67 thoughts on “May 9, 2013: Productivity”

  1. Well, to add to my travel woes, I have turned up sick, possibly food poisoning. I'm not very good at this international travel stuff, although I am fortunate that I have some amoxicillin with me because we thought my daughter might have had scarlet fever just before we left. (she didn't, but I got the prescription anyway.)

    1. This was pretty much Mr. NaCl's (unintentional) weight loss plan in the Peace Corps: eat street food, get sick. Hope you feel better soon!

      2. I'm hoping it's something that the antibiotic will take care of. I do feel better this morning at least, so there's that.

  2. So if you had a choice, would you want the presale code for Josh Groban or The Eagles?

    I know it's not a choice, you'd want both! Here you go.

    Josh Groban "In the Round" October 19th. Presale valid today 5.9.13: LUCKY

    The Eagles September 18th. Presale valid 5.10.13: HISTORY

    1. These are also the top two cheese-producing states, with Wisconsin having the edge in terms of quantity.

        1. Having grown up milking cows, I think that's a totally reasonable correlation.

      2. I would never have guessed that New Mexico would have been at 7% of the nation's cheese production.

      2. hj, I thought you'd like to know that this map shows up on my Feedly rss reader for today's CoC entry- well, I got a kick out of it, anyhow.

    3. I prefer to think of it as 31.3M more people, 57 more bars.
      Each of those 57 bars serves 550,000 people*.
      (Each of the first 3043 bars serves 1,800*.)

      *Minus teetotalers, minors, pregnant women, the incarcerated, and the medically incapacitated.

    3. Read down the right side of Delmon's Abilities- Weaknesses-Summation paragraphs- priceless.

    4. Five for five. All great.
      I think my favorite is Pence's Strengths. The ellipsis.

    1. This is hypnotic. I keep watching, trying to come up with some explanation for Ovechkin's complete nonchalance. It looks like he was paid off. Even lazy players generally feign effort.

      1. Nonchalance overstates the effort. It really does look like the controller disconnected.

  6. This is classic:

    We lost on Monday night. RT @twins: Looking for the sweep of the Red Sox, the #MNTwins send Kevin Correia to the mound tonight at 6:10 CT— Glen Perkins (@glen_perkins) May 9, 2013

    2. Uh oh. I hope Perk knows that messing with Pravda can get you in big trouble.

  7. Some things never change, some things do.

    No one can ever accuse umpire Angel Hernandez of making a dubious call to hasten the conclusion of a baseball game.

    Well, now they can.

    Hernandez is reputed around the league to be an umpire who yearns for the spotlight.

    yaaay.

    3. I think they should take out the inconclusive language in the replay rules. Make the best call you can on the field, then if it goes to replay, use all the evidence you have and make the best call. Don't hide behind "the video was inconclusive." Also, if they are going to use video replay, the video replay official should really be someone who wasn't on the field and isn't biased towards upholding an incorrect call.

      1. MLB's response is about as bad as I expected.

        “By rule, the decision to reverse a call by use of instant replay is at the sole discretion of the crew chief. In the opinion of Angel Hernandez, who was last night’s crew chief, there was not clear and convincing evidence to overturn the decision on the field. It was a judgment call, and as such, it stands as final.

        “Home and away broadcast feeds are available for all uses of instant replay, and they were available to the crew last night. Given what we saw, we recognize that an improper call was made. Perfection is an impossible standard in any endeavor, but our goal is always to get the calls right. Earlier this morning, we began the process of speaking with the crew to thoroughly review all the circumstances surrounding last night’s decision.”

        1. In the end, this doesn't really bother me that much. Situations like this were inevitable--replay doesn't eliminate controversy, it only seems to intensify the controversy when an incorrect call is made on replay.

  8. So . . . May 18. Something is happening, right? Rails & Ales, in conjunction with Art-a-Whirl, looks like an interesting option. Or, as was mentioned a few days ago, if it's an evening-ish gathering, the venue should probably be a place with a tv.

  10. So it looks like I was turned down for two positions, not just one. I know both people who got the positions, and they're both more qualified with me and I'll think they'll do great. So now it kind of feels like I had no shot at either job unless they came drunk to their interviews.

    Hopefully my successful interview will help in the future.

    1. dude. Bummer. But keep swinging for the fences. Chicks Bosses did the long ball.

    2. Hope it helps to know that the people who got the jobs actually deserved them, rather than getting them for other reasons. Hang in there. Your time will come.

      1. Posted that to my Bro the Entomologist. His response:

        Loudest insects on Earth. They are actually plant hoppers.

        Pull out the earplugs and shovels.

    1. One thing to note is that strength of schedule isn't taken into account, nor are sims done. I wish it showed the preseason forecast. I'm guessing this is 90% preseason forecast.

      1. Dodgers at -37, projected +33. Angels -35, +39 Blue Jays -50, projected +16. Yeah, I'm gonna agree this is all just preseason forecast.

    2. The White Sox are only projected to be -25 the rest of the way? Hmm. I think the team has a relatively decent shot at winning 75-76 games. This seems way too bearish.

  13. bird watching: I saw a bird I had never seen before, a Scarlet Tanager
    it was perched on a limb of a maple tree over the #1 teebox at the golf course.
    very pretty!

    1. Nice. Never seen a tanager myself.

      I've had a good week here.
      Saturday: Orange-Crowned Warbler - in the yard

      Sunday: A ton more of the orange-crowns (although my guide says they're "rare" in the area in the spring migration).
      Black-and-white warbler - in the yard
      Broad-Winged Hawk - in the yard
      Spotted Sandpiper
      Likely (but not enough for me to mark it down) Northern Waterbird. (Heard it - which was coincidence, I had just watched this youtube video "spring warbler quiz", turned around to see something walking on flotsam in the Mississippi backwaters like a tiny spotted sandpiper but obviously not, but some people behind us pushed it away before I could really look)
      Some warbler thing that I'd swear was a ruby-crowned kinglet except it's not shaped like one and I've seen them.

      Tuesday:
      Tennessee Warbler - in the yard

      Today:
      Yellow Warblers - in the yard
      Nashville Warbler - in the yard

      Plus gabs of Yellow-rumped warblers. Those are pretty much my least favorite bird ever. From a longer distance it could be just about any Dendroica warbler, so I've got to look at them because it could be a female cerulean Blackburnian or a chestnut-sided or and 98% of the time it's just another Yellow-rumped. Repeat 48 times before its something else, but by then my neck's sore and I can't look up anymore.

    2. saw one here several summers ago; thought it was one of our cardinals at first based on the color, but it was more personable and then I did a double take

    4. Saw one of those in the West Hartford MDC Reservoir a year ago. It was in the pines, and the red against the dark greens was quite dramatic.

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