Verlander vs Weaver?

That could very well be the match-up on Sunday, July 31st at Comerica Park when Jered Weaver and the LA Angels visit Detroit for the finale of a 4 game weekend set.  Both Verlander and Weaver pitched on Thursday night, and both clubs do not have an off day next week.  Amusing their respective 5-man rotations stay true, fans are set up to witness a collision course showdown of the American Leagues’ 2 most dominant, consistent and efficient pitchers.

Are 2 of the AL's elite set to match up on July 31?

Coming off the All Star break the Tigers reset their rotation to get Verlander 2 straight starts on either side of the break.  Since Leyland elected not to skip the number 5 spot in the rotation due to an off day earlier the week the baseball gods have apparently primed us for a Verlander/Weaver showdown.

This marks the 2nd marquee match-up for Verlander this year.  On May 29th nearly 40,000 people at Comerica Park witnessed Verlander starting opposite Josh Beckett and the Boston Red Sox.  The result was a 3-0 Tigers win featuring Verlander going 7-2/3 innings and surrendering just 4 hits.  Lets hope for a similar JV on Sunday the 31st.  In his last start versus LA on July 5th,Verlander took a hard luck loss in LA giving up 1 run over 7-2/3 innings.

Meanwhile for Weaver it comes on the heels of yet another spectacular outing.  On Thursday night where despite the lack of run support he kept the Angles alive for a 1-0 win over the Rangers.   This will mark the first time this year the AL All Star Starting Pitcher will face the Tigers after they avoided him in the 3 game series prior to the All Star Break.

Fans can catch the lead up to this match up Tuesday night when Verlander is scheduled to match up against Jake Peavy in the Chicago.  Meanwhile the Angles will toss Weaver at Fausto Carmona and the Cleveland Indians at Jacobs Field.

Now lets just hope for no rain outs and if it does rain, lets hope Managers Jim Leyland and Mike Scioscia elect to skip their number 5 starters respectively.

What Will Become of Google+?

 As many of you may or may not know, there is this new player in the social networking world called Google+.  At first glance it would appear that the Devs at Google are trying to hack away at Facebook, Twitter and/or all the other Social Networking sites out there. I for one was initially fooled by this as evidenced by my facebook post “Bye Bye… Meet me in Google+”.

But after some reading, conversing the topic with a few of my IT minded co-workers and getting my hands dirty, my opinions are broadening. This isn’t so much a Social Networking site, as much as it is a “Social Layer”.  I’ve even heard it described by O’Reilly as a “Social Backbone”.  In my mind, this is an application that the corporate world might be well advised to accept instead of attempt to block.  As one article on InfoWorld stated, “the toothpaste is about to squeeze out of the tube — in a different direction.“

The concept of “circles” will enable one to effectively AND efficiently control the access to their posts and shares.  Previously, with Twitter and Facebook I had the feeling I had to choose between effective and efficient on my privacy controls, accomplishing both simultaneously was essentially impossible.  While Facebook  will still have it’s uses,  I have assured my friends that despite by post sounding to the contrary, I’m not leaving Facebook (Though I did find a handy “export all data” process).  I like the idea that I can easily prevent those I’m professionally affiliated with from reading about my debauchery laden forays of the past weekend.  While at the same time I can just as easily save my wife and family from suffering through witnessing my postings of my Geographic Information break through of the month. – Ok, the wife still gets to hear about it at 6:00, though she would probably prefer to see it on Facebook…. Easier to ignore me there. (I hear you snoring!)

And who knows, maybe as a Baby Google+ grows up it will actually become a tool for the breaking down of those aforementioned interoperability issues.  And we may find out sooner than later, after just a few weeks it is already in the 20 million user area, just wait until the OpenSource world gets a hold of the Google+ APK.  But for now, the jury is out on what Google+ will become. Much will be decided as it’s user base grows and it is either embraced by the cloud computing world or gets tossed by the wayside like the My Spaces of the social world.

But my advice to Facebookers and Tweeters is to not look at Google+ as a danger to your beloved social world, but potentially as the golden child who might just take cloud computing and online dialog to the next level.

House Projects (Kitchen Floor)

We continue with our little home improvement projects here and there around our house.  Our big spring project was to take on the kitchen and back bedroom floors.  The original plan was to redo both  at the same time.  The assumption that we were making was that the beautiful hardwood floors that we have all over the rest of our main level existed underneath the cheap kitchen vinyl linoleum and bedroom carpet.  So it made sense to do them at the same time to take advantage of trying to do this all on just one day of sander rentals.  Just one detail to remember as you read below, I’m also doing all this without taking anytime off from work at a local university, which conveniently got very busy at the same time as we ramp up the planning for our Summer construction schedule.

Upon removing the carpet from the bedroom it became apparent that this project like most home improvement project do would grow and grow, especially in 75 yr old homes.  First, in the bedroom we discovered vinyl tile with mastic adhesive directly applied to the wood floors.  Off topic, but WHO DOES THIS TO BEAUTIFUL WOOD FLOORS!

Then in the kitchen we found a sub floor under the vinyl, followed by a layer of vinyl tile on a 2nd sub floor followed by another layer of vinyl tile which was on top of the wood floors.  If that wasn’t enough the first sub floor was stapled down with hundreds, thousands of staples.   Of course upon pulling up the floor about 1/3 of the staples stayed in.  To make matters worse the 2nd sub floor contained about 60 – 4 inch screws going through the wood floors, effectively making the wood floors worthless.  So the plan in the kitchen changed to that of removing all layers of sub floor and put down tile.  I joked at work that my kitchen read like a geologic history of 20th century flooring;

Top Layer – 1990′s vinyl flooring

2nd Layer – early 1980′s vinyl flooring

3rd Layer – 1960 vinyl tile

Bottom Layer (metamorphic rock) – original hardwood floor.

Now that the original plan was out the window the focus changed to just making the kitchen livable until we could get tile down then worry about the bedroom.  As I began to take out the 2nd layer of sub floor from the kitchen I ran into 2 problems aside from the a fore mentioned screws.  1) The staples that were used on the top sub floor (isn’t that a oxy moron?… A top sub floor?) where actually working to hold down the 2nd floor as well, to the point that it would not come up. 2) The 2nd sub floor was installed under the cabinets, which meant there would be tools to purchase as there were no plans to remove the cabinets.

I had to painstakingly remove hundreds of staples using vice grips to make it so I could pull up the 2nd floor which was nailed down as well.  Once I got close to the cabinets, I got to use the handy Chicago Electric Tool Co. Multi Tool I picked up at the tool shop to saw off the floor at the base of the cabinets.  Then finally, I was able to remove the 2nd floor.  Oh yeah, did I mention this whole time that I was working around both the fridge and oven? I wasn’t about to move the cabinets out of the kitchen, we were living in the house whole time.  So every so often I would have to move both appliances to remove different sections of floor. When all was said and done, I decided to leave the last layer of 1/16 inch tile, and just simply put the cement backer board on top of that to set the base for the tile.

While all this was going on I slowed down the pace of the bedroom, and at the point of putting tile down in the kitchen I had only removed about 2/3 of the tile and 1/4 of the mastic, with chemical treating, scraping and sanding still to come before refinishing the floors, which to this point still appear to be very much salvageable.

So, I’ll leave you with that for now… By this time Saturday night I hope to be on the couch with an Oberon in hand and by the end of the weekend I hope to share with you the pictures of my new kitchen tile floor!

Then I will switch the focus back to the bedroom and getting out home put back together.

Cheers!

Dan

Weather Radar

In my ever continuing random-ness of my posts this week, thanks to the absence of my running exploits…

I’ve long been a huge nerd of all things maps. This of course includes my life long search for the best weather condition maps available to the general internet viewing public.. AKA, I’m not going to pay for a subscription. It’s not THAT important to me.

Over the past several years my site of choice has been weather.gov from the National Weather Service. My assumption is that most local forecasts have their origin at the NWS. So it seemed reasonable to trust that resource as a base.

Overall, I tend to think the layout of Weather.gov is very confusing. Keep in mind you are dealing with a division of NOAA (a federal government agency), it is their job to be obtuse, huge and confusing. But once you actually enter a zip code and get a local forecast page, I find this site very useful, and surprisingly simple, as long as you stay out of the left hand links.  In addition to the forecast I find the radar links they have to be among the best options out there, consisting of both local and national mosaics.  I will admit they get some “GIS Street Cred” from me in that you can download the geo-referenced versions of the local radar in a Geo GIFF format, which one can then plug into fancy pants GIS software.  But earlier this week, I ran across a weather site and radar that challenges my love for the NWS….. Intellicast. (Read like Jerry Seinfeld referring to Newman).

Not only does Intellicast have a huge amount of data and forecast information on their site, but it is in my opinion the best organized site I have run into, and their new radar application shows us how GIS is affecting our every day lives, even though the majority of our population has no clue that something called GIS exists (by the way GIS is Geographic Information Systems). – Read up, it impacts your life every day.

The radar page can be found at http://www.intellicast.com/Local/Map.aspx.

What do I love about this site?

1) I have choices of what I want to see.  I can select from a base map of a satellite image, topo or just a general road map.  Also, I can change between different types of radar, cloud cover and, winds, temperatures, etc.

2) I can switch it to a full screen mode, though in my view this option is hidden to good in the top quick picks.

3) The overlays loop over a 35 minute time period at 5 minute intervals.  As a bonus, given that it is a java application it is automatically updated as new images are created, and these images are remarkably up-to-date.  I typically find that the 5 minute interval only has about a 1 minute delay.

Though I will continue to grab my weather forecasts by combining my own weather knowledge with that of several other sites including the NWS, AccuWeather, and Intellicast.  I am greatly encouraged by the developments the folks at Intellicast.com have made and look forward to following the development of this new radar application.

Tech-less Running

Well, in case you couldn’t tell from my lack of running posts or posts all together, I’m going to fall short of my goal of running a half marathon for the 2nd time.

It all started to go downhill with an injury which was followed by a “redirection of resources”.  My wife and I are planning to get our house put on the market, so that we can move up the world of home ownership.  So with that comes more of a time dedication to things around the house.

Currently, we are focusing on removing an old tile floor that was under carpet in a bedroom to refresh the hardwood flooring which will match the rest of the main level.  As well as removing what seems like layers upon layers (3 actually) of vinyl and vinyl tile from the kitchen to lay down new ceramic tile.  But this is best left for a longer different story.

I’m continuing to run, but I’ve been reflecting a bit lately that I enjoy running more when I’m not focused on a specific goal.  When I’m “competing” I tend to get injuries.  I think I tend to push myself too hard.  Upon recovering from my most recent injury I went on some runs without all the tech stuff… No heart rate monitor, no Nike+ Sportband, not even a stop watch.  They have been some the most enjoyable runs I have had in recent memory.

So now I’m looking forward to just getting out and running for the sake of getting outside and enjoying the fresh air.  Not stressing out over needing to run 3 miles today, because it is part of my program.  I’ve heard of people taking this approach before and I’m encouraged to what this will mean for both not burning and out and maintaining a consistent level of fitness.

“New” Computer

I have added a new toy to my arsenal.  For those of you who are not aware of my day to day musings.  I’m a bit of a tech head, and for the most part I’ve survived for most of the last 6 months or so without a home PC.  I had a desktop with no desk, hooked up to our TV, but when we re0rganized our living room we lost the space for the PC so it was into the Computing dark ages for me.

Earlier this week, the wife and I purchased a new laptop for her.  Of course, she gets the new one…  Which means I also get a new computer… At least a computer that is new to me.  Give me credit, I’m a newly wed, I’m learning as fast as I can.  Even though it is technically a hand me down PC, it isn’t really much of a ‘hand me down”, it’s only about 8 months old.

Much to my disdain it is a Vista System, though upon some research I found that even though the 32 bit version of Vista is installed, it has a 64 bit chip.  Which means that I can do a fresh install of the 64 bit Windows 7 Home Ultimate version.  Even better, thanks to my status as a university employee, I can purchase this operating system at a steep discount of about 200 dollars.  It lists for $320 on the Microsoft web page.

Special note for anyone contemplating this upgrade: Since I’m “upgrading” from 32 to 64 bit I can not purchase the upgrade versions of Windows 7, I must purchase the full operating system).

I have concluded that with a RAM upgrade and Windows 7 this will basically be a brand new computer at a bargain basement price.  I also discovered that the laptop has an NVIDIA Graphics card, instead of the general laptop standard of “integrated cards”.  Another bonus to the this system is that it is wide screen formatted, which means… At last I have a laptop with a num pad!  I can deal with the weight that goes with this larger system.  After all I consider myself more of a mobile desktop user, than I do just a general  mobile computing person.

Now a fly on the wall of our living room is very likely to see both the wife and I sitting on the couch on our respective laptops, surfing the web, catching up on work reports, while the DVR plays the previous days taping of the Daily Show with Jon Steward and the Colbert Report.  Romantic, I know!

And for those of you who may still be on the fringe of this Windows 7 thing. I will say this, the university I work for is upgrading their labs to Windows 7 for the Fall 2010 Semester.  So it is coming and it is THE REPLACEMENT for XP.  It is not a ME version or Vista… It is the equal of what XP was to the PC world 8 or 9 years ago.  Maybe even better.

9 Weeks To Go

This week I decided I was going to run my first 1/2 marathon in my life on April 24th.  With that said Saturday I began my process of building up my endurance with a training “program” that would help me increase my capabilities and get into a weekly cycle that would have me making my BIG efforts on Saturday mornings.

This weeks big effort was a 10K run.  After two runs earlier in the week of 5K speed work interval runs… I left my house mid morning, it was a crisp, yet sunny 25 degrees and I headed in the direction of a nature preserve  about 2 miles from my house.  I thought putting in a mile or so on foot hiking tails would help pass the time.  I entered the trail and found it to be a soft yet firm snow-pack.  It was nice to get off the road though I think I underestimated some of the hills.  Though it was fun to pass by the trees while nodding to ice fisherman with their morning take and a guy walking his 6 month old German Shepherd who was much more interested in running, hopping along side me.  The rest of the run was fairly comfortable, however  I did develop a pain in my right Achilles at bout mile 5, but with only a mile of flat road ahead of me I pressed on ever vigilant to remember to get the ice packs and compression wraps out immediately after cooling down.

I was very happy with this run.  The next day I felt no evidence of a sore Achillies and I”m looking forward to a new week.  In fact just one week from now I’ll get to do a few runs on Forida’s Golf Coast!  I only have to make it through what looks like a week of snow in the Great Lakes… Shoveling will make for good cross training, as I know I need to develop some more core strength.  In fact just this morning I spent a hour removing the 4.5 inches of wet snow that fell overnight.  I cheated with the snow-blower (I had to get to work on time), I’ll shovel the 3 more inches we are supposed to get today after work for my real workout.

Happy Striding!