All posts by jason

General, Uncategorized

Back In the Saddle

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The busy season at work is starting to calm down a lot faster than I expected.  Here we are, just mid-way through September and things are looking up.  I think it also helps to put in your vacation requests for the rest of the year, and thereby have a good sense of when you’re looking forward to what in the upcoming weeks (I’m taking off a week and a half in October).

You probably noticed I got back to business in the blog this past weekend, too.  Feel free to catch up at your discretion, and take a look at some new pictures that I posted in the “Day to Day” gallery.

What else is new?  Feels like I’ve been off the grid for a while, so I may have lost touch.  Share if you like, via comment…

General, Uncategorized

Late In the Season

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This time of year, it gets tricky trying to plan fun stuff outdoors on the weekends.  It gets tougher after you went out and bought those end-of-season closeout items that you really want a chance to use before fall gives way to winter.

Michelle had her eye on a bike at Target (a pink one, of course) all summer.  She had a plan for saving and using a series of discounts to purchase it.  She has fantastic fiscal discipline– if I had seen this bike that I knew I wanted, I would’ve picked it up the first time I had enough cash in the bank to do it.  But she stayed the course, and wound up getting exactly what she wanted for about 50-60% of its retail price.  Not bad at all.

We had a chance to bike together here in town for the first time early last week.  We made a pleasant discovery: the Oak Leaf Trail (I’m pretty sure that’s the name of it) connects our respective residences quite conveniently (Michelle lives about a block and a half from a point where she can enter the trail, and I live across the street from one).  And it’s a straight, paved, easy-to-pedal route.  I didn’t realize there was a place in Milwaukee where you could go to see this many trees.  It’s a nice change of scenery.

Our first day on the path, and literally about 30 seconds after we realized we were across the street from my apartment, my bike kind of fell apart.  I’m not really hip to bike-parts lingo, but the rear… cogs (??) I guess you would call them, just about fell off the bike and made it impossible for the chain to stay on very long, or for the bike to stay in one gear during that brief time.  It was lucky that we were so close to my house when this happened.  We went back to Michelle’s on the trail, her riding, and me walking.  It was the first time I walked anywhere with her and wasn’t once reminded that I was walking too fast…

So anyway, since I hadn’t bought a NEW bike since 7th grade (the last couple that I had were free or purchased at minimal cost at a police auction), and since I didn’t care to go to the trouble of fixing the old one, I decided I would go out and get one.  Y’know, immediately.  Because that’s how I roll.

Last Wednesday night, then, Michelle endured the bike shopping trip with me.  I wanted to spend no more than $150, and after visiting Target and Wal-Mart, I ended up with this Schwinn mountain bike.  It took a combined 2 hours of standing in the aisles of each store staring at bicycles before I reached this conclusion, and I ended up about $10 over budget, but I think it’s going to work out.

We really wanted to get out and ride more of that trail this weekend.  The hurricane and it’s related precipitation pattern has not cooperated, though.  We were both literally on our bikes pedaling toward a meeting in the middle last night around 6:45 when we thought better of it– for the benefit of our appearance at dinner, and the prospect of rain later in the evening…

I’m sure there will still be a few days of nice weather to get out there, though.  After that, we’re also all set to start again in the spring!

General, Uncategorized

Facts Are Nice

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Sent this in an email to some, so sorry if it’s a repeat…

I haven’t made my voting intentions a secret during this election cycle.  I think there are a lot of unique, 21st-century sort of problems facing the United States right now, and I really don’t have any faith in a presidential candidate who’s been entrenched as a member of the GOP establishment for 25 years to have a useful perspective or any new ideas (let alone the political freedom from special interests to execute them).

The onslaught of negative advertising from the GOP has been, and will continue to be, relentless.  Here is a nice video summary that I was sent today, poking holes in the half-truths and sniffing out the BS in McCain’s ads to date:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH0xzsogzAk

I’ve encouraged people from the start of the primary season to collect the facts, read up on the candidate’s actual positions, and make informed decisions based on the issues at stake.  With that in mind, bookmark this one for yourself, too:
http://www.factcheck.org/

Whatever you choose to do in the voting booth in November, I hope that you won’t just *think* you’re doing the right thing, but be knowledgeable enough to KNOW you are…

Sports, Uncategorized

Replacement Prognostication

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If you’ve been with us from the beginning, you’ll recall that from Bozeman in 2002, I predicted the outcome of the majority of the Packers schedule, and a few miscellaneous other NFL games as well.

For the last 2 NFL seasons, I have ‘syndicated’ Josh’s weekly pronosticating email on my blog.  For 2008, he’s taking the year off.  I don’t have a problem with that, but it does leave me with a little bit of an empty feeling.

Remember the players’ strike in baseball in 1994?  They canceled the World Series and then the 1995 season started with “replacement players,” before the labor agreement was finally settled?  Well, I decided I would bring you my own “replacement prognostication,” just in case you’d end up missing it.  You’ll note that, just like the replacement players, it doesn’t quite seem like “the real thing”

WEEK 2:

  • Packers- win
  • Bears- lose
  • Lions- lose
  • Vikings- lose
  • Chiefs- win
  • Dolphins- lose
  • Seahawks- win

Have a great football weekend!

General, Uncategorized

Evidence

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I wanted to throw this out somewhere while I’m thinking of it, so if there’s ever any doubt, say, 20, 25 years from now, here it is:

My kids will not be allowed to go to an out-of-state public school for college unless they have a scholarship that completely negates the non-res tuition.  Wanna go out of state?  Go to a private school.

That is all.

PS – I hate college.

Climate, General, Uncategorized

Sifting Through the Static

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This is the time of an election year when it gets the hardest to sift through soundbites and 30-second ads and mudslinging in order to get at pertinent materials that deal with issues.  I was saying to Michelle last week that I would really like to get more policy specifics from Barack, because it seems like the only things I see on TV from him are defensive reactions to the McCain camp’s relentlessness.  I’ve watched some of those McCain ads, too.  Just ridiculous.  Regardless of who you want to support in this election, you have to agree that an ad whose thesis is “all of that candidate’s supporters are fickle dipshits that just like rock concerts” is pretty weak.

Instead of just repeating over and over that your opponent has no plan (which is patently false), let’s talk about some actual voting records positions on issues.

So with that in mind, here’s a little shortcut to Obama’s page on new energy and the plan for combating global warming and dependence on oil.  You’ll jjust see summarized info on that web page, if you want more details, you should download the PDF that’s linked from there.

Also remember that factcheck.org is a good resource for getting the stories of the candidates straight.  This is an important election cycle, and I hope we can all make informed decisions about these folks.

Oh and a little PS — sorry for dearth of new info, between working on school and working AT school, it’s a helluva month.  Stick with me, folks, there’ll always be more to tell…

Sports, Uncategorized

Numbers Game Redux

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The hundred-game mark is in the rearview mirror and the Crew is riding into town on an 8-game tear tonight.  Seemed as good a point as any to look back on my numerical assessment that came after the Boston Massacre, and see how the team is doing.  In case you feel like looking back, I am referring to this post from May 20.  On that day, here are some of the things I said:

You figure 90 victories will still win the division.

Well, things have changed.  I no longer expect 90 to be enough to win the NL Central.  The Cubs are not *as* hot as the Brewers right now, but they’re still in first place, and they weathered a tough stretch without Alfonso Soriano.  Will 90 be enough to get into the post-season?  Still likely.  The biggest shift since the early part of the season has been the Senior Circuit’s balance of power being located squarely in the middle: the top 3 teams in the NL are the Cubs, Brewers, and Cardinals.  Meanwhile, there’s a dogfight (albeit a few games behind) in the East, and a depressing state of affairs in the West.  There are still 60 games to go, but it looks like 2 teams from our division are going to be playing in October.

With their 118 remaining games, the Brewers would have to go 70-48 [to reach 90 wins].

That would be a .593 winning percentage.  Since that May 20 post, the Brewers are winning at a .672 clip (39-19), and, as noted in the Journal this morning, they’ve actually gotten themselves on pace for 94 victories.  I predict there is going to be another lull before the end of the year (probably in August, when 17 of 27 games are on the road), but if they can stabilize, at least split those road games, and come into September around 12-15 games over .500, they’ll be looking good.

What if they split the rest of the road games (which is what you kind of need to do, at a minimum, to be a winning ballclub)?

A 7-0 trip will make anybody’s road record start to shine.  And hey– a win is a win, not matter if you had to come from behind 3 out of 4 times in St. Louis.  Since May 20, the Brewers are 19-11 away from home, and they’ve pulled their road record up to 28-26 overall.  Quite impressive.

It’s shaping up to be a helluva season.  The city is nuts with Brewer fever, and since picking up CC the first week of July, they’ve sold out virtually every game at home.  The writing’s on the wall; it’s post-season or bust, and I think this team’s got tools to make it.