Home Run Records and Asterisks

Bright's wedding is just over two weeks away. I've been planning out my time in San Francisco and noticed that the Giants are hosting the Dodgers that weekend. I am not a huge baseball fan, even though DrT has inspired me to follow the Red Sox a lot more than I used to. However, given how nice San Francisco's stadium is supposed to be and the fact that a cheater named Barry Bonds is closing in on Hank Aaron's home run record, I decided that I had to get tickets to the game on Friday, July 13th.

Surprisingly, I was able to find tickets. The sad thing is, as much as I do not want to see Bonds get this record given the high probability that he took performance enhancing drugs, I think it would be cool to see him hit home run 756 that night. Don't worry though, I won't actually cheer for him. And I'll be in the wrong part of the stadium to catch the magical home run.

When #1 isn't #1

So I really have not posted much lately. I guess that's a combination of not really having any funny stories in my life and also because I've just not been hanging out and wasting time at my apartment much these days. It's summer and it's nice outside, so I don't apologize.

Anyway, Mpls Ju inspired me to talk a little trash today. I read her arrogant post on the crazychica site today bragging about this article. My official response. PFFT. Smarter my ass. My brother may talk a bigger game and try to intimidate me with smack talk, but when it comes to results, I clean up. I took him up on his challenge that I could not beat his high school GPA. When he realized that I was going to demoralize him there, he claimed that I would not carry a higher GPA after seven semesters at Michigan (he decided that his last semester should not count). Not only did I beat that challenge, but I stayed above his arbitrary seven semester bar all the way through the conclusion of college, just to add insult to injury. If Dr S. wants to claim superiority in card games requiring intelligence and strategery and what-not like rummy-500, I'd point out that he hasn't been able to compete with me since 2003. What does that leave my brother? Ping pong. Yes. Ping pong. I think that provides ample evidence to refute that crappy article that Mpls Ju used to get on her high horse. You got nothing, Ju. Nothing. Younger siblings rule!

How Old Am I?

Signs you are getting old:

I was out to dinner tonight to celebrate the end of a three month long training project at work that did not directly relate to my job (just a lot of extra work). At one point, Nells (PhillyPhanatic's wife) made a comment about how two of our newer hires at work were celebrating their 21st birthday today. We were all wondering why people would be in such a rush to graduate college and start working full-time at such a young age. It also happens to be Nells's birthday today. She made a comment about turning twenty-six and I did a double take. I started wondering how she could be as old as me given that I've been working at the company for one year longer than her.

Then it occurred to me. I'm twenty-seven. I don't think that has sunk in since my birthday last month. In fact, whenever someone has asked me how old I am for the past year or so, I had to think for a second before responding. I don't even remember how old I am anymore. That freaks me out.

I long for those days of yore when not only did I know my exact age, but I knew my age to the appropriate quarter year. I find it cute when kids brag about being "five and three-quarters", though part of me wants to tell them that they shouldn't be in any rush to get to that next year.

Twenty-seven. Scary. :(

E-mail Jokes

I tend to get irritated when people forward me jokes via e-mail on a regular basis. My parents are the worst offenders. However, I find myself reading the e-mails just in case the jokes happen to be funny.

I received one from my mom today that was about to be deleted after reading the first few sentences. However, I kept going. Maybe it was my mood at the time, but I found it somewhat creative. I'll share with all of you.
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At Northern Michigan University , there were four sophomores taking chemistry and all of them had an "A" so far. These four friends were so confident that the weekend before finals, they decided to visit some friends and have a big party. They had a great time but, after all the hearty partying they slept all day Sunday and didn't make it back to College until early Monday morning.

Rather than taking the final then, they decided that after the final they would explain to their professor why they missed it. They said that they visited friends but on the way back they had a flat tire. As a result, they missed the final.

The professor agreed they could make up the final the next day.

The guys were excited and relieved. They studied that night for the exam. The Professor placed them in separate rooms and gave them a test booklet They quickly answered the first problem worth 5 points. Cool, they thought! Each one in separate rooms, thinking this was going to be easy.... then they turned the page.

On the second page was written....

For 95 points:

Which tire? _________

That's (a little) Better

After another long day at work on Friday, a weekend worrying about work, a Sunday afternoon working from home, and a long day of work today, I think I managed to temporarily get through a tough situation at work. We had a big deadline for the release of a model that I own. For a while, I was afraid that we were going to miss the deadline because there were so many last minute issues that I did a poor job planning for over the past couple months. Then our testing was not going so well. Then I started to get poor feedback from the people who would be using the model (They didn't want any changes made). Needless to say, by the end of the day on Friday, I was freaking out.

Thankfully, things finally picked up today. I went back and met with the people who provided the poor feedback with revisions that I made over the weekend. After spending more time explaining why the changes were necessary in the first place and walking through how I incorporated some of their feedback, they were much more accepting of the changes. Our team met our noon deadline for submitting the changes. We also received very favorable feedback on the changes from the senior management of the department impacted, which was incredibly relieving. I have been terrified that I was producing a crap product because everything was so rushed and poorly tested at the end of this whole mess.

The stressful period is far from over, but at least I can breathe a little easier tonight after a rough few days. I haven't felt this incompetent at work in a couple years.

That's probably too much work info from the past two posts, so I'll stop here.

Work Blues

Work has been incredibly stressful and busy lately. This happens to be a very busy time where I am juggling 3 large projects, all of which are basically due at about the same time.

The problem is that I really don't know what I am doing or how to approach a couple of these projects since we want to make such drastic changes from what we've done in the past. It's probably my fault that I can't figure this out, which is especially frustrating. I am completely lost on so many levels, and I find that my staff and my manager are doing things that I feel like I should be doing. I know that I am not doing a great job, which is the most frustrating part. No one has told me that I suck, and it's probably not quite as bad as I think it is. However, I guess I just expect more from myself, even if I have been in this role for less than three months. I told my manager that I wanted to sit down and discuss feedback on my performance early next week since I suspect that it will be mixed at best. Hopefully some good will come out of that.

I haven't failed this badly at work since I started my last role back in mid-2004. At least I have not had many 2AM nights like I did in January 2005 to figure out all the disasters I created, but this still sucks. I've spent a good portion of my evenings recently working from home. I'm sure I'll get through it and be much better prepared for these types of projects the next time, but that doesn't really help me right now. I'm just really frustrated and hoping that I will not be working crazy hours all summer. It's one thing to work crazy hours when it's cold and snowy outside, but I won't give up my summer for my job as easily.

Internet Police Strike Again

We have a very strict information protection environment at work. The company takes information protection quite seriously. As part of this policy, sites like gmail and hotmail are blocked, and e-mails from these servers have occasionally been delayed or blocked. Today, my company kicked off a new round of censorship in the name of information protection. All blog sites are blocked. FlyingV, RytheRed, and I are lamenting the loss of receiving key Michigan news from MGoBlog. I'm actually surprised that nothing was done about this sooner, but today was still a sad day. Now I have to rely on sites like Yahoo! Sports, ESPN.com, CNN.com, the Detroit News, and the Detroit Free Press for the latest news and sports while at work.

Further Proof that Drew Sharp is Insane

How is this guy still a columnist at the Free Press? Every article he writes is absurd and ignorant.

Name a Good Sequel

I saw Ocean's Thirteen today. Pretty good movie, and definitely better than Ocean's Twelve. However, it's not hard to beat Ocean's 12 given that the cast basically admitted that Ocean's Twelve was not very good (at least that's what I heard second hand from FlyingV).

While Ocean's Thirteen had it's share of good lines and some good action, it still pales in comparison to Ocean's Eleven. Maybe it was the buildup of that movie or the freshness of the plot, but the sequels have not been able to recreate that impact. I think in general that's why it is difficult for sequels to be as successful as the original (at least in content, though not necessarily when it comes to $$$). I have heard that the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels are not very exciting when compared to the original.

The only sequel I can think of that was as awesome as the original off the top of my head is Godfather 2. Can anyone else name a great sequel that matched the quality of the original?

I think the bigger shock is that I actually stepped into a movie theater, which is a rare feat for me. Amazingly, if all goes well, I will be going to the movies again at the end of June to see Michael Moore's one sided bashing of the managed care industry. I'm actually quite excited about that movie, even though I know that it will be polemics at its finest.

The End of an Era?

For all the talk about the recent run of the Detroit Pistons coming to an end, the sports world has apparently forgotten to ask whether another sports juggernaut is seeing their recent run wind down. The Pitchers & Catchers suffered their first loss of the season this year. An 8-2 drubbing to The Swarm. It's not so much that the currently undefeated big red Swarm handed us our first loss, but rather how badly P&C was dominated. Looking at the score sheet after the game was depressing. We had one inning all game where we had more than one hit. One inning. They did score five of their runs in one inning where we made a couple of errors, but we would have loss even without those errors. The Swarm is clearly the league favorite in 2007 since they have added a couple of stellar girls that are good hitters and solid outfielders this season. We couldn't find any holes out there today.

Losing Hawkeye is really going to leave a mark on this team for 2007 and beyond. We could count on her at the top of the lineup along with our top guys to ensure that we could string 3-4 hits together in at least two innings every game, which was usually enough to beat the top teams given our strong defense. We were also missing PhillyPhanatic today, who is our most consistent hitter and top fielder, but we would have lost with him in the lineup today. Maybe the game would have been 5-3 or 6-3 with him, but it still would have been a loss.

At least the game was a lot of fun. No matter what the score, The Swarm is always fun to play against. We've just never played such a lopsided game with them before.

Now we're 5-1 and tied for second place with Son of a Pitch. Our next game is in three weeks against FlyingV and the Swinging Bunts. Despite their 1-3 record, they are an improved team right now and have a legitimate change of pulling an upset if our bats don't come alive between now and then.

Let the sandbagging begin...

I Am Going to Miss This Place

It's nice to have Dr. S. on the East Coast, but I'll miss the trips to Santa Barbara.

I can't believe my dad rented this car...and liked it. I hate the PT Crusier.


How many places are surrounded by the ocean and lovely mountains that make for great hikes? Not enough.

My sister in law has turned into a great Michigan fan!

This part of the hike has a breathtaking view of...Hwy 101.

One of the last salt marshes left in California, and it's a 2 minute walk from my brother's apartment.

Yes. Dr. S. finally made it! Now he is immortalized by a bobblehead.

A nice walk along the beach about 15 minutes from my brother's apartment. Off on the horizon you can see one of the sites where my brother did his research diving a few days a week, for several years.

Red Eyes

Another weekend. Another red-eye flight back from the west coast. Thank goodness I've recently learned how to get some sleep on an airplane. I may only be going on 3 hours of sleep right now, but that's enough to get me through to the evening.

The weekend in CA was great. My brother, who now has earned the nickname Dr. S (I am really lacking creativity with my nicknames...), did a great job on his exit presentation on Thursday and has received all the necessary signatures to ensure that he will get his PhD later this month. It took almost eight years and there were a few close calls where he almost gave up, but he managed to persevere despite complete neglect from the faculty along the way.

I am going to miss going out there to visit my brother and his family in Santa Barbara. I took some pictures of the perfect Santa Barbara scenery, but I will post them later.

It was also nice to see my dad for the first time in a year. Although his habits can really get under my skin (especially when we share a hotel room), I don't get to see him as often as most people see their parents, so I was glad that he was also able to attend.

Now I am looking forward to no big trips for the next month.