Off Wing Opinion: Money Talks

Off Wing Opinion: Money Talks:

I thought player agents were supposed to represent their clients’ interests, not their own.

Ask Dean Lombardi. The sharks have a long, painful and unpleasant history with Theofanus as a player agent. he’s just as annoying and greedy as Scott Boras is in baseball, but without the redeeming qualities.

At least you know what Boras is trying to do: make his client as much money as possible as soon as possible (even if it hoses his career long term, as it did with Todd Van Poppel, IMHO). theofanus seems primarily interested in what makes Theofanus the most money, not his client.

he’s not well remembered in San Jose, where he was Arturs Irbe’s agent (among a few others).

Thank you (again) Boston!

Just in case I haven’t said this in the last, oh, 24 hours or so:

Thank you, Boston, for trading us Joe Thornton.

Now, at some points, the sharks will actually LOSE A GAME, but they certainly don’t seem to indicate it’ll be any time soon.

Off Wing Opinion: On Second Thought

Off Wing Opinion: On Second Thought:

Even though Joe Thornton has been traded, nothing has changed in Boston. The Bruins are still struggling and the press continues to crucify the team.

On the other hand, in San Jose, it’s still Joe Freaking Thornton! and somehow, Boston convinced themselves that Thorton was the problem, and 29 other teams would have been more than happy to take that problem off their hands; San Jose actually DID.

Boston had major problems. Joe Thornton wasn’t one of them. Boston clearly felt that Thornton wasn’t the guy they wanted to be captain, and you just don’t make someone an ex-captain without moving him to a new team. Unlike moving Nolan to Toronto, Boston trading Thornton wasn’t trading away a failed captain — just trading away one that didn’t act like Boston wants their captain to act (whatever that is, but it seems to involve high emotion, lots of yelling, throwing guys into toilets and occasionally trashing a locker room, as far as I can tell. In other words, Trevor Linden not welcome….)

What boston doesn’t understand, I guess, is that while that kind of go-to “don’t you dare take a shift off” personality is important in the locker room, it doesn’t have to wear the C. It doesn’t have to be a captain at all; that kind of leader just, well, leads. And captains can lead in many ways — nobody will ever mistake Trevor Linden for Mark Messier, for instance, but both are very successful captains.

I expect that Thornton NOT being captain in San Jose will make him that much better, too. It’s one less thing to worry about — and it’s no insult to be on a team with Marleau as Captain, either. So I like the chemistry aspects here almost as much as the talent aspects.

I still remember when Dean Lombardi had his “chemistry rules” moment — when he brought in Ray Sheppard and Craig Janney to the team, which were combined an absolute disaster; and according to Dean, “on paper, it was a great trade”. Dean, to his benefit, put a lot of work into learning how to judge character, and ended up doing a good job. But now, it’s clear, Boston is clueless about it. I feel sorry for Marco Sturm; the other two guys won’t get boston expectations heaped on him the way Marco will, and now, it seems clear, the honeymoon over the trade in boston lasted about two games, and then the mediocre play, bad chemistry and losing started again…

how to improve the NHL even more: rule changes for next year

We’re about a third of the the way through the season, so I think it’s time to ask how the rule changes are working…

And frankly, I like them. But they’re not perfect.

Here’s what I’d change for next season.

First, the schedule. I hate it.

Here are two alternatives:

new schedule A:

play the other conference home and home: 15 teams x 2 = 30
play everyone in your conference home and home: 14 teams x 2 = 28 (58)
play everyone in your division 2 sets of home and home: 4 teams x 4 = 16 (74)
rotate the last six games around your divisional teams, focusing on rivalries. or cut the schedule a bit. I’m easy.

In this schedule, everyone sees every team once, with a strong focus on divisional play after that.

new schedule B:

play the other

play the other conference 1 game per season, switching venues (each team visits the other every other season)
15 x 1 = 15
play everyone in your conference 4 times (14×4 = 36, for 51 games)
play everyone in your division 6 times (4×6 = 24, for 75 games)
then either cut the schedule, or fill in with divisional rivalries.

Personally, I prefer plan B. I’d LOVE to get every team into every building, but with 80 games and 30 teams, in practice, it’s tough. But we can get them in every other year, and still focus on divisional rivalries.

In this schedule, the Sharks would play Philly once, Calgary 4 times, anaheim 10 times. If anaheim is your rival, it might be 12 times, and I have no problem with a 77 game season.

Next rule change:

protect the goaltender. But not TOO much. players crashing the goalie is a bigger problem this year. My suggestion: bring back the half-moon crease, maybe extend it a bit. If you touch a goalie in the crease, it’s goaltender interference. If the goalie is outside of the paint, it’s not. Pure and simple. If the goalie wants to leave the crease to challenge, then he’s going to have to accept some contact. If he stays in the crease, players have to leave him alone.

Next rule change:

Do away with the “no touch” zones for the goalies. While I supported that change at the start of the season, I think goalies have for the most part adjusted already, adn they don’t really have that big an impact compared to the rest of the changes. What they end up being, then, are not useful restrictions on goalies but an artificial obstacle course for them — and that’s not what this game’s about. so nuke them.

Referees continue to need to work on what’s legitimate physical play and what’s a penalty, especially in the slot, but this needs refinement, not changing. And 30 games into the season, I think they’re mostly getting it right — and I certainly don’t want to go back to the days we had. There are some players who simply can’t play the new rules — and while they hate the changes, what the league needs is to replace them with players who can.

Other than these tweaks: LEAVE IT ALONE. I like it.

Sharks 6 vs Florida 2

or the Joe! Freaking! Thornton! era continues.

Sooner or later, the sharks are going to lose a game. Sooner or later they’re going to ONLY score three goals on a team. It just doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon.

Last night, against a tired Florida team, the Sharks played their weakest period yet in the “Joe” era, opening the game with only five shots but ending the period 1-1. Florida, which had played the night before in Dallas (and lost a heartbreaker), didn’t arrive in San Jose until 7 in the morning because of weather delays out of Dallas, but they made things tough for the Sharks early. In the second, the Sharks started rolling, Mark Smith (Mark SMITH?) scoring two goals (for the first time in his career) and never looked back. AFter that point, the game wasn’t even close, although a horribly soft goal by Nabokov from Stumpel made the score a bit less lopsided.

Nabokov’s found his game, and looks solid. He got called for a brain cramp (um, playing a puck in the no-touch zone) after the puck bounced over his stick and he reacted.

Kid notes:

Stevenson got another goal, in somewhat limited minutes. Doug Murray only had one really significant hit last night, on Gratton, but it took off Gratton’s helmet (with a bit of an elbow, I think, but it seemed as if the arm was put up defensively, not thrown into Gratton’s face when Gratton initiated the hit). Gratton came back to try again, and I’ll call that second round a draw. What I keep noticing about Murray is he’s on the ice for goals: three of the six last night. He’s not generating points, but the team is scoring when he’s taking a shift regularly.

Ref notes:

refs were Kimmerly and Sutherland, and they did a solid job. I felt the goaltender inteference call in the first was a bit weak, but the refs have been told to protect the goalies; Kimmerly called an unsportsmanlike on Scott Thornton after he chirped on a call, but I’ll cut him some slack, because he took a puck to the face as he was blowing the whistle, and it clearly stung and I think Thornton should have realized it was a bad time to argue — but I thought what he said (we were in lipreading range) didn’t justify it.

Fern Van Sant at For the Birds

The Cupertino Courier | 0547 | November 23, 2005:

. Van Sant has spent more than 20 years working with her feathered friends, and it’s her mission in life to teach people how to treat them. Touted by some as the best bird doc around, she’s got a clinic full of squawking fowl and a loyal following of bird owners. Van Sant even flew to Louisiana to help save the birds there after Hurricane Katrina. She will take on any bird with any problem.

Nice piece on Fern Van Sant, of For the Birds. Fern’s been my bird vet for about as long as I’ve owned birds, and I can’t recommend her highly enough. When my first cockatoo, Morgan, started getting sick, Fern took it personally that we couldn’t keep her healthy, and fought like crazy to figure out what was going on (it turned out, after we lost her, to be a case of Polyoma that hid from the tests, where Morgan was basically getting just enough reduction in her immune system to allow her to keep catching bugs). Fern bought us at least a year that we otherwise wouldn’t have had. And when Tatiana ended up with Zinc poisoning, Fern and her crew were great at helping us get it under control and Tatiana back to whatever we laughingly call normal around this house…..

so, what about the Joe Thornton trade?

I was tied up moving plaidworks to the new server when the thornton trade went down. Just BEFORE it happened, I was going to post that the Sharks needed to do something, and try to get a top-6 forward (preferably center) to bolster the team.

I certainly wasn’t thinking about Joe Thornton. Which is why Doug Wilson is the Sharks GM, and I’m sitting on a blog suggesting we need someone like, oh, like a Scott Thornton. (By the way, I just want to note that Trent Klatt is still not playing hockey, and while he might need some time in Cleveland to get in game shape, his fight with the union notwithstanding — he’s someone who might improve the sharks and bring some of the spark we’re missing with Scott Parker on the IR again. Not in the fighting sense, but in the lead-by-example form.

Anyway, there’s only one way to describe my reaction to the Thornton trade. It is, of course, to channel the ghost of Joe Piscopo‘s The Sports Guy:

TSG: HOCKEY!

TSG: TRADE!

TSG: REALLY BIG TRADE!

TSG: SHARKS!

TSG: JOE FREAKING THORNTON!

TSG: BRUINS!

TSG: COMPROMISING PHOTOS?

TSG: JOE FREAKING THORNTON!

To be honest, the Sharks gave up a lot — Marco Sturm is a great player and Brad Stuart while he hasn’t been the same since his head injury, still has a upside and even the way he plays today is a top four defenseman, and Wayne Primeau is one of those lunchpail guys that teams need and which will give them a lift by playing quality minutes and bringing a good work ethic and attitude with him. This trade works nicely for Boston is Stuart and life his game up a level, closer to what he was expected to be as a kid, and I think that’s very possible.

On the other hand, this is a no brainer for San Jose. None of the guys the Sharks gave up make the players around him better. Stuart is replaceable, Primeau is easily replaceable, and Thornton is, well, a lot better than Sturm — and he makes everyone on the team better.

So, wow. It’s a gutsy trade by the Sharks, giving up three roster talents (beyond that, two top talents and a solid contributor, not minor leaguers, not draft picks, not fill ins. that’s significant depth to lose) — but it’s a no brainer. o it in a second, without quesiton. I’d give up MORE to get Thornton (anyone want Nils Ekman? cheap?) — which makes me wonder what Boston was thinking? To me, the best they can hope for here is to minimize the PR disaster in the making.

As cousin Scott Thornton noted “what team wouldn’t want Joe Thornton?” — um, Boston. 29 other teams, on the other hand, would have been happy to take him off their hands, but the Sharks made it happen. The Bruins are going to regret this…

for other coverage of the trade, try these links:

Sharkspage (and again)

Kukla’s Corner

And the trade is a big part of Carnival of the NHL 14, brought to you this time by Hockeydirt. A great read…

Patrick Marleau on the block?

Sharkspage – San Jose Sharks, Hockey, NHL sports blog:

Ken Campbell of the Toronto Star suggests that Patrick Marleau may be the next San Jose Shark on the trade block…

Well connected NHL executive or not, this trade would make no sense. After trading Marco Sturm [tied for the San Jose Sharks scoring lead in 2002-03] and Brad Stuart [the Sharks leading scorer on the blueline],

My thought is that the Marleau rumors are based on explorations Wilson was making before the Thornton trade went down. Once Joe Thornton was snagged, that one died. That doesn’t mean the Sharks were necessarily serious about trading Marleau, but it seems clear that all options were on the table to fix the team.

I still think that the Sharks aren’t done. I keep wondering whether we’re going to see a goalie moved, although Nabokov tweaking his groin makes that problematic right now — if they ever have all the goalies healthy, there are teams that seem to need a goalie, and the Sharks can take advantage of that.

However, I also keep asking myself — is there a trade available that includes swapping Nabokov and Luongo? Not straight up, but as part of a larger deal? I wonder what it would take…. On the other hand, the last couple of games have made me a lot more comfortable here again, and if Toskala is really healthy…

One thing Laurie and I keep wondering — why are the Sharks seemingly so insistent about NOT playing Schaeffer? We don’t get it. People I’ve talked to at the Tank tell me he’s a real NHL-caliber goalie, maybe a bit green. The problem some of us have is that both Nabokov and Toskala are quite solid and smooth goalies on their technique and angles, where Schaeffer is more of a reaction/scramble guy, and so he just looks — out of control. I’ve muttered more than once about the return of Irbe, and Schaeffer’s occasional braincramps puck handling haven’t helped stir up those ghosts… But people who’s opinion I trust say he really is the real thing… So I wonder if Schaeffer will ever see Cleveland again…

If the Sharks make another move, I’d expect it to be a defenseman. I don’t think the Sharks defense is in as tough a shape as many fans, and right now, I wouldn’t mind standing pat. Yes, Hannan’s struggled, and Stuart is gone (and wasn’t what he should have been — and hasn’t been since the head injury) — but from what I’ve seen, most of the Sharks “problems on defense” is the defense attempting to make up for defensive lapses by the forwards, and the Sharks were having trouble getting three lines that could be consistent and reliable every game. Joe Thornton changes all of that.

On top of that, the Sharks have a player few folks are thinking of: Dougie Murray. He’s up with the team now, but he was, from what I heard in training camp, expected to make the team — and got hurt in the first week of camp. So now, he’s healthy and stepping in, and I’d expect will fill some of the gap people are looking Wilson to run a trade for, and Joe Thornton will fix the rest by reducing the number of problems the forwards cause that the defense gets blamed for.

And in the “not everyone is your friend” department….

There was that one person who tried to time the closing of the sharks list to get in the last word, which was his “appreciation” of all the work we did over the years.

What is it about people who think everything you do sucks, but who insist on staying around and telling you how much they hate it, instead of going off somewhere else where they might be happier?

Because, of course, there are some people who get off on screwing things up for others. And when you’re managing communities, I’m more and more convinced you need to recognize and isolate those people early and often if you can.

Trolls — they’re easy. But there’s another group, which I always called Eeyores (nothing’s ever good, much less good enough), that can turn into cancers and sour or destroy a community if you aren’t careful.

I used to believe it was the admin’s responsibility to make a community work for everyone. I now understand some people like to take advantage of that, because ultimately, they get their joy not out of being part of the community or contributing to it, but screwing it up and watching people be miserable. The virtual equivalent of the boy poking a stick into the anthill.

Some people simply get off on destroying, not creating or using. And they don’t WANT to be helped.

If you don’t believe that, just ask the wikipedia folks. they’re learning the reality of what happens when the gang-bangers show up to have a little fun. and they assumed everyone would be like the core group was, which is a fatal mistake if you grow and get popular, because backpatching protections in (instead of designing them in up front) is a bitch.

If you have a group of 300 and four people think it sucks, the proper answer is to invite them to go elsewhere, not try to make it work for them. Of course, they’ll hate that,b cause they want everyone ELSE to change to fit their ideas, not try to fit themselves into the group. And that dynamic is easily 90% of the problems online groups end up having.

Wake? Hark! We Need A Song!

(Some of the folks who organized the next generation Sharks list decided to schedule a get-together, and declared it a wake for the old list. I see it differently, but a chance to spend face time with these people is always welcome. It is on 12/19, FWIW, and if you want info on joining in, drop me email

But anyway — Dennis Leach is a name well known to Sharks fans, since until this season, he was one of the primary anthem singers in San Jose Arena — and his voice is much missed this year, at least by some of us.

And Dennis did what he does best — when he heard of the wake, he broke out in song. And I just had to share it with you….)

With apologies to Padraig Murphy…..

1. Oh, The day that Sharks at Plaidworks died I never will forget.
We all got stinkin’ drunk that night and some ain’t sober yet.
Well, the only thing we did that night that caused us any shame,
We sat her upright in the box and dealt her in the game.

Chorus
Oh, that is the way we buried Sharks at Plaidworks.
That’s how we lost our honor and our pride.
That is the way we buried Sharks at Plaidworks
On the night that Sharks at Plaidworks died.

2. Oh, the night that Sharks at Plaidworks died I never will forget.
We all got stinkin’ drunk that night and some ain’t sober yet.
Well, the only thing we did that night that caused us any fear,
We took the ice right off the corpse and put it in our beer.

Chorus

3. Oh, the night that Sharks at Plaidworks died I never will forget.
We all got stinkin’ drunk that night and some ain’t sober yet.
Well, the only thing we did that night that made our hearts to sigh,
We took the foam atop our pints and “phhoophed” her in the eye.

Chorus

4. Oh, the night that Sharks at Plaidworks died I never will forget.
We all got stinkin’ drunk that night and some ain’t sober yet.
Well, the only thing we did that night that gave us any hope,
We Sainted Chuq and Laurie then we lowered them a rope.

Oh, that is the way we buried Sharks at Plaidworks.
That’s how we lost our honor and our pride.
That is the way we buried Sharks at Plaidworks
On the night that Sharks at Plaidworks died.

Sharks 6 vs. Detroit 7

Now, that was a fun game. I am really loving the NHL this year, except for this “sharks lose again” part. But at least they’re making it interesting. This team was fired up, ready, played hard, played well. Mostly.

The key exceptions that stood out: nabokov. something’s wrong. period. He’s not seeing the long rising shot, or he’s not reacting to it, or something. Beyond that, there are times when he seems to stop and ends up watching a goal go in — brain cramp? second guessing? worried about injuring his shoulder again? shoulder still hurt? I don’t know, but there’s always times during games where he simply seems to zone out and bad things happen, soft goals, or simply a slow reaction (or no reaction at all). He seems tentative. the rest of the time, he looks increasingly good, don’t get me wrong, but there are these lapses/gaps.

Stevenson/sturm/goc

Stevenson/sturm/goc

Stevenson/sturm/goc

Ekman/Thornton/McCauley

What’s this? the forwards on the ice for the regular strength goals. See a trend here?

A lot of people seem to be talking about “lack of veteran leadership”, which is code for — hell, I don’t know, either. “something’s wrong and I can’t say what it is, so we’ll blame something really vague”, I guess. Even Barry Melrose has hauled that one out.

To me, the problem isn’t leadership. It might be depth at forward. we definitely have issues in goal (why aren’t we playing Schaeffer? there seems to be some feeling that if they can’t “fix” nabokov, it doesn’t matter, maybe? — there clearly seems to be a feeling that Schaeffer started hot, but isn’t (yet?) the long-term answer).

But at center? Marleau (the captain) — point a game, won 60% of his faceoffs (McCauley was better).

Goc won 35%.

This is why I don’t see it as veteran leadership. Veteran leadership won’t keep Nabokov from a softie (or two) a game, or merely letting in a decent shot he should have had. Veteran leadership won’t deal with the fact that we have one great line (Marleau’s) and one decent line, and we’re struggling at forward after that. Goc, Michalek, Thornton, Ekman. Stevenson’s up here because they’re looking for someone who can get the job done up here — and last night, he was on ice for three goals. I like what I see — but the red wings just ate that line alive last night.

Ekman’s been a huge disappointment. Goc, Michalek are showing youthful inconsistency.

Do we need to shake things up? I acn buy into that — find a good veteran forward. But do it because our forward depth just isn’t good enough, not because we need veteran leadership. WE have kids trying to grow into roles that are showing they aren’t quite up to it, and one guy (ekman) who doesn’t deserve a roster spot, and a couple of other guys (thornton and McAuley) who were in that same doghouse, but are finally playing their way out.

So I don’t see a leadership issue. I see an issue of consistent execution. Part of that is we have kids being asked to do too much, and part of that is we have passengers watching; Nabokov at times, and Ekman. So go find a top 9 forward and bring him in. Give him Ekman’s roster spot, let Ekman go annoy someone other than me for a while. But do it becaues we realize the forwards can’t get the job done, not some “veteran leadership” thing.

James Mirtle: The Bertuzzi incident and Mr. Laraque – A hockey journalist’s blog

James Mirtle: The Bertuzzi incident and Mr. Laraque – A hockey journalist’s blog:

Now, in the wake of an ugly incident between the Edmonton Oilers’ Georges Laraque and Los Angeles Kings’ Sean Avery, the Bertuzzi incident is being brought up as something that deterred possible on-ice violence.

Laraque said he considered going after Avery on the ice after the alleged slur but, in the wake of the Todd Bertuzzi situation with Steve Moore, decided to let the NHL deal with it. Laraque talked to Oilers GM Kevin Lowe and NHL chief of operations Colin Campbell about the incident.

good, if true. The tendency of players to “take things into their own hands” (i.e., vigilante ‘justice’ usually based on some unwritten ‘code’ that varies based on who’s pissed off about what and how much they’re paid) is one of the key things limit the NHL from being more interesting to a mainstream sports audience.

It’s actually tied up into so many things — the league tolerance of fighting, but also, the league’s willingness to “let the boys play” and “not deciding the game” (code for: you can win the game not by being better, but by being willing to play dirtier), by the third period whistle-swallow, by not calling penalties during power plays — the list goes on.

If the referees called the rules, and if there were strong penalties for transgressing those rules, and those rules were reliably enforced and consistently applied, the role of “policeman” goes away. Scott Parker is a Shark not because Brad Stuart got mugged and seriously injured — but because the league didn’t deal with the mugging in any serious way.

I’m not anti-fighting, but I recognize that fighting gives the mass media easy video clips for the 11PM news, and a legitimate reason to not take hockey seriously — fights break out in football and basketball, and sissyfights in baseball — but only in hockey are they accepted as part of the game, and fighters given hero status well beyond their skill level (don’t believe me? sit in san jose arena any time Scott Parker has his jersey off — the crowd appreciates that on more than one level)

But fighting also is an indicator of worse problems — the biggest being hat the league has bought into the idea that the referee isn’t actually in charge of the game. He was supposed to “let the boys play” and “not decide the game” (HUH?), which really means don’t call penalties that actually happen. Um, think about that for a minute. To borrow from a famous philosopher, “no action is still an action”. Choosing to NOT call a penalty still is deciding the game, you simply change the bias towards the person who gets away with the infraction — and if you want to know how the NHL into the sad state of hockey it had before the lockout, that’s how: by buying into stupid idea that swallowing the whistle somehow made the game better. In fact, it encouraged dirty play, waterskiing defensemen, thugging in the slot and the whole grab/pin/hogtie routine — because if you know you can break the rules and get away with it, you will, because it gives you an advantage.

So now, the league’s reset the rules back to where they want to pretend they always were — and they need to have the backbone to do so — and if they do, then yes, as James says, it’s a new NHL, and policemen and fighting will fade away. But if the refs start swallowing the whistle again when the whiners start whining (Hello, chris chelios to the white discourtesy phone, please) about penalties at key moments, then you’ll see a return to ugly hockey and fighting.

If the league does ITS job, teams have no need for enforcers. I wish I really believed the league understood this. So far, I’m encouraged — but only time will tell. But I’ve seen a good number of penalty shots and 5on3 sitautions already this season, and that, to me, indicates they really have told the refs to stop calling games sitautionally. Here’s hoping it continues.

Happy October….

although I’m not sure how we got here so fast.

yes, blogging’s been a bit light again. No, it has nothing to do with, um, That Thing Next Week.

How do I explain this?

Have you ever sneezed? Sneezed Really hard?

Okay, now sneeze really hard while bent over a bit and twisted slightly. Sneeze hard enough that your vertebra do the slinky thing and separate, just slightly. Then pop back together, but since you’re bent over and twisted, two of them right between the shoulder blades, don’t quite mesh right.

Achoo! followed by any number of words that we don’t use in polite company. Hell, words most sailors probably would blush at, as two streams of molten laval travelled down my back and into the legs. In football parlance, it’s called a “stinger” — which is appropriate, if what stuck you did so with a stinger shaped like an ice pick and caught you in the spine.

Nothing serious — seriously — just a bit painful. It quickly settled down again, as long as I didn’t bend over, twist, try to pick up anything, or, well, sneeze. Did I mention that this is the worst damn fall for allergies I’ve had in years? And for the first three days, every time I turned over in bed, it woke me up. Rinse and repeat for about ten days (since I tweaked it twice, since I’m sometimes a slow learner)

But it’s fine now, but when I’m tired, I tend to not feel like writing as much. which is probably a good thing for the net anyway.

(I hate when that happens)

That — and I’m working on something here at home that isn’t quite ready to announce, but it’ll make Flip happy.

Opening night.

Tomorrow is opening night for the NHL — and I’m thrilled to see it back and in operation. I have great hope for the changes they’ve made.

It’s really hard to handicap this season, given the changes, how teams will react, and how the time off will affect players (some will get better from the time off; others just older).

But right now, I really like the Sharks and Senators. I’ll make those my choices for the Stanley Cup.

Game on! drop the damn puck already.

Roenick gets whacked. Avery gets stupid.

The Chronicle Journal – National:

Flames defenceman Denis Gauthier is getting knocked for his hitting style

Avery’s comments, which appeared on TSN’s website, came in response to Phoenix Coyotes defenceman Denis Gauthier’s hit on Jeremy Roenick in a Sunday pre-season game that left the Kings star with a concussion..
“I think it was a clean hit,” Avery told TSN. “I think it was typical of most French guys in our league with a visor on, running around and playing tough and not back anything up.”

Roenick, who was livid with Gauthier after the game, suffered the 11th documented concussion of his career as a result of the clean hit that Gauthier delivered during the second period.

Okay, let me get this straight. If I can.

Jeremy Roenick, one of the more physical players in the league, and a guy with a history of concussions to boot, gets whacked by Denis Gauthier in a clean hit in the middle of a real hockey game (if it were a fake hockey game, fans wouldn’t be paying full price to see it, right? That is what fans pay to see exhibition,um, pre-season games).

Roenick has his head down. This is somehow Gauthier’s fault, because he’s transcended some unwritten rule, one that seems to indicate that it’s okay for guys like Roenick to hit players in the preseason, but nobody’s allowed to hit him. Because Roenick is, um…

Old? Sorry, a veteran.

Because it’s okay to skate with your head down in pre-season, because it doesn’t count?

Because the league outlawed body checks in pre-season and didn’t tell the fans? (well, from what I’ve seen, that’s mostly true, but ignore that)

Because – Roenick is stupid? Because Roenick should know better than to ever let his head down on an ice sheet, pre-season or not, because he’s risking the final concussion of his career even by accidental contact?

Because Roenick has never heard of a player on an opposing team needing to make an impression with his coaches in a pre-season game? Because Roenick doesn’t see that a good, clean, aggressive body check is the kind of play a bubble player needs to convince coaches to keep him out of the AHL?

Gee, in Roenick’s world (where contracts are large and roster spots are guaranteed), maybe that makes sense. But to therefore assume everyone else has to play by his personal rules? No wonder he has lots of concussions. Smart people never put their heads down. Roenick must be a slow learner — his response is to blame everyone else, not himself.

Jeremy, if this was a nasty hit? I’d be on your side. I hate concussions in hockey. We’ve lost too many good players to them already. But the first lesson a hockey player should learn when he’s caught with his head down is to NEVER LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN. Not to complain about it.

And to assume pre-season games are no-hit games is stupid. They’re bad enough with the low-hit ratio we’ve seen, but to amgically create some no-hit rule. That’s not Gauthier’s fault. I don’t for a second blame anyone for actually trying to spark up some action. Some of these pre-season games are as bad as the All-Star game.

And then there’s Steve Avery, who seems to be trying to become the next Brett Hull, only without the childish charm. Maybe Steve ought to go ask his teammate, Luc Robitaille, what he thinks of his quote. I’ll bet there’s some fun in the locker room in Los Angeles.

Avery was one of the players who spoke out during the lockout, with his “brainwashed” comment. If he alienates many more of his fellow NHLPA brothers, he’s liable to start having to eat alone on the road. He probably needs to start carrying two pairs of shoes, too — one to wear, one for the shaving cream. He’ll be lucky if that’s all he gets.

One has to ask: if things are already this — spirited — in the King’s locker room, are they going to be able to pull it together and play, or is this going to be a year of chemistry and quagmire for the Kings?

I feel for Andy Murray. But not for Roenick. And Avery needs to learn to engage his brain before his mouth. But he probably won’t. Here’s hoping the team doesn’t pay for it….

Communication Nation: Why you keep losing your best people

Communication Nation: Why you keep losing your best people:

all too often, managers and their bosses don’t care what you think, and their boss certainly doesn’t care, either.

Fortunately, not a problem where I’m at, but very true at many places I could name (but won’t…..)

Off Wing Opinion: Capitals Notebook

Off Wing Opinion: Capitals Notebook:

Funny, but that sounds a lot like what you might expect to hear from the head coach of an NFL team justifying the release of a popular veteran player. Lou was over a barrel and he knew it. Guess Caps GM George McPhee was simply making the best offer. That Lamoriello waited this long to deal Friesen was probably because he wanted to hold out for the best deal possible.

And that pretty much sums up Jeff Friesen. Drafted 11th overall to some controversy over placing. Friesen became a fan favorite in San Jose for his work ethic and intensity, and his almost too-honest public comments about himself; nobody was a bigger critic of Friesen than he was.

Unfortunately? I think he was drafted too high — his career in the NHL is fine by any standard, except for someone drafted in the top third of the first round. So in San Jose, there was a feeling he never quite lived up to his potential (I think he did; I think he never lived up to his draft position). With his salary to some degree driven by being a high first rounder, he’s one of those players that (a) ultimately seem to be available, (b) end up being traded to a team that sees his upside, and (c) once he gets to his new team, they found out that Jeff Friesen is — Jeff Friesen. Which is pretty good, but Friesen makes people believe he’s capable of more; after all, there aren’t many people in the league that outwork him.

And so Friesen seems to be one of those players that moves around — good enough that people want to trade for him, not good enough that they end up feeling the need to keep him. His value as a trade asset is higher than his value on the roster; especially now, where some teams have more salary flexibility than others.

That may well turn into how Friesen is remembered around the league. A good player by any definition — but left iwth a general feeling that he should have been even better.

One can only wonder what his career might have been if he’d been drafted in the bottom third of the first round (a more appropriate place for him, IMHO) — and the changed expectations that would have brought. (for another example of this problem, take a look at Radek Bonk).

Where I’ve been…

Yesterday was the first day since I got back from vacation that I took a full day off — basically told work to stick it and signed off. Laurie and I took advantage of it and we went for a little drive. A drive down highway 1 through Big Sur to San Simeon, and then back home via 101.

A nice, but rather gray day (but not like the weather san jose had — we were surprised by the rain and lightning on our return), so we didn’t do any photography, but the drive was gorgeous, and technical enough to keep Laurie (and the BMW) happy. the Highway 1 trip has been on the docket for years — I’m a firm believer that everyone who lives in california needs to do it once, so they don’t feel the need to do it twice…. It’s pretty, it’s technical, but once you get past that, it’s mostly driving. Not that I’m complaining. Now’s a good time, too, because of the relative lack of RV’s that can make the road a living (and 20MPH) hell.

It’s been a long, occasionally nasty run. We had a short-notice need to scale capacity (again) — the project is just gotten amazingly popular, so we keep having to make it handle more things and more people. So far, we’ve avoided the choke-on-success problem, which is a much more fun problem to have than, say, the one Steve Ballmer has right now.

But it creates challenges — and not ones you can necessarily schedule.

For the last year, my project’s been basically four people: myself, my programmer, Michelle, who’s acted as program and project manager (and first line help desk, and QA, and doc writer, and trainer, and… cat herder and chuqui-tamer and…. pretty much everything else), and Deborah, who’s been our admin handling email and making sure stuff that needs done gets done.

Deborah got pregnant (for which we are all thrilled) — but she’s now headed out to maternity leave. Her backfill starts soon, but isn’t here yet.

Michelle moved back to be with her family a few months back, and has been running things remotely for us since. We knew it was only a matter of time before she found something local she wanted to do, and I’m thrilled to note she’s moved on and started a great job (for her) at Razorfish. Unfortunately, that leaves a bit of a hole in the organization to fill. We’ve brought in Colleen, who worked with us in the early days of the project, to help out (and even better, she doesn’t need to be trained in chuqui-herding, she’s a natural), but still, I’m taking on some stuff MIchelle did, as is the entire team.

This, of course, all happened while we had a peak volume period — in about a week, we needed to manage a transaction volume that was about 1.2X what our record volume for a month had been. The sound you hear in the background is Scotty yelling “cap’n! the warp drives can’t handle it!”. But somehow, we did. And there was much rejoicing, except among the Klingons.

And to add to the fun, we’re expanding. My job is being split into more or less three pieces — and so we’ve brought on Dean (the new liason to the data center for managing hardware, installs, upgrades, etc, and acting as a toolsmith for the team in build and test automation, and other ‘stuff’), and Alan (my new development lead, who’s going to take over the development….). Which leaves me, um, the easy stuff. Figuring out how to continue to scale the beast (we expect to grow at least another 2.5x next year, front-loaded — and our growth assumptions have always been woefully conservative), and dealing with issues like Disaster Recovery, Fault Tolerance, High Availability, Redundancy, Global Access, and acting as both lead architect (I get to do the 30,000 foot version, Alan to worry about the details) and deal with the business owners and our various client groups. So we’ve been bringing everyone up to speed, or trying to. Oh, while I’ve had a writer living in my cube with me the last few weeks bringing the project docs up to speed (which, in reality, means writing them from scratch, and asking lots of questions, which is why he’s living in my cube with me…).

All while managing the day to day operations (and glitches). And, did I mention I was trying to get in a database upgrade? That went in over the weekend — we moved from a single Xserve and MySQL 4.0 to two boxes in a replicated environment using MySQL 4.1. That seems like a simple upgrade (and in theory, it is), but our data set is now around 100 gigs of data — and simply coordinating the logistics and moving that much data around turned Saturday into a 14 hour day. The good news, though, is that it was a complete success (and ended 4 hours before year end freeze in the data center stops everything in its tracks for two weeks…). It ended a multi-week string of days like that, with weekends running 8-10 hours, weekdays more like 14, iwth a few stretching closer to 18.

Ya know? I’m not 20 any more. I admit — I hit the wall (and crawled over, and faceplanted on the other side), and somehow kept going (mostly). Ultimately, I found myself so chronically tired that I started getting insomnia, started binge-eating carbs (up four pounds, after 18 months of maintaining weight despite everything). I’ve pushed myself hard, but never — this hard. And it shows, and I feel it. On the other hand, tonight’s the first night I haven’t felt like a zombie for a while, and up to complex tasks like, oh, paying bills and doing more than sitting and staring at stuff. I’ve almost reset the sleep cycle, and that’s really the key thing to getting things back to normal.

Was it worth it? Hell, I don’t know. Right now, I don’t think so — but I also know if we hit another crunch time, I’ll dig in and fight to get it done. But the hope is (and I expect it’s correct this year) that the added folks will make that less necessary, both short-term (once everyone’s up to speed), and down the road. My stated goal is, well, to get my weekends back, without anyone else having to sacrifice theirs. We’ll see.

Once Alan and I get the development moving again, we’ll be adding 2-3 contract programmers, plus we’re working to not only replace MIchelle, but add in a second project admin. And probably a QA person (and test developer, since we need to automate our testing a lot more). And, well, we’ll see. (and I’ve got 30 more Xserves in the budget for next year — so far).

But I never want to be that tired again, ever. For now. I guess.

Ongoing: Minor League epiphany

Ongoing: Minor League epiphany:

The stadium was partially sunlit and filling up and people were
drinking beer and happy and George was singing “I”m just 23, I don’t mind
dyin’”, and George is himself a baseball aficionado and one-time semipro player,
and I was thinking of the wonderful sun- and dust-drenched opening
“Church of Baseball” scene from
Bull Durham, and the last
big chords faded just as we got to our seats, and well anyhow, Carl owes
George an apology.

Tim Bray goes to a minor league game, and wonderfully captures why minor league baseball is so damn much fun. I’ve always wanted to get to Nat Bailey stadium, never have.

He makes one minor mistake — the Northwest League is short season Rookie, not A-ball. A-ball is the next level up (California league and Midwest league, high-A and low-A respectively. No, it doesn’t make any more sense than USDA beef ratings, sometimes you just have to let art flow over you). Below SS-R is full-season Rookie, in the Pioneer League, and below that are the camp leagues in Arizona and Florida.

SS-R teams are primarily staffed by kids drafted out of college, so they’re older, but just learning how to play the pro game. They tend to be good prospects but rough. It also needs to be remembered that of the 20-some players on a team at that level, 2-3 will see the major leagues, and the rest are, basically being paid to play catch with the real prospects (and may, or may not, be given a chance to prove they’re also prospects — but if you aren’t annointed, you have to force them to pay attention).

I love the Northwest league — it’s in many ways my ideal for the essence of baseball — it’s very much community baseball, small, intimate, the players are skilled (not necessarily true over in the Pioneer league, which is the “if we can fix this flaw, we might have something” league), and the players haven’t grown the thick skin or the attitude that happens when they hit the majors (to some degree, out of necessity). My favorite parks up there are Everett and Eugene, although I always loved the funkiness of the no-longer-in-the-league Medford (the strangest park was the no-longer-in-the-league Bend, which was little more than an American Legion field with delusions of grandeur, and who’s outfield faced the back of a K-mart).

In my years wandering the minors, I’ve made it to about 22 parks so far (Laurie’s a few parks ahead of me…) — from Tucson to Edmonton.

It’s a little late now, since the San Jose Giants are in the playoffs (game 2 today at 5, san jose muni), but maybe next year, we should schedule a night at the park for local geeks and bloggers — and Tim, if you’re ever down in San Jose, tickets are on me…

Off on the road to…. Vancouver.

it’s summer vacation time — and not suprisingly, we’re headed North.

if it’s Sunday, it must be Vancouver. We left San Jose about 10 Saturday, got into Portland in time for a nice Dinner at Stanfords, took off a bit after 8 sunday morning, and hit the hotel room about 3:30, and were sitting in Yaletown Brewing for a nice dinner at 5.

When we tell people we drive on these trips, we always get asked why. Vancouver is so far away — why not fly?

First, we like driving. It gives us a chance to unplug, unwind, and enjoy the journey. I used to do most of the driving; since buying the BMW, Laurie won’t let me drive now. I’d complain, but… I don’t mind.

Second, it’s really not that far. It’s about 1000 miles, 14-15 hours driving in good weather. That’s about twice the distance of San jose to Los Angeles, and it’s easy to do in two easy shifts — no marathons required.

Third, it’s a lot cheaper. gas: about $110 + hotel: $80. Travel time (start to finish): 34 hours. To fly? Supershuttle to SFO, $75 each way. Tickets to Vancouver: $350 per person each way. Throw in a rental car — about $225/week for two weeks. And an extra day in our destination hotel: $200. That’s, um, $200 to drive, versus flying: about $1700.

And if we fly? Out of SFO, we can either fly around 8AM, or about 7PM. If we fly out at 8AM saturday, we have to be at the airport 90 minutes before that, an hour’s drive away, and the shuttle will add in a fudge factor. So we have to get up at 3AM? or fly out about 7PM, not get to the hotel until close to midnight — room service time, if it’s still open. Flying’s been made so inconvenient — why bother? For an extra $1500, we get one extra meal in Vancouver and one more evening in the city. instead, we had a really good meal in Portland. (and this assumes we’re staying here. we’re not — we’re actually spending time here, Victoria, Seattle and Portland — in practice, at least three plan transfers (shudder) if we fly.

And finally — with a car, you can pack stuff in it and bring it home. Like, say, a case or two of good wine from British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. Try that in coach class. And since we aren’t spending all of that money on plane tickets, we can spend that money on wine instead. and good meals…

We end up saving $1500 or so; we lose about 8 hours net time in Vancouver, somewhat less time on the return trip from Portland (same day, no overnight), and actually gain time not worrying about the flying hassle on transfers to other cities. . Nice tradeoff.

Have you sat down and considered the tradeoffs on your trips? It might surprise you.

the drive north was almost non-eventful (which is nice). Highlight (or lowlight) of the trip was driving up 5 past Mount Shasta (a beautiful, if hot, place to visit) when we get passed by a car. Laurie goes “what is that hanging from his car?”

“That” turned out to be the hose from a gas pump, still inserted into the gas tank, On the other end, the connector (designed to separate if some idiot drives away from a pump without removing the hose) had died a hero, and was sparking its way down the road. Between the hose, the sparks and the fact that the guy was driving like a royal idiot (way too fast, way too aggressive) we made sure to give him a wide berth. We followed him at a good distance for a few miles, when suddenly he braked and made a mad dash for the side of the road (nearly going through the fenders of a car to the side of him…..), and stopped. when we went by, he was standing next to the car, staring at the hose.

one can only wonder at how this happened. And what the gas station attendant thought.

We made Portland (actually, Clackamas) in time for an early dinner at Stanfords, and a nice drive up to Vancouver on Sunday. It took us about 20 minutes to cross the border at Peace Arch, and arrived in Vancouver in the early afternoon, checked in to the hotel, and went off in search of food….

James Mirtle: Todd Bertuzzi: The aftermath – A hockey journalist’s blog

James Mirtle: Todd Bertuzzi: The aftermath – A hockey journalist’s blog:

To those who have coshed Bettman’s decision: At some point, Bertuzzi does have to return to the NHL. Whether it is on October 5, or 20 games from then, or two years from then, none of these scenarios will adequately atone for what he did. Bertuzzi can never repair the damage done to Steve Moore or to his own personal reputation.

Putting aside the missed opportunities to play for Team Canada and a lost season of hockey, what he did to Steve Moore will alone damn Bertuzzi for the rest of his days. Think about that. In 2055, should an article be penned about a then 80-year-old Bertuzzi, it’ll centre upon ‘the incident.’ It will, in fact, define the rest of his life.

I think part of the reality is that no matter what the NHL did to punish Bertuzzi, there’s a group of fans who’ll complain it’s not enough. If the season hadn’t been cancelled, I expect Bertuzzi’s suspension would have been longer.

Now? I just think it’s time to move forward. Hockey’s trying to put a lot of ugly past behind it; it might as well put this behind it at the same time. Giving Bertuzzi another 5 games, or 10, or 20, wouldn’t really solve anything; Bertuzzi lost an entire year of his career to the lockout, a major part of his total career. If the NHL went and added more games to Bertuzzi’s suspension, all that would do is cause this black cloud to stretch out into the season — for no good reason.

Don’t see this as the NHL being easy on Bertuzzi — as James Mirtle points out, Bertuzzi will live with this the rest of his life — but the nHL choosing to start fresh and focussing on moving forward and rebuilding.

And I think that’s a good idea. Why give the press a hook to talk about anything other than the new league rebuilding? I dono’t see the logic.

And if you think about it, Bertuzzi got a much more severe penalty than many other similar incidents in the past. Gary Suter on Paul Kariya, anyone? Sergei Federov’s two handed attack to Jay More’s head?

Under normal circumstances, the suspension should have been longer.

This season — is anything but normal. The needs of the NHL to move forward outweigh the interests of those who want to see Bertuzzi punished further. Especially since, for some, “forever” is still not long enough.

Want to lose pounds? Do cardio, studies show

Want to lose pounds? Do cardio, studies show:

So the two women routinely began to lift weights. But like many of the other 36 million women nationwide who each year pick up dumbbells hoping to lose pounds or develop a sculptured body, both Woodworth and Rivera ended up disappointed because the strategy is not as simple — or as effective — as it sounds.
Personal trainers, fitness instructors, magazines and books have sold a double-barreled promise that any strength training builds muscle and that having more muscle dramatically speeds metabolism, increasing the calories a person burns while at rest. With all that extra calorie burning, the story goes, excess weight comes off effortlessly.
The story is wrong in two ways, researchers say. First, muscle is not such an amazing calorie burner.

and it looks like another “common idea we know to be true” may well not be…

James Mirtle: 2005 NHL Entry Draft: Winners & Losers – A hockey journalist’s blog

James Mirtle: 2005 NHL Entry Draft: Winners & Losers – A hockey journalist’s blog:

San Jose. What Doug Wilson was thinking in trading up to the No. 8 spot to pick a player most had pegged for the late first round, I haven’t the foggiest.

I know what he was thinking. He was thinking:

1) the kid is a lot better than the pundits think, and

2) someone else knows this and is planning on taking him.

At first glance, the kid looks a lot like Jonathan Cheechoo — but a better skater. Not exactly a bad thing. Why would the Sharks have an idea about the real capabilities of the kid? Because he was a Saskatoon Blade. Saskatoon is the home of Sharks broadcaster (and ex-assistant coach) Drew Remenda. They’ve basically had someone local and watching every game the kid’s played in the last season. Something they’ve seen has impressed them.

Why move up from 12 to 8? Because you believe someone else is also convinced and planning on moving up ahead of you to get him first. But who?

That’s a good question, but from the interviews I saw Wilson give on the kid, it seemed clear to me he believed he would be gone by 12 and wouldn’t risk losing him.

Here’s a bit of trivia: Setoguchi’s dad played in the Japan Leagues. His teammate? Former Shark’s coach and current Calgary GM Darryl Sutter. And — Setoguchi is the kind of player Sutter would like: skilled but physical, and with an Alberta connection. And Tim Burke admitted they’d consciously avoided much contact with the kid to avoid tipping their hand, but were in secret contact with his dad. Did dad let them know Sutter was also calling?

My guess is Wilson believed Sutter was trying to move up to 9-11. He didn’t want to risk it. His price was fairly cheap: a 2nd round pick, one in a draft he clearly felt was inferior given that he traded off a couple of late round picks for 2006 picks.

Given the Sharks have a talent evaluator living (and a season ticket holder) in Saskatoon — I think their evaluation of Blades talent is a lot better than CSB or pundits who only watch a tournament and some tape.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

James Mirtle: My dear Tom letter… – A hockey journalist’s blog

James Mirtle: My dear Tom letter… – A hockey journalist’s blog:

I promised Tom a response to his very critical portrayal of the hockey media, something he nicely highlighted in a recent comment on his site.

James Mirtle (sports journalist and blogger) and Tom Benjamin (blogger at http://www.canuckscorner.com/ and a very vocal critic of, well, pretty much everything in hockey) have been having a bit of a back and forth. Well worth reading to see both sides of the discussion.

I’ve really come to appreciate Mirtle’s knowledge and middle-of-the-road attitude about things. He’s not a league suck-up, neither is he a players syncophant; he calls them as he sees them, and agree or disagree with him, he’s a fun and informative read.

Tom — Laurie and I have been reading Tom going way back, well before his blog, in places like the Vancouver Canucks mailing lists. He’s an extremely intelligent, well-informed hockey fan. He knows his stuff, and that’s why I read him.

But — jesus. At his best, he’s a suspicious cynic. More normally, he runs between rampant negativism and outright hostility to, it seems everyone and everything in hockey. He comes across as if, as I’ve been known to put it, the entire Canucks organization once slept with his dog and left him with the vet bill — and he’s never gotten over it.

It’s one thing to be critical — but Tom spends his time angry. I long ago got tired of that act, to be honest. It ends up more about Tom, less about the topic — and Tom comes across as that angry, bitter old phart (“I used to have to walk uphill, in the snow, five miles, each way, to go to hockey games, and I was HAPPY!”) that makes him a parody of himself.

Which is too bad. When Tom talks hockey, there’s a lot of interesting stuff that comes out. But these days, and for a while, that’s not what Canucks Corner is about. Instead, it’s about how much smarter Tom is than everyone else in hockey, and how angry and bitter he is that we don’t just all shut up and acknowledge that. And I find that rather hard to enjoy. As — if you read Tom’s stuff — he seems to find hard to enjoy, too.

And as I’ve told Laurie and a few others — if my writing ever gets to be like Tom’s, just have me shot. I’d rather stop writing than turn into the kind of writer Tom is, one for which there seems to be no purpose other than to be angry about something, and use it as a soapbox to export than anger at others.

Makes me wonder what kind of person Tom is in person. Part of me is curious. Most of me is glad I only have to deal with him from the far end of a browser window. One wonders if he’s really aware of how he presents himself on the net — or whether he’s proud of it.

collision detection: The parrot that knows “zero”

collision detection: The parrot that knows “zero”:

A while ago, I blogged about the amazing intelligence of Grey parrots — which one MIT researcher claims have “the sentience of a four- to six-year-old child”. Today, I read about some new evidence: A Grey parrot that has developed — entirely under its own steam — an understanding of the concept of zero.

Alex is at it again.

my brain hurts…

It’s business planning time, and so I’m reading project proposals for next year and helping build development plans and budgets. The good news is — they like us, we’re popular, and lots of people want us to do things for them. The bad news is — they like us, we’re popular, and lots of peoploe want us to do things for them. And so there are going to be some interesting and fun challenges ahead. Fortunately, it seems they’re also willing to fund out the projects…

Hey, how many times can you look at your boss and says “30 more xserves” and not have him laugh? Or twitch? I can handle that. My role will change somewhat, recognizing that I simply don’t code any more, but instead, tell other people what to code (and I’m learning how to not tell them HOW, but WHAT…)

A busy time, again/still. We were supposed to ship 2.0 of The Beast end of june. Didn’t happen, for various reasons. July, we had three smaller projets due, so we tabled the Beast. I’m happy to say that two of the projects were done early and going live on time. The third, which of course the one with high management visibility, looks to be slipping, but not because of me (thank god) — or not really because of anyone. It’s one of those projects where you spend most of your time hauling people out of sinkholes, and it doesn’t matter WHAT date you set, you’ll miss it, because you keep finding stuff that nobody thought to schedule or put in the requirements (or in my case, some stuff people added to the requirements and forgot to tell me about, and the requirements changed so often I didn’t notice…). It hasn’t always been a fun project, but it’s been a fascinating learning experience in getting to know how other parts of the company work and what they expect, and the next phases will go much smoother because of it. (I hope. sometimes, chaos wins, no matter how big your whack-a-mole hammer is…)

So we’re busy rebooting 2.0 of the beast, and plan to be coding next week. And trying to get it out the door, because we need it.

Oh, and on July 5, I shut down Apple’s last USENET server. we were down to about six users. So far, two have complained. People who know me probably understand this has more meaing to me than might be obvious — more so because my first real contacts with Apple were when I came over and helped them figure out some problem with their usenet feed…. go figure.

I’m supposed to be packing — but I’m not. Making a quick run down 101 to visit the parents. Nothing serious, just wandering in to do a few things for them, then drive back saturday. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to southern cal in july. Just turn up the airco, okay?

And laurie and I have made the hotel reservations for the august trip. Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, Portland. I am ready NOW. I’m going to try to do some photography of downtown portland, and laurie is going to show me around Lake union and the fremont district – and in Victoria, we’ll eat well and relax. Vancouver’s getting the short visit, so we have time in Seattle. I am hoping to explore gastown some more and work on my photos, and maybe chinatown. we’ll see.

Unfortunately, the Lions are on a road trip when we hit vancouver. ohwell…

God, it’s midnight. I’ll pack in the morning. sigh.

some GM’s unhappy with NHL committee

TSN.ca – NHL – Canada’s Sports Leader:

A number of GMs told TSN said they’re “frustrated” and even “angry” at effectively being replaced as the body that recommends rule changes to the NHL board of governors.

Gee, some GMs are upset because the players have been given a voice in rule definition in hockey, and they aren’t being allowed to, well, filter those recommendations before being voted on. I can guess some of the GMs that are unhappy — and I think this is great for the sport. wow. imagine that — not being able to rewrite the recommendations before passing them on. horrors.

If you read the article, it describes some of the rumored rule changes. Most of them I support strongly (I’m unconvinced about removing the red line — I think that’s a much more minor thing in practice than in theory, and I hate shoot-outs, but if it’s after 8 minutes of OT, I’ll take it) — but one that’s in there as kind of a throwaway is that if a team ices the puck, it won’t be allowed a line change. Combined iwth fast faceoffs — this is a huge strategy change, since a major reason to ice the puck is because your line got caught on and is exhausted, so you throw it for the whistle to get fresh legs on.

Now, instead of fresh legs, your tired legs stay on and THEY get fresh legs. That’s HUGE. of course, I can see defensemen practicing accidentally clearing pucks into the crowd already instead… So next year, let’s extend the goalie delay-of-game rule to ANY puck that leaves the surface without touching anything…

Make ‘em tick the glass, or you’ll see zillions of pucks in the stands and the safety netting….

Marginal Revolution: Auto scalping??

Marginal Revolution: Auto scalping??:

Attention baseball fans and vertical integration researchers: The Chicago Cubs scalp their own tickets. I was recently pointed to the web page of a disgruntled fan (click here) who found out that a ticket re-seller is owned by the same company that owns Wrigley Field, the Tribune Company. And of course, the ticket reseller charges much more than the face value.

Me, I’m all for this. Even better, let’s standardize it — why should scalpers benefit from excess demand instead of the promoters and artists, anyway?

Auction software’s well-understood now. Take blocks of tickets that are similar, and dutch auction the silly things. Let people put a value on them, and see what happens. And let the revenue fall to those involved in the event, not those taking advantage of an inefficient market.

8 things to know about me….

A couple of weeks ago, I spent an afternoon in a seminar on how to manage global teams, put on by Global Savvy. I found it quite useful as I’m more and more dealing with non-local projects with non-local groups across the globe, and trying to coordinate things with London, Singapore and India at the same time is a continuing challenge.

One of the things I really liked about their seminars is how they tie in the cultural issues and how they affect a global group, not just the technical or logistical issues — and how, if you aren’t sensitive to how different cultures react to and report issues, you’ll likely really screw things up.

A fair amount of time involved discussing how some new technologies can enable groups, especially project blogs and wikis, and it’s interesting to hear how various companies and organizations are starting to experiment in this area (as am I), for the most part, quite successfully.

but on a micro level, one of the things they really pushed was humanizing the members of the projects, and getting everyone to know each other, not just work with each other. It’s the people-aspects of a project that make the other parts work better, but that’s tough when you aren’t co-located and able to sit down and gab (she relies heavily on ichat and isight to bridge some of that, something else we’ve experimented with, and want to do more of).

But one thing she does with all of her projects is create an online directory of everyone in the project, with contact info — and for every person, she requires a photo and some personal information, in the form of “8 things to know about me”.

I really like that idea, so I’m not only planning on rolling it onto my wiki when it rolls live internally, but I’m doing to add it to the sidebar of my blog, since I think it’s a nice way to humanize out into the blogosphere, too.

At some point, I’ll probably do a blog-specific one, but here are the 8 things to know about me I wrote in that seminar:

16 years at Apple.

I spell my name funny, but it’s pronounced like it’s spelled.

When I’m griping about things, that’s good.

When I shut up, that’s bad.

I won’t take it personally. (and if I do anyway, I’ll get over it)

I live in email.

If my iChat is active at work or off-hours, you’re welcome to contact me. If I don’t answer, either I’m not there or I’m not ready to be interrupted.

I met my wife through the Internet before you’d ever heard of the Internet.

so — what are the 8 things to know about you?

Speaking of not being a Mac Evangelist….

Carrying on the thought of not being a Mac Evangelist a bit….

We were out with some folks we know a week or so ago, and I had “that conversation” again. We were talking about Laurie’s job search (an updated copy of her resume is here (blatant plug), but she’s had some intriguing opportunities come up recently, but nothing final), and she noted one of the companies she was looking at was Microsoft, because they really seemed to understand what a good Program Manager could do for a project, and in many ways, are the model of the industry for using them. (digression: I’m about half-way through Scott Berkun’s O’Reilly book The Art of Project Management, and I am just blown away. It is just a great discussion of the whole environment AROUND the code and how to make it all work. I can’t recommend it highly enough).

And of course, they said “you’re Apple people. You’d work for Microsoft?” — and I piped up that I would, too, for the right opportunity.

I don’t know why that shocks people, but for some reason, it does. The reality is simple: I don’t buy into the whole “cult of mac” thing, or the “microsoft as evil empire” thing. Never have. I watched Mike Spindler almost single-handedly destroy Apple by pushing the “we must beat Microsoft, they are the great satan” bullshit as a marketing strategy — and it’s a strategy that set an attitude I think Apple is still struggling to overcome.

Has Microsoft had problems? Yes. Made mistakes? Done things I disagree with? Broken rules (and laws)?

Yes. So?

Name me a company that hasn’t. Apple? Not a chance. Name a company that’s perfect, or even merely ethically clean. The Vatican, maybe (ba-dump). Apple’s had it’s own share of mistakes and skeletons in closets (and as side effects of some them, I have a good friend now in senior management at Sun, and another now doing interesting stuff for, um, Microsoft).

I’m no fan of Windows, not by a long-shot. But Microsoft’s more than Windows — I use MIcrosoft Office, for instance, and the XBox is nice (and the 360 looks to be a butt-kicker, but it may still not dominate against the Playstation 3, but it’ll be a fight). MSN’s not bad, either. People in the Mac world tend to demonize Microsoft and glorify Apple — and building such a black and white world blinds you to the shades of grey that we really live in.

I do good things for Apple, and it does good things for me — I have no complaints here, and I’m not going anywhere. But at the same time, Laurie and I both want to move out of the Bay Area at some point (3-5 years, maybe a bit longer). I’m leaning towards Portland, but she’s really learned to like Seattle in her trips up there for Adobe, and that wouldn’t break my heart, either (and when we go north on vacation in August, she’s going to show me around some of what she’s found….). And if you’re tech and in Seattle — isn’t Microsoft an obvious choice?

I have friends who work there, and none of them grew horns and a tail when they cashed their first paycheck. And I know people like Scoble and John Pocaro, who are nice folks and fun to be around, and trying to do good work that makes good products. And one of the things I believe in is community involvment and support, and I don’t think Gates (and indirectly, Microsoft) gets nearly the credit they deserve for his foundation, especially since it’s focus is actually trying to solve problems that many others aren’t doing because they aren’t headline generators or high-profile tasks — just necessary ones.

Over on the Apple side, there’s a distinct lack of both civic and corporate activism, both from Apple as a corporation and from it’s upper management. It doesn’t mean Apple doesn’t do anything in this area — it was one of the first sites to push relief funding after the tsunami, for instance — but Apple in general and Steve in particular has a poor record here (or hides it exceptionally well; I’d love to be proven wrong), and Apple does very little community outreach — I”m a believer that a corporation that succeeds should invest some of that success back into the region that nurtures it. Bill Gates and Microsoft do that, Steve Jobs and Apple don’t.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t presume everyone has to think the way I do, and I’m not in charge. It’s Steve’s company, and his money, and he has the right to do things the way he sees as best. I reserve the right to be disappointed in it, no more. And compared to the primary focus of a company, which is to (a) make money for it’s stock holders and (b) turn out good products that make the world a better place, this is really kind of a tangental or minor thing. But still…

It’s one place where Bill has Steve cold, and it’s an issue I happen to feel strongly about. It’s not a reason to leave Apple, or to work for Microsoft — but it’s one of those factors I weigh as part of a decision, if and when it comes. (I fully intend to go out on my xServe, not with it, and right now, I fully intend to move out of the area and telecommute for Apple when I do…. But, you never know, you know?)

In any event, I’ve had this discussion often enough and seen the surprised stares so many times I finally decided it was time to just blog it and get it over with (at least partially) — I just refuse to buy into the idea that Microsoft is evil, any more than I believe that Apple is pure. both companies have strengths and weaknesses, and good points and bad. That’s how life is, and those of you who simplify reality to black and white, well, mostly I feel sorry for you that you’re missing the joys of all of those shades of grey.

So don’t be surprised if I blog someday that I’m moving to Redmond. But also, don’t be surprised if I don’t…

Life’s just not that simple.

when last we spoke…

When last we spoke, I talked about pulling the next release of The Beast off the calendar. I’ve since sat down everyone involved and debriefed them (“okay, what did YOU think was going on?”), and the responses have been illuminating.

The real issue, once I’d had a couple of 12 hour sleeps, was that the project had gone OOB earlier, by at least three weeks, but I’d hit one of my famous tunnel vision modes where I was going to make the date, no matter what. Reality is, it was gone (through no real fault of anyone — certain aspects of the project simply took longer, we made some UI changes along the way (because it was the right thing to do), and we had to divert resources to hardware installs to scale capacity on short notice (which should have red flagged the release, right there, but I didn’t. oops. has anyone noticed I can be a bit headstrong at times?).

First thing I did was sleep, then over the weekend, headed down to SoCal to visit the family — I’m trying to get down there every couple of months, just to see how things are doing and help out on things they can’t do as easily for themseves these days. I’m finding that by doing this, it also cuts some of the intensity of “trying to do projects” on the christmas trip, and things get a lot more sane.

I also took a couple of extra days, so I could relax — and I spent friday off at Disneyland. 12 and a half hours at the park, followed by another 10 of sleeping. More on that later…

I’m a firm believer in meeting commitments, which is a laudible attitude — to a point. When you can turn the knob to 9, you can do things some folks feel are miracles, and they like you. let the knob slide over to 11, and if you aren’t careful, you don’t realize it until the dilithium crystals splatter your crew onto the walls of your engine rooms. I find sometimes, I’m still dialing in on the difference.

There are days when The Beast drives me crazy — starting with, sometimes, having to call it The Beast and leaving it at that; but the reality is, I love the challenge (we’ve grown by a couple of orders of magnitude in three years, and it continues to be adopted all through the company as fast as we can bring people on board — to give a sense of growth, about a year ago, I did a tech review for management with volume projections looking out two years, and the growth numbers were seriously questioned; we proceeded to pass the two year number six months later, and we’re now handling about double the two year number, a year later. and I thought I was being aggressive about growth when I did the numbers… And — starting to look another year, or two out, we’re likely to doble again at least once, maybe twice, and that’s going to require different ideas to keep scaling…)

Even more important to me, though, are the people. I’ve been pretty lucky in my career, compared to a lot of people I know, with generally good managers and co-workers. This group, I think, may be the group I like best, and am closest to. I’m surrounded by folks I not only enjoy working with, but hesitate to call friends. That’s one reason I ‘go to 11′ so willingly — even when I probably shouldn’t.

And the project — the phrase I use iwthin the group says it all: how often can half a dozen people fundamentally change how a company does business? And in many ways, that’s what we’ve ended up doing. And it’s a damn fun hack.

the reality of subjective success.

One of the things that’s been fueling a low-level sense of frustration with me recently is a feeling that I’ve had no time to to deal with personal projects (and things) that were MY priorities, because life and work have combined to suck up all my time.

For instance, my weight. I set out in 2004 to get serious about my weight, and set what I thought was a reasonable goal of 40 pounds. Early on last year, that got sidetracked, and I never really got serious about it again.

Yet, when I saw my doctor last week, he was thrilled — I lost 15 pounds in the year between visits. I was grumpy, because it was only 15 pounds.

Who’s right? well, we both are, but mostly, he is. Even I have to admit that. Most of his patients never lose any significant weight. And of those that do, almost all of them gain it back.

Me? I started somewhere north of 380. I’m down in 2 years to 345. Whatever goals I set, that result can’t be ignored, and it’s a good start. (there are, by the way, some interesting studies (which I can’t currently find) indicating that taking off that FIRST hunk of weight reduces the stress on the circulatory system, cutting your health risks significantly. Which is not to be considered a reason to stop, but may indicate some increase in the margin of error. OTOH, I still have at least 80 pounds I need to take off, and last week, my blood pressure finally showed a noticeable rise into the areas where doctors take notice (that, however, might have been caused by other factors; see previous post). I’ll know tomorrow, when I see him again, as we sit down for a bit to discuss strategies on how to accelerate the weight loss.

I already know a key factor there are lifestyle changes. Um, see previous post. But we’ll see what other options we decide are useful. But it’s become increasingly clear the stress and hours I’ve been investing in the project are not sustainable. I’m tired of coming home and turning into a vegetable, and it leaves no time or energy to get an exercise program going. So I”m not unhappy, I guess, to be able to call a halt and rethink the calendar, because you can bet we’ll keep those considerations in mind as we rebuild the schedule, too.

I”ve always made the somewhat snide comment that I’m most likely to be carried out of Apple on my xServe, not with it. The last few months, however, I’ve really come to feel that as being very likely — and that some people have decided that’s okay, as long as stuff gets done sooner. I admit, however, one of those folks has been me.

Another aspect of that is the growing frustration of various home projects that seem to be going nowhere. Some of that is true: the “server migration” that’s been ongoing for months, when in fact, all I need is about 10-12 hours of concentrated work to finish it. And the living room that would not die. or finish. or get moulding.

But in reality, while many projects stalled badly in 2004, 2005 has seen some great progress — it’s just that I”m still seeing the lack of progress from last year hanging over me. Both bathrooms here at home have been in various states of remodel seemingly forever, ever since installing the vanity in one bathroom required the demolition of the vanity in the other (long, long, sad story) — but in reality, both bathrooms are now plumbed and the fixtures are in and the shelves and towel racks, and all I have left to do in both is mouldings and replacing a noisy exhaust fan, and some wall prep, and we can paint both of them (although in the first, we’ve decided to pull the towel bars and rethink the accessories a bit again).

Out back, we’ve had all the concrete removed and a new patio poured, and added new teak furniture and a new BBQ — despite losing a month to rain, and seeing the rainy season continue well into May. Lots of work for the summer out back, but where normally we’d be trying to plant tomatoes now, we probably won’t be ABLE to plant them until June, given current cool weather. The workshop in the garage is finally functional: small and cramped, but I’ve figured out the workflow so I can do most things (I still prefer to chop up plywood on the driveway, just to get more space, but once I do those cuts, I can finish stuff up inside again).

And in the living room, the fireplace is almost done, and the bookshelves moving forward. I could have it ready for paint in July, if this continues. Given we started the process in 2001 with a new front door and by ripping out the carpet (and the floors underneath it) — I’m ready for the room to be done.

And we can see the end of the remodel work in general: the kitchen needs done, and laurie’s office and my office and the library, and we want to build a new closet into laurie’s office, and then a new master closet, and replace the carpet in the maaster and the junk room, and paint — and at some point, upgrade the electricity service, the only piece of infrastructure we haven’t had done yet. If I don’t hit significant stops again, we could be done in a year. so figure (since I suck at scheduling), 18 months.

Here’s hoping…

A day of mixed blessings….

Thursday was a day of mixed blessings for me. We’ve been in crunch mode trying to make our June date for the next major release of The Beast. We were pushing a tough deadline — we started later than I wanted to, took an aggressive schedule and were trying to keep to it despite external contingencies.

One of the client groups, though, started insisting on some late changes to the release. It’s generally a very, very bad idea to start insisting on change to a release in May that’s due to go live in June, and in this case, previous change requests had eaten all of our schedule slack (and beyond, I think) — originally, this was (I had thought) agreed to be a no-feature release, but instead a technology migration, so we could retire some of our older systems in favor of everything sharing the Beast. But almost from the beginning, we had people kibbitzing about things I thought had been agreed would be left alone — and some of them made sense, and I hate saying no. But tthen we had requests for specs that shouldn’t have been necessary, since there wasn’t anything in the plan for review of those features (but they insisted) — and we decided to accelerate bringin live a half dozen new machines (which, really, means *I* got to bring them live), since we needed the added capacity, without, of course, changing the master schedule.

So we were more or less on yet another death march to make the date. So when these latest requests came in, we said no. And we were told that wasn’t an option. I let them know that any attempt to modify the schedule to fit in the new features would result in us pulling it off the calendar until all of the issues were resolved. They said that wasn’t an option, either, that the schedule would only slip by a day or two to fit in these new features. And then I was told I had no say in the discussion, so they weren’t going to discuss it with me any more.

Hey, I’m only senior architect and lead geek. I don’t have any real interest in the project.

In any event, my organization declared the release out of bounds, and we pulled it off the calendar until the issues that exist — not just the features, but the process (or lack of it) where features seemingly get added at whim. I like being responsive to customer needs, but there’s an inherent conflict between taking aggressive schedules and adding stuff as it comes up. In this case, I made a mistake letting additions in early, even if they were good things to do, because I think it set an expectation that it could continue. Next time, I guess, I’ll just be a hard-ass. The other issue on my end was the death march aspects; despite the additions, and the added projects created by the hardware installs, we had made a commitment to try to keep to the original date. In reality, we were likely to slip by a week, maybe 2. My projects always seem to come in late — which isn’t osmething I’m proud of, frankly, but it’s a combination of adding stuff after we set schedule (without changing the calendar), taking on aggressive schedules in the first place, and the fact that, basically, I never schedule enough contingency time for stuff outside the development tasks or to handle things that inevitably come up (like new hardware).

But I’ve come to the realization after three years of this, I’m tired of the night and weekend brigade. So while I was more than willing to make the date, or do everything I could to try to, when people started telling me THEY could slip the schedule at their convenience, but I had no options but to continue the deathmarch to make the date, I kinda had it. After making it clear they didn’t want to open up pandora’s box here, they did.

Whatever new schedule we do will be based on reasonable dates again, not the original ones, and take into consideration that my evenings and weekends are mine, not theirs (and that hardware has to get installed, and… and…). And god help somenone who tells me I don’t have any say into how the project I’m running gets run.

But the good news is, after I spent saturday brain-dead and semi-comatose, the energy level’s started rebounding, and I got some good work done on the living room remodel, and now, the blog, where I’ve finally gotten my Flickr stuff going. I m ight even get my server move finished soon (nah. never happen).

One of the things my group’s committed to is that now that we’ve halted things to figure out how to fix this release (not that I considered it broken. to be honest — but now it is, of course) is we’ll build the new schedule based no non-crisis development times. And on top of that, there are days of work that simply don’t exist in the new calendar: I’d convinced myself ot cancel a trip south to visit the family to try to keep things moving forward. Now, I’ve not only confirmed that, I added a day. Just as well, since mom’s airport network is acting up, and I can’t fix it remotely. So there’s about 30 hours of my time, just in these two weekends, now gone forever, and when it comes back, it’ll be in a more rational form. Instead of the end of june, I dunno. August? September? Depends on when we agree on what the new requirements are, and they get through the approval process. which currently doesn’t exist…

But maybe I won’t be constantly so tired that I have no energy to blog. which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your view….

In any event, monday we’ll sit down and regroup. Thursday, I head to LA for a long weekend, and Friday I’m going to Disneyland (and try to finally see California adventure) with the new Digital Rebel XT. We’ll see what kind of photos come out of that…

And maybe I’ll find the energy to do more than linkblog….

some days, you really can go home again.

Some days, I’ve found, you really can go home again.

Saturday, I went to a baseball game. Not just any game — a Giants game as San Jose muni (see, San Jose already has a baseball team, and it’s not the A’s). That may not seem like a major thing, but it was, for me. Laurie and I used to be season ticket holders at San Jose, where we’d hang out for upwards of 40-50 games a season. Minor league baseball is different, especially A-ball. 3500 is a huge crowd, and the parks are small and intimate. Our season tickets were row one, over the home dugout, which means maybe (maybe) 50 feet from the foul line. So in a very real way, you aren’t watching the game, you’re in it (and if you stop paying attention, it’ll remind you of that — we had any number of baseballs come visiting, and one bat. I didn’t keep the bat, but I should have. I just tossed it back and told him to start using pine tar). Being in that size crowd and that close, by the way, you KNOW they hear you (Ian Lamplugh, phone home. I’ve lost your email and I want to know if you’re still in Victoria, because I owe you dinner for making it to the bigs, guy…)

But as Laurie and I got busier in our lives with work and hockey and other things, going to the games started feeling more like a chore than a joy. And I became increasingly disillusioned with baseball in general as I watched the caretakers of the major leagues continue to screw it up. And then the baby Giants had a couple of awful seasons, and then a couple of people who worked on the team needed to get a real life and real jobs (getting married does that to you), and… we ended up one year not renewing, but planning on going to a few games a year.

The problem, of course, is that once you break a habit, it tends to break in a big way. And I was pretty burnt out on baseball in general, so we never did. For a few years, we just didn’t think about it. For the last three, we did — but somehow, it turned into August. And, you know? after a while, it’s like “it’s been so long, what will they think if we start showing up again? Or will they even remember or care?” — and that sort of inhibits you.

But this year, laurie and I had agreed, it was time to start going again. There’s no way we’d survive season tickets, but we can get in half a dozen games, plus we’re going to head up to Sacto and amybe down to Fresno for games. Just to start the habit again. My god, I’m even watching baseball on TV again, where in the past years, I watched if laurie turned it on. And I’ve been at that point in the current project where I hate my job, I havte having no life, I hate having no time to myself, I hate working evenings and six and seven day weeks, and I hate computers (this is, FWIW, actually fairly normal for me, and it usually passes as we get closer to GM, but it’s not a development cycle without a lost weekend to exhaustion and a crisis of faith. My boss is used to it, mostly. One of these days, I probably won’t get over it, and then I’ll know it’s time for a new gig).

And Saturday laurie headed up to Seattle again, and the Giants had an afternoon game, and while I had work to do, it was time for some time out. So I wandered on down and bought a ticket, then grabbed dinner at Turkey Mikes BBQ off the left field line, then wandered off and found a place to sit and watch the game. I saw a few of the old regulars — but it was a busy night, and I kept missing them in the crowds. It was a pretty good game — Giants win, combined 1 hitter with the hit coming in the 9th inning (would have been my second no-hitter; good news it was a legitimate, solid hit, and the two errors were also legit). And in the last couple of innings, I started wandering more, just taking in the feel, the character. I finally did run into a couple of my old friends from the earlier days, too, and had nice chats.

One of them saw me walk by, and got the big round eyes and smiled (and to be honest, it felt nice to be recognized like that), and we sat and chatted to the end of the game — his first question was “where’s your needlepoint?” (which is a whole ‘nother story, but I was famous for showing up and doing needlepoint during the slow times. It drove some players crazy to see me pull it out…). And his daughter is married, and his son, who last time I saw him had just hit puberty, lost his baby fat and gotten his teenager-attitude, is now on scholarship at a good baseball school as a pitcher.

And it was almost as if I’d missed a homestand, not the better part of a decade. And we talked about that — it was a weird feeling; for all of the things at the park that were different (the people, the players, the staff, etc) — it felt as if nothing had changed. Kind of a time warp.

That place was, as my friend so noted, “Cheers”. and it’s why it keeps drawing us back to it. Like a comfortable pair of shoes, being there just makes things better.

I was made to promise that I would return (this season!) and show up earlier to talk more. And bring Laurie. And I will.

And in some ways, it’s too bad. The park is showing its age a bit, and the city (who owns it) is primarily interested in going “big league” with the A’s, so investing in the old Muni park is not only not a priority, it’s not really an option. Yet most folks don’t know (or care) about what they have already, only that they don’t have the 40,000 seat sterile, impersonal cavern of a major league park (where you can pay double for your beer and 10X for your ticket for seats in the next county). Eventually, I guess, either the stadium will fall apart or the A’s will move in town, and either way, it’ll go away. But taht’s no excuse for not enjoying it for now.

And so, I hope, I will. As should you, if you love the sport. It is not, by any means the best baseball you’ll see on a technical basis — but minor league ball as an experience blows away anything you can get in the majors. And it’s full of really fun, neat people —

who’ll remember your name, if you give them the chance.

I’ll have an order of garlic bread, and later, a churros.. for old times sake. And blue, shake your head. Your eyes are stuck again.

20 years ago this month…

May also brings up another special date in my life, with another special person.

20 years ago this month, Laurie chose to move out to California and share my life. I honestly don’t know who I’d be today without her in my life, but the person I am is one I’m quite proud of, and her sharing my life is a big part of what I’ve become.

Last fall, I asked her to marry me again, and she said yes. As it turns out, trying to plan out the ceremony given our mutual schedules started driving us crazy, so rather than let that screw things up, we deferred it (intentions may be honorable, but logistics are a bitch).

I still felt it important that I do something — not just to celebrate that we’ve stayed together 20 years, but because I wanted to show her I want to spend the next 20 years, too. So I sat down with my jeweler and started scheming.

Last week, we went out to one of the restaurants we frequent, and as we were eating, I asked her if I could ask her opinion of something. And I pulled out the box, and asked her what she thought of this:

As soon as she saw the box, she looked at me with that little look of hers and said, lovingly, “you bastard!”

The ring has a double-band, soldered together, based on a design by one of the local designers who does limited edition pieces. Since Laurie and I both prefer colored gems to diamonds and are both to some degree gem geeks, I chose as the center stone a 1.14 carat tsavorite garnet in an emerald cut. We then surrounded that with four 1/4 carat diamonds (for the geeks, they’re H color, VS2/SI1 clarity).

I’m happy to say she likes it.

I also had a new band made for myself.

It is gold, with 3 5 point diamonds in it. It is my way of saying to the world “I am proud to be married to a very special person”.

Laurie has made the last 20 years so special. And I am looking forward to making the next 20 years special for her.

My mother, my friend.

Today is a special day for a special person in my life.

I was, from the start, difficult, and many (myself included) would say nothing’s changed. A tough pregnancy, and I popped out blue, with a hole in my heart. The expectation was I wouldn’t live to be old enough for the surgery to fix it — but mom was a fighter, and I did; and then the hole healed itself, a 1 in a million shot.

And that’s my mom — no matter what, she never gave up, and always fought to give me and my family opportunity; whether we took it was up to us. She was a big believer in education, and pushed us to be the best we could be. She taught us to think, not what to think. She taught us question, observe and challenge — but with respect and honor.

As I grew up and started becoming me, we didn’t always see eye to eye — but she tolerated my growing pains and accepted my right to make my own mistakes, helping me learn from them if I asked (which I usually did, although sometimes years later).

And a funny thing happened. Along the way, she stopped being my mom, and became my friend. And she still is, one of my best. We still disagree on things, but with a few exceptions (which we simply have chosen to stop talking about, like politics), it’s a disagreement of peers with respect.

This month, she’s celebrating her 49th anniversary with my dad (and if you think my arguments with her over politics are crazy, mom’s a diehard republican conservative, and dad’s a classic democratic liberal — no wonder I ended up moderate). In a day of serial marriage and casual divorce, it might have been the most important life lesson she taught me.

A few years ago, she got hit with a nasty bug — seriously damaging her lungs, and forcing her onto oxygen. They think she picked it up on one of the cruises through the pacific, but they never figured out exactly what. I remember the day she emailed me asking me to research information on it. I looked up the first pages in Google and freaked. Today, much to the amazement of her doctors, she’s almost completely oxygen free. It was a commitment to not give up, a refusal to let it stop her.

Then last year, she slipped and fell — and seriously damaged some vertebra (already damaged by years of arthritis and the heavy steroids her lung problem forced her to take). She spent a week on asprin and heating pads before admitting how serious it was and going to her doctor — who freaked, of course, that she could survive the pain, much less walk. Her spine too damaged for fusing the vertebrae, she was told she might never walk again.

It took her months — but today, she’s almost free of her walker, he doctor keeps telling her to quit pushing her exercising so hard, and she and dad are going on another cruise this fall (23? 24? I’ve lost count). In her 80′s now, she’s not old, she’s just not as spry as she used to be.

It was her example that gave me the ability to take on middle age with (I like to think) grace and (mostly) a positive attitude. When things have gotten tough, her toughness has been one of the things I’ve used to give me the strength to keep fighting. And when I’ve felt like giving up, her refusal to — and her success by doing so — has been a key reason I’ve found a way to keep going, and succeed.

She’s my friend as well as my mother, and if there are things you like about me, you can congratulate her for them (if there are things you don’t like, it’s probably because I didn’t listen). And I say thank you to her a lot, but it’s never enough.

So thanks, and enjoy today. You’ve earned it.

Rules for cats…

BATHROOMS: Always accompany guests to the bathroom. It is not necessary to do anything. Just sit and stare.

DOORS: Do not allow any closed doors in any room. To get door open, stand on hind legs and hammer with forepaws. Once door is opened, it is not necessary to use it. After you have ordered an “outside” door opened, stand halfway in and out and think about several things. This is particularly important during very cold weather, rain, snow, or mosquito season.

CHAIRS AND RUGS: If you have to throw up, get to a chair quickly. If you cannot manage in time, get to an Oriental rug. If there is no Oriental rug, shag is good. When throwing up on the carpet, make sure you back up so it is as long as a humans bare foot.

HAMPERING: If one of your humans is engaged in some activity and the other is idle, stay with the busy one. This is called “helping,” otherwise known as “hampering.” Following are the rules for “hampering:”

1) When supervising cooking, sit just behind the left heel of the cook. You cannot be seen and thereby stand a better chance of being stepped on and then picked up and comforted.

2) For book readers, get in close under the chin, between eyes and book, unless you can lie across the book itself.

3) For paperwork, lie on the work in the most appropriate manner so as to obscure as much of the work as possible or at least. Pretend to doze, but every so often reach out and slap the pencil or pen.

4) For people paying bills or working on income taxes or Christmas cards, keep in mind the aim: to hamper! First, sit on the paper being worked on. When dislodged, watch sadly from the side of the table. When activity proceeds nicely, roll around on the papers, scattering them to the best of your ability. After being removed for the second time, push pens, pencils, and erasers off the table, one at a time.

5) When a human is holding the newspaper in front of him/her, be sure to jump on the back of the paper. Humans love to jump.

6) When human is working at computer, jump up on desk, walk across keyboard, bat at mouse pointer on screen and then lay in human’s lap across arms, hampering typing in progress.

WALKING: As often as possible, dart quickly and as close as possible in front of the human, especially: on stairs, when they have something in their arms, in the dark, and when they first get up in the morning. This will help their coordination skills.

BEDTIME: Always sleep on the human at night so he/she cannot move around.

LITTER BOX: When using the litter box, be sure to kick as much litter out of the box as possible. Humans love the feel of kitty litter between their toes.

HIDING: Every now and then, hide in a place where the humans cannot find you. Do not come out for three to four hours under any circumstances. This will cause the humans to panic (which they love) thinking that you have run away or are lost. Once you do come out, the humans will cover you with love and kisses and you will probably get a treat.

ONE LAST THOUGHT: Whenever possible, get close to a human, especially their face, turn around, and present your butt to them. Humans love this, so do it often. And don’t forget guests.

The Sports Economist

The Sports Economist:

$20 million in revenue sharing – a welcome subsidy for teams that choose not to compete – is responsible in part for the rosy financials of the Rays. King George, you can be sure, is fuming.I get the sense that the Rays’ strategy is not about winning games in Tampa, but rather to cash in on a move to better digs, and perhaps the sale of the franchise.

Hockey fans take note: as we move closer to a labor solution that seems to involve serious and real revenue sharing, we need to remember that it is not a panacea. It merely changes the problems.

To ones hopefully more manageable and less draconian.

Finally… more than two sentences and a link….

Finally, time and energy to do something more than linkblogging.

At work, we’re crunching away at release 2.0 of the beast, which is a major deal. On top of that, I’ve been working to bring new staff up to speed, and getting all of our documentation written and in good shape, since we’re committing to moving to writing the specs BEFORE we code, not after — but the sync-up is meaning a lot of time and energy. the joy of making up for previously cut corners…. But things are going pretty well, at least so far, so that’s good. But ti’s been mentally tiring, which means I just haven’t felt like spending a lot of time blogging as well.

I’m frankly used to doing smaller projects than the Beast has become — where I’m primary designer, coder, and (usually) the operations crew. Now, I’m learning how to design and lead a team of coders — where my coding contribution is minor, if it exists at all. It’s a much different mindset, and one I’ve been having to find a comfort zone on. Trying to figure this out has been fun, in a way, but stressful in a positive way, and using a lot of mental and physical energy. And I hopefully haven’t been driving my crew too crazy figuring out how to translate from my virtual whiteboard to one they can see. I think once the transition is done we’ll have a much better product, too, but we grew so quickly and so much we’re now having to go back and rebuild parts of the foundation, places we made conscious decisions to build to throw away to make the system happen when it had to. We’re still under the gun, but it’s a good time to start that work on a few key components. But between now and July? We’re gonna be busy. I think it’ll be worth it…

It’s been seriously busy on the home front, also. The weather finally cooperated, and 3 weeks later than planned, they came and ripped out the old patio and poured a new one. Early results are quite positive (pictures soon) — a much nicer, and more usable space, plus improved access to the hot tub, and the side yard is finally usable for storage, cleaning up the clutter. And new patio begat new furniture, all in teak, and friday, I had a landscaping crew come in and tear out all of the weeds and the old raised beds and all of the old garden stuff, so it doesn’t look like there was a war in the yard, and while there’s a lot of planting and work left to do, 90% of the spring weeding and demolition are done. Out front, the lillies and the first of the dahliahs have woken up, the roses are in their first massive bloom, and the irises are starting their spring display, so all looks good (and the weeds are mostly under control). Next weekend, construction starts on the new raised veggie beds, and working towards the new beds and plantings and paths, and the flagstone patio under the arbor, and the arbor, and… oh, god, a busy summer. At least I won’t spend a summer digging weeds….

One thing that’s been frustrating me are the number of home projects in various stages of not-done, so I spent this weekend trying to finish them. The two doors I wanted replaced got replaced, and we changed the swing of the door to the main bathroom so the door opens into the hall — one place the folks who build the Eichler houses didn’t waste space was the bathrooms (they’re both 5×10′, with bathtubs) — so having the door open into the bathroom made a small space cramped. Opening out makes it feel larger, and gives us a wall for towels that was previously blocked.

The other bathroom, which has been laughing at me for months, finally got plumbed (and I *think* the vanity drain has stopped seeping), and I got the new shower curtain up, and the rest of the shelves and towel holders and the lick. It finally looks, and acts, like a bathroom again. Assuming the leak really IS fixed, all I have left is moulding (door and cove), and recaulking the tub, and then fixing holes in the plaster and sanding, and it’s ready for paint. the other bathroom is in about the same shape, so they can both be ready for paint in May. The living room got ignored this week, although I did box up some books in the areas where the movable shelves are leaving in favor of the builts-ins I’m going to build. Now that the bathroom is done (really!) I can focus on it some more… Oh, once I replace the water line to the ice maker. It’s spring, and ice would be a good thing.

and sometime this week, laurie’s taking me down to buy the new Barbeque — god help you if you decide to upgrade your patio folks, you’re going to replace everything on it, too. trust me. The cement is the easy part… (giggle). And then, who knows? maybe a party to break it all in.

The teak patio set is awesome, by the way. I found a place that sells primarily to hotels and businesses when they were having a sale to the public. it’s all Indonesian plantation teak, top quality, all built like a tank with high quality wood using mortise and tenon, and it won’t require oiling and sanding like lower quality teak — and it cost less than some “screw together” teak sets I saw, although it wasn’t remotely cheap. But it should last for a long time, and it’s quite pretty.

And the state of the server migration? oh, grumble moan. Ask me again in a week. I think it’s the next priority (then the ice maker)…. And that’s why there’s no photos: I’ve taken down the old photo stuff, and odn’t have the new one up yet. Stay tuned…..

Since I’m in crunch mode through July, Laurie and I are talking about vacation in August for a couple of weeks — going north (gee, what a surprise). Right now, the tentative itinerary is to take two weeks and drive, hitting Seattle going north for a couple of days and an Aquasox game, then Vancouver, and then driving up the sunshine coast, probably to Powell River and taking the ferry across to Comox, then up to Campbell River for a couple of days, to allow us to explore the north island. Then down to Victoria, and then we’ll hit Portland on the way south again.

Between now and then, I’m going to try to find a couple of days for a long weekend down in SoCal with the family, and perhaps take in disneyland once the 50th celebration begins… we’ll see. We’re also going to head up to Fremont peak in May to play with the 30″ scope, which means I need to get my ETX up and running again — but not until the server migration is complete, or I’ll never finish it. And I need to find time to play with my new Digital Rebel XT…

Maybe I’ll take pictures of the new barbeque….

SportsBiz: Opening Day

SportsBiz: Opening Day:

It’s Opening Day in baseball and despite Commissioner Bud Selig’s craven surrender several years ago to the money being waved in his face by ESPN so that years of tradition were thrown away and the Reds no longer open the baseball season,

As I remember it, this wasn’t Selig’s doing, but Marge Schott. She chose to break the tradition, and once she did, Selig refused to give it back to her the next year.

And more power to him. Schott had no sense of history or tradition, unless she could squeeze a buck out of it. And while the Reds opening the season was tradition, you have to agree that yankees/sox is a much more powerful and interesting story.

So perhaps Marge did us a favor by allowing Selig and the league to create an opening day that generates excitement instead of JUST tradition.

Tradtion has its place. Slavish reliance on tradition is one step onto the path towards irrelevance.

The Sports Economist

The Sports Economist:

High salaries for workers and rising prices for the product (ticket prices are reportedly up 6.3 per cent) reflect a healthy business, with high and growing demand. They are problems any business would like to have

unless, like hockey, you don’t see the revenue curve level off fast enough, and you spend money you don’t have. Rising revenues can flatten, and unless you see it coming and be ready for it, you can outspend your budget before you notice, and then you’re in trouble. Adn the inertia of increasing salaries is a lot harder to deal with than a fan’s inertia of buying tickets in the face of increasing prices. Stopping the salary train is very difficult.

On top of thisserious financial disparity continues to exist betweeen the haves (Yankees, Red Sox, Braves) and the have-nots (Royals, A’s) — a ticking time bomb that is just looking for an excuse to explode, and one the Billy Beane’s of the world can’t solve, merely continue to defer. Sooner or later, he’s going to trip, or sneeze, or blink.

before declaring the sport healthy and happy, I’d want to know where the advance ticket sale increase came from: a normally well-attended team leaving a down cycle? new ballparks generating temporary demand where none existed? some cinderella team geting a burst of support it won’t sustain into future years? That number may well be less than it seems to be at first glance.

And any time I see ticket prices rising above inflation, I worry. I see that as mortgaging today’s salaries against future dollars, because you are sending tickets closer to that nebulous point where fans declare “too expensive” and start looking for reason to stop buying, or buy fewer. you can cotinue to hope to drive demand beyond that point and defer it, but as long as tickets prices are growing faster than the salaries that pay them, you’re at risk of some event changing fans perceptions and redefining that line downward suddenly.

this isn’t to say things aren’t going well for baseball — they clearly are (and even I, after years of more or less ignoring baseball, have been following it a bit again, and have even — gasp — bought tickets to a game. for laurie. well, mostly (it’s A’s/Mariners, and she’s become a big M’s fan). So if even I’ve gotten interested again, they’re doing many things right.

but if you look behind the good numbers, you see a sport that really ought to be doing even better — IMHO, salaries are escalating too fast, driving ticket prices beyond inflation, and the revenue inequities create an unstable franchise environment potential — and gee, they had to move a team, and it took how long to find a new home? for the first time in how many years? (hello, seattle pilots!). but unlike hockey, they didn’t have the teams go bankrupt or owners go to jail….

Not trying to rain on baseball’s parade: just trying to remind us that beyond the good numbers are many challenges and problems yet to be solved in major league baseball. Steroids is almost a non-starter, except the union futzed around on it so long, they allowed it to become a problem that never should have existed. but it’s also one that the average fan just isn’t going to care about, and will soon be relegated to the hard-cores looking for an excuse to complain…

Google Gulp

Google Gulp:

At Google our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it useful and accessible to our users. But any piece of information’s usefulness derives, to a depressing degree, from the cognitive ability of the user who’s using it. That’s why we’re pleased to announce Google Gulp (BETA)™ with Auto-Drink™ (LIMITED RELEASE), a line of “smart drinks” designed to maximize your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty.

April fools…..

Seth’s Blog: Outrageous!:

This is going to be the biggest April Fool’s day in memory. There will be political fools and satirical fools and just plain goofy fools. I figured I could get a lot of mileage out of inventing the “blog tax” fool, and it would be a good story to tell my grandchildren. But then I realized that if it worked, I’d get all this incredibly angry mail and trackbacks and I’d have to deal with it.

So, alas, no Fools for me. Good luck tomorrow. Be careful out there.

I used to have a lot of fun with April Fools.

over the years, I’ve pretty much stopped it. partly because to do it well, it takes time and energy I haven’t had, but partly, well, partly because….

Seth nails it:

This is going to be the biggest April Fool’s day in memory. There will be political fools and satirical fools and just plain goofy fools. I figured I could get a lot of mileage out of inventing the “blog tax” fool, and it would be a good story to tell my grandchildren. But then I realized that if it worked, I’d get all this incredibly angry mail and trackbacks and I’d have to deal with it.

Partly because to do April fools right, the audience needs a sense of humor. And there are too many of you out there now who don’t, and it’s hard to justify doing it for those that do while having to put up with those that don’t…

So happy april fools, all. Read the golden oldies…

Bill Farr’s 46 days

L.A. Observed: Bill Farr’s 46 days Archives:

The late Bill Farr was an L.A. Times reporter who became nationally known — and an entry in First Amendment and journalism textbooks — when he sat for 46 days in county jail in 1972-73 rather than tell a judge which lawyers had violated a gag order during the notorious Charles Manson murder trial.

Since I keep bringing him up, a little history on Bill Farr.

the first car I ever drove had a “Get Farr Out” bumper sticker on it.

okay, I’m back.

disappeared for a couple of days, but I think I’m returning to the real world again. Friday, I drove down behind the Orange Curtain to visit the parents, do some tech support on the computer (the internet connection went dead, thanks to a dead cable between the cable modem and the airport; not something you can remotely fix…), and generally do errands and etc.

As we were watching the Laker/Mavs game (mom has somehow become a basketball fan in the last few years — go figure), I turned to them and said “have you noticed everyone is yellow?”. Their TV had lost a color. So saturday, dad and I ran off to one of the big box stores and replaced their set.

They now have a 32″ Sony Wega HD. While we were there, I replaced their VCR and DVD with a modern unit (which probably still cost less than the cables on the old boxes), since everything was a good five or more years old (the TV was at least 15). Hauled it home, got some neighbors to help us schlep it onto the stand (a Sony 32″ Wega is 165 pounds. Even *I* am not stupid enough to life that on my own any more), and they’re going to call this week and have the cable folks come out and replace the box with an HD box.

the HD was *their* idea, by the way. not mine. Mom’s really looking forward to watching the Lakers in HDTV.

Gah. a basketball fan. Where did I go wrong?

But everyone’s thrilled at the new TV down there.

So anyway, I drove back up Sunday, and I had monday off, because when I set things up, I wasn’t sure if I was coming back sunday night or monday morning. Monday, I got up, intending to finish off a document that was due this week — and promptly fell asleep at the desk. And that’s been the last 36 hours or so. I hit some kind of wall (not flu, not cold, none of that, just — going back to sleep). I was able to nail out that doc today, and finally surfaced again late this afternoon, finally feeling like I’d caught up on sleep. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

Some fun. But mom’s got her email back, and soon will be able to see Kobe’s pores. And the air didn’t suck (so badly) down there…

An interesting side note on Southern Cal. Born and raised down there, I moved to the Bay area in February, 1982 — when I was 23 years old and seven months. I’m now 46 and 8 months old. This means when I am within a few months of having lived in this area longer than in LA (that’ll happen sometime in September). I’m not sure that’s significant, but it’s an interesting milestone. Does it mean I’m now a bay area native? I’m definitely not a SoCal boy any more. the last few trips down, I’ve been sort of exploring the area again, and so little of what was there growing up still is.

And I’m not all that far from having been in the industry for 30 years. I guess I really AM an old phart. My first job: taking fortran code for a Data General machine, and rewriting it to be faster and use less memory.

Another one of those meaningless but interesting dates: looking at my copy of my resume, it hasn’t been updated since 1996. almost ten years out of date.

How time flies when you’re having fun.

In the “I feel old” category…

I’m in southern cal this weekend, visiting the mom and dad. everyone’s doing fine — but mom’s internet connection fell down and wouldn’t get up, and we couldn’t figure out why. the problem, it turned out, was a dead cable between the cable modem and the airport express. Ohwell, can’t reboot that. It also allowed me to tweak a couple of things and update her laptop with iLife ’05.

But driving around the old home town — I went past my high school, which was advertising the 30th anniversary reunion of the class of ’75. My class is 1976. Next year — 30th anniversary.

Can I feel old now?

Do fans have the final say?

something we’ve talked about a lot. Here are some economists who’ve studied it:

http://thesportseconomist.com/archive/2005_02_01__arch_file.htm#110930727705075792

and here’s a summary of what they found:

Our analysis offers historic evidence that suggests the consumers’ threat has not been credible. In general, none of the events we examined had a permanent impact upon attendance in these sports. In fact, in almost all instances attendance immediately rebounded in the year following the labor conflict. This explains why strikes and lockouts are happening with increasing frequency in professional sports. If the levels of attendance in the postconflict era are equivalent to the preconflict time period, only short-run costs are imposed upon the conflict partcipants. Given the millions at stake in each dispute, our analysis would indicate that labor conflicts that disrupt the regular season of these sports are likely to occur again in the future.

The “fan lashback” basically doesn’t exist.

Statistically, fans don’t stay away after a strike, or if they do, it’s for short periods of time. Individually, some obviously do, but statistically, it’s not an impact, any more than I impact Safeway when I move my shopping to a different supermarket.

Which basically means that (as I’ve said over time), all that talk by fans about punishing a sport for strikes and lockouts is, well, talk. Just like fans whining about high prices who still buy the tickets, fans talk about boycotting sports that go out on strike, but statistically, that lasts until 10 minutes after the new labor deal is signed. then it’s back to normal…

Off Wing Opinion: Does Gary Bettman Need Some Help?

Off Wing Opinion: Does Gary Bettman Need Some Help?:
Here is some silliness wandering the sports bloggers:

An experienced NHL person would know something is strange about this situation. Bettman just doesn’t see it.

Does anyone see why statements like this are silly?
Bettman works for the NHL. He is, in fact, the public representative of the Board of Governors. They are, if you think about it, either the owners or GMs of the 30 NHL teams. That includes people like Bobby Clarke and Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. He is a phone call away from anyone involved in hockey, whether it’s Don Cherry or John Ferguson.
Someone please tell me: who could Gary Bettman possibly hire who could be better council and be a more knowledgeable hockey person than the people Bettman already works for, with, and around?
The logic behind this is reassuring to some, but silly: many fans don’t like how things are being done in the NHL (with good reason). Therefore, it’s gary bettman’s fault, and he’s “not a hockey guy”. So, replace him with a “hockey guy” or hire him someone who knows hockey. or something. And that’ll fix things.
Reality: Gary Bettman doesn’t run the NHL. The Board of Governers do. Those 30 owners and/or GMs. Gary doesn’t SNEEZE without their approval. Gary doesn’t need to be a hockey guy, he works for 30 of them (okay, 25 of them, plus about five useless wastes of oxygen. you guess them, I’m not saying). Gary doesn’t need to hire a hockey guy to help, there are dozens of them in the NHL offices (many of them amazingly capble and sharp people) — and frankly, if those “hockey guys” who own and run the hockey teams would have Bettman on the phone so fast and so educated his head would spin — or they’d fire his ass and replace him with someone who could follow orders.
This is the scapegoating of Gary Bettman, a sad and unfortunate attempt by some fans to avoid the basic reality: the NHL is run this way and the NHL acts this way not because Gary Bettman is an incompetent or not a “hockey guy” — but because Gary is doing exactly what his masters (the owners and GMs) want him to do. In other words, this is what the “hockey guys” want. and some fans are so unable or unwilling to accept this basic reality that they build grand conspiracies to avoid that basic reality. conspiracies like believing that Bettman can hold all 30 owners hostage to his whims and wishes, and they can’t do anything to stop him even thought they MUSt all disagree with what he’s doing. (ask Carly Fiorina about wielding that kind of absolute power….)
No, the reality is this: Gary Bettman is doing what the owners told him to do. Gary Bettman’s primary job is to be the public scapegoat so the owners don’t have to. His job is, as much as anything, to get paid a nice salary to take all of our abuse.
If you don’t like how the game’s being run, don’t blame Bettman. He’s not the master. The owners are, and he doesn’t dictate to them, he implements FOR them. Swapping out Bettman won’t fix things — although if the owners think it’ll settle down the fans, they’ll give him a package and publicly boot his butt in a nanosecond (and privately thank him for taking it with a smile) — and the scary thing is, a lot of fans will buy into it.
Now, dn’t mistake me for a FAN of Bettman, although I’m a lot less negative about him than many. A lot of what he’s blamed for is from his predecessors, and in many cases, he minimized what could be much worse damage. Some of the things, he probably had no chance of succeeding (the TV ratings problem). The NHL under his watch isn’t great, but the NHL he inherited was already a disaster, and people conveniently forget that.
And if you don’t like “Gary Bettman’s” NHL, you have a REAL problem, because that NHL is the NHL the owners and GM’s told him to build. So hiring “hockey guys” or replacing bettman won’t solve that. it’s the hockey guys who did it.

New study on intelligence of birds.

Not surprising to those of us who live with them.

Ten things you haven’t done

Okay, I’m game…
Alan Bostick does it. I guess I will, too.
Ten things I’ve done you probably haven’t:

• Assisted as an anesthesiologist to a vet while spaying dogs and cats.
  
• Bodysurfed storm waves big enough the surfers stayed on the beach.
  
• Seen the planet Pluto through a telescope.
  
• Played a talking deer on television.
  
• Rode a bicycle 100 miles non-stop. In the rain. voluntarily.
  
• Got paid to write Science Fiction. (but not a lot)
  
• Was once the fourth largest USENET site on the net (by volume)
  
• Finished ahead of No Award for the best fan writer Hugo.
  
• Ate lunch on the deck of the pirate ship in Pirates of the Caribbean which is firing on the fort (the pirates aren’t wearing any pants)
  
• refereed a high school basketball game — with broken glasses.
  

Busy time…

Now that it stopped bloody raining for a few days, we’re starting to get stuff moving forward again. We signed the work order for the concrete work in the back, and today, had the fence guy out to quote the back fence (which is standing up by inertia at best), and got that scheduled in. Weather permitting, the fence next week, the concrete the week after, and then the backyard is well on the way to finishing the landscaping. Work is still creeping forward on other projects (the granite for the bathroom vanity should be in this week), but right now, I’m focussing on finishing the damned server migration for plaidworks…. I can almost taste that one finishing, finally.
but if bloggin’s a bit light, it’s because there are 90 other things going on, too.

Church of the Customer: It’s the little details that matter

Church of the Customer: It’s the little details that matter:

Should I be asked to “assist us in the event of an emergency,” as the flight attendants always say with some measure of gravitas — and I hope that request is never made — I’m not quite sure where to put exit door.

Personally, I’ve never figured out the utility of emergency exits at 30,000 feet…..

One more thought on the NHL…

Something to think about. Name two groups OTHER than fans that have significant financial realities tied up to the NHL season.

One of them are journalists. If you’re a hockey writer, or a hockey talking head, your livelihood is tied to there being hockey to write (or talk) about. Al Strachan just isn’t going to go off and cover the Brier in a few weeks.

Remember that as you continue to read (or listen to) all those self-righteous journalists taking shots at the NHL. How much of that is those people not wanting to end up at the auto show writing features on next generation airbags?

But there’s another group that is set to lose a huge amount of money in all of this — the agents. if there’s no hockey, there are no paychecks (or significantly reduced ones). if there are no paychecks, there are not percentages to pay agents. If you’re a hockey agent, or work for one, you’re in a real world of hurt — and you’re not in any position to influence the negotiations.

Or are you? If you read the articles on yesterday’s negotiations, both sides make it clear they weren’t as close as the rumors had them out to be — yet both sides are being ripped (by the journalists who played up those false rumors of it being a done deal that they got from sources) for not making the deal neither side seems to think was there, other than in the minds of the press and the rumor mill.

So what gives?

Here’s my thought: where are these rumors coming from? Answer: people trying to influence the negotiations, obviously. Using the press and the rumors and sites like eklunds to try to push both sides into an agreement neither side wants. Who’d do that?

there are clearly groups on both sides fighting to get this solved — and groups on both sides fighting back.

But, since the word clearly went out to a lot of players that it was all over but the shouting, to the point some flew back from Europe, and it was all over the press and rumor mills that it was all over, where did those rumors come from? Who told the players to catch the next plane home?

Most likely, their agents. The ones not being paid because there’s no season to take a percentage out of.

So, is all the crap the players and owners are being ripped for in the last week nothing more than both sides being manipulated by the agents into a deal that benefits neither side, but instead benefits the agents by starting the money teat again?

I’ve come to think you’re seeing a major manipulation (and an attempt to hijack) the negotiation process by the agents, who are using the public rumor mill and their friends in the press to try to drive pressure on both sides to settle, while at the same time playing games with their clients. and what we’re seeing is the results of that campaign, where the agents are trying to create a situation that forces both sides to take a deal neither side seems to want. And if you think about it, the “split it down the middle” $45 million number is the way an agent would think, no?

And that’s something I’ve wondered for a while — where did Eklund come from, and why? What’s HIS agenda, other than ego?

Could he, perhaps, work for an agent? be one? many of his sources sure seem to be coming from there. Is his real purpose not to inform, but to push a third agenda onto these negotiations through public pressure?

Makes one wonder.

GAME OFF!!!!!!!

Like that’s a big surprise.

Have a nice off-season, hockey fans. see you in October. Maybe.

I will ask this rhetorical question to fans arguing that the owners are lying about how much money they’re losing: if the owners really WERE lying, why didn’t they take any of the offers the players made? If the finances weren’t as bad as the league’s been claiming all along, then many of the deals they forced out of the players would have looked like gravy.

The San Jose Sharks, for what it’s worth, claim they lost $6 million last year, including the revenues generated by going to the Division championship series. And their salary structure is one of the saner ones in the league, to boot.

The owners, IMHO, aren’t doing this to get rich, it’s because they’re tired of going bankrupt. Fans who don’t want to believe this are fooling themselves, and the union did itself a world of hurt by following that path as well. the NHLPA is now fractured and in serious trouble, with internal divisions that will likely take years to fix, if they ever do. it’s power as a unified force is clearly broken.

And lest you think I’m purely an owner butt-kisser, one area I’m extremely disappointed in the owners is the lack of any rational discussion of two issues: revenue sharing and buying out non-viable franchises. Part of the problem here is not a LACK of money, but of a disparity of income between teams, and the NHL hasn’t made any real effort to deal with that part of the problem. The league also has clearly over-expanded, and there are some franchises that the league would be better off without. Buying out franchises also improves the revenue sharing issue, because shared revenues would be split into fewer, larger pieces.

I was never a huge fan of a shortened season, but unlike many fans, I really wanted ot see this solved, even if it meant a 25 game asterisk year — because now, an even worse situation is upon us: the pressure is off to FINISH this deal, as close as they are, and so we’re at risk at not only being forced to watch this fiasco continue into the summer, but it may stretch into next season as well, and I’d rather have ONE asterisk season than two, or many. And that’s now a legitimate risk. Wouldn’t you rather be able to head into summer knowing that next October, opening night will happen as scheduled? we don’t have that guarantee now.

And that sucks.

For those complaining that the two sides should have found a middle ground: you’re right, and you’re wrong. The owners made it clear from the beginning that they wanted certain things in the agreement, and they’ve kept to that consistently. labor negotiations aren’t rational (or necessarily mature) — they’re a huge game of chicken, with both sides holding out and trying to make the other side blink. Ultimately, this cancellation of the season has to be blamed on the union, because the union started blinking, and once it did, it was all over but the shouting. That last round, however, the NHLPA decided it was close enough that the league would have to “come over” and toss the final bone back at the union, allow it to save face.

the union guessed wrong, and the league called the season. The union, in a last ditch effort to claim SOME kind of victory (because, basically, at the end of it, they gave the owners pretty much everything they’d been demanding all along, and that the union said they’d never do) drew a line in the sand when they had no power left, and then got left to watch the tide sweep it away with millions of dollars of player salaries. that miscalculation cost the union big time — and it’s an indication of how badly the league wanted to crush the union’s power as well. And it did.

In a game of five card stud, you can’t fold them by throwing down four cards and expect to keep the fifth. the union tried, and it cost it’s members 25 games in salary. that’s a lesson the players won’t soon forget, and they shouldn’t blame the owners, they should blame themselves and their leaders. Once they caved from their primary position (‘no salary cap ever’), the union basically lost all negotiating power, and should have realized it was time to throw in the last card and get back to playing hockey.

Now, it’s too late.

If I were a player, I’d have Goodenow’s head, today. And I’d find someone to agree to the last NHL deal, so I’d know that come october, I’d have a job. If they don’t do that, god knows when we’ll get a deal and a season.

Roger Noll: NHL business model won’t work.

Roger Noll, an econ prof @ stanford who studies sports economics, chimes in on the NHL and claims the current business model won’t work, even if the league gets what it wants in the current negotiations.

It’s an interesting read that not everyone agrees with. I don’t think things are quite as negative as Noll implies, but, well, I can’t refut it, either.

But for those who still disbelieve the owners statements on how much money the league is losing — if they were lying, why didn’t they take one of the player offers and giggle all the way to the bank?

Hypocrites in the NHLPA?

If the reason this lockout continues is because the NHLPA is refusing to even consider a new deal that contains a salary cap, isn’t it just hypocritcal that players are joining the UHL and taking away jobs from minor leagues — when the UHL has a hard salary cap?

UHL president Richard Brosal said Tuesday it is ironic that players opposed to an NHL salary cap are coming to a minor league that wouldn’t survive without one.

And they’re doing it — according to Kris Draper — for the love of the game.

they could love the game, make a lot more money loving it, and not take away even more jobs from lower-echelon players, by simply settling with the NHL. They’re already proving this isn’t about a salary cap, or they wouldn’t be playing under one during the lockout.

is hockey better today than it was 12 years ago?

So the unanswered question of the day is:

Has the quality of the on-ice product improved over that interval?

As a fan, do you believe you enjoy hockey more, or less than you did back in January 1993

These are, in fact, two different questions. And it’s important to understand why they’re different, and why that difference matters.

Is the quality of hockey played today better than it was 12 or 13 years ago? I would argue yes, without hesitation. Ask former players, and they’ll tell you that today’s hockey players are faster, stronger, bigger, better conditioned and better coached than any player from previous eras. The equipment has improved on almost all fronts (the one thing they need to kill are those self-exploding composite sticks that wait for power plays to disintegrate on a regular basis). Most fourth line NHLers today could skate down and take out all but the most elite players of old, and probably catch most of them, too.

That’s a problem when we remember the Good Old Days — everyone remembers Stan Mikita or a young Mario or Bossy or maybe the Sutter brothers. That defines the Good Old Days, not the third liners, or even the second liners. So we tend to remember the super stars and the super plays, and compare it to average play today, and think the Good Old Days were better. That’s a lot like comparing a John Lennon album to your shower singing, or maybe a church choir.

I’ve found it quite interesting to go and watch ESPN classic when they actually show classic hockey (and the 2002 cup finals isn’t classic, sorry) — you can actually watch ALL of the hockey from that era, not just highlights and named stars. IMHO, the hockey of today is a much higher quality of hockey than it was in the early 90′s, although even then, there were significant changes already made when you go back and watch the games of the 60′s or 70′s. By the 90′s, for instance, much of the brawling (hello, Bobby Clark) had already been removed from the game, along with bench clearing brawls and some of the more joyful aspects of the game in the Good Old Days.

One reason, I think, that the stars of before were able to succeed so dramatically is that the difference in quality levels between those elite players was wider then than it is today — the 2nd and 3rd liners just weren’t as good as the journeyman are today, and weren’t as able to contain the top players. As a result, it was easier for a top player to shine and thrive than it is today. If you think about it, if the talent level climbs, it’s a lot harder for the elite player to climb as far as the average player, so I think it’s normal to expect the talent gap between top and bottom across the players to narrow.

On top of that, there’s coaching. Today’s game can be attributed to (or blamed on) three key coaches:

Roger Neilsen, who brought us innovations such as the trap (which is incorrectly considered a bad thing — it’s not the trap, its the obstruction teams use to enforce the trap, folks) and defensive-first hockey. He was one of the first coaches to make players take defense seriously and use it as a strategy of winning games. Again, go back to older games and study the defensive play. Players are very passive, mostly playing a zone box, and rarely challenging the perimeter or against the boards. By playing passively, they allow players to freewheel and set up shots a lot more easily than today’s players that aggressively challenge the puck and remove space and time from the offense. you’d also see the defensemen being a lot more passive, and go back and see what Dmen could get away with as far as crease clearing in the past, and compare it to, oh, Chris Chelios or Derian Hatcher today. Much of what’s considered acceptable today in the slot was not only a penalty, but might have been a major — and since offensive players are allowed to be abused in the slot now, no wonder it limits offensive abilities. but I digress.

Mike Keenan, who may not be my favorite coach, but his impact to the game is unquestionable. He was one of the early coaches to push conditioning as a strategic asset, and more importantly, a coach that innovated the aggressive forecheck. Again, go back and watch classic games, you’ll mostly notice the defense playing a half-court defense, or maybe a 3/4 court. chasing the puck behind the net? throwing in a Mike sullivan type player to harrass the defenseman carrying the puck? Didn’t happen much, if at all. So teams were more easily able to get into the offensive zone and set up offense than they are today. Keenan also brought forward a more aggressive style of attacking the puck, makign sure offensive players couldn’t sit back and pick apart the defense.

Third is Scottie Bowman, who innovated off of both of these innovations (left wing lock, anyone? that freed up the center, who’s generally a more inventive playmaker) and added dozens of twists himself.

But when you’re done with this, the key coaching and strategic innovations in hockey from the 80′s into today were primarily defensive – so no wonder it became harder and harder for offensive players to thrive. The players they were trying to score against got better, their techniques improved, they got more aggressive, were better coached, and in better shape. All of which conspired to make it harder for the offensive skill players to thrive. and I haven’t even mentioned goaltending yet (don’t worry, I will).

And that ties into the second question — the QUALITY of hockey in the NHL is, without question, better now than 10 or 15 years ago. Better talent, better equipment, better coaching, better strategy, better conditioning. better better better.

but — is it more enjoyable hockey? probably not. I’m someone who loves a well-played, well-goaltended 2-1 game, but I think most hockey fans want fancy passing and flowery goal scoring, just as most baseball fans love homeruns over a pitcher’s duel. And today’s hockey is definitely NOT more interesting in the “highlight reel” aspect than it was 10 years ago, much less 20 or 30.

A big reason for that is the improvement in defenses I’ve talked about. but it’s not the only reason.

Another is goaltending — and it’s a huge problem. Just as other players have improved, so have goaltenders. They’re better skaters, in better shape, with massively bigger and lighter gear, and they’re bigger (3-4″ and 30-40 pounds) themselves. They’re much better coached and in most cases have become students of the game. So if you can get through the forecheck, break the trap, set up the offense, create a screen in the slot without Chelios breaking your cheekbone and actually get a shot off against that aggressive pressure on the puck — you still have a goalie that understands positioning and angles better so is less likely to be caught out of position, and if he is, his gear is much larger, so his reach is imrpoved and his ability to get to the puck ANYWAY is better. And if all that fails him, the goalie’s now 6′ tall and 230 instead of 5’8 and 190, so the damn puck is just as likely as not to hit him and bounce off.

and so scoring has tanked. it now requires almost a perfect shot to score, and the aggressive defensive techniques make perfect shots impossible. And people wonder why scoring is falling over? A starting goalie’s GAA and save percentage in 1990 would earn him a backup role in the AHL today.

If that wasn’t enough, let’s talk about expansion coaches a bit. To name just two, Kevin Constantine in San jose and Terry Murray, who took the PAnthers far into the playoffs in 2000. They built on what went before them with Neilsen and Keenan and Bowman, but also realized their job was to win, and winning had no style points. and they realized that if you wrapped your arms around elite players, they had trouble being elite. The clutch adn grab got Florida deep into the playoffs, and the league told the refs to allow it. This is not the coach’s fault, or the team’s, or the referee’s fault. Blame it right on management in the NHL offices, who are the ones who tell the referees what are and aren’t penalties and how to interpret things. And every time they claim to be cracking down, the lower echelon team coaches and GMs call and whine and moan and complain, and the league backs off — encouraging mediocrity to get quiet, not justice. This lack of guts from the league is discouraging, but not surprising. After all, who sets these rules? The board of governors. Who are they? the owners direct representatives. And if you’re the governor from Columbus or Tampa, are you going to say “hey, sure, we’ll enforce things tight, even though it’s bad for my team? It’s for the good of the game”. hell, no, you’ll try to seet things up so your team can win – and the lower echelon teams outnumber elite teams, and nobody has the guts to stand up and say “a penalty in the first period is a penalty in the third. shut up and get better players”

Now, having said that — go back and watch the 2000 playoffs. the league HAS made signfiicant strides in obstruction and other problematic aspects of the game. They just haven’t done close to enough. Reffing in the NHL has a long way to go to become what the NFL has, and don’t for a minute think that’s because I think the NFL is the pinnacle of quality. And I don’t blame the referees themselves, but the people who set policy for (and at) them. it’s an office problem, not an on-ice one.

Reffing in the NHL itself is it’s own essay, but it ties in here as well. suffice it to say, it needs to get better. the move to two refs has been sometimes painful and sometimes frustrating, but I still think it was the right thing to do, but not all of the refs were ready or able, and ALL refs have a learning curve before they really understand and can handle the NHL game and it doesn’t matter how good you were at other levels. But I also think the NHL has screwed around and to some degree screwed up the 2 ref system the last year, adn their early attempt to ‘standardize’ and ‘make objective’ the reffing (in other words, take any personalilty and subjective judgement out of the refs) was an utter disaster, the only greater disaster being the no-tolerance crease rule we all suffered through for a few years.

So I think the hockey is a much higher caliber overall — but less interesting for most fans, unless they are goalie geeks (like Laurie and I are). Defensive play and goaltending have gotten much better in comparison to offense, so offense suffers, and that hurts the game.

it’s something that can be fixed. I think the proposed rule changes (no touch icing, the AHL no-touch areas for goalies, blueline touchups) are all good ideas. We need to go further. If they asked me (which they won’t), I’d focus on two things:

1) bring goaltending back into balance. Goalies have gotten too good. This not only has the obvious problems, but the mental aspect of going up against a modern goalie makes players try too hard, too fast, making good offensive chances even harder. You can’t make goalies go back to being 5’8″ bad skaters with no coaching, but you can limit some of their improvements. smaller gear, moving back to more traditional sizes for blocker, leg pads and catcher is a start. Limiting the goalie mobility is another. If it were me, as soon as the goalie crosses the goal line after the puck, he’s fair game for checking like any defenseman. that’ll never happen, though. too bad. Id’ even go further, and put an extended crease about 5′ beyond the paint. any time the goalie leaves THAT area, he’s fair game. And any time a goalie stops a puck outside of the crease (if you can’t touch the paint, you can’t stop the puck!) — that’s a delay of game penalty. the goalie today has too many advantages, the game has lost its balance. I think we can rebalance that without things like making the goal bigger, but if it takes that — do it.

2) fix the reffing. enforce what’s on the books, in the third as well as the first. really crack down on obstruction. Remember when the NBA outlawed zones? We’re at that point, folks. we need to get the offensive back in the game, somehow. In hockey, aht means removing some of the goalie’s advantage — and limiting the defense’s ability to stifle the offense. I don’t want arena-football-hockey by any means, but it wont’ take too much to get us two goals a game back. tell the lower-caliber teams to learn to play better, not clutch and grab. Give the offense a little more space and time, but not free reign.

All sports go through these cycles. you have to react to them, but not over-react. That’s why the NBA went to no-zone defense (and now that it seems the NBA is street basketball isntead of technical basketball, changing back), and why the NFL is constantly tinkering with pass interference rules — because both leagues understand the need to keep the offense at an acceptable level. it’s time the NHL figure that one out, too.

is the NHL better off?

Eric at Off Wing notes it’s Bettman’s 12th anniversary, and asks the question “is the NHL better off than it was 12 years ago?”

He’s obviously pushing the “hell, no” agenda, but…

let’s remember:

Gil Stein was “president-elect”, replacing John Ziegler, who left under various clouds (remember “yellow-jacket-gate”? when a playoff game was refereed by fill-ins when the real refs refused to skate after a suspension was tossed out by the Devils going to court and getting a restraining order?

or remember that Ziegler wasn’t at the playoff game, and nobody could tell us why or where he really was? (turns out, as I remenber, he had a family issue — but nobody could actually tell us that?) — at least Bettman goes to hockey games.

The Minnesota North Stars were just turning into the Dallas Stars? the NHL wasn’t able to survive in one of the TOP hockey regions in the country? (on the other hand, the brand new San Jose Sharks were selling out 110 straight games — and a decade later, still selling out 98% of the tickets each game)

The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim? That was Ziegler’s fault, not Bettman.

So were the Senators, Panthers. and Tampa.

Wayne Gretzky had already been traded to LA in an asset selloff by Edmonton Owner Peter Pocklington, who later went on to be nailed by Alberta on fraud charges over funnelling money out of his oil business to support his hockey team, then later, trying to prop up his oil businesses by sucking his team dry (and trading Gretzky).

Gretzky was traded to the Kings, owned by Bruce McNall — who was convicted of various fraud charges over sale of coins and other investments.

in 1977, the Blues were failing in St. Louis, and sold to — Saskatoon. Then not sold. sort of.

the Quebec Nordiques wouldn’t move to Colorado until 1995, but by the time Bettman came into the league, they were already a failed franchise.

Ditto the Jets in 1996.

Ditto the hartford whalers in 1997. they may have happened on Bettman’s shift, but they were killed by Ziegler and his cronies.

Two words: Alan Eagleson

Remember when the NHL and Ziegler dumped ESPN for SportsChannel, which promised them lots of money but no viewers?

Lots of what people love to blame Bettman for were things done before his time, that Bettman couldn’t fix. By the time he came on board, quebec and winnipeg were corpses, and Hartford was a laughingstock of a franchise. All moved. On the other hand, Bettman fought for and DID keep Calgary and Edmonton in place, when both could have also easily moved south.

the lockout year of 1994-95 was caused primarily from years of duplicity by Ziegler and Eagleson, and a newly aware union of players that realized they’d been sold down the river by those they thought were looking out for their best interests — and the ownership that turtled and signed a contract that was a disaster to get games going again rather than solve the problem that even THEN was clear needed to be dealt with.

In 1990, the average attendance at an NHL game was 14,700. In 2002 it was 16,600.

I could go on, but some of the books I want are in boxes. it’s easy to take swipes at Bettman — but facts are a lot more useful.

Are we better off now than 12 years ago?

Yes. and no.

The NHL pre-Bettman was a corrupt rich boy’s club, where owners got rich and players got dumped on. Ziegler and Eagleson conspired to maek the plyers think the union was standing up for them, but really handed the players off to the owners (we won’t even start on Eagleson’s double-dealings in other areas, adn the pension issues, and the….). Ziegler brought in the Sharks and Tampa (and if you ever want to see an expansion deal that made no sense, research what Esposito did HERE, then saw big bucks in Florida with Huizenga and Anaheim with Eisner — the league (and Bruce McNall, who later went to jail on felony fraud charges and took half of anaheim’s expansion fee as a “territory purchase) laughed all the way to the bank. the league had a solid relationship with espn, and threw it out the window because an upstart cable network offered them way too much money, but no real viewership (the last vestiges of SportsChanne exist as fox sport network affiliates such as Fox Sports Bay Area, after SportsChannel effectively failed). One can only wonder whether that has anything to do with current ratings disasters, or perhaps ABC/ESPNs lack of enthusiasm in hockey. Quebec, Hartford, and Winnipeg were failing. Vancouver wasn’t far behind.

Now, 12 years later, the league is finally trying to fix a contract it should have dealt with years ago. Where franchises failed under Ziegler and had to be moved, Bettman found ways to minimize the currency problems hitting canadian teams, and found a way to keep Edmonton in Edmonton (despite Pocklington’s legal problems and financial implosion) and calgary. Expanding into Atlanta is probably a mistake, but columbus seems like it’s a reasonable place for a team — a lot more reasonable than anaheim or Tampa or (these days) Chicago or the Island, for that matter. The teams that had to be moved may not all be thriving, but they’re doing better than they did in their old cities.

And for all the whining and complaining, despite expanding to 30 teams, average attendance is ALSO up 2,000 a game, league wide.

Now, if the league can’t solve this contract issue, it’s done. failed dead. but given that the reality is the league is losing less money by NOT playing than playing, it’s hard to argue with their hard line that this time, it has to be fixed. And the seeds of this were laid not by Bettman, but by the history of Ziegler and Eagleson colluding, and a set of owners who LAST time, chose to turtle over Bettman’s objections.

Remember: Bettman doesn’t run the NHL. He is the spokesman for the board of governors, who tell him what to do. In other words, he is the mouthpiece and scapegoat for the owners, not their boss. He can’t TELL them to do anything. He can only try to persuade and convince. His job, as much as anything else, is to stand up and take the abuse so the owners can hide and pretend it’s not THEIR fault.

And for all people complain about Bettman, I think, when you start to realize just how screwed up the league was in 1991 and 1992, that yes, we ARE better off now. And if he can actually fix the labor issue, you’ll see the NHL thrive, with or without bettman.

People who think the “good old days” of the NHL before Bettman were really good don’t really remember them. It’s 12 years later, adn Bettman is STILL trying to clean up the damage left behind by his predecessors.

Usenet mavens

Fascinating piece on what they’re calling “mavens” in usenet — simply defined, people who answer people who dontt answer people.

In the mailing list environments I’ve built over the last couple of decades, we’ve seen the same kind of setup. On any mailing list, you’ll find that about 90% of the mailing list NEVER contributes. they watch. (the whys of this are fascinating, but maybe for another time if there’s interest).

Of the remaining, you’ll almost always find that 90% of your content comes from 2-3% of your users. There’s the usual chunk of people who pop up and post rarely — once a month or less, and most of those are one-shots who ask a question, wait for an answer, and disappear forever. And of that 90%, many times half come from 2-3 key users who’ve committed to being the voices and resources of the list. On large lists, that might grow to half a dozen, sometimes a bit more. But usually, there are a few key contributors, a smaller group of secondary contributors, and a small group of one-shot or very infrequent contributors.

Mailing lists (and USENET groups) live or die on those core contributors. If one gets pissed off and leaves, it can kill the list. They may retire or change over time, as fresh blood comes in and the older ones decide to slow down (or get a life), but if you stop getting the fresh blood, or you break the cycle in some way, yo can disrupt the cycle and end up with an empty echo of a mailing list. The maven exists, and is generally not well-recognized as a key aspect of the viability of the social group you’re building, whatever the technology you bind them with.

neat data proving this.

Get over the work stoppage, already.

reposting something I sent to the Sharks list today, because I felt like it…

So, how can we, as humble,screwed over fans start a popular movement to get that idiot Bettman out of the commissioner’s office, and get someone in there who cares first and foremost about the game.

Sorry, I know you’ll hate hearing this, but I believe he does. That doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with his tactics, but he’s not trying to ruin the game. he’s trying to protect his part of it. Personally, I think the one that has to go is Goodenow (or go first), not Bettman.

but we also need to remember something important:

the NHL *is not a game*. It is a business based on the game of hockey. And Bettman isn’t ruining the game, or trying to protect it, he’s trying to keep the business he’s running from going under. Whether or not he succeeds affects the business, not the game it’s based on (at least, not directly). And every time a league fails, another one tends to pop up in its place, so this is far from the end of the universe.

But when fans look at the NHL as a GAME, they set up a vision that prevents them from seeing what’s really happening here. It’s big business, involving lots of dollars, and many jobs and financial investments are at stake. it’s ANYTHING but a game. And Bettman is doing exactly what he needs to do to protect those investments and jobs. The game, and the fans, are irrelevant to the problem until the problem is solved.

That is, if you think about it, no different than what happens when you have (say) a supermarket strike. You can talk all you want about the impact to the customers, but the customers have little to no influence over the outcome of the strike, nor, arguably, should they.

I’m open to suggestions.

Pitchers and catchers report in a couple of weeks. Find a pee-wee game, or a college game, maybe. watch the superbowl. You’re not going to affect the outcome, and you’ll only frustrate yourself if you try. And honestly, there’s enough at stake (including, perhaps, the existance of the NHL) that fans ought to just back off and let them fight this out. they are the experts in their business, we aren’t. As a fan, does this suck? Sure.

But the BUSINESS of the league has to be dealt with or there will be no league. And this is definitely a business. The stoppage is no game for either side, that’s for sure.

Diplomacy….

Diplomacy is the act of saying “good doggie” while looking for a stick.

links into the past..

these have little to do with anything, other than wanting them to be here so I can get to them later (becuase I know how useless my private filing system is….).

John Allen, Father of Newspaper Design:

Excerpt:

“The new typographical dress is termed streamlined because it

has simplicity and grace; because it eliminates all obstacles

to legibility both in heads and body type, and because it

represents the last word from the type founodries of the

land.”<28>

The change did not go unnoticed as Frank Rospaw, then

publisher of the _Placentia_ (Calif.) _Courier_ and president

of the California Newspaper Publishers’ Association, wrote:

“There is a lesson for all California publishers in the

action of the _Times_…If it can entirely redesign its

format, make a more readable product, and sell it, surely

smaller newspapers can clean up their products. Throw away

the old condensed head letters, buy or use some of the open

faces now in the shop, get larger body type, whiten up all

the pages. Give readers a new readable product.”<29>

Recognition of the improved appearance of the _Times_ wasn’t

limited to California for “the year after the change, 1937,

the _Times_ achieved the supreme accolade of first prize in

the annual Ayer Award.”<30> That award was significant not

only for the _Times,_ but also for Allen and his efforts.

“From that moment the Allen revolution never looked

back.”<31>

On the creation of Orange Coast College:

These things were reported to Congressman Phillips in his office, where Mrs. Phillips and Mr. Frank Rospaw, the Placentia publisher and 32nd Agricultural District supporter, were interested listeners. Mr. Phillips said that Willis Warner was working for a water district at the Base, and that Messers Clay Kellogg and Glenn Woolley were seeking to acquire a site for the Fair Grounds including the warehouses at the Base.

Stanford Axe Stolen:

(Following is an eye-witness account of the Axe theft last night. Cecil Rospaw, Daily Reporter, who saw the burglars take the Axe, was the only witness beside Bill Steif, Cellar counterman and Daily night editor, who was on duty alone at the time) “I was walking down to the Cellar to buy a pack of cigarettes,” said Cecil Rospaw, an ex-G.I., “when I saw two men coming out of the Cellar and struggling with a large, bulky object.

An Axe to Grind:

The leader was wearing a Stanford jacket, said Cecil Rospaw, an eye witness. “As he jumped into the pickup truck he said, `We just want to borrow this for a gag,’ ” Rospaw said.

(and for those wondering what the hell this has to do with anything, Frank Rospaw is my paternal grandfather, and Cecil, his son, is my dad. and yes, my last name is not the same as my parents. sort of)

downtown placentia:

historic picture of downtown placentia, showing the location of my dad’s (and grandad’s) newspaper office. By the time I was old enough to care, the paper had moved into the spot marked 35 (Albers Feeds), where it stayed until dad sold out in the late 70′s. At some point, the front was remodelled to two front doors, and the right side became a barber, then later, it was made office space for the paper. After the paper was sold, te building was various things, and my family eventually sold it in the 80′s.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year

Sorry for the long silence. Regular blogging should, I hope, resume soon.

Somewhat late, I hope all of you had a merry christmas (or a happy holiday, whatever holiday you choose to celebrate), and a happy new year (unless your new year is some other date, and then just hold the wishes for an appropriate date…)

Life has been good, but busy — the Christmas shopping season is the busy sales time (we’ve sold one or two iPods….), and the systems I manage have been running full tilt for the last few weeks helping people sell iPods and other stuff. We have been, as I kept telling people, not just running the hamsters three shifts, but with the left legs on one wheel and the right legs on another, and praying nobody trips.

Good news is, nobody tripped, and now we’re starting the wind-down to more normal operations again, and catching up on all of the stuff we deferred out to spare resources for crunch time. I’ve been spending my time switching between acting as a processing traffic cop trying to schedule out how to share the system resources to get things done and being a paranoid baby sitter convinced that if I stop watching the systems, they’ll fall over and die (murphy’s law of situational probabilities: computers never break when you’re ready and waiting).

As a really rough idea of just how busy we were, the beast I manage was originally built (a bit over two years ago) to handle a transaction volume of, oh, 10K quatloos a quarter. We long since left that behind and in October, we were transacting something around 30K quatloos, a new transaction record we were really proud of (and which beat our previous monthyl record by some 40%). So we turned around and as the holiday season geared up, we ramped even further, doing over 40K quatloos in November. Then, just because we’re insane idiots who don’t know any better, we threw out all reason, and matched that volume in the first 3 weeks of December.

It’s kept us (and me) busy. And when I took a break, I just didn’t feel like whacking at computers even more hours, so I’ve been spending free time offline (Terry Goodkindis an awesome writer, and I’m currently on book 4).

Christmas was good — a quick trip down to LA to celebrate with the parents and then back up here, were Laurie and I have been relaxing and trying to recharge the batteries. We spent New Years Eve with a good friend, dinner at Il Fornaio, after dinner treats from Santana Row’s Cocola, and lots of good, meaty discussion. And a good time was had by all…..

And now, it’s back to work, and maybe, back to normalcy. or whatever comes close to it these days….

And soon, a look back at 2004, and looking forward to 2005. I’m definitely looking forward to it, also, I see good things ahead, and good people to share them with.