Good News!

Some of you might remember this post that I made a couple months ago. Well, I came across this news article today. Truly great news! I sent a short e-mail to my former teacher this evening to send my congratulations on the safe return of her daughter.

Shameless Plug

I came across this blog recently. Quality Michigan sports related blog run by one or more Michigan fans in their spare time. I don't know who runs it, but I wanted to plug it anyway. Great mix of sports and humor, plus a huge run-in with ESPN over the past couple weeks.

I am not a crook

I've received some good cracks this week about the office NCAA pool. I am locked into at least a third place finish and I can still win it all depending on the LSU-UCLA. Since I am running the pool, people are suspicious that I cheated my way to victory. I'm sure that most people are joking, but there is a bit of truth in every joke.

One friend of mine wrote me a check to pay his entry fee (I let him go on credit for a while). The memo section of the check read 'rigged NCAA pool'.

Given how anal I am and the experience I have in my current job regularly dealing with internal and external auditors, I covered all corners prior to the start of the tournament. Three days before the tournament started, I sent my two entries to PhillyPhanatic via e-mail. I made sure I completed my brackets before people starting submitting their picks to me. On the first day of the tournament, I sent a file out to all contestants with all 106 brackets, so someone could easily call me out if I cheated. I know that winning money in the office pool is as big of an upset as George Mason reaching the final four, but I am not a crook.

I don't know if I am really venting or not about this. I just wonder if people really suspect that I cheated my way to victory. I would never do such a thing to win a few extra bucks from my friends.

Picture time

I don't really have much to say tonight, so here are a couple pictures involving the person what I friend that I finally have a nickname for.

Here is a picture of Maverick, me, and WinnieP from a couple weeks ago. WinnieP was in town visiting and looking for an apartment since she is moving here from the Great White North (Winnipeg) in a couple months.

Here is a good picture from 'WinnieP Day 2005'. Before WinnieP left last summer at the end of her internship, a bunch of us got together to celebrate her awesomeness. I missed most of the night since I went to a Rolling Stones concert. When I arrived to the party around 1ish, WinnieP had already passed out from drinking too much wine. We took this picture with her camera.

It's a miracle!

That's right, I have won money in the office NCAA basketball pool. It's the first time I have ever won money on this tournament. The group fared quite poorly given the large number of upsets this year, but one of my two entries is standing strong. I win 1st place if UCLA beats LSU in the semifinals and third otherwise. I am also in the running for money in UNICorn's pool as long as UCLA wins next Saturday.

I should reach out to Hawkeye, the sports hedge expert, soon for her recommendations. My potential winnings will vary significantly based on the outcome of the UCLA-LSU game. I might bet on LSU next Saturday through some online site to narrow the range of potential outcomes based on the Final Four games next week.

I am a curse

Whenever I wear my Michigan hockey jersey and put my support behind a team, they are doomed to lose. Never fail.

Boston U got crushed tonight. 5-0. Boston College was just awesome this weekend. Even though BU was 4-1 against BC this season going into the game, they were unable to do anything. One of the most impressive defensive performances I have seen at the college level. I think the BC goalie had to make 2-3 tough saves all weekend.

I felt really bad for the BU students. They are an outstanding group of fans. They are creative, funny, and they never gave up or went against their team. After sitting near them for two days, I am convinced that they are much better than the Michigan hockey fans. The only advantage I give to Michigan is that our student section at home games is about twice as large and therefore much louder.

For as good as BU is each year in hockey, they have now gone 9 years without a frozen four trip. The last time they made the frozen four in 1997, they upset the greatest Michigan team ever assembled before losing in the title game. They deserved a trip to Milwaukee this year, but unfortunately they got thrashed tonight.

It's a shame there were no close games in Worcester. However, it was nice to see some college hockey, even if I was on my own this weekend. I don't see as many games as I'd like to since I moved to Hartford after college.

The BU students were a total riot. My seats were right in the heart of the BU section, so I was surrounded by students and other rabid fans. The BC contingent was very weak and there were probably 50-100 BC students at the game compared with roughly 750-1000 BU students. There were about 9,000 fans at the game, and I'd guess that 70-75% of them were rooting for BU. The BC fans were not making any real noise until it was 3-0. The BC fans are really obnoxious too. I hate them so much. They just mocked the BU cheers instead of creating their own. The best they could do on their own was the overdone "Sucks to B.U".

Apparently the NCAA was not too pleased with the BU students yesterday. The BU students got lectured before the game for some of their more vulgar cheers, so they were working for creative solutions tonight. Whenever they would normally do one of their vulgar cheers (i.e., f'em up f'em up BC Sucks), they would just chant "We've been censored" (clap, clap, clap clap clap). It was especially funny when they wanted to chant "asshole" at one of the BC players for a dirty hit, but instead referenced that they were censored.

Here are some of my favorite cheers from the BU students tonight:

"Where's your Beanpot?" - reminding BC that BU has won the last two Beanpot tournaments (tournament played each February that involves the four Div 1 hockey schools from Boston)

"We can't hear you" - whenever the BC students would try to start a cheer

"Villanova" - To remind BC that their basketball team lost last night

"F.C.C." - an alternative to "We've been censored"

"You are racist" - directed towards the ref when he called a penalty on a BU forward of Asian descent.

"Our band's better" - until the game got out of hand late in the 2nd period, the BU students would do something to drown out the BC band when they played.

"F-you Boyle" - The BU students got mad at the 6'6 BC center that just terrorized them all game and busted into this one late in the game. This cheer was quickly followed up with "We're uncensored". At this point, security started to crowd around the BU section, threatening to throw out an vulgar fans.

(After the band played the Budweiser song) "Anheuser Busch St. Louis Missouri. LET'S GET DRUNK". The band played Tequilla after the next whistle and the students yelled " Tequilla! LET'S GET MORE DRUNK".

"The wheels on your house go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on your house go round and round because you're white trash!" - directed towards dirty BC players, obviously.

Happy Birthday

...To TheCrazyCanuck. Sorry I bailed on your birthday bar night yesterday to watch hockey!!

Season's over

5-1 final. North Dakota humiliated the worst Michigan hockey team in twenty years (according to win total).

I will cheer myself up at some point tomorrow by watching my tape of the 2002 UM vs. U-Denver NCAA quarterfinal at Yost Arena. Best. Game. Ever. Oh the memories from that weekend when the hockey team was good (Taunting Molly, the SCSU cheerleader who called Michigan fans 'horrible people' in a local newspaper. The SCSU mascot that tried to pick a fight with our team before the opening faceoff. The insane crowd. Losing my voice from yelling too much. The last minute goal to beat the #1 team in the country and reach the frozen four. Yost Arena literally shaking...)

C-Ya-H-A

The CCHA is not having a good NCAA tournament. Nebraska Omaha was absolutely pasted by Boston University today. UNO led 1-0 early, but BU tied the game late in the first and then scored SIX goals in the second period en route to a 9-2 victory. I knew BU was good, but damn did they embarass UNO. At least the students made the game fun. They are hilarious!

I was hoping that CCHA regular season champion Miami would look more impressive in the nightcap against Boston College since another bad showing would not give me much hope for Michigan tonight. Unfortunately, Miami had like 2 quality scoring chances all game and fell 5-0. Miami was so desperate that they pulled their goalie with 10 minutes left in the game to try and erasae a 3-0 deficit. About two minutes later, BC scored.

Given the poor conference showing, I was expecting bad things from Michigan. I missed the beginning of the game since I was driving back from Worcester, but we were already down 2-0 when I got home. Two stupid penalties resulting in two North Dakota goals. Then North Dakota added a shorthanded goal early in the second. Story of the season. 3-0 already, likely 7-0 by the time the game is over. It's going to be a long night for a Michigan team that probably doesn't deserve to be playing this weekend given their play since January.

It's a shame Michigan will likely lose tonight, because the winner will be playing Holy Cross, who just completed the biggest upset in the history of the NCAA hockey tournament by beating #1 Minnesota 4-3 in OT. It's the first time one of the two crappy auto-bid conferences sent a team past the first round of the tourney.

The highlight of the day is that I will get to see a much anticipated BU-BC hockey game tomorrow. It's the best rivalry in college hockey, and the arena will definitely be buzzing. GO BU!

Fun with e-mail

I have a Jeopardy calendar at my desk at work. There is a trivia question for each day of the year. Harder questions are worth more points. It's like the game show. Anyway, every day I send out the question of the day to a group of 15 people. About 5 of the people read this site, and 6-7 others have been mentioned at least once in a past post on this site. Everyone replies to me with their guess and I keep score based on the point value for each question.

Today's Jeopardy question produced quite an e-mail chain. I have posted some of the best e-mails below that were sent to the entire Jeopardy group today. Of course, I have inserted the regular nicknames where appropriate.

I swear I actually do work during the day.

Enjoy!

From: Gary
Time: 7:53AM

Category: Rhyme Time
Value: 400
Answer: A hitchhiker on the back of a black widow

--Don't advance past this point until you have come up with your guess--



From: Gary
Time: 1:56PM

Today's question - What is a spider rider?

Two people guessed free rider spider. I have decided not to accept it because it is blatantly wrong when you think about it carefully. However, I am expecting some pretty heated protests from certain individuals, so the floor is yours...

--At this point, a couple people spoke up about whether or not I should have accepted free rider spider. Everyone prior to the next e-mail agreed with me. Of course, RoopDogg was one of the two offenders and he has a history of protesting my decisions. FYI, UNICorn was the other person who guessed free rider spider.--

From: RoopDogg
Time: 2:02PM

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

As with all juries, your job is not to critique the laws and precedents of the past, but rather to apply them correctly to the case presented.

I know some of you weren't here at the time, but in 2005's landmark case The Univ. of Univ. of Nebraska v. Gary, the Redneck Rule was formally instituted into the Jeopardy Bylaws. The Redneck Rule states that if there is a clear indication that the contestant possesses the knowledge to answer correctly, then the question presented is to be counted as correct, even if worded poorly. In this case, that indication is very clear (and rhyming!) in the response "What is free rider spider?" The spirit of the question is to determine two words that rhyme that fit the clue. It is undeniable that was done here.

Since the installation of the Redneck Rule, this rule has been correctly applied to many questions, and there is no reason that shouldn't happen here today.

So, members of the jury, I'm asking you to reject the extreme nit-picking being forced upon us all and do the right thing. UNICorn, do you remember when Gary tried to count your obviously correct answer about the electoral college wrong? TheCrazyCanuck, do you remember the BAR fiasco? FlyingV, do you remember how in a Trivial Pursuit game he counted the sun as incorrect for a photosynthesis question? If this is allowed to stand, I fear that we're on a slippery slope where misspelled words will be considered incorrect. Do we want a Jeopardy world where proper capitalization is the difference in 2,000 points? I FOR ONE DON'T THINK SO! Stop this madness now, people. Stop it now.


---For reference, the Redneck rule is named after my friend Redneck. About a year ago, there was a category titled 'States'. The specific question that led to this rule occurred when Redneck responded with "University of Nebraska" when the question was asking you to identify the state of Nebraska. After a protest, I accepted Redneck's response because his response 'demonstrated that he knew the knowledge required from the question'. Hence, we call it the Redneck rule.---

From: Redneck
Time: 2:08PM

Slowww ride, do-doo-do do-do do
Take it eaaaasy, do-doo-do do-do do

I'm in the mood, the rhythm is right,
Move to the music, we can roll all night.
Oooh, oooh, slow ride - oooh, oooh ...

From: Gary
Time: 2:14PM

Unanimous opinion written by Justice Gary on RoopDogg v. Gary Part XVI.

After review of this case, it has been determined that the 2005 ruling in the case of The Univ. of Univ. of Nebraska v. Gary wherein the Redneck rule was established does not apply. The term free rider spider does not hold the same meaning as spider rider and therefore does not demonstrate an understanding of the question asked.

If the question for the day was "a hitckhiking black widow", then free rider spider would have been accepted. However, the question specifically describes a hitchhiker on the back of a black widow. Hence, the hitchhiker is riding the spider. Switching the placement of the two rhyming words clearly changes the meaning of the phrase. Therefore, it does not demonstrate proper knowledge of the question asked.

Heck, even Nells made a rare reply-to-all on this subject and shot down RoopDogg's argument. I am ruling in favor of Gary. The end.

--Of course, someone not involved had to disagree with me!--

From: TheCrazyCanuck
Time: 2:15

I will side with UNICorn and RoopDogg. It is very obvious they had a clear indication that they possessed the knowledge to answer the question, and they back it up with a pretty good argument. I am feeling nice today - you should let them have it. (I really just feel bad that no one is on their side - we all know I like equal playing ground - hence me wearing an Ohio State sweatshirt to watch an Ohio state vs. Michigan football game where Michigan fans outnumbered the Ohio state fans by a lot, even though Gary gave me a Michigan sweatshirt to wear first)

Sorry Roomie!

From: RoopDogg
Time: 2:20PM

Do we know that the hitchhiker is not a spider? Obviously a human can't fit on the back of a spider, so it has to be something else... It's more likely to be another spider than anything else. Nowhere does it say that the hitchhiker isn't a spider. And therefore, "Free rider spider" DOES make sense.

From: BuckeyeBoy
Time: 2:25PM

Since it could be anything, I assert that the hitchhiker was in fact a celebrity shoplifter...

And therefore, "Winona Ryder spider" DOES make sense.

From: BuckeyeBoy
Time: 2:42PM

Oh wait...actually I think the hitchhiker was a talking car...
And therefore, "Knight Rider spider" DOES make sense.

Or a civil rights leader... and therefore, "Freedom rider spider" DOES make sense.
Or a hitchhiking duck... and therefore, "spider rider eider" DOES make sense.
Or a sarcastic, overweight, nagging spider hitchhiked on the back of another spider... and therefore, "snider wider chider rider spider" DOES make sense.

--I had to take a break and get away from my desk at this point since I was laughing hysterically--

Final Four Bound

As RoopDogg would say, DON'T LOOK NOW!!! Who cares if it's the NIT, I still like a postseason run. Of course, I have not seen one minute of Michigan's NIT run on TV, but who cares.

Although the NIT final four is in NYC, I don't plan to go. Next week could be a little crazy at work, so time off will be hard to come by. However, if FlyingV and RytheRed are itching to go support Michigan, I might be willing to go to NYC if we make the finals. We'll see...

Hockey anyone?

I am going to complain for the 1001st time that none of my friends here like hockey. One of the NCAA hockey regionals is located less than one hour away in Worcester, MA this weekend. The teams lined up for the site are the following:

1) Boston University
2) Miami
3) Boston College
4) Nebraska-Omaha

Although Michigan ended up elsewhere, I am still happy with the teams playing here. I absolutely love the Boston U fans. I try to attend one of their home games each year since it is a fun place to watch a hockey game. Not quite like Yost Arena, but still decent. Boston College, on the other hand, has a crappy hockey following (and a bunch of annoying fair weather fans). BC couldn't even sell out their arena for a BU-BC game that I attended a couple years ago. There were like 2,000 empty seats! Frankly, I don't like BC's hockey team. Maybe it's all the times they have beaten Michigan in the tournament over the past few years. I hope someone hands them a humiliating defeat like North Dakota did in the tournament last year. As the BU students sing (slightly censored)- "f'em up, f'em up, BC SUCKS!!"

As for why I am going to complain, I can't find a single person that wants to join me for the hockey games in Worcester. It's the NCAA tournament!! C'mon people!

I'm going to go by myself anyway, even though it means I need to burn a half day of vacation on Friday. I have not seen any local college hockey this year, and this is my last chance. With both Boston schools playing, the crowd should be really good. GO BU!!

Pooped

If you count the 30 minutes of sleep I got on the plane tonight, I am going on five hours of sleep since 8AM Sunday. I'm so tired.

The Philly trip was super busy. I had like 20 minutes all day to check e-mail and voice mail and just plain relax. I was busy all day learning the extra work I am picking up for a few months. I thought I was just picking up a small piece of work, but it turns out I am responsible for a lot more than I realized. While the additional work in my day won't be too difficult, I learned today that I am taking on additional staff until this guy gets replaced in June or July. Since the job doesn't compare that much with what I do now, I've got a lot to learn in order to get up to speed. Throw in a monthly reporting cycle that is during the last week of each month and I will be quite busy for a while. However, if all goes well, taking on the extra work should help me find a job in Philly should I decide to pursue that option over the next few months.

On a bright side (at least for RoopDogg), my new direct report gradauted from Bucknell University.

Time for bed now. Goodnight.

Weekend Update

I had a fun weekend. Saturday and Sunday were not quite as hectic as the 4AM night on Friday, but they were definitely busy between watching basketball games and playing poker at Casino T's and spending time with some friends in the area. I was not around the apartment that much except to sleep. However, I'm lacking on any really good stories outside of the super late night on Friday.

I spent most of the day today visiting RoopDoog down in Milford. We went to a local restuarant to watch the Bucknell basketball game. Bucknell was clearly outmanned by Memphis today, but they did close the most successful season in school history and they will get to raise another NCAA Final 32 banner in Sojka Pavillion next season.

I'm going to be in Philadelphia for work tomorrow. One of my peers down their is quitting and I am picking up part of his job until a replacement is found in the next couple months. I have to go down there to cross-train. Given my lack of sleep this weekend, I am not looking forward to a 5:30AM flight tomorrow, but I had to get down there on Monday or Tuesday. However, I am still thinking about staying up until 11PM tonight to watch Grey's Anatomy. I am crazy, I know.

Tales from the drunk bus

Yes it is 4AM.

I was planning to relax at home tonight after leaving TBry's NCAA party. That changed when a few friends including blog readers UNICorn, Maverick, and the poster formerly known as Kim in Oz (I will come up with a nickname eventually) were congregating at Coach's Sports Bar downtown. When I got there to catch the second half of the 10PM games, I quickly realized that everyone was drunk. Hours passed, we moved over to Bourbon Street for additional drinks, and many games of pool were won. By 2AM, all the designated drivers had left except for me and there were four people that needed to get back to Manchester. We post-partied for a while at Maverick's apartment, but I was ready to leave shortly after 3AM. We had to leave two people behind since they were way too drunk to move, but I was able to get everyone else home safely.

I received a drunk dial from Mouse on my drive home (around 3:30), but I was definitely talking to some girl that was not Mouse. Who was on the phone? Please tell.

As for the other highlights from the day, here are my top 4:

1) Advancing to the second round of RoopDogg's bracket madness tourney by virtue of the tiebreaker rule. Hawkeye deserved to lose to me anyway since she did not pick Bucknell to win. I will advance to the final four if I can beat UNICorn in the next round.

2) Bucknell winning. I didn't see the game since it was at noon and I was working, but when I saw RoopDogg around 3:30, he was ecstatic. Bucknell has two NCAA tournament wins in the last two years. Prior to 2005, no Patriot League team had ever won a game in the NCAA tournament.

3) Big Buckin' Chicken. Funniest commercial of the day.

4) Tony Kornheiser on PTI discussing Bucknell. He tore up Dan Le Batard for pretending to know about Bucknell Basketball when in fact Danny-boy had not seen a single Bucknell game all season.

I hate the NCAA tournament

I never pick the right games. Whenever I gamble for a big upset, I always get teased. Pacific chokes down the stretch. UNC Wilmington blows an 18 point lead, which likely knocks me out of RoopDogg's heads up tourney, etc. Grr... One of these years I am going to put $0 down on the tournament and just enjoy the games. Of course, $25 isn't going to keep me from paying the rent.

The office pool ended up with 106 brackets. A decent turnout, but a lot of extra work for me. Thanks to RoopDogg, UNICorn, Mpls Ju, Hawkeye, and FlyingV for your entries. The five of you plus me counted for 15 entries, though 9 came from UNICorn and Hawkeye. I even talked TheJSB into entering a bracket. I paid her $5 entry fee and she promised to make me tacos the next time I visited if she didn't win. She picked two 15-seeds to win in the first round and three 1-seeds to lose in the second round, so I will start demanding my taco dinner now! :) To her defense, Winthrop almost won today.

I spent the evening of at Casino T's house watching the games. He ordered the NCAA package so that he can get all 63 games. He has a 70 inch HDTV and brought three other TVs into the same room so that we could watch all four games at once. Sweet setup!!! I'll be spending more time over there this weekend.

Although many of my friends take half days off to watch the first two days of the tournament, I decided to not take any vacation. However, I did come down with a case of the NCAA flu just before 4PM and I ducked out early.

I'm also planning to leave early tomorrow. I still owe my staff at work a lunch to thank them for all the overtime they put in during January. They really wanted to have the lunch at Red Lobster, which is like 25-30 minutes from the office. Since that would result in a 2-3 hour lunch, I decided to compromise by scheduling the lunch at 2PM and then letting everyone go home early after lunch. I would have left work early tomorrow anyway to catch the end of the 2PM tourney games. I am attending TBry's annual NCAA Hoops party in Rocky Hill tomorrow after the lunch, and he conveniently lives less than 10 minutes from Red Lobster (and about 30 minutes from my apartment). Works well for me, I guess.

Soul Searching

I’ve debated about whether or not to post this, but I don’t think this topic will be very surprising to my regular readers. In fact, I have already talked to many of you about this. Hopefully no one from work reads this blog other than the 4-5 people that I have specifically told about this site. I am still a little sensitive with this topic around my work friends given how quickly the office rumor mill spreads.

I am in need of assistance, so if you stay awake through this long post and would like to offer advice, feel free to comment, e-mail, or call me.

Here it goes. I am strongly considering moving away from Hartford. While I may have joked about this in the past with some of my college friends, I was never really serious about leaving until now.

I would not allow myself to seriously entertain the thought of leaving CT until I had my FSA diploma in hand. Now that I have accomplished that goal, I am considering what I want to do with my life. I absolutely love my job, despite my occasional complaints. I have been challenged, tested, and provided great opportunities in my job and I enjoy working for my current employer.

I have also made some great friends in the 3.5 years I have lived in Hartford. Although I joke that no one who shares my passion for hockey, I have met some great people here and had some great times. However, I just don’t know if this is the best place for me at this time of my life.

I had dropped some subtle hints at work over the past few weeks that I would be open to a transfer to the Philadelphia office when I am up for my next rotation later this year. The original plan was to rotate out of my current role in the early fall. However, I learned last week that I might move on to a new role sooner rather than later, depending on some other internal job moves. Once my manager mentioned to this, I decided to be a little less subtle and express my concerns directly. I did not want to have my next rotation happen as quickly as my last one where I was called into the actuarial program director’s office on two hours notice, given a job offer to consider, and told to make a decision over the weekend. I need plenty of time to see what is available in Philadelphia.

Here is the problem. Moving to Philadelphia is likely a ‘career limiting move’ with my current employer. We have way too many people at my current level in Philadelphia and far fewer advancement opportunities. In contrast, my employer is desperately seeking actuaries with 3-6 years of experience in Hartford and is hiring experienced candidates from outside the company to fill some of the roles. There is much better opportunity for advancement if I stay in CT since the division based in CT is our primary product line. I have much better rotation opportunities for me in CT compared to Philly.

Another problem with moving to Philadelphia is that I would be starting over. While I know some people from the office there, I don’t think they would be the people I’d become close friends with. I don’t like to drink and party nearly as much as them and they are already well acclimated to the area. I’m afraid of having to start over and make new friends in a new city. I’m not the best at making new friends right away. An advantage of Philly is that I have a very close friend in D.C. (two hours away) and my brother might be moving the D.C. within the next 12 months. I also have some family in the Philly area. Hartford is not too far away either (4 hour drive), so I could still visit my friends here on occasion.

My current manager in Philadelphia is very supportive of a transfer to Philadelphia. I think he just wants someone to watch Michigan football with since he is surrounded by Penn State fans! He spoke with his manager this morning about my desire to move down there and both of them want me to start talking with various people about job opportunities as soon as possible even though I am still deciding if I really want to move. I am confident that I could make it work, but I don’t want to burn any bridges in CT just in case I want to come back to Hartford a few years down the road. Also, given the limited advancement opportunities in Philly and the glut of people at my level, I know that I will instantly make some enemies if I move there, if for no reason other than I am one more person to compete against. Furthermore, I am less interested in the work I would be doing in Philly. This move would be solely for personal reasons.

However, the more I think about the potential work consequences, the less I care. I am 25 years old. There is plenty of time for me to focus on my career in the future. If I burn bridges because I pushed this move, then I can always find another company to work for. What’s the rush? Arg! I keep going back and forth with this.

I have discussed this with a couple of my friends in CT and a couple friends from college. I thank all of you for listening to me and providing your insight. Hawkeye pointed out that I should wait a while and re-evaluate in the summer. Everyone just seems more depressed/bored in the wintertime, and maybe that is contributing to my unrest here. Things usually improve as it gets warmer out, so maybe I just need to be patient. CableGirl, my friend in D.C. who does not visit this site (she’d rather talk on the phone than read about my life on the internet), made some very strong points for moving away when I spoke to her on Sunday night. She has mentioned for a while that I should move to a bigger city and that I am too young to be in Hartford. On Sunday she told me that I should ignore all job related reasons and choose to live where I would be happiest, and was very forceful with her words. The career can wait until I am older. She had a good point. I know Mpls Ju has made the same arguments in the past when we have discussed this topic.

I am still quite torn with this and may need to make a decision within the next month. Grr…

The Whammy Has Won

Sad story today.

I remember the fall of my senior year when I was studying for SOA Course 4. I would go over to visit the Sybil Girls just about every night after band practice. The Sybil Girls were 8 girls, several who were in the trumpet section of the marching band, that lived a block away from me (on Sybil St.). We all loved the game show Press Your Luck. In fact, we'd watch the Game Show Network every night while we were studying until the second episode of Press Your Luck ended at 2AM. Amazingly, this was how I passed Course 4!! That year, the trumpet section made section t-shirts with a Press Your Luck theme. It was an awesome shirt!!

I e-mailed a few of the girls from the house while I was at work today to share the news. We were all very sad. May Peter Tomarken rest in peace.

Bracket Madness

I was going to post a fairly serious post tonight, but I never had the time to finish it. I did start the entry and I will finish and post it in the next day or two.

I spent my evening going to the gym, grocery shopping, and doing NCAA tourney research. I am running the office pool this year since the guy who ran it for the past several years moved away. We had 140 brackets last year, so I will be busy with that (assuming similar participation this year). I actually threw together my brackets fairly quickly since I wont win anyway.

I am participating in two other pools this year, despite my vow to spend as little money gambling on the NCAA tourney as possible. I never win any of these pools, so I am just wasting my time joining other pools. However, I can't say no to UNICorn or RoopDogg (mainly because they would keep annoying me if I said 'no' for the second year in a row). UNICorn is running a pool where you draft teams in the tournament and score points based on how far your teams go, with bonus points for lower seeded teams that do well. RoopDogg is running a 16-player 'Bracket Madness' tournament where the field is broken down into four 'regions'. RoopDogg makes up the entire selection committee, so there is definitely some shadiness in the pairings. I was seeded 3rd in the Sojka region and my first round match up is against Hawkeye. To win the first round, I need to pick more first round winners than Hawkeye. Since she is the ultimate sports gambler and deserving of a #1 seed, I am probably screwed. Oh well. I think Michigan was destined to get the shaft this year. Thanks RoopDogg.

Bubble Burst

No NCAA tournament for Michigan. :(

I looked up the records for Air Force and Utah St. Neither of these teams deserve a bid over Michigan. However, we were not the only team to get screwed. Losing 7 of the last 9 ultimately doomed us. I wish the NCAA used a transparent process for selecting and seeding the field, similar to what is done in NCAA hockey. There is no suspicion of politics or back room deals when that field is selected each year.

On the bright side, the hockey team made up for the collapse against Ferris St. by sweeping them in the conference tournament this weekend. I think they locked up a tourney bid with those wins!

'Ray Bucknell

The highly anticipated road trip to Lewisburg was as good as advertised. RoopDogg, UNICorn, and I had a great time cheering Bucknell to their second consecutive Patriot League championship and NCAA tourney berth.

It’s pretty neat to see a small town go crazy for their local team. Every store on the main street in Lewisburg was decorated with Bucknell Bison colors and posters. Even the movie theatre had “Go Bison” listed on the board advertising the movie times.

The lovely Sojka Pavilion was packed to capacity with just over 4,000 fans. There were a decent number of Holy Cross fans as well. I was shocked that Holy Cross sent a pep band all the way from Worcester, MA and that their seats were right behind one of the two Bucknell student sections. That would be bad news if an opposing pep band sat with the students in the Big Ten. However, I promised RoopDogg that I would not be a band snob, so I'll end my band related comments there. Some of the Holy Cross students came dressed in pretty lame costumes. They wore purple sweater vests over top of white collared shirts. They also brought plastic swords and shields and wore sunglasses. I guess this is because their school color is purple and their nickname is the Crusaders. I thought it was lame. Unfortunately I was not able to get a picture of the ugly costumes. Thankfully, the Bucknell students reminded them before the game that they wear purple.

The game itself was tightly contested until Bucknell started to pull away with ten minutes left. At the end of the game, we rushed the court to celebrate a second consecutive Bucknell championship and undefeated conference record (17-0). Here are some pictures from the game. My camera battery started to die just before the game, so I was only able to take a few pictures.

Outside the lovely Sojka Pavilion (pronounced Soy-ka)


The Sojka Psychos are ready for the game to start





UNICorn, RoopDogg’s friend, RoopDogg, and me


“I believe that we have won!” I took this picture just before we stormed the court, but RoopDogg almost pushed me over while I was taking the picture because he was in a huge hurry to get down to the floor.

Of course, any great championship must be celebrated with a night of crazy drinking. We spent a significant portion of the evening drinking with some of RoopDogg’s friends from college. We played Kings (Circle of Death) a few too many times and instituted several rules that involved drinking Jager shots. After doing this for a few hours, we were all pretty hammered. RoopDogg was by far the worst though. He started randomly yelling out “We’re talking about the fuckin’ Bison and shit” over and over for the rest of the night.

As we decided to wrap up the drinking game and head to the bar, I thought it would be smart to drunk-dial some people. I started with Mouse and Mpls Ju since I figured that they would enjoy a call. Neither one of them answered their phone. We ended up leaving Mouse a pretty raunchy message. When I say we, I mean RoopDogg and UNICorn. I don’t even remember what they said, but Mouse called back like ten minutes later to let me know that the message was somewhat insulting. Sorry Mouse! I’m sure it was also somewhat funny!

Just before we left for the bar, RoopDogg puked. I think this is the first time I had ever seen him puke, but given the number of Jager shots he had, I was not surprised. At this point of the evening, I called Hawkeye to remind her of what she was missing since she decided not to join us for the road trip. I think she enjoyed talking to the three of us because she was laughing almost the entire time I was talking to her. I decided to stop the drunken dials at this point because I was bound to get into trouble if I continued, especially since UNICorn and RoopDogg kept trying to take the phone away during the calls.

RoopDogg's college friends and the three of us from CT finally made our way to the bar around midnight, but it was surprisingly empty. It was the start of Spring Break at Bucknell, so the two campus bars were not that crowded. I was somewhat surprised since it looked like 25% of the entire student population, if not more, was at the game. There are only 3,500 students at Bucknell according to RoopDogg. Also, there were like 4 girls in the entire bar, so it was a sausage fest. Apparently, Thursday night was a much better bar night based on the crowd at this bar the night before. However, we got over the disappointment and ordered some drinks and started playing some pool since the bar was not that exciting and there was no good music. I am a terrible pool player, but UNICorn was my teammate and he is pretty good. Between the few games we played as teammates on Friday and Saturday night, we only lost once. RoopDogg and his new and improved “finesse game” was no match for my “I have no fucking clue how to play this game” strategy. Amazingly, I carried the team on Saturday because he was way too drunk. The second game we played on Saturday was especially funny. While UNICorn was breaking a new game, I went to the bathroom. When I came back, it was my turn. Three solids and no stripes had been knocked into the pockets. I assumed that we were solids, but I asked Brad to confirm. He had no clue. I then asked the girl who shot after Brad what they were, and she didn’t know either. Hello! Only one of them knocked in a ball. It’s not that hard to figure out. Well, UNICorn was quite incapacitated the rest of the evening. Every time it was his turn, he would ask me if he was supposed to hit stripes or solids. Every fucking time. I carried us to a stellar 3-1 record on Saturday night.

After the bar closed, we joined RoopDogg for one of his post bar college traditions. We made the 1-1.5 mile walk over to “Drunken Donuts”. That walk and the greasy food ended up sobering me up a bit. However, it did little good for UNICorn or RoopDogg. RoopDogg snuck in some liquor so that he could spike his coffee. When we left, UNICorn tried to take advantage of the drive thru service. We were traveling on foot. UNICorn decided to get around this by making car noises so that they would think there really was a car in the drive-thru. Surprisingly, it didn’t work.

The long walk back to the hotel was filled with several “We’re talking about the fuckin’ Bison and shit”.

So this story is not as crazy as Mouse’s recent bar night. However, I don’t think Ill ever have that insane of a night. You win Mouse.

I’ll let UNICorn and RoopDogg add comments with any good stories that I missed.

Road Trip!!!

This will be my last post for a couple days. Right after I leave work tomorrow, UNICorn, RoopDogg and I are taking a road trip to Lewisburg, PA. We are going to provide additional support for the Bucknell Bison in the Patriot League conference championship game against Holy Cross at the lovely Sojka Pavillion. The game is on Friday at 4:30PM on one of the ESPN channels. Keep an eye out for us! We'll likely be wearing orange and/or blue.

Lewisburg is about 275 miles from Hartford. It will be the longest road trip I have made with my car in nearly three years when I drove to Buffalo for the Frozen Four. Hooray for the weekend road trip!

I plan to go find a Bucknell sweatshirt Friday morning. I don't think I am betraying my school by sporting Bucknell paraphernalia.

I'm sure we'll have some good stories and pictures. The plan is to rush the court if Bucknell wins and rush the opposing team's bus if Bucknell loses.

Go Bucknell! Beat the Crusaders!

Back from the South

I am back from Atlanta. It was a great break from the daily grind. It was my first chance to get away from work for a couple days if you don’t count recruiting trips, which were not necessarily vacation.

I have a few stories to pass along. I’ll start with the seminar and then talk about the fun stuff. The last requirement I had to meet in order to receive my FSA designation was a two-day professionalism and ethics seminar. Believe it or not, it is possible to “fail” this seminar. There is a page at the front of the seminar handbook detailing how a candidate can fail this seminar. Most of the rules pertain to tardiness or absences. You can only a combined 15 minutes of the entire seminar. Thankfully, there was a 15-minute refreshment break after each one-hour ethics case study. I am going to quote my favorite rule for the seminar (emphasis in italics added by me):

“The circumstances that could lead to a candidate failing are…

…4. Receiving more than one warning for:
a) Being disruptive in a session; or
b) Sleeping, being inattentive or doing other work during a session”

You can get caught sleeping once, but not twice!!! Needless to say, all 115 candidates passed. Apparently some people have failed in recent years for violating some of the rules.

Outside of ethics case studies and a professionalism lecture, we spent 2 hours watching ‘Billion Dollar Bubble’, a made for TV movie that was filmed in the 1970s about a major corporate fraud scandal that involved two actuaries at an insurance company during the late 60s and early 70s. Since the Society of Actuaries (SOA) is high class, they handed everyone a tub of popcorn as we walked into the meeting room to watch the movie. Nice touch.

The course ended with a fancy banquet and a “graduation ceremony” where the SOA president gave a speech to the new Fellows and handed each of us our FSA diplomas. To demonstrate how fancy this banquet was, check out the table setting:

I’d also post a picture of the SOA president handing me my diploma, but my dad does not know how to use a digital camera despite a pretty thorough tutorial. Instead, here is a picture I took of my diploma after the banquet:

This diploma ranks right up there with graduating from Michigan because of the effort required to grind through the exams. The banquet was preceded and followed with an open bar reception. I would have taken more advantage of the open bar if not for two reasons: 1) I had to wake up at 5:45AM to catch my flight and 2) I am fairly confident that my dad was drunk by the end of the banquet and he wouldn’t go back to the room until I was ready to leave. I wanted to get him back to the room before he made a scene or passed out, so I called it a night around 10:30. My dad doesn’t have a good liquor tolerance and he seemed to be ready to pass out once the banquet was over after drinking a glass of champagne and four glasses of wine over three hours. It was pretty funny, though he was embarrassing me in front of some work colleagues by telling stories about me. Oh well. It was fun. Here is a picture from the end of the night:

As for the rest of the trip, I traveled to Atlanta on Saturday morning. Since my dad lives a little over three hours from Atlanta, he drove in to town to be with me. I had not seen him in nearly a year, so I was glad that he decided to meet me in Atlanta. He also paid for my brother to fly in from California as my FSA present. I hadn’t seen my brother in six months. We had a fairly low-key weekend. It was a major pain trying to meet up with my family at the Atlanta airport. Neither my dad nor my brother have a cell phone. I thought I was the last person to join the modern world. Heck, ever RoopDogg has a cell phone now. Trying to meet in America’s busiest airport was not easy. However, I eventually found my brother and we were on our way.

All of us had been to Atlanta before, so there was not too much sightseeing to do. That was good because I hate sightseeing. The conference was located right by Emory College, so we were about 5-10 miles from downtown. Emory’s campus was absolutely beautiful. The part of the campus I walked through reminded me a lot of the Hill area on Michigan’s campus. We all brought our tennis rackets and played on Saturday night at some lighted courts near the hotel. I had never played tennis with my dad before. He’s lost about 30-40 pounds over the past couple years, so he wanted to join my brother and I on the court. He wasn’t very good, but I was happy to see him trying to be athletic since he was never able to play sports when I was growing up. However, my brother and I were unable to have our planned showdown with my dad joining us. That was a good thing since we were both quite rusty since we last played at the family reunion back in September.

We spent most of the day Sunday visiting a cousin that lives in Atlanta. It was a little weird being there with my dad since we were visiting a cousin on my mom’s side of the family, but it was not too bad. This cousin is the only other person in either family who is an actuary, so we had plenty to talk about! She is much older than me, and a partner at her consulting firm. My cousin always reminds me that I should let her know if I ever want to change jobs. Her daughter is only thirteen years old, but she is an awesome tennis player. My brother and I hit with her for a couple hours. Although I was still rusty, I don’t think I could beat her when I am on my game. Once she adds a good second serve and some additional mental toughness to her game, she could get a Division 1 tennis scholarship. A friend of mine that used to work at my company joined us for lunch at the tennis courts with his wife. They moved to Atlanta a few months ago from Connecticut and now he works for my cousin. It’s a small world. Here is a picture of my cousin, her daughter, and the happy UNC couple (they were stoked about the UNC win at Duke the night before):

Sunday night was pretty tame since we were tired from playing tennis for a few hours. Also, my dad, my brother, and I had bad sunburns since we neglected to put on sunscreen. It was sunny and 70 every day, which was a great change from the recent cold in CT.

After the seminar on Monday, I went with my dad, my brother, and someone from work to the Atlanta Thrashers hockey game. They were hosting the Florida Panthers. Given that hockey is not popular in the South, there were plenty of tickets. We were able to buy great seats on the club level behind one of the goals for $20 each. Face value was $60. The arena was only ½ full. The Thrashers ended up winning in a shootout. I am a hockey purist and I hate the shootout, but I have to admit that it was a fairly entertaining finish. I just never want to see shootouts in the playoffs. Ever. I didn’t bring my camera to the game, so I have no pictures. My favorite story from the game was this guy sitting around the 6th row behind the net. He wore a Thrashers jersey with the number ’99’ and the name “Rabid Fan” on the back. Every time there was a scuffle after the whistle in our end of the rink or a bad call/non-call by the ref, “Rabid Fan” would charge out of his seat to the front row and start banging on the glass. It was quite funny since he was several rows away from the glass. No one sitting in the front row seemed to care, so I assume that this guy has some sort of reputation as the rowdy guy in that section. They seemed to feed off him. I wish there were more crazy fans at the rink instead of ~9,000 empty seats, but it is hockey in the South.

One other rant to pass along before I bring this post to a merciful end. My dad has so many annoying/bad habits. I don’t even bother to point them out any more to him because he will never change and it’s not worth an argument. However, I just wish he would do the following three things:
1) Close the door when you are using the bathroom. We are family, but I don’t want to see you pee.
2) Learn table manners. Eating with your mouth full and using your hands at a fancy banquet are probably not appropriate.
3) Please don’t shout. I am standing next to you and I can hear you just fine. So can the person walking ½ mile ahead of us. It’s not like this is a new thing. He’s been doing this for decades.

That is all. I was still happy to spend time with him, so I should qualify the above rant.

I hope to have some good stories from this next weekend in a few days. I’ll put my weekend plans in a separate post.

Friday!!

I'm off to Atlanta in the morning to become an officially certified F.S.A.. Yay! I'll be sure to post any good stories from the trip when I get back.

Return of Broomball Night in CT?

Before I get started, let me call out FlyingV for being an asshole. How dare you call me fat. You will pay. I put a curse of several devastating NBA Jam losses on you. Even RoopDogg won't protest my curse after what you said. :)

I got a call from my broomball team captain tonight. It looks like he is very close to getting the league started again. FINALLY! Apparently, there is some sort of feud between the two main organizers (and possibly others in the league). I have no idea what the issue is, but since those two had been in charge, we weren't playing this winter. Well, apparently my team captain was able to get a hold of a lot of the people in the league and get a commitment of at least 12 people to play. He also found us some ice time on Friday evenings from 7-9 starting next month. We apparently won't have the original organizers anymore, but I really don't care as long as we are playing. I guess I'll believe it when it happens since this guy is not the most organized person, but I really hope that Broomball Night in Connecticut starts soon. I can deal with the Friday night games (as opposed to Sunday nights) since we'll be done by 8 or 9 and I can still go out and enjoy my Fridays if I wish.

Two more days until Atlanta. Woo!

No creative title today

I've been pretty good about getting to the gym about three or four times a week now that my month of hell has ended. While I have no clear goal to lose a specific amount of weight, I just want to get into better shape than I am in now. Well, after a few weeks of working out regularly, I can report that I...gained 5 pounds. :( What the hell? How did this happen?

Don't worry, I'm not going to become anorexic or anything. It doesn't bother me too much. I'm already far above what I weighed in college, so what's 5 extra pounds? I think the problem is that I come home from the gym and I eat a huge dinner since I am so hungry. I've fixed that by eating before going to the gym and not snacking too much afterwards, but I guess it will take time for that to have any impact.

I guess the bright side is that I am probably a little healthier than I was a month ago now that I am working out regularly. I still am horribly weak when it comes to lifting weights, but there is almost no one around to laugh at me.