Another historic performance from the Billikens! (& some UL thoughts)

When you already have the record for fewest points in a D-1 game, what can you do when you want to raise the bar for offensive ineptitude? Go through an entire game scoring only two pointers.

A few weeks back, a great analytical basketball blogger (Ken Pomeroy) concluded that it was impossible for a team to go a whole game w/o making a 3-pointer or a free throw.  He reached this conclusion soundly based on the following five facts:

1) The odds of not making a 3-pointer in a game: 100 to 1.

2) The odds of not making a single free throw in a game: 500 to 1.

3) If those were independent events, the odds of doing both in a game would be 50,000 to 1 (at this likelihood the feat would occur about once every 10 seasons).  The odds of throwing a perfect game in baseball are about 20,000 to 1.

4) But teams that score only two at a time tend to fall behind ... way behind ... and launch more threes.  The more you shoot 'em, the more likely you'll make at least one ... and miss out on the two-at-a-time feat.  So, the odds are likely higher than 50,000 to 1.

5) In fact, over the past 5 years, no team had even gone 30 minutes into a game (i.e., 75%) w/o making a non-two pointer.

Against Richmond today, the glorious Billikens were 0-10 from the arc & 0-3 from the stripe.  That's what I'm talking about!  Nobody can not score like the Bills.  Oh yeah.  We lost 62-36 to a team we beat three weeks earlier.

- - -

My other basketball team has a different problem.  They can score.  They can defend.  They can block shots and even hit free throws most of the time.  According the ratings systems that work, they are one of the top 40 teams in the country.  They have a major problem, though.  They are cursed. 

If the ball goes out of bounds off an opponent ... right in front of the ref ... it will be called out on Louisville.

If a Louisville player gets elbowed while laying defenseless on the floor, the Cards will get two technicals to the other teams one.

If a Louisville opponent wanders onto the court while inbounding a ball, they will be given a do-over because of a procedural error.

If our coach is a scumbag, he will get extorted and undergo a scandal of near-biblical proportions.

If our biggest rival's coach is a scumbag, NBA first rounders will drop out of the sky to play at that school and they will become an odds-on favorite to win the title.

Frankly, there's some serious bad karma aligned against the Cards at this point.  I'll keep watching and cheering, but I'm going into watching each game w/ the attitude ... how is this one going to be lost?

- - -

On the bright side ... pitchers and catchers report in less than three weeks.
- - -

After

Think we got around 4.5" here. Probably at least an inch of it was sleet / ice pellets. Did all the usual fun wintry stuff. Headed over to Apex HS for the sledding. Small but speedy hill that features a little curb at the bottom, for some X-games style "big" air. Big in this case is measured in millimeters.

Snow off to a fast start

Nearly an inch already and it wasn't even supposed to start as of yet.  It is the rare Triangle snowstorm that comes in early.  Got some snow football under the lights in.  Nice!

Temperature dropped 5 degrees in the last two hours at our house as the snow fell through the dry air via evaporative cooling.  It's a beautiful snowy evening in Apex.

Before ...

Positivity power!

Looks pretty good here for a snow/sleet event Saturday morning.  If it stayed all snow, we'd be looking at something upwards of a foot.  However, it looks like we'll get more of those compact ice pellets than we'll get nice fluffy snowflakes.  As long as it's not freezing rain, Dolberry will be happy.  Actually, I'll be fine if it freezing rains as well ... as long as a tree doesn't come through our roof.

Which sort of leads into the main theme of this evening's post.  My boss gave everyone in our group the book "Strengths Finder 2.0" and an online code to take the StrengthsFindertron 5000 assessment.  After answering 170-some questions, Dolberry was diagnosed as having the following five strengths (everyone gets five ... it's like tee ball trophies) out of the 34 they test for:

1) Positivity
2) Developer
3) Harmony
4) Empathy
5) Maximizer

I agree on 1-3, less sure about numbers 4 and 5.

Someone with the strength of positivity is described as one who "can't quite escape the conviction that it is good to be alive, that work can be fun, and that no matter what the setbacks, one must never lose one's sense of humor".  That's what I aspire to be anyway.  Think I hit it most of the time even if I have to revert to an alter ego to get it done sometimes.  "Live without a care.  What could possibly go wrong?"  

A developer is described as one who gets his/her deepest satisfaction from helping others reach their potential.  Harmony was characterized as one whose view is ... "We are all in the same boat.  We need this boat to get where we are going.  It's a good boat.  There is no need to rock it just to show you can."  Preach it Harmony!

Career recommendation for someone of Dolberry's strengths ... teacher.  Not surprised.

They don't tell you your worst strengths (w/o way more money).  Their basic theory is you are better off selecting a career that will play to your strengths rather than trying to improve your weaknessess.  I'm going to guess my bottom five (hooray a countdown!):

30) Woo (the ability to convince others ... boo hoo i don't have woo, how about you).

31) Connectedness (some sort of "life force" thing ... didn't understand it .. so doubt I have it)

32) Command (people who take charge ... I can take charge but find it draining ... interferes w/ harmony)

33) Restorative (people who like to solve problems ... Dolberry no like problems)

34) Futuristic (people who spend a lot of time planning a better future ... hey, i'm off tomorrow ... going on an afternoon date w/ tbKMD, it may snow after that ... softball is not that far away ... cheesesteaks are on the horizon ... that's a good enough future for now)

Anybody else out there ever done this?  If so, what were your strengths?

Starting tomorrow ... Dolberry is a POAT ... can you bleat it?

No, I cannot believe it. 

POAT = parent of a teenager  Should this make me feel old?  It doesn't really.  Dolberry will always stay in the shallow end of the pool.  I generally adhere to the philosophy that you are never younger than you are at this very moment.  And anyway, worying about it won't subtract a single moment from APD's life ...

Dolberry's position on APD is well-established, but I'll say it again.  I think you are simply awesome.  I love your steadfastness ... your tendency toward whimsy ... everything about you that echoes your beautiful mom reverberated through a new but equally rocking song  ... everything about you where I see the DNA of your grandparents ... your tenacity and dedication and honesty and genuineness and carefree spirit and loving nature.  And a million other things, but you get the point.  You can't win a 5K in the first quarter mile, but there's something to be said for getting off to a good start.  Keep it up. 

But back to the point (me!  of course) ... I remember thinking and saying, in those pre-APD days, that I thought Dolberry would be a good dad for any kid that was beyond potty training but not yet a teenager.  Felt pretty good about the sweet spot years where all that would be needed was two cups firm hand with a tablespoon of goofball antics (or was it the other way around).  But I remember being surprised by those first three years ... there was incalculable joy in rocking YOU to sleep ... and watching YOU crawl ... and hearing YOU babble that dukita...dukita...dukita chant.  What I fundamentally miscalculated was that there can be a real relationship between a dad and a newborn ... when that newborn was YOU.  I now suspect the same will be true for the teenage years ... maybe it won't be the exact same as it was ... and it'd be wrong if it was ... but there'll be a meaningful amazing relationship just the same. 

I further suspect that the next six years will probably go by twice as fast as those first three did.  Just know that you continue to grow and become who you are (it happens once in a lifetime) ... your mom and dad have your back every step of the way.

Diet XXVII

There's nothing more boring then hearing about someone else's attempt to reduce their caloric intake. 

(Not even seeing approximately every square foot meter of Scandinavia from at least three different camera angles.  Six camera angles if it that square meter contained a statue of some sort.)

However, when you add a chart to the discussion about calories and fitness and weight goals ... well ... it's a totally different story.  Then you add the +50 that comes w/ anything associated w/ Dolberry the whole subject becomes eminently bloggable.

Here's a graph of my net calories (intake - burned) over the past week, courtesy of my iPodian assistant and livestrong.com.

As you can see (left), I've done well this week.  I've been doing good basically since the 2nd.  Have lost maybe 2-4 pounds so far.  Can run 2 miles w/o stopping and can swim 1600 yds in a session.

If the past is any indication ... and it is ... Dolberry will do very well through March then blow away 9 weeks of dieting in a frenzied Cheesesteak rampage in Clearwater.  Heard a friend quote Kate Moss having said "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."  Ms. Moss obviously has never had a cheesesteak.



Look ... my only other blog ideas for tonight were thoughts I had while finishing taxes ... or more on tennis Open.  Be thankful you got off this easy.

Just plain "Up"

Really nice 4-day furlough is wrapping up.  Back on the chain gang tomorrow. 

(Hey!  I just learned something.  Tony Butler, bass player for Big Country, played bass on that big Pretenders single linked above.  Dolberry remembers really resenting that single as it outraced "In a Big Country" on the U.S. charts in early 1983.  It's not a bad song, but I hated it at the time.)

((Speaking of "In a Big Country", which I did not start this blog intending to do ... Spinner magazine lists that song as #7 all time in best gibberish lyrics.  Specifically, the "SHA!" or "CHA!" exclamation that abounds throughout that Spartan classic.  I don't see the Pretenders on that list."))

(((Went ahead and added video of IABC on the DCV sidebar, since I'm pretty much done tweeting.  You younger DCV readers would do well to watch it a few times and rue that you didn't live in the unadulterated glory of the mid/early 80's.)))

But I digress ...

Watched "Up" last night w/ the Youth Group.  (Thanks to C-Lo for the APD gift.  Watched w/ a crowd of nearly 20 which was cool.)  The theme of that excellent movie, near as Dolberry can tell, is how a life can be happily and substantially meaningful filled w/ "the boring stuff", the basic day-to-day stuff that makes up life.  Until the end, the protagonist unfortunately views his life as incomplete, because there was big "Stuff I'm Going To Do!" that hadn't been done.  Dolberry agrees w/ the movie's moral ... at least as I understood it ... but there are two big things that I want to do w/ tbKMD before we move on from this life:

1) Hike the Appalachian Trail
2) Go to Australia and watch the Australian Open.

Am in no rush to age 25 years and retire, but this time of year always makes me think of the Australia idea.  The AO is, by far, my favorite tennis tournament of the year.  Mostly because the games are shown late at night here in the U.S.  But also the surface seems fairer than that of the French or Wimbledon ... and the players seem fresher than by the time the U.S. Open rolls around.  Anyway, I'm cheering for both #4 seeds Caroline Wozniacki and Juan Martin del Potro.

I promise that will be the last tennis-related post of 2010.

Up in the Air

Off Friday kicks off a 4-day weekend. Did some b-day shopping for APD and then caught the third flick in our stretched-out-over-a-couple-of-months George Clooney Film Festival: Up in the Air. This one was much better than The Men Who Stare at Goats (ok) or Fantastic Mr. Fox (pretty good). Was one of those rare films where you wished it would just keep going.

There were lots of interesting themes crammed into 96 minutes (e.g., career vs. family, the value of loyalty, getting older), but the coolest theme in Dolberry's opinion was the running discussion about the value of relationships and the subtheme conflict between technology and humanity.  Won't give away the whole movie, but Clooney's character believes human relationships are nothing more than baggage to be lugged clumsily around life.  When his company essentially adopts the same line of thinking and attempts to replace the human element of his job (firing people) with a impersonal technological surrogate, he experiences a series of events that causes him to reconsider his perspective.  Very cool how that played out. 

(Another cool thing about the movie was that it took place mostly in the Midwest in places like Omaha, St. Louis, Chicago, and northern Wisconsin.  There was even a subtle reference to Louisville, though it was a dig at the Derby City (or at least Standiford Field, SDF).)

The word "relational" seems to be one of the buzz words of the 21st century ... e.g., life is "relational".  Not exactly sure what that means ... but do appreciate the relationships I have w/ all you guys ... so thanks!  And go see this one, if you haven't already (oh yeah ... and your over 17).

Oh Gravity ...

You think strange things when you run late at night ... about gravity and Newton and apples and gardens and why Haiti is still like it is and how it can be hard to be a middle schooler building a character that is suited for a halo in a world more interested in playing Halo and why we put more energy into making what we do look better, or sound better, as opposed to putting that energy into making what we do better ...

Eventually the endorphins kick in and you realize it's not that bad ... and that all the little things we do for the good add up.  And before you know it, your two miles are up, and it's time to go to bed, and to prepare for another day, perhaps tomorrow will be the day we beat gravity and fly.

Big Mac's admission

To no one's great surprise, Mark McGwire admitted today to taking steroids through large parts of his baseball career.  Also, to no one's great surprise there's been the back n' forth of people deriding and defending his actions.

Dolberry falls on the side of ... these were illegal substances that were clearly (IMO) giving their users an advantage over those who were unwilling to inject the drugs.

Rob Neyer, a real good baseball writer on ESPN.com, makes a case in defense of McGwire that revolves around two main tenets: 1) if your livelihood was in jeopardy and there was a substance that would help you prolong it ... you would consider taking it was well (aka, don't be a hypocrite), and 2) it was part of the culture, standard operating practice for MLB in the 90's (aka, everyone was doing it).

Of the last 10 players to hit 500 HRs, seven have been implicated (or proven) steroid users: Bonds, ManRam, Palmeiro, Sosa, McGwire, A-Rod, and Sheffield.  It's the three players that haven't been implicated that point out the flaw in Neyer's and many others line of thinking:  Jim Thome, the Big Hurt, and Junior.  All three of those guys experienced injuries as they aged ... especially Griffey.  According to this line of thinking, it would seem that we are actually require to think less of these three guys.  They simply did not do all they could do to make their teams better. 

I think everyone can acknowledge that that simply isn't inherently fair.  Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how one can be logically consistent and believe Big Mac et al were simply doing what they needed to do ... while not condemning Junior/Thome/Thomas for putting themselves ahead of their team.  Of course, no one's written that article because it would be laughed off.

Anyway, Dolberry is glad McGwire made his admission now, as opposed to actual baseball season, when it will be quickly drowned out by the NFL playoffs.  And when March rolls around, maybe we can have a Spring devoted to the games on the field.  And how this guy is going to lead the Reds to the promised land ... we hope.

College football pyramid: 2007-2009

OK.  Last three seasons in the series.  Louisville falls from the heights ... back to where they started.

W/ APD's help, have given some thought to how the season would work.  In the PL, there'd be two divisions of 10 w/ each team playing each other (that's 9 games), two random games against the other PL division, and one game against anyone (e.g., rivalry game).  So, in 2008 Louisville's schedule would have looked like this (see below, see 2010 even further below):

Louisville @ Kentucky

Oregon St @ Louisville

USC @ Louisville

Louisville @ West Virginia

Louisville @ Oklahoma

UCLA @ Louisville

Louisville @ Oregon

Louisville @ Ohio St.

Texas Tech @ Louisville

Michigan @ Louisville

Louisville @ Texas

In Levels 2-4, there are two 12 team divisions.  You play everyone in your half once and one free game.  Here's U of L's schedule for 2010 in Level 3.

Kentucky @ Louisville
Maryland @ Louisville
Louisville @ East Carolina
UNC @ Louisville
Louisville @ Mississippi St.
Louisville @ Navy
Louisville @ Vanderbilt
S. Florida @ Louisville
S. Miss @ Louisville
Louisville @ Rutgers
Louisville @ West Virginia
Wake Forest @ Louisville

The pyramid would be nice.  Of course, it'll never happen, but it's fun to dream.

Snow suckered

Didn't snow overnight. Not even the measly half inch we were hoping to get. That's it ... I'm done w/ winter.

So, Dolberry got an iPod touch yesterday. Very cool. The plan is for it to help me be more organized ... esp during my 45-60 min of bus time each workday. We'll see. At a minimum, it's nice to have a working mp3 player again.

APD won our annual college football picking contest w/ Alabama's win last night. Was very close this year. Had Texas won it would have been a three-way tie.

Finished rereading Grapes of Wrath this week. Didn't remember it being so R-rated. As a high schooler, Dolberry must have been equipped w/ some sort of built-in content filter.  Anyway, great novel.  Love that it starts w/ a drought and ends with a flood.

Ever wonder what Dolberry does with the weekday hours when he's not slaving away on the DCV? (I more wonder why ... rather than what, but that's another blog for another day.). Well ... it's pretty unexciting most of the time, but here are two things I have had a role in. Yay me!

In Dolberry's opinion (IDO), one of the most ridiculous features of our modern connected life is the anonymous comment. Not talking about the DCV (i can tell one anonymous from the next), but about the comment sections in newspaper web editions and more popular web sites. There's no limit to the depravity, vileness, or sheer inanity of the mind that is afforded the freedom not to have to assign their name to their sentiment. Dolberry doesn't partipate in many message boards but the ones I do, I sign my name to any comments. (Yay me, again!)  How gutless do you have to be to hide your ignorance behind a handle? Scares me to know there are people like this out there. I think web sites should require more transparency. Why encourage this type of discourse?  Ridiculoso!

A friend of ours graciously & gratisly painted our living room today,thankfully eradicating the pale pink hue we had there. Dolberry only likes pink on websites ... & tbKMD.

Gentlemen ... quit yer bloggin' ... and start your weekends!!!!

NCAA College Football Pyramid: 2003-2006

Four more years.  Four more years.  USC becomes the first PL champs from outside the Sunshine State in 2003 and then repeats in 2004.  Texas wins in 2005 and the Florida Tebows Gators are the 2006 PL champs.

Louisville are the Level 3 runners up in 2004, earning a promotion to Level 2.  They finish 6th in L2 in 2005 and then win the league in 2006, earning a promotion to the Premier League.  Booby Petrino celebrates by leaving for Notre Dame, Auburn, the Boston Celtics, Congress, the Atlanta Falcons.  Kentucky suffers an embarassing relegation to Level 4 in 2004, but gets back to L3 by 2006. 

Will try to wrap it up tomorrow.

NCAA College Football Pyramid: 2001-2002

Here's two more years in the pyramid.  The Cards have a decent year in Level 3, then a poor one.  Thankfully, not poor enough to relegate them to Level 4.

The "U" repeats a PL champs in 2001.  Tulane drops 3 levels in the three years after RichRod leaves as their OC.  Oklahoma makes it to the Premier League after starting in Level 3.

2002 sees a threepeat as PL champs for the Hurricanes.  USC wins level 2.  Maryland is moving up rapidly.  Rutgers drops out of the league altoghether, while S. Florida and Cincy move in.

NCAA College Football Pyramid: 1999-2000

Don't you love it when the DCV starts a feature ... gets it 10-80% finished ... only never to re-visit it again?  Dolberry does.  And as a result I'm starting another one ... the NCAA college football pyramid.

Everyone hates the BCS, right?  Basically, only a handful of teams every year have a chance to win the "national championship" (i.e., 4-5 SEC teams, 2-3 Big 12 teams, USC, and Ohio St.).  What Dolberry is proposing is for the BCS to acknowledge the limited nature of their competition by establishing a Premier League w/ the top 20 football programs.  Below that league there would be lower levels of 24 teams each, w/ as many sublevels (Level 2, Level 3, etc.) as there are schools w/ programs.

Wait, you say.  That would be unfair.  Only 20 teams would have a chance at the top prize.  Well, I don't think the BCS really cares, but in order to not entirely disenfranchise the programs outside the Top 20 the ... the teams outside the Top 20 would have an opportunity to be promoted into a higher league, including the Premier League, by finishing in the top 3 at their current level.  Conversely, the bottom three teams in each league would be demoted (or relegated) to a lower level.

This is, of course, patterned after the English football league system (at least at the rudimentary level at which Dolberry understands it).  Somewhat ironic that the English football structure is substantially more "American" (in that it allows for universal upward mobility) than the current gentry-like BCS system.

Anyway, using the Sagarin rankings as a guide and 1998 as my starting point for league assignments, here's how the 1999 and 2000 seasons would have ended up in Dolberry's football pyramid.

So, in the inaugural year, 1999 ... the Seminoles are crowned the Premier League champions, while UCLA, Missouri, and Tulane (?) are booted out of the top league.  Chad Pennington led Marshall to a Level 3 title.  Sparty and the Illini won Levels 2 and 4, respectively.  Louisville finished 8th in Level 3.

In 2000, newly promoted Miami (FL) is crowned the Premier League champs.  Arkansas, Bama, and the Nittany Lions get the boot from the PL.  Louisville again finishes 8th in Level 3.  Kentucky gets booted from Level 2 and will have to face the Cardinals in Level 3 in 2001 ... which I'll post tomorrow night.

Or maybe this'll be the last we ever see of the pyramid ... who knows?

Making friends on the bus ...

He is richest who is content with the least - Socrates

As w/ every new year, trying to improve on all things Dolberry.  Not making any committments online this year, though.  Think I was 0-12 last year.  I like the quote above, though.

Dolberry's not the only one trying to improve themselves, so is the Triangle Transit Authority.  They revised the bus schedule starting today.  The bus home now leaves five minutes later ... 5:39p instead of 5:34p.  Dolberry exits the building at 5:36 and has to run to catch the bus.  Ask the driver (politely), "Hey, isn't the new schedule 5:39p?"  She says "Oh yeah.  Guess we have to wait here a bit."  No one else comes in the intervening three minutes ... and everyone on the bus seemed really pleased at the Dolberry-induced delay.

Models have retreated from yesterday's more optimistic snow forecast for the Triangle.  Looks like all the energy and lift will be to our north and all the moisture will be to the south.  Of course, the cold will still be omnipresent.

And-we-freeze

Super cold here in central NC and over pretty much the entire eastern half of the U.S. There's a big deep low over Nova Scotia which is funnelling down the cold Arctic air. As a result most of the U.S. is 10-20 degrees below normal. Doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon. Here's a plot showing the model-predicted back trajectories for Wed morning in Raleigh. The airmass that will be here then is just south of Hudson Bay right now. Ugh.

One of the cool things that I've seen recently in weather forecast discussions lately is the idea of analog events. Now that we have 40-60 years of pretty good meteorological data, forecasters can compare present weather patterns against historical ones ... find the best matches (or analogs) ... and use those historical "twins" to make the forecast. Some of the analogs over the past week have been from Jan 1977.

Growing up in Louisville, Dolberry was fascinated w/ all the accounts of people walking across the Ohio River that winter after it froze over. Here's a picture of people doing it in Cincinnati. As far as I can tell, the Ohio freezing over in Louisville hasn't happened since 1978 (there were two very cold winters in a row), though there are some accounts of it historically being a once every 9 year sort of event (in Cincinnati, anyway), so we're way overdue. Think it would take 20-30 days in a row of subfreezing weather for it to happen. So far, Louisville has two straight days w/o getting above 32 and the forecast is for at least eight more ... getting us to 10.  Would be cool if it happened.  That said, Dolberry mapped out our Spring Training trip today in an attempt to at least mentally escape winter's grip. We'll be in FL from the 12th-16th of March.

The only thing that would make the cold more tolerable would be a little snow to mix it up. Hour 126 of this morning's GFS run looks good for a little snow in NC come Friday morning. The DCV will track the model forecasts up to the storm and see how the model's evolve over the next 5-6 days and see if anything interesting comes to pass.

The operational GFS has a developing storm in the right position off SE NC for Apex to see snow (pic 1).  And several other members of the ensemble, but not all, think a low will be in the same vicinity (pic 2).

Cheery New Year!

Hope everyone is having a great 2010 so far.  All us Dolberries are easing into the year ... lots of bowl games ... lots of food ... am 2 for 2 on exercising so far.  Some random sports thoughts follow:
Congrats to UK fans on the game today.  No doubt that this year's Wildcats are flat out awesome.  Should be a fun March in parts of the Bluegrass.  (FWIW, add Mike DeCourcy to the long list of observers who thought Cousins' forearm shiver deserved ejection.)

When did Bobby Petrino get so old?  He looks like he's aged 10 years since the last time I saw him on TV.  And how does a Petrino coached team manage only 10 first downs in an entire game.  Wow.

We've watched most of the bowl games.  Here's a top 3 countdown in terms of game quality:

#3 Pitt over UNC
#2 Idaho over Bowling Green
#1 Auburn over Northwestern

And while I enjoy the bowls probably more than most, clearly there should be playoff in college football.  It wouldn't dilute the regular season anymore than any other sport's playoff does (which isn't very much ... fans are pretty much acclimated to a regular season / playoff format).  Don't think Congress can force it, though.  It will presumably take a tournament sponsor w/ really deep pockets to dump a whole bunch of money into the laps of the BCS school presidents.  Suspect that will happen by 2015.

Billikens lost tonight on the road to fall to 9-5.  They never win on the road.  They do have the 2nd youngest team in all D1 b-ball and are showing slight signs of improvement.  Watch out for the Billikens in 2011-2012!

Anyway, one more lazy, weekend day to go.  Then, we'll start 2010 for real.