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Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Fun with time

If you think of time as a "base 12" operation (number wise it is still base 10 numbers but bare with me) it makes a little more sense.

There are 60 seconds in a minute or 5 - 12 second groupings.

There are 60 minutes in an hour or 5 - 12 minute groupings

There are 24 hours in a day or 2 - 12 hour groupings.

7 days in week - you got me there.  Biblical I guess?

but 365 days is real close to 360 days or 12 - 30 day groups or 30 - 12-day groups

For a day there are 1440 minutes or 120 - 12 minute groups.

Maybe a week should be 12 days... with a 4 day weekend... come on science this sounds way better.

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Merry Christmas 2023

I was kicked by my Mom on Christmas day.  Yes a 94 year old woman in a wheel chair wanted to physically strike me because I wouldn't take her home.  But home is gone, sadly.  She isn't able to give herself the medicine she needs, nor is she able to make meals for herself, let alone a wheel chair being unable to make it through the hallways in the old house. The last 2 years have been a really sharp decline and it is so heart breaking to look in her eyes and see nothing.  She is a shell of her former self and it hurts being able to see her and know that there is just no way back to the way she used to be.  It also hurts when she kicks me.

Friday, October 27, 2023

New 5k PR

The new 5k PR is 25:15 set in 2022.  No new records so far in 2023.  I won't say that I have plateaued, but I definitely haven't got to train like I want to.  I have been doing more strength stuff though and even though I'm not getting the mile I feel like a stronger runner.  I just don't have the endurance... so I probably need to run more miles.  Well I have a couple of races left this year maybe, so I might be able to pull off that sub 25.

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

The Anti Hustle

Well there is a new term out there called quiet quitting and it is basically the antithesis to the Hustle mentality.  The let's do more, learn more and take on more responsibility mentality has given way to the "I'm good" mentality and I understand completely.  You see my family is full of hustlers and over achievers - people that started their own business, traveled around the world, gone back to school to get more and more education, and for the most part I followed similar paths. I took one of the hardest under grad majors in college, was willing to work whenever for my employers (including being locked in for 12 days once), go wherever was needed and learn what was needed.  All in the hopes that I would continue to ascend the ranks.  However, my ascension was a dealt a critical blow earlier in the year.   The plant manager was relieved of their duties and several people in the plant had mentioned that I should take the position.  I pondered on it, and long story short I decided that for the people that worked there and for my own benefit  - if I was going to work another 20 years - that I should go for it.  The bad news is that I was never offered the position.  Never interviewed. Never even asked what I thought should happen and I am the most senior person now at the plant.  Instead someone was brought from a completely different country, who was already a manger at another plant, and given this plant.  Within 3 months the production manager was fired in the name of "safety" and I vehemently disagreed with that decision.  So now I have gone from potential plant manager to person who doesn't get asked about any decisions that affect the plant.  And who gets most of the fall out... me. Unfortunately when people get fired they take all their experience and knowledge with them, and simply replacing a body doesn't replace the skills.  So 6 months later I'm still at the same job, basically zero prospects to improve my position as I've learned first hand and facing a decision.  And here is where things get tricky.  If I no longer like my job should I look for another job?  The problem is if I leave the hustle starts all over and quite frankly I am over the hustle of it all especially if there is nothing to gain at the end of the day.  My mentality has shifted to - what do I need to retire and it is actually a much more welcome idea than what do I need to accomplish to move up the ladder.  Heck I don't care about the ladder any more.  The only bad thing is if I keep doing my job as effective as I have been other people will continue to look good and benefit from my work.  Not a huge fan.  But by the same token I can't sink people because the would wind up sinking me.  So this no hustle mentality is really a fine line of push the ball down the field, just don't let it go backwards and use your position to fill your goals outside of work.  Don't make work your goal.  So what if you get a promotion, get moved up.  Are the making statues of you?  Are they writing books?  Who's reading those books or looking at your statue?  If it isn't something you truly enjoy, then why do it?  Well I need that money, yo. Right we still need to be employed and as awesome as it would be to just walk in and hand in the notice you really can't just quit to do nothing.  At least not with a family.  So can I eek out an existence here, not ruffle feathers, and just get to the finish line?  I mean once you come to the reality that your not going to be the CEO and I have no desire to be the CEO, you have to be content with what you are doing, but content isn't happy.  The bad thing is after you get to this point I don't know that you can be happy working.  I have a ton of other things I would rather do - run, work on my house, make trips.  I for sure don't want to miss anything my daughter is in, especially not for this place.  I don't want people to lose their jobs, but I also don't want to work myself to death.  The biggest  thing that I have noticed in the last 6 months is that no one is really interested in helping me.  People just want stuff from me.  But I want stuff for my self.  Mostly I just want to be free to do what I want to do, novel idea right?  If I start somewhere else the hustle comes back, which I wouldn't mind the hustle if it was something I really wanted to do.  Just right now, after 22 years of work and 5 years of education, I'm good.  I don't want to learn a new facility and new rules, I just want to focus on me and my family and what I want to do away from here.  If I could announce pro games and make a living I would do that.  I started doing high school last year and the response has been really amazing.  I have fun, and I find myself thinking about announcing stuff rather than other things.  It has been a welcome distraction from the stuff I have been dealing with for my mom and the work stuff.  Don't get me wrong, I am glad that I hustled as much as I did and I grateful to have a supportive wife that didn't complain and let me do what I had to do without making me feel bad.  But I feel bad about missing opening days, missing my son run in a local race or the first race of season.  I've been taking time in the morning to complete breathing exercises, do some yoga and lift some weights and I feel better about myself doing that than getting to work 15 minutes earlier.  I mean I'll put my time in, but with a phone I get messages and e-mails 24/7 so sometimes it is hard to switch off, but I try to only respond during work hours unless it is an emergency or one of the people who has helped me.  Well I that's enough for now.  I'll check in later and let you know how this new mental approach works.  Also sorry for the long paragraph, there should probably be a break in there somewhere...

Thursday, March 03, 2022

Travel Chronicles chapter 109

So this video got flagged on Youtube because I go a little in the weeds on vaccines.  Here's the thing, after a certain point of census in theory, when you push things out to the real world the theory gets replaced by data.  And for any data references I have mainly been using the Covid tracker over at World o meters - COVID Live - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer (worldometers.info)  They have all the data as far as new cases and deaths and it seems to track pretty closely with Johns Hopkins stuff but is a little easier to navigate for me.  So just basing some things from that DATA and drawing some conclusions besides the feel good stuff coming from the "consensus" I see that there was a spike in cases in late summer which is odd because more and more people had been getting the shots and as you go on the cases should become less if the vaccine works.  But there was a funny little caveat that they included with the vaccine that it wouldn't stop the spread, but would decrease the chances of death and severe illness.  Ok fine.  But normal vaccines stop stuff.  Polio vaccine - stops polio, small pox vaccine - stop small pox.  Covid vaccine - doesn't stop it necessarily.  And you can see that in the data.  But when you mention that it doesn't stop it and cases are still going up despite increased vaccines you get a warning for "misinformation" even though by all accounts the data says the vaccine is minimally effective against spreading it and there is absolutely no way to verify how sick someone would have gotten without it.  Would they have died? You honestly don't know.  I had Covid, I was sick for about 5 days. Never had a fever, never had the muscle aches, lost taste and smell and was tired.  That was it.  The big question to me from this video is why didn't we work on cures for the infection? Any time someone suggested something they were met with ridicule and venom - oh antibodies won't work just get the vaccine, invermectin is for parasites etc. I'm not saying I have the cure, but when there is only one solution for a global problem that seems ludicrous to me.  Anyway here is my back door attempt at this even though blogger is google and youtube is google.  Enjoy.

LOL it's too big.  Ok have to find another way.  hang in there.


Tuesday, September 07, 2021

Definitive Marvel Movie Rankings 1-25

So after the release of Shang-Chi I have decided to sit down and rank the Marvel movies in a definitive list.  This is the end all be all list for how the movies should be ranked.  Qualifiers - this is more about the story of the movies and how they relate, a little bit is recognized for nostalgia and more credit is giving for the movies that did the heavy lifting early on without a whole lot of cross over potential.  Here we go...

25) Thor the Dark World - face it, if you were going to rewatch any Marvel movie this is near the bottom.  How did they even get the ether into a stone?

24) Hulk - No jokes, not the same Hulk as the rest of the MCU.  There actually is a lot that may make it out of the this film - Abomination, Thunderbolt Ross, but as of now not a whole lot came out of this movie - including Edward Norton.

23) Iron Man II - First sequel of the MCU but gets kind of scattered in the story.  does introduce Black Widow.

22) Thor - Watch it again.  This movie just doesn't hold up. The kiss is cool though.

21) Black Widow - Ruined Task master, B.W. character was already dead, just severely mistimed. More of an origin story for her sister which no one asked for.

20) Captain Marvel - This movie would have been better if it wasn't all flash backy.  Also she comes off as a bit of a Mary Sue.

19) Guardians Volume 2 - Kind of a crazy story, I know it is comic booky, but the story is just so darn creepy.  Plus the first one was so good, but hey baby Groot.

18) Captain America the first Avenger - Let's face it, it was an origin story, the big bad was meh.  Cool stuff with Tony Starks dad, but does the time line fit for that?  Tony was born in the 70's so for his Dad to be working on stuff in the 40's would make him like in his 60's when Tony was born.  Oops.

17) Ant Man and the Wasp - Kind of required reading for End Game and a nice introduction of the Wasp, but who was he fighting here?  Everyone kind of ended up on the same side and Ant man ends up in the quantum realm.

16) Iron Man III - No real connection to the other films, depressed Iron Man isn't that fun to watch.  Kind of reminds me of the 5th Harry Potter film. Necessary, but you may not watch it again.

15) Dr. Strange - Crazy visuals, but an origin movie.  B.C. is awesome and embodies Dr. Strange, but the big bad - Dormomu ? is a little under developed. 

14) Avengers Age of Ultron - It's important to the future of the MCU, but fighting a robot doesn't have that satisfying feeling.  But hey Vision.

13) Black Panther - Once again this is about the Movie itself.  Michael B. Jordan is kind of the star of this movie and he is the bad guy.  The rules are a little confusing for the suit and how the power is transferred but BP is cool and the action is on point.

12) Captain America, Winter Soldier - Another Cap movie and coming to the realization that Bucky wasn't dead. Black Widow is in this one too.  Could move up, hey on your left.

11) Ant Man - Cool comic book character, more on the comedic side which a comic book movie should be.  New Powers and Hank Pym who is so crucial to a lot of Marvel Lore.

10) Spiderman Far from Home - No real cross overs, Sony takes a little better care of the individual character movies cause they have to, plus they are building the sinister 6. A little disappointing with the actual lack of a super big bad, but Jake G is pretty good here.

9) Shang-Chi and The Legend of the 10 rings - If you like choreographed fighting this is top notch for Marvel.  Like the story - it is a comic book movie after all, and I feel like he is going to be the leader of phase IV and what Marvel does going forward.  New Iron Man.

8) Iron Man - The original, started it all.  Character made it through and was instrumental to the whole story.  Probably not the best movie, but the importance and what it allowed is unmatched.

7)Spiderman Homecoming - Like I said Sony does a little better job and after the 3rd reboot of Spiderman I think they finally got it right, plus the Iron man cross over is awesome.

6)Avengers - The first team up movie, first look at Thanos, but no Spidey keeps this one down a little bit.  But still a great movie.

5) Thor Ragnarok - Let's call this the perfect amount of Hulk, hilarity and team upness. Asgard gets destroyed, Thor losses an eye real consequences.  Odin dies and the reference to Point Break never gets old.

4) Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 1 - The only Marvel film that was so good I had to see it twice it the theater.  The first real infinity stone movie, Thanos featured prominently, talking tree and racoon - how can that go wrong.  Also killer sound track, just everything about this movie is great.

3) Captain America Civil War - Airport sequence, Spiderman joins the MCU and Black Panther shows up for the first time.  Avenger on Avenger crime is real, and the cracks in the team that are left at the end of this movie allows Infinity war to happen.  Cap fighting Tony at the end, this movie does have a lot of memorable scenes.

2) End Game - Real consequences are finally delivered on.  It kind of undoes a lot of Infinity War, but we say farewell to Tony, Cap and Black Widow.  Well sort of Black Widow as she had the stand alone movie after this. But there was a ton of pay off, and it was well done. Also fat Thor.

1) Infinity War - A super hero movie where the bad guy wins. So much to finally payoff in this movie, the last big team up and all of the infinity stones are finally put together from 22 other movies.  Just so much build up to this movie that it was almost impossible to fail and there were real consequence for some - basically just Vision (and even he came back on Disney+ so who knows).

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Travel Chronicles Chapter 21ish

Talking about collective consciousness, different brain wave states, and how to get in the zone and postulating that perhaps being  in "the zone" is a link to the collective unconsciousness. 

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

New 5k PR

Picked this up on Sunday -


Didn't feel too bad afterward, and my average heart rate was 163 or so which was about 15 beats below my average when I ran in July, and this was about 1:30 faster.  The weather was about perfect though, maybe a little on the cool side, would have been good to have running sleeves instead of running with a long sleeve shirt.  Less sun though probably helped keep the heart rate down.  I was also probably 5-7 pounds lighter than I was in July so that should have helped.  Still need to drop about 20 more pounds, that should help get the time down more especially if I can hold on to muscle.  I think what I am doing is working just a matter of grinding some more and putting work in.

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Travel Chronicles Chapter 12


It's Chapter 12, even though I say 11.  Today we talk about morning routines.

My routine if I had time and wasn't rushed for anything:
1) Wim Hof Breathing.
2) 10 min. meditation
3) Cold shower (start warm and end cold)
4) Breakfast or skip this step for now
5) Yoga
6) Quick weight lifting

Travel Chronicles Chapter 11

Talking today about weight loss and a couple of things that have helped me lose 30 lbs. over 4 years and 17 lbs. over the last year.  TLDW:
- Be honest with how many calories you are actually in taking.
- Use more calories than you intake, but don't starve yourself.  Your body will actually burn up muscle first if you aren't using the muscles and preferentially hold on to fat (crazy right, come on body do what I want).
- Any weight loss is going to starting by changing your routine.  I hate the word diet, because those are temporary.  You got into the situation you are in because of how you are eating and how you are living.  If you want to lose weight and keep it off you have to make a lifestyle change.
- Fat comes off easiest with aerobic exercise or exercise where the heart rate is in Zone 2 -3. A high heart rate will push you anaerobic and it will just burn up glycogen stores.

 Part B Subset ii

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

Remember the #Hawkeyes

My Upward basketball season has just ended and this was one of the best teams I have had as far as kids listening and doing things and they just played as a team.  It was so heart breaking the way the season ended, we lost by 2 to the number 1 seed of the tournament and we were the 5.  The kids were in tears, Peach was in tears, I totally didn't cry.  I was close but I was just so happy with how hard the kids played that no matter the result I couldn't be upset.  You see  it was the second game we played that night, during the week and we did everything we could.  The game ended for us on a turnover well 2 turnovers actually as the game was tied with 30 seconds left and some how they other team got the ball and the best kid on their team got a free layup with 10 seconds left.  So I called timeout, and told we were going for the win, we were going to shoot a 3.  So I drew up a play where a kid would dribble left and hand it off to another kid and he would shoot it.  Well the one kid came up to early and the other kid threw it off his back and it went back court for a violation.  The moral of that story is - practice a desparation 3 point play so that the kids aren't caught off guard in the last 10 seconds of the season.
This team was special and I wrote a while ago about how a team becomes a special team and while I'm not sure how or when it happened this team definitely had that, and I wanted to foster that and keep it going as long as I could.  I have coached or assistant coached the last 8 or 9 years in upward, coached some civic basketball, and learned a lot along the way from other coaches and on-line and I don't think I could have got as much out of a team before this season.  I never really coached before 10 years ago, but have coached all the way up from T-ball, baseball, basketball, and even some flag football.  I do enjoy helping kids get better by teaching them what ever I can, but Upwards is a special kind of challenge because practice time is limited.  I had one other team that I felt somewhat comfortable yelling out plays, but this was the first time I ever accomplished it at the 3/4 level.  Not saying they executed the plays perfectly every time, but it kept me involved in the game and I think they got better at things as the season went on, and started expecting things.  Maybe I'm more organized now, but there was a feeling of something kind of organic and you could tell the kids were buying in.  We didn't really have a go-to-scorer per se that I could just get the ball to and say go get me a basket.  A lot of points came from our defense were, we would get a turnover or rebound and push the ball, but if we had to run a play or get someone a shot we did.  One game we came out and hit 3 or 4 jump shots early in the game and sometimes that is fools gold because jumpers don't always fall, especially in 3rd and 4th grade.  The well dried up.  I think we scored 10 in the first half total, after having 8 in about 3 minutes.  Then we got down 10, at 20-10 in the last period and some how, some way we managed to score 14 points and win by 4.  That was the last regular game before our Upward tourney and we had won 3 in a row.  One thing about Upward though is that sometimes you can get behind in the rotation if teams don't have the same number of players, and it is especially disadvantageous if you have more players.  I won't get into the details but basically if you have 8 players they play evenly, and if a kid was out one period he has to play the next period.  By having 8 kids you ensure that your best player is out at least 2 periods.  Well the first round of the tourney we play a team with only 8 kids, and they were all boys.  Usually that is a rotation loss.  But for the tourney we could manipulate the roster and I spent about 2 hours tinkering with rotations so that I didn't have all 3 girls on the floor at once (boys don't like to pass to girls at this level for some reason, so this would give them at least 2 options to pass), I had one of my two designated in bounders on the floor at all times, and I had my best lineup going into the last period.  That was the first time I have seen a team of 8 beat of team of 6, 15-14, 5 seed over the 8 seed.  And the other team had a chance at the end just one of our players made a great defensive play and stopped a layup.
So the next game we were matched up against a team that had a similar number of wins, but also had 9 kids.  This resulted in a rotation loss for them.  That is as simple as I can put it.  I think we won like 27-21.  Then we played the number 1 seed that same night, and if we had played them fresh I feel like we would have won instead of playing with an hour of rest after the first game.  We played a box and one defense, that we actually installed the game before after halftime.  It wasn't great but man was in effective.  We lost by double digits the previous time we played and this time we lost by 2 and had a chance to win at the end.  That is all you can ask for.  And I really can't stress that with limited practice time, how hard it is to install a defense let alone a gimmicky defense, but that just speaks to the specialness (not sure about that word) of this team.  I wish we could have gotten one final team picture, but everyone was kind of upset so it was definitely understandable that we wouldn't have wanted our picture taken.  The number one seed did end up winning 18-13 over the number 3 seed, so we definitely gave them a better game.  We were also down in the rotation 8 kids to 7, so their best player only had to sit out once, and they only had one girl.  Sometimes Upward doesn't get all of the fairness check boxes just right, but every once and a while you get a team that just comes together and can almost overcome any deficit.  Hope next year is just as good, can't wait.  Here is a picture of me and my main man Charlie.


Friday, March 06, 2020

Adult Convo with the boy

So the whole basketball thing for the high school is kind of blowing up and multiple parents are writing letters and voice their overall displeasure with the coach and his staff.  Shocker right?  So I have written a letter as well and I wanted to talk to Sampson first before submitting it.  So we talked and he read the letter and it was a good talk.  I talked about how I had to quit my senior year because of coaching, and that maybe we are just destined to never play a senior season.  He has played well though when he played, but a lot of lessons were learned from my time to help prepare him, where I had no help growing up and neither parent played sports so sports were not very important in my household.  Anyway he said he hated last year and he only gave the coach a second chance this year and kind of everything from last year was confirmed and he doesn't want to submit himself to the verbal abuse for another year, which I totally understand.  He is in a little different situation from me, the coach pulled me and another kid in at the beginning of the season and basically said we weren't going to play and we were wasting our time.  So after 4 games (all loses) and playing for a total of 2 minutes (scored though), I could see the writing on the wall and ended my season there.  It was also a pay for play school so rather than pay to sit, I left before having to pay.  Sampson's situation is actually entirely different, after getting some varsity time last year as a sophomore he started some as a junior and was the 6th man, he just can't get by the yelling and swearing and demeaning behavior of the coaches.  I completely respect his decision and wanted to make sure he was done and he laid out a good case for being done.  I told him to never say never, but in this case there is no glory or record to obtain so it is far better to spend his time doing something else.  Maybe next year he can help me coach Upward.  Even though I had some horrible experiences with basketball and it gets me again here with my son, I still enjoy the sport, enjoy watching it and enjoy helping so that kids get a chance to play.  Now the old Hawkeyes are still in the playoffs but as the 5 seed so we got some work to do, but hopefully we can get that dub in the first round and then get another dub an hour later.  Go Hawkeyes!!!

Thursday, March 05, 2020

Ugh

It's hard to describe that feeling were you have been gut punched and feel horrible about things, but the thing that caused the punch also creates a lot of doubt and questions.  So it is just like "I have to deal with this, but how."  So that is where I am right now, my boss or ex-boss was relieved of his job duties yesterday and he was a good boss.  I have had 5 bosses in my professional life, and he was definitely in the top 5.  Pretty easy math there.  Actually maybe I have had 6 bosses, but one was for around 6 months so not sure that counts, anyway he would still be top 5.  Honestly I wouldn't want to rank my bosses, but he was good.  I think Dale Clark is probably at the top of the list because he was very smart about what he was doing and always treated me well and allowed me to succeed and gave me opportunity to prove my self and improve myself.  Columbian Chemicals was an underrated stop on my employment path for sure.  Anyway today feels like there is a cloud hanging overhead.  Worry and uncertainty rule the day and thinking about what has happened has left me feeling very weird about my future and how things are going to be handled.  Just ugh, about the whole situation, about who is going to take over, about how much more work this will be, about how this may not have been completely thought out...

Season 7 continues...

Andy is now the new boss. 🙁  But funny thing is, two days in and Andy hasn't even mentioned the promotion to anyone working there.  The announcement was sent out in an e-mail.

Season 7

I figured out this weekend that my professional life is currently in season 7 of the office.  Michael has left (although, not by his own accord this time) and now we are leaderless.  I can only hope that Andy is not put in charge here, and if Andy is put in charge that there is a least an ass tattoo in the future that we can all enjoy.

Image result for nard dog tattoo

Finally Over!!

Is it just me or is it a horrible thing to celebrate the end of your kids season, maybe his career?  Well that is what happened on Friday.  You see I try not to live through my kids, but I want them to be happy more than anything, so when something makes them upset I want to see them get that out of the their life.  And that is where this season of basketball comes in.  The last two years really have been a horrible experience and Sampson has had to work his way up from the freshman team / reserve team to the varsity team without anyone really helping him or a coach really seeing the potential in him.  Which is unfortunate as the kid has achieved quit a bit athletically and has settled into a couple of sports, but he hit a couple of home runs over the fence in Bronco ball, he won the summer swim title for boys when he was 12, and he is a regional qualifying cross country runner in high school, ran a sub 5 minute mile in track, plus all the stuff he has done for basketball.  But he isn't crazy tall and he isn't an exceptional leaper, but that is about all he isn't.  As far as basketball is concerned he can pass, screen, shoot (when he is allowed), and is probably better on defense that anyone on the team from the aspect of position and hand placement.  He does have freakishly quick hands if you want to give him that, but it is hard to quantify those. Anyway he worked to get to varsity and I think he thought there would be some relief if he was playing just varsity and it didn't turn out that way.  In a way it was almost worse.  Last year he was the 7th man on a team that only went 6 deep.  But he played reserve and practiced as part of the white team.  So he was in line for a tongue lashing every once and awhile, but managed to stay out of the spot light most of the time.  As far as screwing up in a varsity game, well you have to be in to screw up, and the only time he got in a game at Shadyside he actually did pretty well and knocked down a 3.  But that was the only time all season he played in the first half and netted only 10 varsity quarters all season, no where near enough to letter apparently, even though he did all of the off season varsity summer leagues and varsity practices all season.  So that is a little ridiculous because if you aren't going to reward a kid with playing time, then at least reward them for the time they put in.  But not this coach.  This is where the problem is, and I have talked about it before.  How do you make a kid hate a sport they have been playing for 10 years?  Yell at them everyday in practice and never tell them they do anything right.  And the problem isn't that it is just him getting yelled at, it is everyone gets yelled at in practice.  There is no level you can ascend to in order to get away from the wrath and that is what I think he realized this year.  That even if he did start, even if he was a focal point of the team he was still going to get yelled at and berated for every little thing he did, so he has had enough.  Which is a damn shame because I have put a lot into encouraging and building him up over the last 10 years and this next year should be his best on the basketball court.  Plus the time his mother has put in at the concession stand and doing basically everything for the parent organization over the last 4 years.  But I honestly don't feel bad about him not wanting to play because it has been that miserable and that is terrible.  How can a coach make a kid want to walk away from something they have done for the last 10 years and how bad is it that I don't want him to play either.  I mean I felt good when this season finally ended and I know how competitive he is and how much he would love to play as deep into the season as possible, but the practices are so brutal and there is no glory in anything they are doing so being done is the better option.  How sad.  I'm competitive too, and when they step on the court there is some questioning of how bad do we want to win vs. how bad do I want this season to be over.  The last game of the season was kind of the high water mark for poor player development, talent evaluation and just overall spitting in kids faces from a coach.  There is one senior that starts and has been in the system for 4 years, there are 2 seniors on the bench, one that did all of the off season stuff same as Sampson and one that was injured the previous football season, so he was restricted medically but his brother played so he was there basically.  Anyway the one senior plays and Sampson is now the 6th man even though he was told he would start based on match-ups which I guess were never in his favor the rest of the season.  The last game he only plays 6 guys, now granted it was a 2 point game at half time, but right after half we commit 8 turnovers in the third.  At some point Sampson came in, but he was the only one.  The other two seniors never came in until there were 40 seconds in the game and Sampson and the other senior had fouled out.  40 seconds. And you know what the coach posts on the way home on the bus:


Seniors you will be missed.  Apparently they were already missed because he couldn't find them to get them in the game.  Now the bad thing is the senior night game (which the seniors should have started but didn't because that is another thing this coach doesn't get) the guys played a good bit and at one point 3 senior boys (minus the starter, I mean why wouldn't you put all four seniors out there at one time for a nice moment, but no he couldn't do that either) where on the court together.  And they won by 38.  So don't you think that would register that the more rest the starters get, the fresher they are at the end and just in general during the game and the more engaged the team is and the better they play.  I mean if the abuse in practices was leading to this display every night I could kind of justify it, but it was a fluke game, a one off, that will probably never be repeated for the rest of his tenure which I hope is over actually so that Sampson would get to play his senior year.   I know you never say never, but at this point right now I hope he doesn't play and I hope 4 seniors that were on varsity and about 3 other players don't come back so he realizes you can't treat people like that.  Especially when IT ISN'T WORKING.  You have to see that the results you get are from what you put in, and we were 13-11 and probably should have won another 4 or 5 games and still been playing, but not the way this team was coached.  1960's offense, no transition, and only one kid is allowed to shoot and he only shoots 30% on a good day, makes no sense.  Maybe God can intervene some how, I hope so.

Monday, February 17, 2020

Spot Starts

Whelp this season continues to get worse.  Definitely the least enjoyable season I have ever watched my son play, but part of that, well actually the whole thing is coaching.  He got to start 2 games in a row due to suspension and he was told that he would be in the starting lineup depending on situation, but...  It seems coach has found someone else to start and he is back on the bench.  It's cool that he got the start, but we lost both games, on the road.  That may play a small part in it, one game an opposing player scored 50 points, and E guarded him for about 21 of those points, but they were pretty much all jumpers, most off the dribble and sometimes he had 2 or 3 hands in his face.  He certainly deserved the 50 (well actually 49 because one of the officials called a 2 a 3).  The second game we lost by 40, and I called it 12 minutes into the contest, sadly.


The other team ran and ran like crazy and we never got back.  Now to me that is game plan, you have to know how a team wants to play going in, and try and take away what they want to do and we didn't.  So we lost.  By 40.  This was actually the OVAC first round and we ended up as the 3rd seed, which was a little surprising, but Sophie was upset because now we have to have a concession stand on Friday.  I mean it's like we didn't realize there was more work on the line for Sophie, come on boys you could have played harder.

Anyway so now we are playing at home against the Team that E got his first start against (see earlier post).  This time however, he won't start.  Not because he hasn't played well or done his job, but well I don't know why.  Last time we were missing the tall kid, this time our point guard is out, but we won last time and if you were going to give him the start then, wouldn't it make sense to start him now?  Honestly this season is so hard to figure out, but I knew he wouldn't start.  And it isn't like him starting the last 2 games is the difference, the other kid who would start also started the last two games due to suspensions.  I'm guessing we lose by 5, E says it will be over double digits.

Update: we lost by 6, but were down 12-1 after 1.

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Back to the Bench

Welp that lasted all of two starts.  Now one of the boys who was done for the season may not be done and as much as I want my son to start, I don't want to sound like someone down playing another person's motivation or ability to play or the risk, but... If the answer to what you have done to yourself is to have something surgically repaired, putting it off for the glories of high school basketball may not be worth it.  Now there is something to be said for gutting it out and I could understand if we were undefeated and had a shot at all the championships and stuff, but we are 9-7 right now, can't win the buckeye 8, probably won't make the OVAC top 4, and in all likelihood unless something drastic with the coaching philosophy changes we are probably headed for an early exit in the sectionals.  So unless you were playing for a scholarship or maybe a school record, which I don't think either are on the line, it's probably best to pack it in and call it a career.  Now would I tell my own son this. abosolutely.  There is basically nothing to be gained and a life full of potential pain or limited range of motion in one arm on the line.  You only get to do this life one time, and you only have the body you were born with so you need to take care of it.  That is my advise, just kind of unfortunate what has happened and how it might play out.  E has also had an ear infection and missed the last game so he might have gotten bumped from the lineup anyway.  Hopefully he can still play and contribute.

Update:  Well the boy with the injured arm is done, but not without the coach asking him to stay.  Insert eye roll.  So E missed one game due to an ear an infection and the coach held him out the entire first quarter even though we were losing 12-6 at one point.  Must have been concerned for his well being even though the boy with the shoulder problems missed 2 straight games, and came right back into the starting lineup and played probably about 25 minutes.  Oh and the one kid who missed a week and a half with ham string issues came right back to the starting lineup and played damn near every minute of two back-to-back losses of 30+ and 20+.  Honestly I have no clue what this guy watches during games and his main assistant is about a joke.  Oh the game we were behind, when E came in we went on a 7-2 run and got the lead, now he didn't score, but tell me that he didn't make a difference.

Tuesday, February 04, 2020

Defensive Basketball Tips

So I saw a video on line and while I agree with some of the concepts there are other that I think are wrong.  Defense for basketball is one of the hardest things to get right, but oh what a difference it can make if you understand defense.  For one it is difficult to practice, everyone can dribble and shoot on their own but no one works on defense by themselves.  A lot of times we give credit to people for being "good" defenders when they are simply very active and maybe even fast, but don't necessarily use correct or good technique.  Plus how often do you hear when watching a game that a player is a fantastic positional defender?  Not exactly the flashyist comment is it?  So let's start with the very basics.

BASICS

See the ball - never turn your back to the basketball especially on defense.  good offensive players will take advantage.
Try to keep your back to the basket.
Stay between your person and the basket.
Bend your knees and keep your butt down, hands out when in a stance.
Slide your feet - basically don't cross your feet or a good offensive player will go right by you.

So that is what I try to get my elementary kids to do to start with.   If you master these concepts you at least aren't a space cadet on the defensive end.  So then how do you become a "good" defender?

MODERATE

Talk - always communicate with other players about where the offense is and any screens.
Ball - you - man - This concept keeps you in a position where one - you see the ball and the person you are guarding, and two - you are in a position to defend a pass to your person.
Know personnel - this is a little higher level concept, but if you are guarding a shooter you need to be close to that person if they are away from the basket.  If someone is not a great shooter you don't have to guard them that closely away from the basket.  This will also determine if you need to try and get over screens (good shooter) or can go under a screen (bad shooter).
When trying to block a shot be the second person off the floor.  If you don't do this you will constantly be falling for fakes and be out of position.

HIGHER LEVEL STUFF BUT REALLY SHOULDN'T BE

When guarding a right handed player you should challenge a shot with your left hand.  This is a concept that is lost on players or never taught to them, but makes sooooo much sense.  If you try to block a shot with the right hand on a right handed player, your entire body has to rotate or slide over to where you are no longer if front of the player.  If they faked the ball and you bit on the fake they will be able to go left with very little resistance because you are horribly out of position.  This is why left handed players have an advantage because their instinct is to block the shot with their strong hand and it happens to line up with right handed players, so they are able to stay in front of the offensive player the entire time without getting badly out of position.  Sometimes it is hard to tell if a left handed player is good at defense, because they have a natural advantage.
Never try to steal the ball from a good ball handler when the ball is in their hands.  They are too good at dribbling and by waving your hands your feet will stop moving or you will get off balance and they will expose you.  Be patient against a good ball handle and be content to make them work hard or travel the furthest path to the basket.  "You reach, I teach" is a favorite motto of good ball handlers.
Keep your hands at ball level.  If a player is dribbling you don't have to worry about blocking a shot so your hands shouldn't be up in the air.  You should be worried about them passing the ball, though.  If they are dribbling hands should be out, palms up.  If they have the ball in a triple threat, hands should be out to the side preferably with the hand to guard the shot forward towards the ball handler.  If they raise the ball to shoot or pass, the defenders hands should go up.  If they have already used their dribble, you can move in extremely close so that passing angles are taken away, just don't get beat on a back door or give and go, you still have to stay on balance and in front of the offensive player.
When there is a lot of distance between you and a ball handler you should flatten out.  If you have a shooting hand forward (and by extension a foot forward) a good offensive player will attack the front foot to get you to open your hips.  So if you don't give them a direction they have to pick a direction and you can easily slide over and take a charge if they drive at you.  Ideally by being flat (both feet the same distance from the ball handler) the ball handler will stop their forward progress and you can assume a more natural defensive stance.  If they are still coming at you while flat they will have to take a much wider path in order to make it around you without charging.  At that point you should have help or be able to easily drop back to pick them up. Always start to their strong hand and if you can, keep the ball centered on your body from a position stand point.  This is where quicker defenders have an advantage.
When guarding the ball prior to a dribble keep the foot forward that matches up with their shooting hand.  So for a right handed shooter you want your left foot towards the shooter, but outside of their stance or at least outside the ball.  The reason for this is, if they still try to drive right, they have to go around your foot which will give you a chance to drop your hips and still be in front of them on a drive.  Ideally they will be forced to go left, but if they pull up for a shot you will be directly on their shooting hand.  The key thing here is to not switch which foot is forward with out the ball handler committing to dribbling in that direction on a hard drive.  If they are just sliding right or left you want to slide with them but still in a position to challenge the shooting hand.  Why move your right foot forward to keep someone from going left if they shoot right handed?  They will be able to shoot right over top of you because you aren't in a position to block or challenge the shot effectively.

Friday, January 31, 2020

Tales from practice

So two things here.  One, I guess they were running a fast break drill, and in the drill the point guard was furthest back, there were two wings and one post player that was closest to half court to start (makes sense because on a break most of the time the post players are close to mid court...).  The formation proceeds to the front court and the point guard I guess throws it into the lane to the post player with the wings going to the 3 point line (this at least makes sense).  Fast forward to the next day and in a game situation a break occurs (except now there is no post in front of everyone, weird), well the wings go to the 3 point line and now the coach tells them they are wrong.  They should have went to the paint first.  Which is correct, but in the drill the previous day the wings were stopping at the 3 point line, so.... what are trying to accomplish with these drills? 

Two, a player gets the ball swung to them at the 3 point line, player takes the shot.  Coach "that is a horrible shot".  Now we are teaching kids that open 3 points shots after a swing is bad shot?  He was supposed to throw it in the post.  And I wonder why we are 1-3 in the last 3 post seasons.

Why Coaches Shouldn't Dress Down Players in Public

So this hits a little close to home and is exceptionally discouraging.  Let me start with what happened then give the reasons for why this is a bad idea especially for a coach to do.  During one of the recent games the coach on E's team got really mad at a play and started yelling "he sucks, he sucks" while standing on the sidelines. Now I didn't see it, but Sophie saw it and she is always defensive about her kid so she assumed he was talking about her son.  So she files that display in her memory bank.  Well we win the game, E has 5 steals, and manages to sink 2 clutch free throws to put us up 4 with less than 2 minutes to play.  Not a great game but good enough to help the team win.  The next day he says he is done with basketball and is going to bowl next year.  Mind you he is a teenager, but this is coming after a game the week before where he said he finally enjoyed basketball again, and the team goes 2-0 in his 2 starts. So Sophie calls the coach out and he apparently cops to saying that about his own player in the middle of a game in front of his team, directly in front of our fans and across from the opposing team student section.  Now if Sophie saw it, you know there was more than her that saw it too.  In this day and age of social media a coach lambasting a players ability is going to be captured and shoved in that kids face.  I think it is totally ridiculous that a coach would say anything negative about a kid's playing ability during a game, let alone a kid on his team.  I can understand correcting a mistake or pointing out a play that could have been made (that's called coaching), but to throw your hands up in the air, and strut back and forth yelling "He Sucks, He Sucks!!" is beyond terrible, it isn't coaching because you aren't making anyone better by doing it.  What are those other kids on the bench thinking?  What are the parents thinking (glad it's not my kid... this time)? What are the other fans thinking? "wow if this guy thinks his own players suck, maybe we can win".  Then you have kids who aren't playing and just watching for the other team, but they know these players, they have grown up with each other they have competed against each other in other sports, and they know how to communicate with each other.  And if one of those kids could have got a video and posted to social media imagine the embarrassment that kid is going to go through at their own school amongst their peers.  Now allegedly that isn't what happened, but even having this as a possibility is unacceptable in my mind.  When you are the coach of a team it is your job to protect these kids from the outside.  You have to have the mentality that everyone in that locker room is not only on the same side, but there has to be a united front against the opponent, their fans and sometimes even your fans.  You have to be willing to defend the kids and any mistakes they make especially if you leave them in the game.  What sense does it make playing a kid that you think "sucks" and then if they make a mistake leave them in?  Doesn't that just make you look stupid?  Well someone once said that stupid is as stupid does and I have about had my fill of stupid.

I think the most frustrating part, at least as a parent, is that I have invested so much time in helping him get better and building his confidence.  I compare it to building a building one confidence brick at a time and every good game, good practice, learning-something-new, backyard game we play is a brick that goes into building up this structure of confidence that the kids has.  Then you have a coach that instead of continuing to build the confidence structure so that these kids can go out and compete with their full skill set, he comes in with the wrecking ball of criticism  that is capable of destroying multiple levels confidence in one fell swoop.  Shooting - No, you can't do that!! Pass it to the tall kids!! Driving to the basket - That's not your F'ing job!!!  I mean it takes so much just to get a kid to be able to play at a varsity level, and to have a kid feel like they shouldn't be playing because of their coach is a travesty.  Most kids don't even want to play sports these days because there is too many other things to do.  I remember one play at summer league where E got the ball and took off with it down the middle of the court and drew a foul.  I said "great job, see when you take something good happens".  His coach said something to the effect of that was a terrible play and he got bailed out.  I mean this is completely ridiculous right, how can a player get any better if he isn't allowed to do anything?  At least bowling won't be like this.

Friday, January 24, 2020

Hip Dislocation of Aught 20

So my mom decided it would be interesting to see what would have if she dislocated her hip.  On the 15th she was in her bathroom and she said she reached to get something for her hair and she felt her leg give out and next thing she knew she was on the floor and her leg didn't work.  So she spent the next hour or so crawling on her back to a phone in her bedroom.  Did I mention she just turned 90?  Anyway she found a way to knock the phone down and call 911.  Well the 911 operator calls my brother too because he thought that was his mother.  [not sure exactly the timeline but Jim also heard the calls over the scanner and headed out as well, I think he may have actually beaten Bill there so not sure what he was doing] The EMS arrived and took her to Wheeling.  Someone called Deena and she called me to let me know Mom had fallen, it wasn't until around noon that I found out she was going to have to have "surgery".  And I put "surgery" in quotes here because no one really knew what was wrong or how they were going to treat her, but as it turns out the hip reduction as they call it is capable of being done by pulling the leg/hip back into place without cutting.  Well I didn't know that at the time so I left work and went to the hospital.  All indications were that the procedure would take place around 4:30PM.  But then we had to wait for the doctor to get there so 5:30.  Then we had to wait for some OR rooms to clear out 6:15.  In total the actual procedure lasted about 2 minutes.  I know right.  So she was done by 6:30 and I think in her room by a little after 7 or 7:30.  Jim and Carol had stayed through the procedure and then left.  Bill had left before I even got there because he had to go check on his building.  You know the building that gave life to him apparently as that was more important that whatever was going to happen to his mother.  I stayed with her until about 9 and then headed home and would come back the next day to get her discharged.  Well that took forever for some reason.  The doctor saw her at 11 and then it took another 4 hours to get out of there.  Then we had to go out to Beallsville to get clothes and the dog. 

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

E's first start

January10, 2020.  E made his first varsity basketball start and had to guard one of the best players in the OVAC.  They did run doubles at him every time he got the ball, so he didn't have to guard him on an island, but he was wore out in the first half.  Normally the coach will pull a player if they have 2 fouls and he got his second foul with about 2 minutes to go in the half.  As soon as he got the foul he made his way to the bench and was like signalling that he had 2 and he should sit because of that, not because he was gassed.  Anyway they did win and the reason he got the start was because our good 6'5" guy has some leg issues and is out for 2 games.  Our point guard tore his shoulder during the game though (it was a ligament or something to be technical), but now he is out too.  So E should be starting the rest of the season.  I told him, we'll see but just in case I did record the intro.  Pretty neat and I am happy for him because he has worked incredibly hard the last 3 years, well 10 years really, to get to this point.

Waking the Dragon

Poking the bear, let sleeping dogs lie, there are all kinds of euphemisms about not angering your opponents and this is a lesson I have taken to heart but is a story for another day as today's story is about Peach getting woke up.  Yesterday she played basketball against the hated UL Jets, well maybe that is a little strong but they did run the score up on our varsity girls to the tune of a 50 point victory where they left starters in until about 3 minutes left in the 4th (also a story for another day), they aren't great but Peach was feeling a little nervous and so was I since her team would be missing it's best player.  Well she did a great job running the point and got several good looks for her teammates, but late in the game, and I am talking less than a minute left and down by 20 UL decides to press.  Well they get a couple of turnovers but, the deficit is just too large at this point.  Anyway Peach either steals the ball or breaks the press I can't remember completely and she is breaking away but there is a girl running her down and she steals the ball.  Well she is mad already because during the press they are grabbing and holding her and the refs aren't calling anything and this girl stealing the ball is the last straw.  I did yell behind you but it was too late, so not on Dad.  Anyway when the girl steals the ball the breaking point is reached, and I hope I can get the video some day but right at that point the dragon gets woke up and Peach goes diving after the ball and takes the girl down.  Totally a foul on Peach and probably a border line technical foul, but the game is out of hand.  Well they get the ball and are bringing it up and she is in full defense mode.  We are playing a 2-3 zone at this point, but she is out front on the zone and she is fully engaged - hands out - fired up.  I told her I wished the girl had fired her up in the first quarter.  She plays again tonight against a team that they had to beat at the buzzer the first time they played.  Still don't have their best player back, but if the dragon is out...Ooooo who knows.  I would like to see it, but I will be watching E make his second ever varsity start.  Once again another story.

Tuesday, January 07, 2020

The Review of Skywalker (spoilers for Episode IX below...)

So I saw the new Star Wars movie over the weekend - The Rise of Skywalker.  My big take away is that the sequel trilogy on the whole was not overly well done.  Kind of a large cash grab that paid stuff off with nostalgia and some call backs to beloved characters.  The biggest difference between this one and any of the other trilogies is the story isn't as strong.  Starting with "The Force Awakens" these Star Wars movies kind of want to throw gender in your face and show you how awesome women are, and Women are awesome, but that isn't a story in itself.  The original trilogy is a little different because it started off as a single movie and then kind of blew up and they had to make more.  So it was all self contained in the first one but there was room to grow for sure because Luke never even used the light saber in battle in the first movie.  So the next 2 movies kind of grew the narrative that was going to go back to the well so to speak to and blow up the death star again, but there was going to be some real conflict between Good and Bad and the Good was going to be pretty decimated after the second movie and then third would be a full redemption story.  Anyway they pulled it off and in my youth Return of the Jedi was about the only movie I would even rent to watch when we went to go pick out a movie, it was just that good to me, but we are here to discuss the new movie so... This movie was no where near as good.  I think part of that comes from the main character Rey and her development. In the first movie she is already beating a Sith lord with a light sabre and she hasn't even been trained.  By the third movie of the original trilogy Luke was a Jedi badass and everyone was willing to follow him into war, but he wasn't great from the get-go and that made him more relatable and believable.  Rey has basically never had a set back, and I don't think she has lost a one-on-one battle.  She is also so awesome and scary that Luke doesn't even want to train her in the second movie.  Then you get to the third movie and the shtick kind of continues.  You see Rey has never been knocked down a peg by her opponent.  The one time she faced Snoke in the second movie he ended up dead, and you are kind of left to the conclusion that Kylo did that, but did he...  So now you get to the third movie and the main big baddie has already been beat, but wait no he hasn't.  It turns out that the real bad guy was Emperor Palpatine.  From the first 6 movies. But not 7 and 8.  No in 7 and 8 he is never mentioned, like he was actually dead from episode 6, but it turns out he wasn't.  And the reason is...well the movie never gets into that, it just makes a vague reference to episode 3 when he is talking about unnatural means that the Sith can use to stay alive.  But no details of how this works.  He at least is in a weakened state so there is that and from what he says it's kind of like Snoke wasn't real in that he wasn't really a separate Sith just like a puppet of Palpatine, so the law of 2 Sith is preserved with Palp and Kylo during the series.  Whew right?  It still doesn't make sense though because one thing the other trilogies did was tie things to the end ahead of time.  Remember all the subtle holograms of the death star in the prequels.  This series not only has no hint of Palp being alive, but there was also no hint that Rey was his Granddaughter.  Yep, that gets revealed about half way through the movie.  The only thing that saves the movie as watchable is that it is moving so fast that you don't have time to question things while it is actually going on.  But the movie itself basically makes the second movie in the series a waste.  For one, in that movie it was stated that Rey's parents were just junk traders, but this reveal of Pappy Palpy at least makes more sense because of how powerful she was.  Even though the off spring of someone who was actually conceived by the force still needed training for like a movie and half and even at the end of the second movie got his ass kicked.  I think part of the problem with this series is that you had two different directors and two different stories trying to get told and I don't think the second movie fit the story of the first and third.  And they wanted to have 3 different directors, yeesh.  I think the series would have been better if they would have had the commitment of 1 director for all three movies and if the story and been developed and written for all 3 movies first so that cast, director, production, and crew were all on the same page going towards the same goal I think it would have had a different feel and been a better product and probably made more money.  They did tie a bow on the whole series but after 9 movies (and then some if you count the extra ones) I want complete story closure, kind of like Harry Potter or the Marvel series of movies.  The one bad thing about Star Wars is that there are hardly any consequences in the movies (except for in revenge of the Sith where every Jedi but 2 end up dead).  Through the prequels the only real loss (excluding all the Jedi in ep. 3) is Qui-gon and we didn't even know he existed until the beginning of the movie.  Well I guess Padme too, but we knew she was going to die.  In the original trilogy, Obi-won and Yoda die, but not really and I think one E-wok.  In this movie Kylo is killed, but then saved, Leiah dies, but she is dead in real life so not a shocker here (even though she some how survived in space without a suit or anything in the 8th movie, hmmm), chewy gets killed, but then it turns out he was on a different ship, so he is ok, and Rey dies at the end only to be saved by Ben who then dies in her spot.  Oh and also C3PO is going to have his memory erased to help move the plot along, but then R2 backs up his memory, so even that is saved.  Not even the millennium falcon gets destroyed and that is just a ship.  I mean I guess the rebels lost a lot of people in the last movie when all of their ships were destroyed, but those were kind of nameless faceless people so they don't count.  Anyway it is a watchable movie, but not one you are going to rent endlessly.  Maybe I buy it, but these last 3 are just not the old movies at all.  Overall it is maybe a 3 out of 5, but story telling gets a 1 out of 5, and answering all the questions the movies created on their own gets a (-1) out of 5.  One final thought, I will say that the actors did a good job, doing what they were asked to do, it is just that what they were asked to do could have been so much better.  How awesome would it have been for Luke to come back in Force Awakens in the snow fighting scene and he pulls the light sabre out of the snow.  He would battle Kylo for a minute or so, the entire planet cracks in half and ends the battle and they all leave of the

Thursday, January 02, 2020

Wim Hof and MAF training

I have started doing the Wim Hof breathing method.  Basically you take 30 deep breathes without fully exhaling and at the end of the breaths you hold your breath after the last exhale.  You can hold for a minute or minute and a half or even longer if you can.  The idea is that when you are holding your breath there is a blood chemistry change as the blood is becoming saturated with CO2.  Right after the deep breathing the blood and tissues should be saturated with oxygen, which will gradually get exchanged for carbon dioxide.  Allegedly this is making the blood more alkaline, but wouldn't a carbon dioxide reaction (even in blood) make an acid?  Regardless the pH of the blood is changing through this interaction and is supposed to help fight off infections.  At least it is supposed to when you do it in conjunction with taking cold showers / ice baths.  Kinda sounds like it sucks right?  It isn't that bad, but finding a time to take cold showers can be a little difficult depending on what you have going on.  I also have decided to not do the snooze alarm any more.  I just get up, and go and do the breathing first thing.  Trying to stay in an alpha state right after I wake up.  I have found that by completing routine tasks this is made easier.  Any interaction with a digital device may through you out of this state.  After I do the breathing I will meditate for about 10 minutes, then try and take that cold shower.  So I have about 30-40 minutes tied up in this new routine but it does make me feel better, at least when I get enough rest.  Trying to do this on a short night's sleep is not advisable.  I have also kind of soured on the MAF training.  I think it is a great thing to do, but I don't think I am a good enough runner to try this.  I think this is more for people that already know how to run, because I find that my efficiency is very low running at the rate to keep my HR low.  And I know that the idea is you are training the aerobic engine to be better so that it will work more efficiently when needed, but man is it hard.  I tried to incorporate some interval training back in this week and I just didn't see the benefit, but I did seem much slower than before when I was doing intervals, and I think this is because I haven't been pushing myself and I'm not that good of a runner to start with.  Now one day after that I did try a longer run and ran with some pace at the end.  That felt a little better at the faster pace, but couldn't keep the HR down.  So I am going back to the drawing board to try and run with more speed to try and get my form fixed and then maybe go back to the low HR method.  Anytime I am running slow though I will try and keep my HR down as much as I can.

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Why the Browns will beat the Broncos and 538 knows nothing... [remember to delete this if it goes badly]

So everyone is pretty much dog piling on the Browns right now because they were supposed to go to the super bowl and be great and all that.  Well as a Browns fan / watcher for the last 19 years I can tell you that expectations were to just have a winning record.  You see you have to start there first.  You can't go from 0-16 to the Super Bowl, doesn't work that way.  Sure the hype is great, but those kind of expectations are completely unrealistic.  The Browns intentionally tanked for 3 or 4 seasons.  The other 15 were just an unhappy coincidence.  [Question: if you are trying to be bad and you succeed at it, are you successful for failing intentionally? Answer: I guess so if you have success intentionally afterward].  But there is a process to complete (thanks 76ers) to go from nothing to champion.  I have picked the 76ers as my pick for the championship in the NBA this year, but it has been a 7 year process to get here.  Same with the Browns.  If you say 1-15 was the start we are in year 4 and are trying to win.  So what has gone wrong (besides officiating), well how about a new coach and the schedule.  If you have followed the Browns for any amount of time you know that the schedule never favors them.  Anytime they have a chance to be good, they are playing at odd times with long trips across the country usually followed by a bye at an inconvenient time.  So this year when I looked at the schedule I thought, wow they let the Browns have a bye in the middle of the season, what luck.  But the teams that they played through the first 8 games would include 2 trips out West, only 1 division game (on the road no less), and playing both super bowl teams from last year.   So as game number 8 approaches we are looking at that second trip West to Denver to play in the altitude.  ESPN says Denver has a 60% chance to win and 538 says Denver is at 53%.  I legit think the Browns are a 9 win team, still.  Maybe thought they were an 11 win team at the beginning of the year, but they would have to run the table now, which is possible.  Here is the problem though.  The Browns have the same number of wins, the quality of the wins is about the same, but the difficulty of opponents for the Browns so far has been insane.  They have played 2 undefeated teams, 3 division leaders, five teams with at least 5 wins.  That is crazy in 7 games.  The only garbage team they faced was the Jets without their starting QB and they won by 20.  They also are one of the Titans victories, but the Titans seemed especially fired up in that first game, and that game was close before the screen touchdown at the end of the third, but then Titans have sucked the rest of the season and actually got shut out by the Broncos.  I think the Titans kind of blew their load in the first game so to speak, because they absolutely haven't been able to pull it together.  The Broncos though, have lost to the mighty Bears, Raiders, Jags so far this season, while only managing to eek a second win against a horrible Chargers team.  So why do I think the Browns should win?  Well they are relatively healthy at this point, while the Broncos will be playing their back up QB and their #1 pick from 2 years ago is out on defense, plus they traded away one of their better receivers last week.  But these sites are still picking the Broncos?!?!  I don't get it.  I know the expectations were sky high, but right now the Browns have 3 games at the end of the season against teams that haven't won a game yet.  Would the model be different if the Browns were 5-5?  But you know what.  According the to betting sites the Browns are favored by 3.  Take that for data...
Edit: I didn't delete this, but damn we still lost.  24-19. We did beat the 6 win Bills though the following week.