Blackout

Last night, I arrived back at my apartment building to find that the thunderstorm had knocked out the power. The entire building was dark from outside, so I knew before I got inside that things would be somewhat interesting. I pulled into the parking garage, which was pitch black, and found a parking spot and carefully walked into the building. The elevators would surely be off, so I took the stairs. The emergency lights were on to light the stairwell... until I reached the 4th floor.

I consider myself to be resourceful, so I quickly whipped out my cell phone and used the backlight to illuminate my path. When I got to my floor, I again used my phone to find the proper key and went inside. Normally, my routine would be to change clothes, plop down on the couch, watch Pardon the Interruption (my favorite sports commentary show with hosts Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon), fool around on the internet (checking sports scores and whatnot), then play an Xbox360 game until it's time to turn in. With no power, my usual routine was completely shot.

I found my stash of candles buried in a closet (with the use of the handy cell phone) and lit them with my torch lighter - which I normally don't carry, but have recently been, so it really came in handy (otherwise I would have been out of luck because I don't think I would have had any way to light them - no matches, maybe the gas stove would have worked... but I didn't need to try that). Then came the shocking part... I sat down and started reading a book. WTF? And not the Jon Hodgman book, or anything published by The Onion... but a real book - a Pulitzer Prize winning novel even - Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which was lent to me by the lovely Ms. Florance. I'm sure that I will post a review of some kind when I finish it next year. Ha! It's just too easy to watch television than to sit and read. I just try to make reading into a habit. The book is rather interesting so far, so I am sure that I'll work through this book on occasions other than blackouts.

If Only...

This is an excerpt of a conversation between Megan's brother and his daughter, Lillian, from two weekends ago. I found the question to be absolutely hysterical... and the answer to be adorable. Lillian (the most adorable two year old little girl) had only moments ago, tipped over in a chair on the patio. She was probably just startled and scared, but was screaming. She had been rushed into the house and into the arms of her parents. After they had determined that she was going to be fine... this was the end of the conversation:

"Would some sort of frozen confection or cookie help to ease the pain?"
Lillian's tiny wavering voice barely cut through the tears "yes."

Once the frosted sugar cookie was in hand, everything was fine.

I am reminded of a time that I was playing basketball as an undergraduate and I had jumped up (the term "jump" is used loosely) for a rebound and I came down onto another player's foot. My foot folded to the side and my ankle actually touched the gym floor - in other words... I rolled my ankle. I remember the intense immediate pain and trying to "walk it off", which I did and continued playing. If only I would have had someone there to offer me a cookie and have the pain alleviated immediately. Maybe we should all carry cookies or some sort of frozen confection with us at all times.

Aviles

The Royals have had problems getting production from the shortstop position in almost every season that I can remember (the exception being the 2003 season when Angel Berroa won the Rookie of the Year award). This season was beginning to look like the trend would continue with the horrid offensive performance turned in by Tony Pena, Jr., or TPJ as the KC announce team refers to him. The team manager Trey Hillman claimed that he was leaving TPJ in the position because of his defensive abilities and that his plate performance would come around. It did not.

Pena was hitting in the number nine spot in the lineup and hitting .157, which would qualify him as one of the worst hitters in baseball... possibly across the history of the major league baseball system. He doesn't draw walks and is physically incapable of successfully laying down a bunt. So, he doesn't get hits, he doesn't get on base and he can't help move runners up or manage productive outs. In other words - he's completely useless at the plate. But he is capable of fielding his position. Big fucking deal.

Finally, a change was made and Mike Aviles was brought up from Omaha a couple weeks ago. Aviles had been playing well in the minors this season and his performance now at the major league level has not dropped off. Now they have options. There isn't a guaranteed out in the lineup. What a difference that has made. In the Pena Jr. era, KC was scoring 3.6 runs per game. Since Aviles has take over the spot the Royals are scoring 5.4 runs per game. Aviles gets on base, he drives in runs, he moves runners up, he doesn't strike out as often and the real kicker - his fielding percentage has actually been better than Pena's on the season. Bye bye Pena, I hope I never see you again.

As always, here are some statistics to show the overall team performance increase since making the change, as well as the stats proving that Aviles in 18 games has surpassed the stats accumulated in Pena's 60 games this season.

In the pre-Aviles era, the Royals record is 23-37. Since Aviles began getting regular playing time in the Royals lineup on June 6th, KC is 11-6.

Mike Aviles - 68 AtBats, 23 Hits (13 extra base hits), 14 Runs, 13 RBI, 2 Walks, 2 Steals, 9 Strikeouts, .338 Batting Average, .632 Slugging Percentage

Tony Pena Jr. - 166 AtBats, 26 Hits (5 extra base hits), 14 Runs, 7 RBI, 5 Walks, 3 Steals, 35 Strikeouts, .157 Batting Average, .193 Slugging Percentage

Ahhh, The Onion...

This is story on The Onion's website meant to be funny... but this product will probably exist not too far into the future. Worthy of note is the crawl across the bottom of the screen - one story that passes reads: "Shasta Soda Company unveils 'new look, same fucking disgusting taste' ad campaign." Fantastic! Ahhh, The Onion. It's always entertaining.


New Wearable Feedbags Let Americans Eat More, Move Less



One additional article of note (a real article... not from The Onion) can be found here. I always considered myself "evolutionarily evolved" compared to most of the people I have encountered... but I didn't know that it was actually because of my constant use of sarcasm. Check it out, it's been examined in a seemingly scientific manner!

Progress?

My goals for the week (here) may have been... a little on the ambitious side. With Thursday now in the books, the mid-point for the week has passed and I've barely scratched the surface. I have advanced one, possibly two of the projects at work, but the third is, shall we say, lagging behind. I haven't even touched my lab notebook, which was goal numero uno.

Including this post, I will have managed to put something on the blog on three of the four days of the week, but not quite what I had wanted. I am officially caught up on Lost, but Battlestar will have to wait for a while. Progress has been made (from 70% to start the week to 85% now) on the Lego: Indiana Jones game, but finishing it this week is a long shot at best.

With a busy weekend planned, I think the most reasonable thing to do is to just push the date for completion back to the end of the month. If I'm doing that, I will add - clean my apartment, get my car title/registration/driver's license bullshit taken care of and get some damn exercise onto that list. Blah, there's just so much work to do (at work) and I don't want to do any of it. Then that spills into the outside of work life. It may be time for some form of a vacation.

Por Favor

Whomever is using the landing between the third and fourth floors as a restroom - please stop.

Listen... Do You Smell Something?

It is so freaking quiet. Today is the first day of being alone in the laboratory for the week. When I took this post doc job in Feb of 2007, there were two other post docs and two graduate students (and myself) sharing two large labs. The other post docs moved on last fall and one of the graduate students (Tim, who will be spoken of in a post that will appear later in the week) completed his stay at the end of last week. No one has replaced these scientists, so the roster now just includes myself and one graduate student. This week however, my other colleague is out of town, which leaves me with just my own thoughts to keep me company during the work day.

I will attempt to use the quiet time to my advantage and call this a "catch up" week. I have become neglectful in several different aspects recently and I think that it's time to make up for it. The two areas that I have slacked on recently are my laboratory notebook (in dire need of attention) and this blog (as evidenced by the lack of new material the last few weeks). So, I'm going to set a few goals in "print" that I will attempt to make good on and anyone that reads this should feel free to pester the hell out of me to keep me on task.

Goals for the week:
1) Catch my lab book up to the current date
2) Make significant progress on all three projects I am working on in the lab
3) Post on this blog every day this week (or more frequently if time permits)
4) Catch up to the current episodes of Lost and Battlestar Galactica
5) Complete the Lego Indiana Jones Xbox 36o game

Yes I realize that two of those goals are totally lame (the work related ones of course), but they all need to be done! Luckily for me, by simply writing this, I am helping to fulfill one of my weekly goals. Progress!