
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
Over the last 6 weeks or so I've been using my blog as a forum to dig around within NHL statistical data for information that hasn't been studied or made available before. Basically, I've taken detailed game information and provided some structure to it, so links between various events can be identified, and hopefully, some meaningful conclusions can be drawn about the nature of the game. Unlike baseball, which is awash in statistical data that seems to be quite useful in the management of rosters and strategy, hockey has always limped along with statistics that haven't changed much since the Original Six days.
Yesterday, I had one of those "Aha!" moments where something came up that's truly surprising. In the last few years, the NHL has been counting Hits (when a player checks an opposing puck carrier). This stat has been pretty much neglected, as the applicability to game performance is hard to state. A hit in and of itself doesn't lead a team to victory, but the after-effects of the hit could; a team's defensive stance could be comprimised, a vital turnover could result, the "hittee" might be rattled for a short time, etc.
What I did was take the accumulated Hit data by team, and went through individual game information to figure out not just which teams were doing the hitting, but which teams were getting hit. Some teams, like the Boston Bruins, gave out many more hits than they took, while others like the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning were on the receiving end more often than not.
Then I ran some correlation studies on things like Goals For, Goals Against, etc. to see if the level of hitting had anything to do with team achievement. Taking Hits For and running it up against Goals For and Goals Against, the figures came up so close to 0 as to imply no significant relation there. What I then found was that the level of hitting wasn't important, but that when comparing the ratio of Hits For/Hits Against to the ratio of Goals For/Goals Against, there was a correlation factor of -0.40.
In other words, there was a mild, negative correlation between outhitting an opponent, and outscoring them. The Bruins, for example, had a Hitting Ratio of 1.44 (dishing out 44% more than they took), but a Goals Ratio of 0.86. On the other end of the scale, the Rangers had a Hitting Ratio of 0.76, but a Goals Ratio of 1.20. Clearly, there's more work to be done here to dig into the details, but it's an interesting finding that's causing some stir out there. I got a nice link from Eric McErlain's Off Wing Opinion, which is probably the #1 hockey blog out there today.
Now if only I could monetize this stuff so I could dedicate more time to it. I really think there's a lot of potential here...
dave-tx asked, so here it is, a review of how often hits result in offensive chances during NHL games. The short answer is about 2-3 times per game (roughly the same for Takeaways as well), but what's interesting is who shows up on the top 10 lists in these categories...
Last night was our best game yet, a 6-3 drubbing of one of the weaker teams in our league. Maybe not too impressive, but we've had probably 50% of our roster turn over in the last month, and this is the first good, concerted effort we've put together. I scored twice, once on a breakaway (snuck in behind both D and caught a pass near center ice), and the other on a nice feed into the low slot from a winger in the corner. Since I'm 16 pounds lighter than the start of the season, I can definitely feel the difference on the ice, both in general speed and having some gas left in the tank in the 3rd period.
I do have some neck pain and soreness this morning, though, from a nasty fall - one of those where your feet get swept out from under you, and you have a split second to think "man, this is gonna hurt" before landing on the back of the head & neck. It's a double-Ibuprofen kinda morning...
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 (damn candy)
Many thanks to SolemnDragon for inspiring me to finish this JE and post it. I've been dabbling with it for over a year now (the events occured September 2002), but now seems a good time to post it.
My mother-in-law occasionally uses the expression "so stupid they'd screw up a 2-car funeral," a quaint phrase that elicits a chuckle at both the absurdity of the scenario and the applicability to the subject in question. That phrase kept repeating in my head as I drove a rental car from Boca Raton to Miami with my dad beside me, and one brother (the younger of my two older brothers, so we'll call him YB) in the back seat. We were heading to the airport, along with my oldest brother (OB) and mom in another rental car, talking on cell phones trying to figure out where we could stop along the way to have a family dinner together before OB had to catch a flight.
My grandmother had just died, and that weekend our family came together. My parents had driven down from Connecticut several days in advance, when Nana went into the hospital and her kidneys began shutting down. She had long ago decided against fighting tooth and nail medically in such a circumstance, so my parents stayed with her and by the time I got there, she was gone.
I had brought my pregnant wife and 6 month-old twins down from Indianapolis, while at work we were heading into a go-live weekend for a major ERP modification project in which I was serving as the technical lead. My employer was understanding, and our project manager came to Indy from Wisconsin to take my place for the go-live. My wife thought it important for all of us to come down, given the gravity of the situation and the fact that as a complete family, we hadn't gotten together more than once every few years. I agreed.
OB had jetted down from Chicago Saturday morning, but could only stay about 10 hours before he had a flight out to catch up with his vacationing family. As the outstandingly capable over-achiever in the family, he had been granted power of attorney by Nana, so he had some legal documents to sign while he was in town. All day you could tell he had a ticker in his head counting down to when he had to bolt for the airport.
YB had flown in from his home in Pennsylvania (without wife or kids), and was obviously perturbed with the way things were proceeding. Perturbed at Nana for hiding so much from us throughout her life, and with the way our mom was coping with the whole situation.
Nana raised my mom and uncle by herself back in the 1940's, way before Murphy Brown made single parenthood respectable, and she had been less than forthcoming about her background and life story. To us grandkids, she always said she was "99 years old", and had grown up in Kentucky. Her parents and siblings had been killed in a car/train accident, and although she came from a family of means, an attorney basically took most everything after the wreck. She had attended the University of Louisville but left a year short of getting her degree, and a flood had supposedly wiped out the records from back then. She moved to Detroit from there, married, and had my mom and Uncle Joe, eventually divorcing because her husband was abusive. Over the last 20 years or so some of these "facts" were called into question, and Nana always said that "the truth" was all written down in an envelope, which we could have after her death. She wouldn't respond to any other questions regarding those subjects.
Uncle Joe disappeared in the mid-70's. He called my dad one day, met with him for a few minutes, said he had to go, and was never seen nor heard from again.
That's a pretty mixed-up scenario for my mom to deal with - raised only by her mother, her brother gone for 30 years, and slowly discovering over the course of time that Nana wasn't always truthful about her past. For one thing, there had been rumors (heard from a friend of Nana's) that there had been a previous marriage (she was 32 when my mom was born, so that's not unreasonable), and that her "maiden" name wasn't really what she said it was. BTW, her pseudo-maiden name is my middle name, so this kind of stuff tends to drop down through the family tree. Through some research I did after her death (and a 2-week trial period at Ancestry.com), I found some documents that appeared to validate our suspicions - birth certificates, census data, etc. that pointed to a different maiden name but jived with the rest of her tale.
Mom's method of dealing with all this was to basically paralyze herself with doubt. Rather than actually inquiring into the truth, she would wring her hands and muse about different possibilities, such as other aspects of her past that might be called into question. All that emotion came bubbling up that weekend in Florida. After her mother's death, she seemed incapable of even the most basic tasks which someone must do in that situation.
There was no funeral, or memorial service. There was a senior center that Nana went to several times a week to play bingo, and my mom had my dad send a cake over there, but that was it. Despite the decades that Nana spent in Detroit (including a long career at a nursing school teaching medical terminology), my mom refused to put an obituary in the paper.
Needless to say, my brothers and I are products of our parents, in more ways than one. During that day when we were all together, we went to her apartment, gathered some things together, split up some afghans she had knitted for the grandkids, and then my dad proposed getting a bite somewhere as a family. My wife called me on the cell, and the phone conversation went something like this:
Wife: "So what's the plan? Is there going to be a memorial, or anything? I've got two babies here and I'm starving! When are you coming to pick us up?"
Me: "Beats me, we have to get these documents signed, and then OB has to head to the airport later, I really don't think anything's going to take place."
Wife: "That's ridiculous."
Me: "It's wierd, is what it is. I wish I had my own car, I'd come get you. But as soon as I know more, I'll let you know..."
OB was focused on getting the papers signed and catching his plane, while YB seemed bitter and angry at the destitute condition of Nana's apartment and my mom's inaction in the wake of her death. He clearly wanted to get out of town ASAP. Mom was busy occupying herself with a variety of minutiae, keeping an air of calm as we went to the Post Office, got the documentation taken care of, and then considered what to do as a group.
Me: "Um, what about my Wife and kids at the hotel? Are we doing anything together?"
OB: "I don't think we have time - let's find some place on the way to the Miami airport."
Me: "Ugh."
The Wife was obviously upset at this development - she had flown with the kids down to Florida for this, and my family was just ditching her at the hotel all day long. We got onto the highway headed south, right into a huge traffic snarl on the way to Miami airport. As we crawled along, there were no obvious spots to stop, and with the traffic posing an obstacle, it was decided to get into the airport and find someplace there. Our two cars parked seperately, so what followed was the pathetic spectacle of my dad and I following YB through the airport, while he's talking to OB, looking for a place for us to meet.
YB: "I've got a Burger King over here... A Cinnibon... damn, it's all so busy right now."
At this point, I needed to pinch myself to see if this were truly happening, or whether I was just along for the ride in a bad movie. Everyone was so bound up in the details of finding a place to eat, that the purpose of our being together had been lost completely.
Finally, we ended up at a Cuban cafeteria (odd fare for a bunch of pasty Midwesterners); we went through the line, snagged the last open table in the place, and sat down together before OB had to leave in 5 minutes to catch his flight. There was an awkward silence once we were all around the table, and like clockwork, my outstandingly capable over-achieving OB stepped to the fore:
OB: "Um... so, did you guys here I'm playing softball again?"
Mom: "Oh really? How's your shoulder?"
YB: "What, you're playing with some of the guys from work?"
I almost burst out loud laughing at the pathetic spectacle. Instead, I butted in with, "by the way, did anyone find The Envelope? Was there anything written down?"
Everyone stopped blathering, my mom looked down, and softly said no, nothing had been found. Once the bubble had been burst, we actually had about 3 genuine minutes of conversation about Nana, before OB headed off for his flight. YB didn't participate much, but my parents opened up a little bit at least, telling us about her final hours.
I finally got back to the hotel to share the tale with my wife and sister-in-law, who were still dumbfounded at the lack of any recognition of Nana's passing. My wife's sister was living in St. Pete at the time and she drove over to help her with the kids and get some pizza.
Once back in Indiana, I found that even Nana's final wish hadn't been observed. She wanted her ashes spread at sea with roses. My mom (who is morbidly obese) said she couldn't get on a boat, and that my father is afraid of the open water, so they gave the ashes to "someone who has a friend with a boat" to take care of it.
Fucking despicable.
In the end, the anger that simmered inside as a result of that weekend wanted to make me think my mom deserves no better treatment once she's gone. No memorial, no obituary (I talked to my aunt who still lives in the Detroit area, and she got one placed), not even proper respect for her mother's remains.
But I'm not like that, and I'm not going to teach my kids to be like that. Things have to change.
Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?
