Friday, March 27, 2009

Midnight poem

Stillness

Tonight
I reflect on
Life’s currency-

a plate with orange rinds
&
a knife-
my focus now

I ask myself:
“How do you adapt?”

Ebb & flow,
ride with the tides
of daily existence.

Take comfort
where it exists
&
Provide support
as best you can.

The house resonates-
-strongly scented-
of many types of flowers
The blooms are
Beautiful…

I cannot fathom
what she feels
I try, but
my heart/mind
cannot conceive of
how the uncertainty
upsets her fragile balance.

I have no
answers-
My comforting ways
are suspect.

How I do not want to believe:
“We are all alone.”
at this particular point.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The future of waste disposal

As I watched this video (courtesy of Fried Rice Thoughts), I found myself thinking of the waste of food being committed. And also how I'd ever produce anything like 20 golfballs or 18 hotdogs that I'd need to flush.
Take a look for yourself:

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IanCasselberry of the aforementioned Fried Rice Thoughts blog suggests that maybe this is the future of incriminating evidence disposal? Chew on that, CSI!

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Running update

I finally broke a 9 minute mile. Yea me! It happened because there was a slightly faster runner on the indoor track. I passed her at the start of my run, but then she overtook me after 5 or 6 laps. I don't know why, but following a faster runner always makes me push myself, and even though she finished her run before I completed my mile and a third, I still was pleasantly surprised to see I had run the first mile in 8:54. The goal now is to improve my endurance and get up to a 5K distance by the end of April so I can start running in some races when the weather improves.
Brian is improving his endurance as well. He ran intervals on Tuesday night and I'm proud to report that he is still doing a complete weight training circuit 3-4 times a week. My weight lifting is still improving, although I still can't bench press my weight like I was able to do in my 30s. Then again, I weighed about 30 pounds less when I was in my 30s, so maybe if I can keep exercising on a regular basis, I will be able to lift the equivalent of my body mass.
With Daylight Savings Time arriving this Sunday, it should be possible to run outdoors in the evenings. Especially if the temperature warms up like the weatherman is predicting. As much as I enjoy the sheltered comfort of the Y's indoor track, it gets boring running in circles, especially since each lap is only 1/17 of a mile. I don't know how I was ever able to run 6 miles or more on that tract without going bonkers (Oh, yeah, the aerobics classes used to be held in the gym, providing a welcome visual diversion; much better than the current youth basketball classes).

Fantasy Baseball Tools

I've been experimenting with Access databases and Excel spreadsheets as tools for drafting in fantasy baseball leagues. I've created a Two-Tiered Cheatsheet, as well as a compilation of the 2009 projections from PECOTA, CHONE, Oliver and Marcel (I realize only fantasy geeks will understand the references-just be advised that these are the four main stat projection services available). I weeded out what I don't normally look at in evaluating players and kept the rest for both pitchers and hitters.

I must express my deep affection and heart-felt thanks to my wife, Lee Ann, for her assistance in setting up the database for the Projections Compilation. I may have been able to fumble the database together after a few frustrating days of work, but she made it happen in a matter of hours.

I've saved all the spreadsheets to Google Docs (what a great service!) so anyone that is interested can download them for personal use. I also put a link to the spreadsheets in my articles on Fantasy Gameday for easy access.

Over the weekend, I also put together a spreadsheet for one of my readers who plays on CBS (formerly known as CBS Sportsline). I transferred all the projections from CBS's player pages to a spreadsheet, then wrote a formula to value those players based on the league settings for the reader's league. I think I could do this for any league at this point, but I doubt I'd use the CBS projections now that I have my own Projection spreadsheet. If anyone is interested, drop me a line and I'll see what I can put together.

Projections spreadsheet
Projections webpage
Two Tiered Cheatsheet spreadsheet
Two Tiered Cheatsheet webpage