May3

Aquapocalypse: Boston and Beyond

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As I’m sure you’re aware if you’re living in the Boston area, though perhaps not if you live elsewhere, a water main break in Weston, MA has disrupted the flow of drinkable water to Boston and surrounding areas (but not Cambridge). While many are complaining about the inconvenience of having to boil water before drinking it (or brushing teeth or cooking or…), Lance has a better idea. Quoting:

Restore the balance of drinkable water to the world. For every day my city has to go without drinkable water, I hereby pledge $1 to a charity that helps bring drinkable water to the actual Third World — minimum of $10, in case Deval Patrick’s “Days Not Weeks” comment is accuracy and not just wishful thinking/crowd control. (I might bump that up to a minimum of $20; I’m unemployed, but even so.) According to The Water Project, “every $10 donated provides 1 person with clean water for 10 years”, and that seems like a fair tradeoff, doesn’t it? I’m still researching likely charities; Water For People also looks likely.
Join me. Make our “tragedy”, by which I mean “minor inconvenience for a week”, into someone else’s life-saving opportunity. Boost the signal. Pass it on.

I’m in.

Apr21

Twins 5, Indians 1

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My sister sent me a message this evening saying “Guess where I am?” This was followed shortly by the following big reveal:
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Yes, that is outdoor baseball in Minnesota. (Her report on the game: “It was a good one!”) Is it Memorial Day weekend yet? Because I really want to see it for myself.

Apr18

Rays 7, Red Sox 1

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Thanks to Chris Morse’s insistence that sitting through a rainy baseball game is torture and my feeling that a rain delay is still kind of a novelty, I scored another pair of tickets to today’s game. All in all, it wasn’t the best game to be at for a Sox fan. It was rainy, it was cold, and the Sox had no offense. On the other hand, for half of the game, I was cheering for Matt Garza to have the first Tampa Bay no-hitter (the day after the Rockies got their first). Even after Adrian Beltre broke it up with single in the 5th, his attempt to stretch that single into a double allowed Garza to face just the minimum 21 batters in the first 7 innings.
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But still, a day at the ballpark in the rain is still better than sitting home watching TV. And there is no better entertainment than a little kid sitting behind you enjoying the game. Because the game was less than exciting, I bring you quotes from a little boy, maybe five years old:

  • Being a kid, his attention occasionally wandered. One of these times, his mother instructed him to watch the next pitch, assuring him that something would happen — and something did. Ben Zobrist singled in two runs, giving the Rays a 4-0 lead. The kid retorted to his mom: Why did you make me watch that?
  • Shortly after Zobrist’s hit, the kid was talking to his dad, who had been assuring him the whole game that the Sox would come back and win. Dad, how are we going to win? It’s zero to four!
  • He had a tendency to cheer for individual Sox batters with his own repetitive song/cheer. Dustin Pedroia’s was the most dynamic, starting with a rhyme: Hit it in, Dustin! Hit it in, Dustin! His father corrected him and the lyrics changed, but the tune stayed the same: Hit it out, Dustin! Hit it out, Dustin! … and then Pedroia hit into a double play and without breaking rhythm, it changed again: What the heck, Dustin?! What the heck, Dustin?!
  • His parents explained to him that if a batter hit the Jordan’s Furniture sign in centerfield, Jordan’s would give away a bunch of free furniture. This prompted the kid’s brilliant idea: We should put that sign in our backyard and then I can hit it and then we can get the free furniture!

He also had a snazzy rendition of Sweet Caroline. And as a kid after my own heart, he refused to let his family leave after the 8th inning when the rain came back (as so many did). And he was rewarded in the bottom of the 9th when the Red Sox finally scored their first and only run — and oh, did he let out the most jubilant squeal!
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Apr12

Twins 5, Red Sox 2

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I caught a case of targetfielditis and left work early today to catch the Twins home opener — and inaugural game in Target Field — on NESN. I was pleasantly surprised when NESN showed the Twins legends (plus Kirby Puckett Jr.) coming onto the field but was disappointed when they pulled away to talk about the Bruins. I know it’s Boston coverage and they don’t care, but since the Boston coverage blacked out the ESPN coverage, it would have been nice if they showed us all of it.
Being the first game at the new stadium, there were plenty of firsts to go around. The first pitch of the game was a ball from Carl Pavano to Marco Scutaro, who followed with the first hit in Target Field, and then became the first man to get caught stealing. Denard Span was the first base runner for the Twins with walk, followed by Orlando Hudson’s first hit. Michael Cuddyer had the first RBI three batters later scoring Denard Span, the first run.
Nick Punto had the first stolen base in the second inning, setting up for Joe Mauer having the first extra base hit with a double in the second (and an RBI). Jason Kubel had the first home run in the 7th inning.
The first win? The Twins… as it should be. (Or more specifically, Carl Pavano… and the first save was Jon Rauch.)
(Also, can we just note that the Blue Jays are a top the AL East right now? Go Canada!)

Apr8

Yankees 3, Red Sox 1

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Tonight was my very first Red Sox-Yankees game, and I was all excited to be witness to the most contentious rivalry in baseball. But you know what? I was underwhelmed. I think the rivalry has past its prime. I remember the days when chants of “Yankees suck!” would break out at Fenway even when the Twins were in town. By contrast, there were a number of Yankee fans in attendance tonight and when they pulled ahead in the 10th, chants of “Let’s go Yankees!” could be heard. In Fenway. And no one chanted anything in retaliation.
But I think the clincher of the death of a once blood thirsty rivalry was the following snippet of conversation the guys sitting behind me had:
Sox Fan 1: (pointing a few rows ahead of us one section over) Hey look, that guy’s wearing a Bucky Dent jersey.
Sox Fan 2: Dude, that’s ballsy. Wearin’ that in Fenway?
Sox Fan 3: Man, it’s hilarious.
Sox Fan 1: I know, I kind of want to go shake his hand.
Shake his hand?!?! Five years ago some one would have “accidentally” spilled beer on that guy and managed to get him ejected from Fenway for “causing trouble.” (I saw this happen to a guy in a Yankees jacket at Fenway once.) Now instead, Sox fans want to shake his hand. This rivalry is dead.
On the other hand, those clearly weren’t the smartest baseball fans as we had this conversation at one point:
Sox Fan 3: I’m feeling a double play ball from Jeter right now.
Me (turning around): Uh, there’s two outs. There can’t be a double play.
Sox Fan 2: Dude, she told you.
Sox Fan 3: Oh, well, I meant in the next inning, Jeter’s gonna lead off with a double play.
Me: Really, how is that going to work?
Sox Fan 3: (putting on sunglasses as the lightbulb goes on) I’m just gonna hide my face and pretend this conversation didn’t happen.
Sox Fan 2: Dude, you’re a dumbass. Don’t try to show up the chick with the scorebook.
I think that last line will be the new subtitle to this blog…
Meanwhile, the game itself was everything you could ask for in a ballgame — a ten inning pitchers’ duel broken by a Curtis Granderson, who is maybe the one Yankee I don’t hate given all the time I spent watching him in Detroit. As for the Sox, Lackey pitched well in his Boston debut with six shutout innings to start the game. Normally, you’d expect this to be enough for a win, but the Red Sox couldn’t generate any offense beyond Big Papi’s slump busting RBI single to drive in Pedroia in the third. The Sox have never been a good small ball team, relying instead on a few big bats to homer in a few runs. However, looking at the line-up, it’s not clear who that’s supposed to be these days now that Jason Bay is gone and Papi is a shadow of his former glory. Kevin Youkilis? If he’s the Red Sox great hope, Boston’s in for a long season.
PS — I just read that Justin Morneau homered again for the Twins tonight. Now there’s a ballplayer you can put your power hopes towards. The Twins just beat the Angels for the second game in a row, 4-2. Why could these games have been on national television? And personal to Justin Morneau: Why didn’t you marry me?

Apr5

Opening Night

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Look, I am as happy as anyone that the Twins-Angels season opener is being aired on national television. But, I have an 8 am meeting and the 10 pm start time is not so good for that. So, as much as I want to stay up and wait for Joe Mauer to finally get his first hit of the season to break the current 3-3 tie (it’ll happen, won’t it?), I think I can’t make it.
Also, I am still on the fence on the Twins new uniforms. Does everything have to change with the new stadium? On the other hand, my twenty year old jersey is now officially retro.
This seems as good a time as any to mention that on Wednesday I am going to the Red Sox-Yankees game at Fenway. Chris Morse is my hero for that one. I also recently bought a ticket for the Yankees-Twins game in New York in May and am making plans for the June Mets-Twins series. Oh baseball, I’ve missed you.

Mar25

More curling

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It’s been almost two weeks since I last blogged about curling, so I figured I’d rectify that. Below are some video highlights (taken with my phone) of our second night of the mini-league. (I throw the second stone.) For whatever reason, the sound disappeared when I uploaded it to YouTube (and the video was taken with my phone, so it’s pretty low quality to begin with).

I’ve started to actually get the hang of throwing — I managed to place a guard right where the skip called it, followed by throwing a stone that curled around my own guard and went right into the house near-ish the button. Maybe Sochi 2014 isn’t so far off after all…

Mar19

Bracketology

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Our office, like many offices, is having a pool for the NCAA tournament. Well, technically, it is all for fun, but there’s a “donation” if you want to be eligible for a “prize.” While I entered the traditional bracket chosen by random inferences such as “I really want Minnesota to win at least a game,” and “Of course I believe Wisconsin will beat Kentucky,” and other Big Ten slanted favoritisms (Ohio State excepted), I also did something a little more scientifically random: two randomized bracket simulators using two different methods to choose a winner.
In the first method, I looked only at the seeds and no other outside information. If an x seed played a y seed, the x seed has a probability y/(x + y) of winning the matchup. Thus, for the 1 seed vs. 16 seed games, the 1 seed should win 16/17 times. Running five* different simulations of this algorithm predict the champion to be Kansas (twice), Wisconsin (!), Duke, and Vanderbilt (whoops).
In the second method, I used this article from ESPN to generate the probabilities of winning in any given matchup based on the historical matchups between seeds. (If a matchup occurred in the championship or final four that had never occurred in the championship or final four before, I used the regional bracket matchup for those seeds. If a matchup occurred which had never occurred before, I defaulted to the lower seed always winning.) Thus, in this simulation, a 16 seed never beats a 1 seed (because it’s never happened before). Five different simulations of this algorithm chose Kentucky (twice), Kansas, Duke, and Ohio State as champions.
After day one, the brackets generated using the first method have selected 11 games on average correctly. The brackets generated using method two have on average selected 9.6 games correctly. In addition, method one generated the bracket doing the best overall (and tied for first in the whole office pool with my co-worker who follows basketball closely) with 13 correct games. This bracket picked Kansas (my actual pick, aligning with Barack Obama), so it may be the one to beat.
For complete scientific openness, I’m posting the code for each method. Of course, they’re written in perl, so if you can read and understand them, it’ll be a miracle.

* Yes, if I was being truly scientific, I would have run it more times. But it’s really tedious to enter brackets on the CBS website we’re using for work.

Mar13

My team 3, the other team 1

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Tonight was the first night of the Friday night mini-league, which Karly and I managed to sign up for in the 3 1/2 minutes it took to fill up, as well as signing up Adam, Matt, and Johnny. While I brought the camera, I was too busy skipping to take any pictures. (For the uninitiated, the skip throws the last stone and controls the team strategy — kind of the team captain. Also, the skip doesn’t have to sweep. You can bet I volunteered for that position right away.)
As it was a mini-league, we started by doing some drills under the instruction of a number of club veterans, many of whom had competed at the national level. I still throw too hard, but apparently it’s good takeout weight! After we warmed up and got a better feel for how to throw, we played a mini-game of only 3 ends. (A standard game is 8 ends — 10 in the olympics.)
My randomly assigned team (which included none of the people I came with) managed to beat the other randomly assigned team (which didn’t include anyone I know either). I’d like to say it was because of the brilliant strategy I had, but really, since my strategy was tightly coupled with what the experienced instructors were telling me to do and since none of the shots were going where I placed them, it was more luck than anything else.
Still, I had a blast, and am looking forward to next week. Oh, and also tomorrow when Forrest and I go to the learn-to-curl event. Can one overload on curling? I don’t think so.
Also, as a public service announcement (mostly to the google bots that come by here more frequently than real readers), the Scottosphere has been moved to scottosphere.org from its previous URL. It seems Johnston’s old domain expired without warning and was immediately snapped up by a spammer. (I’ll not mention the old domain name in order to prevent the spammer from getting extra attention.)

Mar7

Have an ice day!

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ErinCurls.jpgToday, I took my curling obsession to the next level and actually tried out the sport at the Broomstones open house. Accompanying me was a rag tag bunch including Johnston, my coworker Callie, Jeff Roberts, Adam, my roommate Karly, and her friends Matt and Johnny. After making the drive to Wayland and parking in a nearby church, we got on a shuttle bus that drove us to the club and gave us flashbacks to elementary school. Once there, we watched a brief movie about the science of curling before splitting into two groups of four to take the ice: me, Scott, Callie, and Adam vs. Karly, Jeff, Matt, and Johnny. As Michael Scott from the office described it there were no winners or losers, only poetry.
After trying the sport, I made the following conclusions:

  • It’s harder than it looks on TV (which I suspected).
  • The stone was surprisingly lighter than I expected.
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  • I am good at throwing “warm room” shots — stones that would go past the house even off the ice (aka a warm room). I apparently need to learn to tone down my power.
  • Scott and Adam do not have this problem.
  • The pebbled ice has a lot more traction than I’m used to from my broomball playing days. But you can still slip.
  • Yelling “HAAAAAARRRRRRD!” is fun. But with my shots, I should probably just yell “WHOA!”
  • Not only do you yell “hard” when you sweep, but it is hard to do. Really, the hardest part is keeping up with the stone. Unless Johnston throws, then it moves slow enough that I can manage.
  • More sports should have the rule that the winning team buys the losing team beer.
  • There is a mini-league starting this Friday. I’m totally game for it.

I took more pictures here.