Thirty Stories Up

On Tuesday a man was killed just north of Springfield along I-55 and two others put in the hospital when a southbound car veered across the median and slammed head-on into a semi truck, which then jackknifed across the highway. This is yet another all-too-grim warning that, when driving, you need to keep your head on a swivel at all times and be totally aware of your surroundings, even on a ’safe’ drive.

I’ve driven that part of I-55, both north and southbound, more times than I care to count over the last four months. It’s your classic safe, boring road; no turns, no variations in speed, and most of the time, not a whole lot of traffic compared to, say, the Chicago area. It’s very, very easy to step your alertness down there.

Let’s be conservative and estimate that both vehicles were going 60 miles per hour (from my experience out there, the semi was probably going 60 and the car around 70 when he hit the median, and let’s estimate that crossing the median at that speed loses him 10 mph). That gives us 120 miles per hour relative speed, or, from my loose estimate on the back of an envelope, 10,560 feet per minute, which comes out to about 176 feet per second relative speed.

Put yourself in this situation. You’re John Q. Driver out there on I-55 northbound, after a long day of work, settling in for the long drive up to Chicago, which is about four hours north with traffic at this time of day. Maybe you’re fiddling with the radio, on the cell phone (even handsfree, because you’re a careful driver, of course), but you’re definitely hitting about 70 mph and planning on staying there. In short, you’re not at a heightened mental state.

Driver reaction time, according to this website, is ‘typically’ about 1.5 second from a totally relaxed mental state to beginning physical action to react to an entirely surprising event (with the huge caveat that ‘typical’ time depends on age, time of day, road conditions, and the individual), but let’s assume if anything that it’s a little longer because this is such a ’safe’ road to drive on. At 176 feet per second closing rate, that’s 264 feet before you’ve done a thing, and that’s if you were watching the road to pick up the distraction ahead right as it happened. It takes another .2 seconds or so to move your foot from the accelerator to the brake, and another .3 seconds to push the brake all the way down, so in 2 seconds, or 352 feet at the absolute minimum before you start to take any corrective action whatsoever.

352 feet is a pretty good distance. We’re talking about the length of a football field, from the back of one end zone to another. Now think of all the times you’ve been out driving in a safe area; maybe you turn your head to check traffic behind you, maybe you look down to scan your speedometer or look at the radio. Let’s say it’s another second before you see the situation develop in front of you. Suddenly, going from 2 seconds to 3, you’re looking at a distance of over 500 feet between you before you can see, react, and take action; keep in mind that, in either of these cases, you’re still dead in the end because you didn’t react fast enough to let any reaction take effect and either slow you down or get you out of the way. If you’re over 60, if you’re driving at night, if any other number of things are the case, it could go up to 4 seconds and a whole lot of distance.

You may also be jerking the steering wheel at this point, but let’s call that a 50-50 proposition at best; instinct is to steer away from the impulse, so if the other car is cutting across your path from the left side, your body will want to jerk the wheel right, a move that will probably just put you right in his path and ensure that he broadsides your driver’s side door instead of hitting you head-on in the engine block. If you’re a good driver and have trained yourself to turn into skids, however, hopefully the same instinct would kick in, turn you towards the left, and send you into the median, buying you time to react or at least crash somewhat more safely (hitting something at a lower relative speed than 120 mph, at least).

Cars are heavy, dangerous machines, and drivers typically travel at speeds that would make a head-on collision instantly fatal if they’re driving anything smaller than a semi. Because of the speeds and reaction times involved, the ONLY WAY to keep yourself safe, even on a long, boring road with little traffic, is to keep your head on a swivel, keep yourself alert, and be ready to act to keep a situation from developing instead of trying to react once it has developed.

This message brought to you by the Department of Protecting Yourself from Crazy People Whenever Possible.

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My time consulting here in the capital of the great state of Illinois has led me to one inescapable conclusion: as a collective, both the executive and legislative branches of Illinois state government are insane.

I’d love to be able to go point-by-point starting wtih the legislature, then moving on to the governor, but they’re so entangled at this point that it’s hard to talk about one without discussing the other.

The saga starts (okay, not really, but I’m not digging back any further than I have to) in late May, when the Democratic-controlled state legislature realizes that they’re way behind on finishing and passing a state budget, which should really have been done at the end of May. June rolls around, and panic is beginning to set in. House Speaker Madigan, who appears to be a fairly moderate Democrat, is called a ‘right-wing Republican‘ by fellow Democrat Governor Rod Blagojevich, who has his own alliance set up with Senate President Emil Jones. With the end of June looming, and the expiration of the current budget, disaster is averted when the legislature, at the urging of the governor, signs a one-month stopgap budget to keep the state moving for another month while the overtime legislative session continues.

Highlights of this time period: The legislature, in the midst of this chaos, is revealed to have agreed on one thing: Cheap Trick Day. Yes, the band Cheap Trick is apparently big in… Illinois. And so they get a day in their honor. I wish I were kidding.

Things only heat up in July, as the hot Springfield weather and the impending budget crisis makes tempers flare. At issue is Blagojevich’s massive plan for healthcare insurance for all Illinois residents, which critics call hopelessly expensive and impractical. The governor, who is allowed by the state constitutions to convene special sessions of the legislature, starts to do so with great regularity; the only thing more predictable is the utter failure of most of the state legislators to actually show up. No progress appears to be made, with Blagojevich threatening a veto of any plan he doesn’t care for, and the lawmakers, due to the division in the Democratic Party, unable to put together a veto-proof majority. The budget expires without a new one in place at the end of July, leaving state employees unsure if they’ll be paid.

Highlights of July: The 24/7 coverage by the Capitol Fax Blog, which covers Illinois state politics in great detail while remaining an entertaining read. If there were some sort of Pulitzer Prize for blogs, this one would rank up there in Groklaw for ‘Surprisingly Awesome Reads about Inherently Boring Topics’.

Of course, I am advised by those in the know that I only consider politics a little on the dry side because, well, I wasn’t brought up in Illinois politics.

In August, uncertainty reigns for pretty much the whole miserably hot month. State employees don’t know if they’ll be paid; the governor instructs the comptroller to cut the checks, but the comptroller insists that without a budget he has no Constitutional authority to do so. The legislature gains a little momentum early from the outrage, but quickly loses steam; finally, an agreement is reached, a bill is drafted, and a budget is signed. That’s all, folks!

….or is it? Like a horror-movie writer, Blagojevich can’t let this monster die. In a move that’s regarded by both the media and most of the legislators as dubiously constitutional at best, Blagojevich signs the bill with a flurry of controversial line-item vetoes, which are quite obviously biased to punish those who opposed his will, and take that money and write in a new line that funds his health-care initiative. Critics point out that, if constitutionally valid, this process renders any legislative budget moot if the governor wants to change it.

Highlight of the month, and in the running for Mass Backstab of the Year: Blagojevich getting Senate President Emil Jones on his side with the veto; with the Senate President supporting him, he can ensure that the Senate can never even bring a veto override up for a vote, despite an overwhelming majority of state lawmakers that would like to.

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Well, it looks like we have a problem. According to Frank Davies, the memorial set up by House Republican leaders to commemorate the fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is full. Yes, that’s right. They set up a memorial with a fixed amount of space, based on wishful thinking that the war would be over soon.

Way to support the troops, guys. This is the problem with both parties right now; America as a whole would rather substitute wishful thinking for analytical thinking right now. Budget deficits? No problem, we’ll hope them away. Failing education system? Not a big deal! We can pass bills that force illusory gains so that we can pretend the problem doesn’t exist! Quagmire of a war with no end date in sight? Not a big deal, we’ll just set up a memorial with a fixed amount of space, because it can’t possibly go on long enough or remain bloody enough for the casualties to approach anything like filling the space we provide.

According to Michigan Republican Vernon Ehlers, the problem here? More space is needed.

No, the problem couldn’t be the war, or the failure to plan for the war, or the continual failure, now that we recognize we didn’t plan for the war, to start planning for the REST of the war.

The problem is that they built that wall over there too damn small for our boys. That’s the problem, Congressman. That’s what you need to be focusing your time on; remembering our people who have fallen over there, lauding them as heroes, reminding us over and over again not to let their sacrifice be in vain.

Not, you know, actually going about trying to spare the lives of the guys who are left on the ground over there, or trying to fix things so that their mission might be a success in the end, or at least fixing it so that our armed forces aren’t broken by this war and the soldiers actually get the leave, training, and equipment that they’re entitled to and that they quite frankly deserve. Because these are problems that haven’t ended yet, they can be safely hoped away, while our Congressmen can spend our valuable time (not theirs, because quite honestly, the moment they’re sworn in I consider the next two years of their time mine, as an American citizen) taking problems that have safely ended, such as families broken by the death of a loved one over there, and turning them into propaganda by enshrining the names on a wall, and then blaming the wall for being too small when those little problematic soldiers keep dying.

Blame the wall, Congressman.

Don’t blame the lack of training that leaves Air Force and Navy personnel manning .50 cal machine guns on Humvees instead of fulfilling their MOS (that’s Army slang for ‘job’, for the uninformed).

Don’t blame the stress of deployments that have long since been longer than military regulations, because our armed forces are too small to field a fighting force that’s effective for the mission at hand.

Just blame the wall.

Don’t blame the lack of equipment that leaves a 19-year old a triple-amputee because his convoy was hit with an IED and his Humvee didn’t have the right armor yet.

Don’t blame the ‘war planning’ that leaves our guys clearing neighborhoods and leaving… and then clearing, and leaving, and clearing, and leaving, over and over for years, without trying to solve the underlying problems that cause the insurgency.

Keep blaming the wall, Congressman.

Don’t blame a government that, between its three branches, couldn’t see beyond the next election cycle long enough to find out how much misinformation was being fed to them up and down the line.

Don’t blame yourself, Congressman.

It’s the wall’s fault, for being too small to hold this war. It’s the wall’s fault, because the legislative branch didn’t see fit to make it their responsibility to stop this thing, or at least make it winnable. It’s the wall’s fault, because nobody can blame any given Congressman for concentrating on the narrow, myopic view instead of trying to keep this country great.

It’s the wall’s fault, because it’s the only thing left standing when every Congressman, Senator, journalist, judge, and free-thinking person lies down and lets the inertia of the war take over.

The wall is to blame, because each name reminds us of our failures, and each name that can’t fit reminds us that we didn’t fix those failures when we had the chance.

The wall is to blame, Congressman. Not you. You were just doing what every other Congressman did and laying down on the job. Nobody can blame you that the job, in this case, happens to be maintaining our great nation. Because nobody can blame you personally for its downfall.

They can look at the wall, and blame it, instead of you.

And if the wall does a good enough job, Congressman, someday there will be no more Americans left to blame you. Just the wall, standing there, still doing its job long after every Congressman and Senator is gone.

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The tragedy this week has been difficult for all of us to comprehend. The overwhelming attitude on the St. John’s campus seems to be confusion. How could this happen? What kind of person could even think about doing something like this? Why in God’s name did this have to happen at a university, a place of learning and growing, to so many who deserved it so little?

The pursuit of learning is the highest ideal in Western civilization. From the Greeks onward, we have revered and honored our scholars at all stages of their development. Plato wrote of the philosopher-king as the best of all possible men. Though kings and emperors have held sway over continents, the names we learn and idolize, the names that endure, are the wise, not the strong: Euclid, Galileo, Newton, Leibniz, and Einstein all mean more to us, day in and day out, than any man ever deluded enough to believe that one man’s domain should spread across the Earth to the farthest border, or that what happens at the end of the barrel of a gun could ever be more important than what flows from the tip of a pen. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs places self-actualization at the top; a pinnacle towards which we all strive to reach, knowing that, in reaching it, we become more than an animal, however rational, driven by outside forces which we cannot comprehend or control. Our schools, more than any other place, are regarded as a refuge for the curious and inquisitive to experience, to learn, and to grow, from the earliest kindergartens to the most advanced degree programs. Indeed, when one receives a college degree the ceremony is not graduation, but commencement; having achieved growth and found themselves, then we consider the rest of their lives to begin.

To see so many, cut down so close to that day when they can begin anew, is a terrifying blow to that sense of order and safety that parents, teachers, and students depend on. When order trumps chaos, a parent can drop a child off for the first day of kindergarten trusting that any fears are unjustified, and that overcoming those fears leads to growth, not pain. When order trumps chaos, parents can drop their child off for the first day of college knowing that, for the child, it’s the first step along a greater path, a path that leads to completeness as a person. When order trumps chaos, potential inevitably leads to accomplishment.

When chaos trumps order, the curious and the inquisitive learn not to reach out, but to stay within. When chaos trumps order, progress is replaced by stagnation. When chaos trumps order, potential remains, unfulfilled, to be replaced by nothing.

This is why we must not let chaos triumph over order, no matter what the cost. This is why we stand together today; not a school, nor a nation, but the only identity that, in the end, truly matters: as thinking, striving people. This is why all of us today stand together: from the newest undergraduate to the most senior professor, from the student-athlete who rides the bench in the hope of someday shining to the professional athletes who take the field every day, from the struggling students to the honored elite. We each, as our own person, may reach out today because we each trust in order; we trust in the person beside us, in the person we teach, or learn from, in the dearest of friends to the bitterest of rivals, because we trust that, in times such as these, all of us know that our higher calling is to ensure that chaos never triumphs.

Today, I reach out as a graduating senior in St. John’s University. I reach out as a New Yorker. I reach out as a scholar, and as a professional, and as a writer, knowing that in each, I am not alone in reaching out. I reach out to the victims, the families, the affected, and the future, knowing my own are not, will not be, cannot ever be the only hands extended.

Today, the way to triumph is to remember. The way to remember is to honor. And the way to honor is to strive, with all of our strength, to fulfill that potential in ourselves, and to give everyone we meet the best chance to fulfill their own potential, because today, there are 32 people who will never have the chance to.

Today, we are all striving for the best within us, in order to show that there is no horror, there is no madness, there is no chaos that can overcome the best within us.

Today, we are all Hokies.

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I consider these picks substantially less well-informed than my Eastern Conference picks (here and here), just because of the vastly greater number of games I watch in the East. But I’m going to take a shot anyway, based on what I have seen.

(1) Red Wings vs. (8) Flames

The Red Wings have gone for team toughness during the last half of this season with the pickup of Bertuzzi. Unfortunately, injuries are putting a lot of pressure on them to display their depth. This will almost certainly be Hasek’s last chance to shine, and he’s going to make or break the series for them.

I think Calgary has the guns to pull this one out, but whoever wins, just like Penguins versus Senators, they’re going to be exhausted, and struggle in the second round.

Calgary in 7 Games

(2) Ducks vs. (7) Wild

The Wild are a great team this year, and seem to be on a roll; that said, they’ve got a mountain to climb against the Ducks, who have Pronger and Niedermayer on defense (tough to beat for consistency), and a fantastic system. The Wild will either come out strong and fade, or fight bravely from behind, but I think the Ducks just have to step up and take it if they want it.

Anaheim in 6 Games

(3) Canucks vs. (6) Stars

I think the Canucks are a little too one-dimensional this year; they have a fantastic set of top scorers, and little to back that up with the exception of fantastic netminding. The Stars are going to be relying too heavily on their own keeper Turco, who has got to be feeling the heat now that he’s built a solid reputation as a playoff choke artist.

The Stars are the better-built, more solid team here, but Turco’s confidence will be shot after the first rally by Vancouver’s top line, and that’s going to open up the door for the more mediocre shooters to build on leads. The question is how early they can do that; I think Turco rides the better team to a couple of wins before going four straight losses.

Vancouver in 6 Games

(4) Predators vs. (5) Sharks

Another tough call here. Unlike the big goalie battles, I think this one is going to come down to whether Thornton or Forsberg finally step up and take the reins; Forsberg was an outstanding leader for the Flyers over the first half when he was on the ice, even when things were dismal. The question is whether his foot is still nagging him (like anyone associated with him would admit otherwise at this point), and how that will affect both his play and his leadership.

I think the Sharks just are the better-coached team. I’ve gotten to watch more of them than most Western teams, and I’ve liked what I’ve seen. They have the team toughness to battle in any situation, and they do a good job of making the other team react when they should taking the initiative.

San Jose in 5 Games

The first playoff pucks drop tonight, so we’ll see how I’ve done pretty soon.

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Continuing from yesterday’s predictions, we now get into the fun games that are a little harder to call.

(3) Thrashers vs. (6) Rangers

Disclaimer: The Rangers, due to proximity and being in their network area, are the team I get to watch the most, and the team I know best in terms of what they do off the ice (besides the Caps, of course). So I probably have a little favoritism going into this, although I think my pick will be fair.

The Thrashers are a perfect example of how to build a team to make Round 1 of the playoffs exciting, and make Round 2 someone else’s problem. Given, that’s not a terrible knock on them; they’re an expansion team, and it was about time for both the management and the fans to experience it. Their building formula seemed to be to wait for a good opening part of the season, and then trade, trade, trade their way to experience, which isn’t a bad way to do it depending on how much of your future you mortgage, although I think the Thrashers might have gone in a bit too hard (unless management really does think they have a good shot at the Cup). Still, it’s difficult to fault anyone for picking up Tkachuk if they have the chance, and I think Pascal Dupuis is unfairly characterized as a one-dimensional speed guy when he has so much more potential than that (if he could only stay on a team for more than a few months at a time).

Unfortunately, they still have weaknesses with their system of play, and nothing emphasizes this more than than their play against the Capitals. They won a majority of those games, but they did it through offense (every single game had 5 or more goals), and Alexander Ovechkin had free reign to hammer them for the entire season series, including a late-game hat trick that stole a win and resulted in an OT goal that just made the Thrashers look outmatched.

As I said yesterday, consistency is the key to winning in the playoffs; they obviously lack the defensive consistency to shut down a marquis player, although Lehtonen is a godsend for them in goal, keeping those lapses from hitting crisis level most of the time. The question then becomes whether they can force a fast-moving, high-scoring game upon their opponents.

And this is where they run into trouble. The Rangers are the very definition of a hot team since they picked up Sean Avery, who was really the last missing piece in their gameplan. This time last year they were a fragile team that melted down late in the season, suffering from a missing marquis player in Jaromir Jagr and a total void of leadership. Fan favorite goalie Henrik Lundqvist was brave in net, but couldn’t shut down the opposition on his own. The team was strong-armed into playing anyone else’s style of hockey within a period, and suffered a humiliating four-and-out in the first round.

This is where us D.C. sports fans scratch our heads in confusion. Doesn’t a humiliating finish to a season mean a fire-sale, or more of the same next season? Not so! The Rangers had an absolutely stellar off-season; their biggest preseason pickup was veteran Brendan Shanahan, who walked in and took the burden of command off of Jagr’s shaky shoulders (not maligning him as a player, but as a captain or leader of any sort he is, to put it mildly, lacking), though he has yet to get the ‘C’ he deserves for his efforts at leading this team. The coaching staff put together a game plan at the beginning of the season, and then, something unusual again for us D.C. sports fans to see, the front office looked at what was working at the trade deadline and what wasn’t and fixed every single problem. Paul Mara has been outstanding at fitting in, and Avery has been the key to this team’s end-of-season run; when Shanahan went out with a lengthy injury, something that would have crippled last year’s Rangers, Avery was ready to step up and lead by example. They’ve also been helped by outstanding mid-season call-ups Ryan Callahan and Dan Girardi, as well as an energy line that took it upon themselves to start scoring goals while out there shutting down the opponent’s top line.

The most important thing about the Rangers is that, since the trade deadline, they’ve been stellar because they’ve forced every single opponent to play their game. They’re controlling the clock, the puck, and the scoreboard, and turning every trip into the offensive zone into a nightmare for the other team. They know exactly what they want to do, they’re getting healthier after plenty of mid-season scares, they’re backed by a goalie who’s on a tear, and they have outstanding coaching. Not to spoil my late-round picks too early, but I’d be shocked if these Rangers weren’t being talked about as living up to the ‘94 tradition, between their rapport with the fans (observe the center-ice stick salute after home wins, a new MSG tradition), their outstanding run just to make the playoffs, and the still-watching visage of Mark Messier, ‘The Captain’, who has really stepped up this year in his off-the-ice efforts to help build the sport of hockey.

New York in 5 Games

(4) Senators vs. (5) Penguins

I think here we have what might be the most exciting matchup in the opening round. These are teams that had the same number of points in the regular season, and both will be hungry to taste the second round this year; the Penguins will want to harden their youth corps with some playoff experience next to grizzled veterans Recchi and Roberts, and the Senators will want to make a good showing for a team that lacks anyone of that much experience.

The Senators have the edge in goaltending, and a reasonable backup should disaster strike; the Penguins have some veteran leadership among their ranks. The Sens have been labeled ‘chokers’, the Pens have been inconsistent on defense. The Senators score more goals and allow less than the Penguins.

It’s tough to pick a winner here; I do think that whoever takes it, it’s going to be an exhasting seven-game series that goes to overtime more than once, and I think that’s going to hurt either team later in the running with every other matchup in the early going having a clear winner. It’s a long campaign, playoff games are even more draining than regular-season ones, and there are a lot of young guys on both teams that have to be dragging at this point in the season. In the end, I think veteran leadership is going to carry the Pens through, but I think both teams will play the other’s game far more than they want to.

Pittsburgh in 7 Games

Tomorrow: The Western Conference!

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Well, it’s playoff time again, and that means time for more bracket prognostication; hopefully I do better with these picks than with my NCAA brackets.

(1) Sabres vs. (8) Islanders

The Islanders have been playing their hottest hockey of the year in the last week, but it’s not going to save them against the juggernaut that is the Sabres. I know they had to hope for more, but with starting goalie DiPietro out for the foreseeable future with post-concussive syndrome, they’re relying on a third-string goalie (Dubielewicz, Wade) who, despite being hot for the last week, has shown some worrying tendencies to choke in clutch situations (namely, twice with 4:00 left in the final, playoff-clinching game of the season). Given, neither of those goals was particularly pretty, nor did either beat him in any way that makes him look unfit to start, but there’s a huge difference between a starting goalie and a playoff goalie. Ryan Smyth could provide some much-needed help up front, but the jury is still out on how much of his day he’s spending thinking about the playoffs and how much he’s spending thinking about getting back to Edmonton; for their part, the fans have to be wishing they’d started this push a little sooner so that Smyth could help them against opposition that looks a little easier.

On the other hand, Buffalo has little to worry about. They have a vast array of guns up front, spearheaded by a pair of talented centers who can both score and move the puck in Briere and Drury. They have a pair of playoff-ready goalies in Conklin and the stellar Miller (40-16-6). Moreover, they also have a flowing, creative style that minimizes their weaknesses and maximizes their strengths; this is a team that, from the day they took the ice, knew what they wanted to be and worked towards pulling together the game plan. They also have the desire; there’s almost no way they’re going to keep this group of guys together next year, considering the cap and the way they’ve played, so this is the time for them to push hard if they want to lift the Cup.

The Isles might make it exciting every game, but I don’t see them making it exciting as a series except for a possible steal of the first game if they play as hot as they have been lately and Dubie can pull it out in the clutch.

Buffalo in 5 Games

(2) Devils vs. (7) Lightning

This series is going to be determined by three little words: Brodeur, Brodeur, Brodeur.

The reason that people so often claim that defense and goaltending win playoffs is consistency; it’s easier for a defensive corps or a goalie to play consistently well day in and day out than it is for your scorers to turn on the red light game after game. Buffalo decided to test this by having more than enough big guns to suit its needs, and a system that uses them all, and so far they’ve been remarkable at proving its consistency, not narrow-minded strategic thinking, that wins games in the regular season; the Lightning can only hope that Buffalo is being too careful, because they’re staking their playoff hopes on two of the game’s best players, Lecavalier and St. Louis, being able to consistently do their heavy lifting. Against many other teams in the playoffs this year, I’d give them the edge.

But then they run into Brodeur.

He’s the eternal rock, the immovable wall. He is the icon of consistency in the NHL, and judging from his play this year, experience is more than making up for age. He can shut down offenses so effectively that I think he’s going to drive a stake right through the heart of Tampa Bay’s game-plan; after that it’s a question of the Devils offense versus the Lightning defense, and I have no doubt that someone is going to be able to slam the puck home past Holmqvist a few times; having each of your goalies start almost half of your games is not the ticket to consistency that the Lightning has been looking for all season. And if they haven’t found a winning formula yet, I find it ever more doubtful that they will.

New Jersey in 4 Games

Come back tomorrow to read my picks for the other two Eastern Conference matchups!

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Just a little something while I watch the end of the Nationals-Diamondbacks game.

First of all, the Kasten family should be ashamed of the job they’re doing with the Nationals so far. We finally get a real owner for the Nats, and they drop the ball time after time; from what I hear, the offenses range from terribly botched parking and transit, to food-court failures of epic proportions (aside from, incidentally, what I hear may be the best brisket served at any sports venue, ever), and most importantly, production problems that plague the broadcasts from end-to-end. I’ve heard stories of 6-inning blackouts for people who are paying to watch the team on DirecTV. I’m watching the game right now on MASN2 (a more obscure sports network may never be found) via the Time Warner free preview of MLB Extra Innings, and I have to say; what a terrible, terrible broadcast.

Oh, and how about that team you’re fielding, guys? 0-for-25 with runners in scoring position. That’s beyond terrible. There is not a single hitter in the league who, if you put him up for 25 at-bats, would whiff so badly as the team does. Not even pitchers. They actually managed to assemble a team that is far, far worse than the sum of its parts, which are themselves scraps the rest of the league wouldn’t even put on a AAA payroll. We have a pitcher in the rotation who hasn’t even seen a game above the AA level before this season (and I assure you from his stat line over his first start, he is NOT a prodigy).

As I say this, of course, Kearns hammers a high breaking ball into the gap to drive Zimmerman in. So we begin the long climb towards respectability and a win percentage of over .200 for the season. Which, saving a whole lot more inexplicable Ryan Church home runs (one of which, incidentally, won us last Easter’s game), looks unlikely enough.

Of more interest to me is the NHL season that wraps today. I have to give credit to the league, it’s been a barn-burner of a playoff race for all involved, and sometimes it’s seemed like ‘all involved’ was everyone but the Caps, Flyers, and Coyotes. I sometimes want to begin every conversation about the Caps with a Garrison Keillor monologue: “It’s been a frustrating week here for the Washington Capitals, my home team, out here on the edge of the NHL.” We haven’t played particularly well, and if you want to hear the truth, we haven’t even built the team particularly well; GM George McPhee and owner Ted Leonsis still seemed paralyzed by the Jagr fiasco, with no ability to make a big move for a marquis player, something which we need (Ovechkin is practically begging for a veteran star to pull the team together in his media interviews), and which we ought to be able to do so much more easily in this salary-cap era. Ted is an enigma these days; when directly cornered, he promises to be more aggressive in the offseason, but if you read Ted’s Take, he seemed to be spending the last part of the season pointing out failed free-agency pickups.

I’m hopeful, as I always have to be when the Caps are concerned, but I have a sneaking suspicion the only new look we sport next season is going to be the new team branding; we’re dropping the ‘Eagle Streaking Downwards’ logo (which I hated), and the Capitol Dome logo (which it sometimes seems the rest of the free world hates), along with the black and bronze and blue and white color schemes. It’ll be back to red, white, and blue for the Capitals, along with a brand-new logo, both to be revealed when we have a major offseason pickup to model them for us.

Of course, I’m relying here on Leonsis and McPhee to recognize the team’s weaknesses and fix them, something I’m not confident about. We need a #1 center and a top-2 defenseman; I’m afraid they’re going to stick with our too-young defensive corps (average age 23.5), consider Niklas Backstrom our center help (he’s needed, but he’s not suited to play first-line center), and instead pick up a #2 right-wing for far too much money. It doesn’t help that Pavel Datsyuk, the Great Russian Hope for Caps fans in the latter half of the season, resigned with the Devils instead of (as expected) making the jump to Washington (although with the contract they offered him, I can’t blame him).

The regular season finishes out today with one more important game between the Isles and Devils (currently 1-0 Isles), with a win letting the Islanders into the playoffs, although it looks like even if they get in they’ll be stuck with a third-string backup goaltender. It can’t be the end of the season that the Islanders wanted, especially after the marquis Ryan Smyth trade, and I’m sure Smyth is furious (although how much of that is directed at the woeful Oilers instead of in its rightful direction at his agent nobody but him will ever know). Still, in the playoffs anyone can beat anyone else, so we’ll have to see if the Isles can hang in and represent Long Island for a round or two.

The Rangers, on the other hand, have to be ecstatic with the end of their season. They climbed from first-half mediocrity to second-half spectacle on the shoulders of their fan-favorite goalie Henrik Lundqvist. It’s been refreshing to watch the Rangers this season (being the local team, they’re normally all I get to watch from the dorms, a situation that will be rectified when I move into a place with all the human decencies, namely Center Ice). Unlike the Capitals, the Rangers are a team that’s managed right in all the right ways: outstanding free-agent acquisitions (in this season’s new NYC star Brendan Shanahan, a star veteran that brought much-needed leadership to a team that imploded at the end of the last season and will certainly return next season), incredible scouting (in picking up Henrik Lundqvist a few years ago, as well as a fantastic crop of young players), and a fantastic development system (in a minor-league affiliate that actually prepares players to play in the NHL; they may not win the Calder Cup, but every single call-up they’ve had this year has shined at the next level), all things the Caps lack. If you look at the contrasts, the Caps have, to put it kindly, stunk up the place in free agency (marquis signings the last two years: Cassels, Pothier), terrible scouting and drafting in general (they have HOW MANY first-round picks languishing in their system, having hit the peak of their abilities too early), and a minor-league team that, despite amazing success in its own rights (on their way to a second consecutive Calder Cup), is totally unable to develop players who are ready to play immediately at the NHL level. As it is, the Caps have been using the NHL itself as their developmental league, which is unfair to the fans, the young prospects (don’t tank a kid’s career by throwing him in the deep end too soon, guys!), and the stars (Kolzig deserves a shot at a Cup, and Ovechkin deserves an early-career legacy better than ‘amazing player on terrible team’.

Well, Shawn Hill, the Nationals’ de facto ace now that Patterson has completely imploded, is done earning the L despite his second strong outing, so I guess that means it’s time for me to wrap up here and concentrate on the more important things in life, such as enjoying a beer and a hockey game on Easter Sunday. I leave you, as I know you are history buffs one and all, with this fascinating 1915 tale of the emery ball’s rise and fall in baseball.

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My writing habits and my running habits have an unfortunately large number of things in common; this, of course, is debilitating to any aspirations I’d ever have to do either one seriously.  My running habits over the past year can be summed up as such:

• May 2005: I should start running, now that finals are over.
• June 2005: Oh, my new employer does the J.P. Morgan Chase Challenge.  Well, that’s a chance to get 5 miles and some bonding with co-workers in.
• July 2005: I should build on that momentum… later.
• August 2005: Well, maybe when I get back to school I’ll start running.
• January 2006: Home for break!  Can’t dodge running with the family… once.
• June 2006: Hmm… my employer is doing the J.P. Morgan Chase Challenge again….

And so, around and around it goes.  The same is true of my writing habits; I write prolifically for a short period of time (typically encompassing a span of a good ten minutes at a shot), and then figuratively hit the ’snooze’ button and roll over and go back to sleep every time I’m tempted to start writing again.

Okay, sometimes it’s not so figurative.

Deadlines are the worst in both cases, because one miss, and inertia becomes that much harder to get going.  Part of the reason I delayed a few days between the last post and this one was deliberate; I need to know I can tell myself I’ll do something tomorrow, and have some trust that I’ll actually get around to doing it.  Every day that passes after a deadline just makes the initial step, whether it’s tying on those running shoes or opening up that blog editor, that much harder.

I suspect this is why cartoonists go on sabbatical; outside of the business consideration of whether readers would stick around for two weeks of repeats every year, what cartoonist would want to stop, let two weeks go by, and then start again?  I suspect the minimum length of time needed for the absence of a necessary task to truly start kicking in is around six months, if you’re the kind of person who dreads doing something even a little late.  When I miss an update, I dread even checking someone else’s blog, let alone looking at my own.  Let’s see if we can’t kick this procrastinating habit.

I’ll start by kicking off my shoes right here at work, and tying on a pair of running shoes.  There’s 5 miles of bonding with co-workers that needs my attention.

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Yes, occasionally something falls so firmly in the [WTF] category of the world that I cannot help but share it. Today’s vignette, lovingly related to us by CNN.com, is the story of a man who allegedly (Attn. Aspiring Bloggers: ‘allegedly’ is vital. Always allege, facts are anathema to postmodern blogging.) was ‘involved in’ his wife’s death. That phrase always struck me as interesting, when referring to an apparent simple murder; it suggests a plot of grander complexity and richer texture than that of a man hacking a person apart. Unfortunately, while this one certainly has texture, it’s the texture of a French art-house horror flick rather than that of, say, a French art-house drama flick (does referring to these as ‘flicks’ horribly malign honest cinema?).

Apparently, for today’s modern psychopath, hacking up alone is no longer de rigeur. No, this psychopath obviously had something a little grander in mind. Unfortunately for humanity, whatever it was involved hacking his wife’s head clean off (another interesting linguistic digression; I imagine this was anything but a clean endeavor). What came next will surprise few who are so close, so intimately involved with the Boise mindset as I am: he took the head, and got in his pickup truck. Driving erratically, he eventually and inevitably slammed into oncoming traffic, killing two people and spilling the severed head onto the road, to the horror of the entire non-jaded human race, not to mention whoever got to open the door to his home to find the rest of his wife’s body.

Humanity, answer for this: what is wrong with us? Do people really just snap like this? Was there warning? Will his neighbors claim he was ‘quiet’ and ‘reserved’, and that they just can’t believe this could happen? Are we doomed to have guys in trucks escape horrific accidents (in the truest sense of the word ‘horrific’, not the schmaltzy ‘oh-too-bad’ news media usage) unhurt, while innocent people die? Is it the human condition, is it the society we live in, or is it just plain bizarre random chance, tossing out a bad hand (and head) to all involved?

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I have become the old man I never thought I’d be.

Aside from the obvious factor of my semi-chronic back pain (which has miraculously gone away, now that I’m sleeping on a real bed and not just a mattress on the floor - go figure), I’ve suddenly, and of all things, actually become obsessed with sports.

My geek upbringing is screaming with all of its might that this cannot be a healthy development.  When I was growing up, I’d hit the Washington Post every morning in the same order; comics, Bob Levy’s column, front page, Style section.  The sports section was reserved for other people, people with frightening obsessions with numbers that fluctuate seemingly by random chance.  Football was for people who didn’t know a better way to spend a Sunday, baseball was a great sport to fall asleep to on the radio, hockey was (up until I came to my senses) fun to play, not so much to watch.  My total sports consumption for the week came to the combined 30 minutes or so that the sports was on NBC4 News at 6, and mostly only because of the blooper reel.

Over the years, this managed to hit a reasonable balance.  As I became a hockey fan and learned more, the games became watchable, though I never sought them out explicitly.  As I got to college, learning a bit about football became obligatory, and so I watched a game or two every couple of Sundays.  Nothing excessive, nothing that interfered with my (riveting) social life, just a few games.

In the past two weeks, my sports viewing is well up over 16 hours.  I’ve watched every single World Cup game I’ve been able to get my hands on, every single Cup playoff game since the semifinals, the Arena Bowl, even some tennis.  What is wrong with me, that I’d rather sit in my comfortable chair with a beer and watch the drama of… some horrible commentator trying to compare the World Cup with the World Series?  Ugh.  It’s like an affliction; I can now approximate OPS in my head, criticize the hustle of the Oilers in the 3rd period, and expound at length on why Trinidad and Tobago should not have used a 4-5-1 formation today.

Combined sports-to-gaming ratio over two weeks: approximately 8:1.

Well, at least my back feels better now.

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As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfectly normal for people to go on vacation to the Poconos, post a picture, and then disappear for 8 months or so.

Anyway, the gauntlet has been thrown, shenanigans have been called, and all sorts of other things have been verbed in passive voice, so here I am. I could certainly call the break an ‘unannounced sabbatical’, I could call it irony, considering what’s gotten me most of my hits, and the eventual apparent fate of my writing. I could quite handily call it a lot of things, none of them justifiable, so I’ll just call it bygone and pretend it never happened.

Still, it’s fascinating to come back after all this time and observe what’s left to pick up. I saw the spam notices piling up in my inbox, figuring that anytime I wanted to begin posting again, I’d have to struggle under the weight of that… fortunately, WordPress has some mass comment edit capabilities, so I think I got most of the spam out of the comments with minimal collateral damage. Everything still seems to work, although there are a few dust bunnies here and there (hopefully taken care of by updates to the software involved).

So, the prime question on everyone’s mind by now: just where the hell have I been? ‘Around’ would suffice, I suppose. School is school, and with a year left, I’m fighting off early graduation by taking an unusually lax schedule this coming semester. I’m also trying to dust off my (admittedly rusty) writing skills a bit, as I’ve been unforgivably lax in that department for quite a while.

Secondary questions, hopefully answered: Yes, I still work for the blog’s namesake, at the same consulting firm on the 30th floor of a midtown Manhattan office building. Yes, I’m still an intern, although my duties have evolved considerably, my responsibilities have expanded, and my horizons have broadened. Yes, I’m still at SJU, enjoying my college education considerably. No, I’m not still 20, a birthday fortunately intervened somewhere in the last 12 months and pushed me past the ‘beer-after-work’ threshold, though finances haven’t colluded with said birthday to make such drinks a common occurrence. No, I don’t still live in Ridgewood; for the summer, it’s glorious, luxurious Forest Hills, Queens, for me. Yes, I love it there. Yes, the rent sucks.

There’s plenty I’d like to write about, and I’m sure I’ll get around to it eventually. But for now, I’ll just be shaking the dust off of my RSS aggregators, carefully opening my yellowed, aged notebooks, and fixing things up about the place a little, and then attacking things in a (hopefully somewhat organized) way.

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