michigan_falcon's Journal

With the Tigers finally nosing above .500, the future is looking bright indeed for the future of baseball in Detroit. If the Tigers continue to excel against quality opposition, they should be able to make a run at the wild card in the second half of the season. I recently read an article on ESPN.COM that quoted Dave Dumbrowski as pointing out that the Tigers don't necessarily need to acquire another bat to make a run because Carlos Guillen and Magglio Ordonez coming off the DL would be just like making a trade, except it wouldn't cost Detroit a thing. With this in mind, I think that Tigers will most likely send Tony Giarratano down to make room for Guillen and move Alexis Gomez to Toledo to clear space for Ordonez.

While Wil Ledezma has held his own at the AAA level, I think that the Tigers will call up Sean Douglass (9-1 in Toledo with a sub-3.0 ERA) sometime in the next week to fill the vacant fifth starter position. Although the staff has responded incredibly well to occasionally pitching on three days rest, I think that it is too much to expect them to continue this much longer. The Tigers almost always play six straight days, meaning that at least two pitchers must go short every trip through the rotation. This pace just isn't sustainable in today's game. The Tigers could of course promote one of their long-relief guys (Spurling or Ginter) to a spot in the rotation, but ultimately I think that they will have more success with a dedicated starter. To make room for one, I expect Doug Creek to be demoted as he has been the shakiest member of the bullpen of late. On the other hand, losing Creek would leave the Tigers with only Jamie Walker for situational lefty-relief. If Alan Trammell is set on having two lefties in the 'pen, then I expect that Ginter will be sent to Toledo.

Assuming that all of these moves come to fruition, the Tigers can expect an eventual lineup consisting of the following:

3B Brandon Inge
2B Placido Polanco
SS Carlos Guillen
1B Dmitri Young
RF Magglio Ordonez
DH Rondell White
C Ivan Rodriguez
LF Craig Monroe
CF Nook Logan

Bench: Omar Infante, Jason Smith, Vance Wilson, Chris Shelton

Shelton will probably see some time at first down the stretch with Young DH'ing some. Of course Ordonez will probably DH some as well and Monroe can always fill in anywhere in the OF. I could also see the Tigers replacing Jason Smith with either a third baseman or another outfielder. Smith could also be replaced by the fifth starter, preventing the Tigers from having to sacrifice a bullpen arm. Eventually I would like to see the following pitching staff:

SP Jeremy Bonderman
SP Mike Maroth
SP Jason Johnson
SP Nate Robertson
SP Sean Douglass
Closer Troy Percival
Set-up Kyle Farnsworth
RP Franklyn German
RP Jamie Walker
RP Fernando Rodney
RP Matt Ginter
RP Chris Spurling

Finally, I think that Bonderman and Pudge Rodriguez will be the Tiger's All-Star representatives this year. Carlos Guillen would have joined them had he stayed healthy and Rondell White is deserving but won't be selected in a crowded OF race. It is also my opinion that Jason Johnson has been the most steady pitcher in the AL and probably should be considered, but his numbers just aren't gaudy enough and the Tigers haven't won enough games for him to ultimately make the team. Farnsworth has been absolutely lights-out, but set-up men never get picked so his chances are nil as well. It's a shame that more Tigers won't get to participate at the hometown game, but next year I expect them to garner more selections as the future looks bright indeed.

Update (11 PM, 6/22): Earlier this afternoon the Tigers called up Douglass and sent down Ginter. Douglass is set to start on Saturday.

Me: my teams are infallible
Me: until they fall
Me: then they are infallible next year

Owais: haha
Owais: hahahahahahhahahah
Owais: man that is the best line of the night

Me: the exception being the Tigers two years ago
Me: we all knew that they were going to be terrible
Me: when the GM is approaching the Rule 5 as an entry draft...

So, earlier I promised to begin to post some memories of Eng450. Now that the term is over, I think that it's a good time to begin to chronicle that 'adventure'. Before I embark upon this kvetch-fest though, I think that it's important to note that Manish still owes me five bucks, so that may bias my opinion of him somewhat.

On my high school swim team, there was an invention called the 'stupid jar' that you had to put a quarter into everytime that you said something stupid at practice. It only took a single teleconference with Lockheed-Martin Space Systems before I began to suggest instituting this contraption. My memories of that phone call are vague, but I definitely remember a team member asking a question so blindingly stupid that it actually caused the engineers on the line to pause for a good two seconds before responding "I think that that is your job to find out."

In the following week's telecon, Dan and I kept a running tally on the blackboard of stupid questions asked...Richa beat Manish something like 12-5. Just spectacular.

At the final lecture yesterday, Professor Renno announced, "JPL was very impressed with the progress that the Phoenix team made despite only having a single grad student to help them." Dan, Jeff and I immediately concluded that the single grad student in question (Manish) had actually done more to retard our progress than encourage it.

Don't get me wrong. My intention is not to trash Manish's reputation. Manish is a really nice guy and a genius at his field (Computational Fluid Dynamics or CFD). His CFD analysis helped us validate our experimental setup before actually building it, and that was tremendously helpful. I get the feeling that someday Manish will be a professor at a university somewhere, and that is cool...he definitely has the brains and personality for it. At the end of the day however, he lives in his own world. It's very frustrating when the only team member that the professor will talk to has no idea what is going on with the rest of the team and frequently disseminates information that is not correct, and as a result wastes a lot of peoples time. I would like to close with an example of this phenomenon. While five team members were working on our final poster, Manish was off at the lab getting in the testing team's way. When he looked at the poster that night, he found several things that he did not like and set off to change them. Unfortunately though he created more errors than he fixed, so Dan, Jeff and I made the decision to print off the poster that we had made with the rest of the team and let the poo hit the fan and fall where it may. (Actually Jeff and Dan made the decision, I just whole-heartedly endorsed it later.) That lead the following exchange of emails:

From Manish:

Hi Team,

Well, I saw the poster and it's nice to know that it is finally done. I was
just wondering if you were able to see the revised poster which I sent last
nite. There were some errors in the poster that we have printed up rite now.

I wish someone could have contacted me via email to let me know if you
received the other poster.

Can someone please email me back on why the it was not printed?

I would very much appreciate it. If there is a way to still print the other
poster without having to pay a fee, I think it is something to look into.

Talk to you soon. manish

To which Dan responded (bless his heart):

Hey all,

The poster is done. Someone stepped on it or something because there is a
slight
smudge on the bottom where we make our acknowledgements but it is not very
noticable, so I say just keep what we have now rather than go through another
printing ordeal and more money.

Manish, the reason why we didnt print your copy of the poster was because we
agreed last night that the poster was done. You cannot make unilateral
decisions in a group project without consulting other groupmembers. It just
doesn't work that way, man. You did it before with the PDR by adding content
without telling anybody. The rest of us had to scramble to talk about content
that we had never seen before, and as a result we gave a very jumbled
presentation. We looked at what you did to the poster and noticed far more
mistakes on your poster than the one we all worked on last night, so we went
with the one from last night. Jeff, Tom and I all agreed that it was the right
decision.

I dont mean to offend you and I realize that this project is very important to
you, but that does not mean that you have overriding authority over everybody
else on the team. If you had concerns, you should have brought them up last
night. I wouldnt worry about mistakes on the poster, you'll have plenty of
time
to talk about the project tomorrow. People will get a much better impression
about the project from hearing you speak than from looking at the poster.

I will hold onto the poster until I find a place to store it overnight. If
anybody has any ideas, let me know. I'll be on north campus for a while so
just
call me or drop me an email.

Dan

And Amy says that I don't have any drama in my life...

So, apparently the US isn't the only country whose legal system is backed up with frivolous lawsuits...

http://www.space.com/astronotes/astronotes.html

As a disclaimer, I think that the article is flawed because I don't think that Deep Impact carries explosives. Instead they are going to slam a copper slug into the comet. Supposedly this impact will be viewable from earth. Who needs explosives when you are travelling that fast?

I found this article on space.com today:

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/ap_050406_japan_moon.html

A couple of things grabbed my attention. Down toward the bottom is a mention of Japan's attempt to build a Mach 2 airliner and a Mach 5 hydrogen plane. I really wonder why the US hasn't undertaken a supersonic airliner project recently, either in the government sector or privately. It seems to me that with the demise of the Concorde, the market should be there. Of course, airline travel is down, but what about a high speed business jet? At the very least, there must be a market for a charter service that could jet execs, rock stars and athletes all over the world.

At first when I read this article, I was somewhat disappointed. Having Americans as the only people to ever set foot on the moon is a great point of national pride and I have a hard time getting excited about other nations (Japan, China, Russia if they ever rebuild their economy, etc.) putting people up there. But the more I thought about it, I couldn't help but think that maybe this is just what NASA needs, another space race to kick things into a higher gear. At this rate, we might just get to Mars sometime this century.

I have never been a big fan of JFK, but something about his Rice speech where he challenged the country to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade sends chills down my spine. I hope that we can find a way to return our space ambitions to those days of idealism, sooner rather than later.

Before you yell at me, I know that I've been slacking off lately. Many people have commented on all the bloggable stuff that I have been missing out on. And of course, by many people, I mean two. You both know who you are, so there.

Some random thoughts before I get into the meat of this post (because I missed the chance to comment on so much of this):

I love the Magglio Ordenez signing. It's this stuff that is going to put the Tigers over the top and bring home the 2005 Central Division Championship.

Keeping Bobby Higginson was the best move that the Tigers made all spring. I don't care that he is a borderline major league player (which he is)...the fact remains that he quietly soldiered on through the lean years. Now that the future is bright, the Tigers at least owe it to him to prove that he can be a solid backup for Magglio (who won't play all the games this year because of his knee anyway). Like my RA said, "I want to buy Higgy a beer and give him a hug."

The Pistons will be dangerous in the playoffs. No doubt about it.

Dmitri Young is on pace to hit over 400 HR's this season.

Jeremy Bonderman and Mike Maroth could very well combine for as many wins as they combined for losses two years ago. Forget 'could very well', if they don't do it this year, they will next year.

Skeeter Barnes, just because.

Finally, in 1991, Rob Deer hit 25 home runs while batting .179

So, moving on to more interesting stuff, I'm taking Eng450 right now which is a multidisciplinary senior design course. I am hoping to post some emails that were shared among team members later, but for now we will just have to stick to anecdotes because I don't want to offend anybody on the team before the end of the term. Could make things a little sticky after all.

First, a cast of characters:

Thruster Team

-Me..If you are reading this you probably know me so I won't elaborate much. I'm in charge of the pressure feed system, a job that I volunteered for because I thought that it would involve ordering a regulator, N2 tank, and some fittings. Of course it wasn't this easy and I've been incredibly busy as a result.

-Dan..Dan lived across the hall from me a couple of years ago, so we knew each other sort of well going into this thing. I remember Dan ordering some pressure hosing at some point, so I'm going to say that he was in charge of 'pressure conduction' or something like that. Dan also yells at me for not putting this in my blog, so here you go.

-Jeff..Jeff also apparently lived in MoJo at some point, but I only have a vague recollection of it. I wish that I had known at the time because he seems pretty smart and at some point Moon got tired of helping me with my homework and stopped talking classes with me. I would say that Jeff was the defacto leader of our group because he usually knows what is going on, something that is far beyond me.

-Tess..Tess is Dan's girlfriend. I seem to remember her being around a lot, but I was usually too busy kvetching to notice what anybody else was doing.

-Rick..Rick is an ME/Aero dual major, meaning that he has actually acquired useful skills in college, like how to build stuff. So basically Rick did all the important stuff for our project, like build the project.

-Manish..Manish is a grad student in the Aero Dept. I don't know where to start with this one, except to say that he did a lot of CFD work on the project. Hopefully his personality will come out through the course of my future anecdotes.

Testing Team
The other half of our team consisting of Richa, Tim, Li Huan, Eric, Ben, and Kun Lun. I will describe this people later because I want to get to the end of this post.

Some other important characters that will be mentioned later: Prof. Nilton Renno, Steve Emanuel, Sandra Pitlynski, and Steve Rogacki. I will do my best to describe these people later as well.

Today's Anecdote:
(If your name is Mike and you are Dan's roommate, stop reading now!)

In the process of hooking up our fittings to our pressure reservoir, we discovered that Cryogenic Gases had misquoted a fitting over the phone. They had told me to expect a 1/2" NPT fitting, but we discovered a 3/4" one. This was not a big deal because it meant a trip to the HARDWARE STORE!!! So we roll out to the Do It store up north of Plymouth Rd, all five of us (the thruster team minus Rick) in the car that Dan had borrowed from his roommate. This car deserves it's own post, but that will have to wait for another day too. Suffice to say that its a Geo that thinks its a Benz.

The Hardware Store was fun. We found the fitting that we needed after some searching and finally asking for help. I seemed to remember the clerk asking us what we wanted and having four of us give four different answers. But we broke through the language barrier and things were good. We even found some screws to appease Rick and connect the Thruster Nozzle to the fork that we built to hold it (and of course I mean 'that Rick built to hold it'). Dan found an electric fly swatter and bought it with the intention of hitting people with it to shock them. I'm still in shock that he bought it, but I'm learning to not be surprised about Dan's purchases.

So we all pile back into the Merfakes-Benz and head back to the lab. Manish starts telling us about a car accident that he was in back in Jersey where his car was totaled by a Monster Truck when he ran a red light. After listening to the story I'm pretty sure that he wasn't making it up and somehow that just makes it better. To quote Manish, "Dude, the guy was pissed. He got out and was like, 'You gave me a flat tire!' so I was like 'You totaled my car!'" You really can't make this stuff up. So as we are all laughing, we realize that Dan is in the wrong lane to turn at the upcoming light and cannot get over. No big deal, we will just take advantage of the wonderful "Michigan U-Turn" thingie that is sure to be ahead.

Dan decides to get ahead of the car to his left before turning to the left so accelerates and gets ahead of it, all the while going downhill. We see the turn-around up ahead, so Dan cuts off the guy in the left lane and slams on his brakes to turn left (I never said that Dan was a good driver). Except now we are going really fast and there is no time to slow down and the front of the car isn't coming around fast enough. Dan locks up the brakes, just as we impact the curve. HARD. I distinctly remember that the only thing that I could hear was the hiss of air rapidly escaping the front tire and Jeff in the backseat saying something about how nobody back there had seat belts on so Dan should drive better.

We replaced the tire in short order and went back to lab. Dan laughed hysterically like a little girl the whole way. Now he has to replace his roommate's front tire. Fun times were had by all. Well, at least until he got out the electric flyswatter, but that is a story best left until another day.

Until then.

So, last night TV-4 in Detroit (www.clickondetroit.com) ran an undercover investigation of Residence Hall Security. I have posted a recording of the clip on my personal engin space. If you want to see it, let me know and I will email you a link.

Basically, they discovered that it is possible to sneak into a residence hall by following somebody through the door. People have been doing this in movies to get into apartment buildings for years, nice creativity TV-4! I've spent a lot of time working to make our halls more safe (last year I chaired the Board of Safety and Security and I have spent countless hours in meetings on similar topics), so I take more than a little bit of offense to the implication that our security is lax. Because TV-4 was unable to find a more glaring flaw than they did, they instead chose to indict the University through innuendo, saying the University did not plan any security changes in response to their report. Well now, there is a surprise. We have the safest reshalls in the country and we aren't going to change that? The point is that Housing should immediately press charges against TV-4 for both defamation of character (not sure if an organization can do this) and also for trespassing and filming residents without their consent in their homes. Perhaps a couple of misdemeanors on their record will show TV-4 just how seriously we take our security here.

Watch out I tell you, the media is out of control.

I have a confession to make. I am a conservative. Yes, yes, I realize that this puts me in the smallest of minorities at the University of Michigan, but it is something in which I take a great amount of pride. I think that it is also important to point out that although I am a conservative, I am NOT a Republican. I voted for George Bush because I support the war against terror and I think that he has handled it remarkably well, all things considered.

At the same time though, I urge you to remember that real conservatives don't always classify the President as being all that conservative himself. George Bush is not a fiscal conservative. Although he has cut taxes (a good thing) he has allowed spending to go through the roof. I understand that many of his expenditures have been important, but in lean times hard decisions have to be made. (And if you don't believe me, ask someone who has had to decide to either eat dinner or pay the rent in full. I'm not claiming to have ever been in that position, and I hope to never be, but I believe that it is a legitimate concern for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans.)

So, why the preamble you ask? I read a few right-wing blogs, and a name that has been popping up recently is that of Ward Churchill (who shall be henceforth referred to as the dumb SOB for purposes of conciseness). If you are not familiar with the dumb SOB, google him because it would take me too long to fill you in on his overarching idiocy. Focusing on the point at hand, the Right has been shredding the dumb SOB to pieces the last week or so and I really wonder why this has to happen. The same thing happened to Rush Limbaugh when it was revealed that he was addicted to pain meds.

I think that the question at hand is, Why do the Right and Left always have to focus on the bad apples in each other's camps? Couldn't more progress be achieved by meeting in the middle and working out a compromise? In my rather uninformed opinion, the problem with this country is that it is too darn polarized and no one can agree to anything anymore. It is easier to build walls than bridges (trust me, I'll officially be an engineer in 3 months). So I suppose that I'm calling on both sides to put down the 2x4's that we are beating each other over the head with and start agreeing on something.

And, speaking of making compromises, I propose that we start with Social Security. I think that we can all agree that Social Security is flawed, it is more an argument of exactly when it is going to fail. George Bush says soon, the Dems say not quite so soon. I would argue that Social Security is a pyramid scheme (I actually once asked my parents how social security isn't a pyramid scheme, shortly after learning what a pyramid scheme was), and therefore Social Security is doomed to eventual collapse. If we can all agree that it will fail eventually, then I don't see why we shouldn't fix it now. I believe that Benjamin Franklin once said, "A stitch in time saves nine." In my study of American History, I have discovered that the Founding Fathers were right a little more often than they were wrong (Franklin especially), so lets roll up the sleeves, shake each other's hands and get to work making this the greatest nation ever.

While browsing around the internet today, I came across this story on CNN.com: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/02/01/iraq.hostage/index.html

I have never claimed to be an expert on things of this nature, but I really only see two options:

1) This is a hoax committed some group, either domestic or foreign, that has a terrible sense of humor,

OR

2) Islamic terrorists in Iraq have become so desperate that they are resorting to using toys to stage their hostage events.

I happen to think that option 1 is infinitely more likely, but deep down I still find myself hoping that we have been successful enough in our war on terror to drive the evil-doers to such lengths.

I have to admit that prior to the winter break I had a sinking feeling that when I came back there would be no progress by the Detroit Tigers with regards to de-bungling this offseason. My high hopes have been dashed and I think that the Tigers are still looking at a third place finish in the AL Central next season. Short of overpaying for a big name like Derek Lowe or Carlos Beltran, Detroit is now officially dead in the water. I guess that after almost 20 years of following the Tigers and Lions the phrase "maybe next year" should be a staple in my vocabulary. It still stings though.

Of course, it still doesn't sting us much as the way that the Rose Bowl ended. I think that the most ironic part is that although Vince Young killed us all game long with his legs (4 rushing TD's), in the end he beat us with his arm. On the final drive of the game, I'm not sure that the University of Michigan's vaunted defense could have stopped the Little Sister's of the Poor. Unfortunately our defensive secondary is going to take a major hit with the loss of Marlin Jackson, so this might only get worse next year. Leon Hall was better as a freshman than as a sophomore, not the ideal trend to follow. To make matters worse, all of the corners in our recruiting class seem to be at least a couple of years away. I would be much more confident had we inked Victor Harris or Justin King, but we didn't so its time to move on.

On the bright side, Prescott Burgess looked like the player that we recruited. Had he moved his hand over an inch on the final play of the game, I think that he might have been a legitimate choice for game MVP. LaMarr Woodley also looked pretty good on the defense, but I think that the real story of the night was Chad Henne. If you didn't hear, Henne was the first freshman QB to start in a Rose Bowl. Based on his performance (4 passing TD's to tie the Rose Bowl record), I think that he just might return to Pasadena someday for another New Year's Day appearance. Finally, I would take our running game next year over anybody in the country. Mike Hart was outstanding all year, Max Martin frequently found ways to jump start the offense and Kevin Grady has enrolled in school and will participate in Spring Drills. Talk about a three headed monster! (I'm very excited about this if you can't tell).

The final Winter-Break-kick-in-the-pants was Michigan's failure to capture the GLI title for the umpteenth straight year, but I think that that is best left for its own post. It is great to be back in the land of ethernet again, so look for more regular posts. Keep your stick on the ice.

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Today started out pretty well. One of my good friends wanted me to stop by for dinner on Wednesday on my way up north. His dad is cooking steaks. If you know me, you know how much I like steaks. I was originally planning to head home Tuesday, so I decided to call the family and give them a heads up that I would be arriving for Christmas about 24 hours later than expected (although they are not heading up north until Thursday or so anyway, so not a big deal either way). After having to make something like 6 calls (decidedly not normal) to track down my sister (after having unsuccessfully trying to find my mother and father), I found out that things had worsened. Keep in mind that this was all about 1PM, I finally talked to my mother at about 9 PM and found out that things were not as bad as I had thought, which was a huge relief. That is a long story that I will not go into right now.

So, as I'm worried about things at home, I'm also watching the Lions game. I have decided that God is a Packer fan and that that explains a lot. The Lions were clicking all day long, but kept either not finishing and settling for a field goal (as before the half) or making bad turnovers (in the second half). Finally, late in the game, things all come together. The Lions drive down the field and score, even converting the two point conversion to tie it. I'm starting to feel pretty good about this team. The Defense promptly responds by falling apart and allowing a quick Viking touchdown. Not to worry though, Joey Harrington was the man and Roy Williams was invincible today. A perfectly executed two-minute drill leaves something like 10 seconds on the clock and the Lions are a Jason Hanson extra point away from sending it to OT. I think that we all know how it ended. (And if you don't http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/recap?gameId=241219008). Hey, look at the bright side. If Marty was still the coach, we would have made the PAT and taken the wind instead of the ball in OT. <NOTE: You have to be a Lion faithful to get that joke.>

So, all of this football nonsense leaves me decidedly depressed and with no progress to speak of on my portion of my team's design project (aeroelasticity, specifically flutter and divergence). My natural reaction was to brave the cold and head up to North Campus to try and get something done. Well, I'm proud to say that I did get something done. I calculated that our divergence speed was 159 feet per second. Which means that at a speed of 108 mph our wing will fly off. This is not good news on an aircraft that is supposed to cruise at 225 mph. I'm still not exactly sure how to handle this one (ie should we acknowledge that our wing sucks and leave it at that, or go back to the drawing board with 48 hours left?) Questions, questions. I'm a little closer to finding a flutter speed, but I'm afraid that I will need help to do that one too. Here is hoping that one of team's genius's (Jason or Josh) has a little free time tomorrow to help me not be so dumb. Even if they don't, I still think that we have the best design by far. Of course, I'm a little biased. Alright, enough of this rambling garbage that makes little sense to anyone but me. As Always.

The longer that this off-season has gone on, the more worried that I have become. The Tigers set the table very nicely by overpaying Troy Percival early. Clearly they made this move to tell potential free-agents that Detroit wasn't such a bad place to play and that they were willing to over-pay to prove it. Unfortunately, since then the Tigers have sat and watched all of thier targets come off the board to other teams. Steve Finley signed with the Angels, Corey Koskie went to the Blue Jays and Troy Glaus joined the D-backs. So, where are the Tigers at and where do they go from here? Great question, one that I'm not sure that they have an answer to just yet.

Clearly the Tigers need help at 3B, CF and on the mound. Brandon Inge will most likely either fill the hole in CF or at 3B with Nook Logan or Eric Munson logging enough time to allow Inge to spell Pudge Rodriguez behind the plate for 30+ games next year. This scenario still leaves the Tigers at least one player short. With Adrian Beltre and Edgar Renteria no longer available, I really think that the Tigers will overpay and pick up JD Drew. Drew is a great player when he wants to be, but that is the problem, is he going to want to be? Perhaps the Tigers can even roll the dice with another Scott Boras client, Derek Lowe, and pick up a short term solution to fill the gap at the top of their rotation. I think that most Tiger's fans would agree that Jason Johnson really isn't the staff ace that he was billed as last year.

The strange thing is (for me anyway, having grown up watching TERRIBLE Tiger's pitching) that Detroit might not even need another pitcher. Assuming that young guys like Mike Maroth, Jeremy Bonderman, Wil Ledezma and Nate Robertson all make reasonable progress in the offseason, the rotation is in great shape. At times last season Bonderman looked like a legitimate ace. Maroth has developed into a solid #3 guy and Ledezma has all the upside in the world. I think that the real question mark is Robertson who led the team in wins but at times last year looked like a batting practice guy.

Either way, the hot stove league and the freezing weather has me pining for the dog days of summer again. It will be fascinating to see if the Tigs can still salvage this offseason and pick up another decent bat or a power arm. Here's hoping that they find a way. In Dave we trust.

ESPN.com is reporting that Vince Carter has been traded to the New Jersey Nets for Alonzo Mourning, Eric Williams, Aaron Williams and two first round draft picks. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1948449 I really like this trade a lot for both teams.

First for Toronto:
Let's face it, Toronto has needed to go into rebuilding mode for a couple of years now and this gives them two more first round picks to do it with. I really don't think that the Raptors will sit on Mourning either. 'Zo will give some contender 20 good minutes a night in the post, so I bet that he gets moved by the end of January. If I were the Raptors I would be looking hard to trade Jalen Rose as well. Both have enough value to be moved for future pieces.

For New Jersey:
This is the change of scenery that Vince Carter needs to get his game back on track. Playing with Jason Kidd (assuming that they both stay healthy, and yes, that could well be assuming too much), Carter could easily put up 10-15 points a night on dunks alone. I bet that Carter averages 22 points a game from here on out. It wouldn't suprise me if the resurgent Nets put up 100+ every night...and still play mostly .500 basketball. Lets face it, Jason Collins isn't going to stop anybody in the low post. But hey, the Nets are going to be a ton of fun to watch again, right?

Hello World!

I think that the fact that I just typed that makes me a geek. The fact that I almost failed introductory programming probably corrects that perception. I am never sure how to start these sorts of things, so I suppose that that will just have to suffice. That said, it is probably time for a disclaimer; I intend to use this space to vent about things that are generally bothering me and I feel the need to address in some permanent way. Well, that and all my friends seem to have jumped on the blog bandwagon, so what the heck.

To fill some space, a little about me:

I'm a senior majoring in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan. I am involved in student government. Hockey is my favorite sport to watch live, football is my favorite sport to play. I'm not a particularly good student, but I'm getting better.

Ok, enough rambling, I'm going to post this son of a gun...

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