UD Flyers in the NIT Final Four

My Dayton Flyers are heading to New York for the NIT Final Four after beating #1 seed Illinois! This is the first time UD has made it to the semi-finals of the National Invitational Tournament since 1968 when they won it all.

They looked great against the Cincinnati Bearcats on Monday night (a victory which won me a free drink from Starbucks thanks to a small bet with my sister, a UC grad) and continued to be strong against the Illini, leading by 16 at one point.

I wish they could have played like this in the A-10 tournament (we will beat Xavier one of these days!), but it’s great to see UD making an appearance in the Final Four, even though it’s not the Big Dance.

Go Flyers!!

Spring Training 2010: Recap

6:48am (MST): I’m at my gate in the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport waiting for my flight to Houston. My brother just boarded his flight back to Cleveland. We got to the airport a little later than planned thanks to overnight construction on I-10 that required us to take a detour. Then when we got into the Hertz car return lot, the attendants decided to check in everyone who came in before us first. But even with the long bus ride from the rental car center to the terminal, we made it through security and to the gates on time. The sun is just starting to come up, so I’ve got my last view of the mountains.

10:57am (CDT): I’ve arrived at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. The flight here was uneventful and I made some more serious headway on “Anathem.”

11:35am (CDT): boarding of my flight to Tampa has been delayed due to a “regurgitation situation” (the gate agent’s words) on the plane from the previous flight (“too much information!” mumbles the guy sitting next to me in the waiting area). Apparently the haz-mat team has to clean the area … I hope I don’t get that seat! Although, on the other hand, that would now be the cleanest seat on the plane. 🙂

4:27pm (EST): back home in Florida. Another smooth flight, and this time the middle seat was open so I had a bit more room to relax and stretch out. Another good chunk of “Anathem” is behind me and I’m really starting to get into the meat of the story now (which I should be, given I’m about 400 pages in!). I’m now waiting for my luggage at the bag claim and then I’ll get my car and drive home.

Quick tech recap: I ended up not using the WordPress app on my iPhone to “live” blog these entries. I was just too “busy” during the day to keep making updates (and on Wednesday I accidentally left my phone in the car when we went to the game). Plus, the app is not well-suited to long-form posts with lots of formatting, links, and images. I do like it for moderating comments, though. I didn’t use the geocaching app on my iPhone either. We did fire it up once while we were at Camelback Mountain, but none of the caches were near our route, so we didn’t bother. The MLB and NCAA apps, however, were very useful, allowing us to keep in touch with other scores while out at the ballpark. I was so involved in reading “Anathem” on the plane that I didn’t even watch any of the videos I had copied into my iPhone or EeePC for entertainment purposes.

Thus our second annual Spring Training mini-vacation comes to a close. I already can’t wait for next year!

Spring Training 2010: Day Three

9:21am: we just finished breakfast at the Black Bear Diner and are now heading over to the Player Development Complex at the Goodyear Ballpark to watch the Indians’ morning practice.

9:49am: we’re watching some of the players warm up, listening to their chatter. Good natured ribbing is also going on which is fun to hear. 🙂 It’s actually pretty chilly this morning (and windy!) so I’m wishing I had worn my jacket.

10:42am: during batting practice, we’re hanging out behind the outfield fence, attempting to snag some balls. As the morning wears on, more and more people are starting to join us.

My brother managed to get Grady Sizemore to toss a ball over the fence to him (he asked very politely)! That was nice considering Grady snubbed him for an autograph before the game on Wednesday. He also snagged a ball that topped the left field fence and let me have it. Thanks, little bro!

11:59am: we’re in our seats, right behind home plate this time.

3:53pm: another home team win! The Tribe exploded in the 2nd inning with 8 runs and won easily 12-2 over the Oakland A’s. My brother and I were on the scoreboard video screen for the 7th inning stretch (why didn’t I think to ask the guys next to us to take a picture of that!?) and I caught a t-shirt fired from one of those air guns by someone over on the first base dugout.

6:34pm: we’re at Rustler’s Rooste for our (now) traditional steak dinner celebrating the end of our trip. We played it smart this year, after having to wait almost 2 hours for a table last year. This time we called ahead and only had about a 20 minute wait. We saw some A’s fans that were sitting in front of us at the game waiting for a table as well. On our way up here, we passed Tempe Diable Stadium, spring training home of the Angels, so we had to stop for another photo.

Great views from up here … hard to believe we were at the top of Camelback (in the center distance of the photo below) just yesterday morning:

8:31pm: on our way back to the hotel. Dinner was excellent, as expected. Unfortunately, the rattlesnake wasn’t in season so we didn’t get to try it.

9:30pm: need to get to sleep as we both have early flights tomorrow. We got back to the hotel in time to see Kansas get knocked out of the NCAA tournament. Wow. It’s too bad the trip is already over … I already can’t wait until next year!

Spring Training 2010: Day Two

8:15am: we got up early, refreshed (and adjusted to the 3 hour timezone difference). We’re eating breakfast at the Paradise Cafe and then heading over to Camelback Mountain for some hiking.

9:18am: we’re at the head of the Echo Canyon trail of Camelback Mountain. Parking is ridiculously limited, so we had to drive around to find some available street parking. It took us 20 minutes to walk here from the car, so at least that was a good warm-up for the climb ahead. The trail is 1.2 miles long and the summit is 2,704 feet up!

10:22am: we reached the summit! It was an amazing hike/climb and a pretty good workout. We were much better prepared than last year (appropriate clothing/shoes, water, etc.) so that probably helped. The views are amazing up here (and I even had 3G coverage on my iPhone!).

11:41am: we made it back down. It took us an hour to get up, and then 56 minutes to get back down. Time to head over to Scottsdale for the baseball game.

12:55pm: parking around the Scottsdale Stadium is crazy. We drove around for quite a bit and finally found street parking about a 10 minute walk away. We still made it into our seats before the national anthem though, in the bleachers down the third base line. Another beautiful day to be out at the ballpark. 430′ to center field here … not an easy place for home runs.

4:11pm: a great game, but the Indians lost. The Giants started out with a 5-0 lead, but the Indians came slowly back and eventually had it tied up at 6 in the 7th. But San Francisco score the go-ahead run in the 8th and the Tribe couldn’t answer. 7-6 Giants win. The stadium was packed! Over 12,000 in attendance, wow. Walking out of the park, we met an older gentleman wearing a Indians jersey (Bob Feller #19) jersey who told us he actually saw Feller pitch a no-hitter in 1950. He was kind enough to take this picture for us:

5:30pm: it took us a long time to get back to the hotel in Avondale from Scottsdale, rush hour traffic around downtown and I-10. Time for a quick shower, a change of clothes, and then back downtown for the basketball game.

6:48pm: getting downtown and parked for the US Airways Center was remarkably easy. We’re in our seats (with some dinner) ready for the game to start. R U ORANGE?

9:36pm: the Suns win over the Jazz 110-100. Stoudemire was on fire and recent Vancouver winter Olympics torch bearer Steve Nash had a good game as well. We’re going to head across the street to the Hard Rock Cafe so my brother can pick up a pair of drumsticks. On the way out of downtown we’re going to drive past Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. So far, the home team of every game we’ve seen has won. Hopefully that bodes well for the Indians game tomorrow.

10:42pm: catching up on some NCAA tournament action via SportsCenter before heading to bed.

Spring Training 2010: Day One

It’s finally time for my annual Spring Training trip! Three days of baseball, beer, and brats. 🙂

My tech arsenal this year consists simply of my EeePC and iPhone. Between the two of those devices I should be able to handle any work-related emergency that might arise and still stay “connected” while traveling. The iPhone apps I installed specifically for this trip include:

  • Geocaching: for our hiking trip on Camelback Mountain tomorrow.
  • MLB.com at Bat Lite: to keep tabs on the other Spring Training games.
  • NCAA March Madness On Demand Lite: ’cause there’s some basketball going on right now too!
  • TripIt: I decided to test out the service with this trip and see how it goes, pretty cool.

I’ll also try using the WordPress app on my iPhone to post updates to this blog.

5:52am (EDT): I’m at the gate at the Tampa airport waiting to board my flight to Houston. yawn

8:27am (CDT): waiting on my connection to Phoenix here in Houston. The flight here was uneventful and I made some good headway on “Anathem” (about 68 pages). My connection is slightly delayed since the plane just came in from Peru and needs to go through customs.

10:56am (MST): in Phoenix! A broken seat delayed my departure from Houston more than expected, but I’m finally here! Now to find my brother (who should be here by now) and get my luggage.

12:23pm: we’re at the Goodyear Ballpark. Our (padded!) seats are in the second row down the first base line. It’s beautiful out.

3:44pm: we’ve finally seen a win at Goodyear (every game we went to last year were losses)! The Tribe beat the Reds 6-2. The park was pretty empty, only about 4,300 people in attendance. That’s surprising considering it was the two “home” Ohio teams playing, but it was also a weekday game.

5:15pm: we’ve checking into our hotel in Avondale and are getting cleaned up and ready to head out for dinner.

6:30pm: waiting for a table at the Yardhouse at Westgate Center in Glendale. Quite a beer selection.

7:40pm: dinner was fantastic. I had the (Mac + Cheese)2 and tried a six-pack sampler:

7:46pm: there’s a huge bike show going on here, it’s loud and there are some impressive-looking motorcycles.

9:00pm: back at the hotel, exhausted. Considering it’s midnight back home, and we’ve been up since 4am, it’s time for bed.

WIJFR: The Wizardry Cursed

Once upon a time, Major Mick Gilligan, USAF, didn’t believe in Magic. Nor, had he been told of it, would he have believed in the elf Lisella, or cared that she had cursed master programmer Wiz Zumwalt, later of Cupertino and now of an alternate world where magic works like a computer program. But that was before he took his F-15 out over the Bering Sea on a top-priority intercept, came out on the losing end of a dogfight with a dragon, and found himself caught in a climactic battle that pitted Wiz and his fellow Silicon Valley hackers against a couple of computer criminals in alliance with the forces of primal chaos.

I just finished Rick Cook’s “The Wizardry Cursed” via Stanza on my iPhone. The third book in the series picks  up about a year after the events of “The Wizardry Compiled.” Wiz, Jerry, and Danny are splitting their time between continuing to refine their spell compiler and being stuck in treaty negotiations with the non-mortals with whom they had narrowly averted war.

Back in our world, Judith, one of the programmers from the project team in the previous book who worked on the spell compiler, still dreams of becoming a fantasy writer based on her experiences in the magical realm. While daydreaming about dragons and faraway lands, she steps off the curb and is hit by a car, ending up in a coma. One of her role-playing game group friends (and computer hacker), Craig, starts visiting her in the hospital and discovers that Judith sometimes talks of the strange land and the spell compiler.

With the help of another hacker named Mikey, and Judith’s coma-based mumblings (and stolen papers from her apartment), Craig starts to understand the workings of the spell compiler, which of course won’t work in the “normal” world. Suddenly, a dark, evil race (the Ur Elves) transport Craig and Mikey into a “bubble world” where both technology and magic work … a bridge between our world and Wiz’s. With the power of the Ur Elves behind them, Craig and Mikey start hacking out technological/magical combinations of war machines with the intent of taking over the world.

A stolen super computer (with real gremlins), a stranded Air Force pilot, the curse of an Elf named Lisella, and a group of dwarves intent on killing the alien wizard all play a role in the ultimate battle between the good people of the world and the Ur Elves and their pawns (Craig and Mikey). How will it play out?

Not exactly difficult reading (certainly not on a level with “Anathem“), Cook’s magical/technological world continues to serve as a nice thing to have around on my iPhone for some light reading on the go. Next up in the series: “The Wizardry Consulted.”

WIJFR: Blue Mars

Using the last 200 years of American history as his template for Martian history, Robinson projects his tale of Mars’s colonization from the 21st century, in which settlers successfully revolt against Earth, into the next century, when various interests on Mars work out their differences on issues ranging from government to the terraforming of the planet and immigration. Sax Russell, Maya Toitovna and others reprise their roles from the first two novels, but the dominant “personality” is the planet itself, which Robinson describes in exhaustive naturalistic detail. Characters look repeatedly for sermons in its stones and are nearly overwhelmed by textbook abstracts on the biological and geological minutiae of their environment. Not until the closing chapters, when they begin confronting their mortality, does the human dimension of the story balance out its awesome ecological extrapolations.

Last week I finally finished “Blue Mars,” the final book of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. It picks up immediately after the end of “Green Mars” and spans another 100 (Earth) years on the colonized (and now terraformed) planet.

The first portion of the novel covers the aftermath of the second revolution and the formation of the new Martian government, free of Earth/United Nations Transitional Authority control and complete with its own court system and political parties (the old revolutionary branches like the Reds, Greens, MarsFirsters, Free Mars, etc. etc.).

The terraforming effort continues throughout the book: the sea of shattered ice wrapping around the northern hemisphere of the planet has started to melt into the great Northern Sea. Eventually there are islands, boats, canals, sea life, even coastal towns.

In the middle portion, we are finally taken back to see the situation on Earth first-hand. Nirgal, the Martian native and son of Coyote, visits the “home” planet for the first time along with Maya, Sax, and Michel in an show-of-goodwill ambassadorial mission. They want to be able to help Earth with the overpopulation issue (made critical by the rising sea levels) without flooding Mars with immigrants and making the political, social, and environmental issues there any worse. It was cool to “see” Earth through Nirgal’s eyes (so much water, so much sun, so HOT!).

It’s evident to everyone that Mars is not the ultimate solution to Earth’s population problems. Continued advances in technology allow the human race to explore out even further in the solar system (which Robinson calls “the Accelerando”). One chapter takes place on Miranda, a moon of Uranus, where Ann tries to escape to the primal beauty of a landscape (as of yet) untouched by human endeavors.

Finally, the remaining First Hundred are now over 200 years old, thanks to the longevity treatments. But old age is finally starting to catch up with them and there are a few quick deaths in succession. Facing their own mortality, Sax is determined to find a cure for the “quick decline” which plays out across a few chapters on memory and brain research.

As with the prior two books, Robinson tells each part of the story from a single character’s point of view and uses the quick introductory text of each portion to move the story along (sometimes by a few weeks, sometimes by decades), which is necessary when telling a story that covers more than 100 years. I found it difficult sometimes to remember what (Earth) year it was in relation to the other books, trying to grapple with just how much time had passed. Having three or four generations’ worth of characters didn’t help either, but the breadth of detail Robinson has created was just amazing and fascinating . Overall, I really enjoyed this series start to finish, and will probably read “The Martians” just to be complete. When you consider the fact that I started “Red Mars” last August, I’ve been immersed in Robinson’s world and characters for the last 8 months!

Next, though, I’m about 30 pages into Neal Stephenson’s 1008-page “Anathem.” It’s going to be another long ride …

Ah, spring … baseball is back!

It was a beautiful day today at Brighthouse Field in Clearwater where we saw the Tampa Bay Rays beat the 2009 NL Champion Philadelphia Phillies in 10 innings in front of a sell-out crowd.


We had pretty good seats, right down the third base line.

We were in full sun the entire game, so it actually got pretty warm (mid-60s), which was a nice change from the chilly weather we’ve been having lately. It was great to be out at the ballpark eating some hot dogs, drinking a beer, and watching some good baseball. In just over a week and a half I’ll be in Arizona watching the Indians for three games … can’t wait!

Cleveland is finally #1!

My hometown of Cleveland, OH is finally a winner … a recent Forbes article named it the number one most miserable city, edging out last year’s reining champion, Stockton, CA.

Hoping to continue Cleveland’s championship year in 2010, the Cavaliers traded local favorite Zydrunas Ilgauskas (who’s spent his entire 12-year career with the Cavs) to Washington for Antawn Jamison. Let’s hope it was the right decision and the Cavs can finally bring home an NBA title this year! We’ll miss you Big Z!

On another Cleveland-related note, only one month left until my brother and I head back to Arizona for our annual Indians Spring Training trip!

It was time to upgrade

March 1 is quickly approaching and starting Monday, people who are still running the Release Candidate of Windows 7 will start seeing the expiration message. I’ve been running the RC at home since May of last year and knew this time would eventually come, so this past week I purchased the Home Premium upgrade media from Amazon along with some extra RAM for my Dell Inspiron 530 (it had two 512mb chips that I pulled and replaced with two new 1gb chips to bring it up to 4gb total).

Based on my previous experience with the Windows Easy Transfer utility, I used WET to backup my documents and settings to an external hard drive. To be doubly sure I didn’t lose anything, I also just copied my entire user profile folder (C:\Users\<my login>) to the same hard drive. I wanted to do a clean install with the upgrade media (and also go with the 64-bit version), so I made sure I had that external drive with my WET backup attached when I booted from the Win7 DVD. From within the Windows 7 Setup, I formatted my entire 640gb internal drive, completely wiping out the RC partition. Since Setup knew about the WET backup, the Win7 activation process was successful and the rest of the install was smooth.

After booting Windows 7 Home Professional 64-bit for the first time and then installing all the outstanding updates, the real fun began. I used WET to restore my files and settings and then began the long process of re-installing and re-configuring all of my applications (64-bit versions where applicable). I had made screenshots of the Programs and Features list before upgrading to facilitate this, so I knew exactly what I meeded to re-install. I had also taken screenshots of my Taskbar and Start Menu so I could put everything back the way I had it under the RC.

So I’m back up and running and have finally joined the world of 64-bit!