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Monday

Alabama / Auburn / cycling / football / Monday — Comments Off
2
Jan 12

A day of football

Slept in, mostly because I stayed up late. I stayed up late mostly because I didn’t fell well the night before. Something I’d eaten didn’t agree with me. When that unpleasantness passed me by I slipped under an electric blanket for a hibernation.

And so then there was a lot of football today. Somewhere along the way Ross Collings started examining Georgia’s big game performances in recent years. That turned into this long bout of schedule staring.

This is what I did during breaks in the football action today: the complete SEC story of victories against teams that finished in the top 25 of the BCS for the years between 2008-2011.

They are sorted by the most successful program against their opponents in terms of raw wins – no style points, home/away, injuries, upsets or other considerations have been made. Each school has a list of the year of the game, the team they defeated and that opponent’s final BCS ranking of that season.

All efforts have been made to keep this accurate, but your eyes get dizzy looking through 14 teams’ four years of scheduling. No, seriously, have a look. The source links for the BCS rankings are below. If you find any errors, write them in the comments.

As you can see, LSU has had an impressive run, particularly the last two years. They’re neck and neck with Alabama. In fact, the best part of the upcoming BCS title game is that it will break a tie between the two programs. Auburn is next in terms of wins over BCS ranked opponents. Not bad when you consider that we’re talking about 2008-2011 here.

LSU**
2008: Georgia Tech (14)
2010: Alabama (16)
2010: Texas A&M (17)
2010: Miss State (21)
2010: West Virginia (22)
2011: Alabama (2)
2011: Oregon (5)
2011: Arkansas (6)
2011: Georgia (16)
2011: West Virginia (23)
2011: Auburn (25)
**LSU and Alabama meet for the perfunctory rematch on Jan. 9.

Alabama**
2008: Georgia (15)
2008: Mississippi (25)
2009: Texas (2)
2009: Florida (5)
2009: Virginia Tech (11)
2009: LSU (12)
2010: Arkansas (8)
2010: Michigan State (9)
2010: Miss State (21)
2011: Arkansas (6)
2011: Auburn
**LSU and Alabama meet for the perfunctory rematch on Jan. 9.

Auburn
2009: West Virginia (16)
2010: Arkansas (8)
2010: Oregon (2)
2010: LSU (11)
2010: Alabama (16)
2010: South Carolina (20)
2010: South Carolina (20) SECCG
2010: Miss State (21)
2011: South Carolina (9)

Arkansas*
2010: LSU (11)
2010: Texas A&M (17)
2010: Miss State (21)
2011: South Carolina (9)
2011: Auburn (25)
*Hogs play BCS #8 Kansas State on Jan. 6.

Florida
2008: Oklahoma (1)
2008: Alabama (4)
2008: Georgia (15)
2009: Cincinnati (3)
2009: LSU (12)

South Carolina
2008: Mississippi (25)
2010: Alabama (16)
2011: Clemson (15)
2011: Nebraska (20)

Ole Miss
2008: Florida (2)
2008: Texas Tech (7)
2009: LSU (12)
2009: Oklahoma State (19)

Georgia
2008: Michigan State (18)
2009: Georgia Tech (9)
2011: Auburn (25)

Missouri
2008: Northwestern (23)
2010: Texas A&M (17)
2010: Oklahoma (7)

Texas A&M
2010: Oklahoma (7)
2010: Nebraska (18)
2011: Baylor (12)

Vanderbilt
2008: Mississippi (25)
2008: Boston College (24)

Kentucky
2010 Carolina (20)

Tennessee
None

Mississippi State
None

This would look very pretty, and reveal something, I’m sure, if you put it in the appropriate type of chart or infographic.

Update: The War Eagle Reader has picked this list up, too.

Also I added a CatEye computer to my bike today. This was a thoughtful Christmas gift from The Yankee and, in that spirit, I attached it in that spirit. I’m never good at building or installing the first of something. Sure, there are instructions, but there’s always some detail missing, or an extra part that psyches me out, or a missing part whose absence can defeat even the heartiest of spirits. Or, more to the point, some small thing I didn’t notice in the illustration.

This computer requires a magnet on the spokes, a sensor attached to the fork no more than five millimeters away, and then the computer itself, attached in a four-part ceremony to the handlebars. The computer must be no more than 70 millimeters away from the sensor, and the back of the computer must be facing the sensor. And, also, it must spend at least 48 percent of each lunar cycle pointing to magnetic north.

All but one of those facts are true.

So there was first the incorrect installation of the sensor on the fork. Then there was struggling through the computer, programming the clock, tire circumference and the always troubling 12-hour or 24-hour setup. Then there was mounting the computer in the four-part handlebar bracket, which was its own series of curiosities. After which I discovered I couldn’t remove the computer from the bracket.

A few engineers were consulted and we finally concluded that our instincts are wrong and sometimes you must force it.

So now the sensor, the magnetic it is detecting for movement and the computer are all mounted. I pick up the front wheel and spun it, the first test to see if the computer and sensor are communicating. One of the LCD elements in the crystal should be flashing.

It is not.

The first troubleshooting element is the sensor and magnet configuration. They must be no more than five millimeters apart. Not six, because that is not in the Holy Book of Armaments. So I nudged over the senor a bit closer to the magnet mounted on the spokes. Pick up the bike, spin the wheel, the LCD flashes. The computer works.

This should have taken about six minutes. It took me the better half of one half of a football game.

So the first time is always a challenge. It could have been that I was working from the Korean instructions. Next time I’ll use the English version.

The second time was a breeze. I installed the same computer on her bike. It was done in no time flat. Now we are ready to ride and see, truly, how fast — or slow — we are going. And, of course, if you’re dissatisfied with the speed you can always reprogram the computer’s understanding of your tire circumference.

So you can imagine why digging up that list of football victories above was a good way to spend a windy evening. There’s an impressive, and thankfully temporary cold front blowing in just now. We won’t break 40 degrees tomorrow. I’ll try out my new cycling computer on Wednesday.

adventures / Monday / photo — Comments Off
26
Dec 11

The last Christmas party of the season

Sat with friends and family, visiting with nice people I don’t get to see often enough. We had delicious shrimp and the best lasagna you’ve ever tasted. Listened to Sinatra and Dean-o and Glenn Miller CDs. It was a lovely day.

Got to meet my god-second-cousin-in-law today. (My wife’s godparents have two daughters. Those girls and my wife all grew up together. One of them now has two children of their own. We call The Yankee’s godparents aunt and uncle. That makes their daughters would-be cousins. Their children would be second-cousins. Do try to keep up.)

I held her, and then watched her as she rolled around on the floor. And then I got to hold her again. There was a house full of people and she is one of the stars, so you count each experience.

One of the other stars of the show is her big sister. She speaks four languages. She’s crunching math and serious logic and reasoning with no problem. She’s three. She and I played three long hands of Go Fish and one exciting game of Hide-and-Seek, this being the first time that she’s ever wanted to hang out with me. She pronounced that I was “full of the sillies.”

But toward the end of the evening the little one made one last lap back around to me. She has a way of staring into your eyes, unblinking, for the longest time. And every so often she’d lean down and touch my nose.

Once she started the crying feint, and then collapsed into my arms in a perfect snuggle.

I melted. It was almost, almost, enough to make you want to take up babysitting.

iPhone / Monday / photo — Comments Off
19
Dec 11

Travel day

Hit the road, Jack.

“There’s no place like the interstate for the holidays … ”

Woke up this morning for breakfast, but the Barbecue House was closed. Everyone who’s ever been in the parking lot of a closed restaurant has muttered oaths and proclaimed the owners as losers of money. You want to spend yours there, after all. But who knows what drove the man to make this choice?

Maybe he just wanted a break. Maybe opening for lunch at 10 means he can sleep in until 8. Maybe he has a problem with biscuits. Maybe there’s a shortage of butter.

You never know. (Though I’ll ask Mr. Price next time I see him.) You just go find breakfast somewhere else. So we went to Cracker Barrel, where there are neither barrels nor crackers. Breakfast. And then packed for the first of the holiday adventures.

After packing — or maybe it was during? — I had to take a short nap. Apparently all of my energy hasn’t yet returned.

So. Finished packing. I had my oil changed before leaving and the guy noticed I have a blown headlight.

I’ll fix that, then.

“Well … The dealerships like you to bring these in because there’s a seal … ”

Designers have begun engineering cars to so completely befuddle the average owner that you must bring your car back to the dealership.

I called the dealership to ask them about how much this would cost.

About $175, to $310, depending on the kind of light in it, he said.

So I’ll be doing that at home. Not that I’d intended to take the thing in. I believe I can turn the wheel, turn a 10mm wrench and find 10 minutes to spare.

Halfway through the drive there was a visit to the mall, which was actually painless, and then a bookstore for a brief bout of Christmas shopping. Dinner at Jim ‘N’ Nicks in Gardendale — has the chain gone downhill since we left town or just that store? — and then the rest of the drive. Lots of driving.

Made it in just before midnight. Everyone was already asleep. Oh yes, the road hits back.

Monday / photo — Comments Off
12
Dec 11

Sick, making this a photo day

I’ve been struggling to describe how it felt to wake up this morning, where I communicated with gestures and grimaces for the better part of my first waking hour because the idea of talking hurt. Also, I was trying in vain to avoid the inevitable ancestry-cursing activity of swallowing.

I’m not sure how to express it, other than to say that if Death had a next door neighbor, and that Death thought that neighbor needed to lighten up just a bit, I might have understood how the neighbor felt.

Things got a bit better through the day, but only a bit.

So, anyway, here’s a picture to hold us over for today:

That’s the USS Torsk, which is on display as a museum ship at Baltimore’s inner harbor. She was called the Galloping Ghost of the Japanese Ghost, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Torsk is important because she torpedoed the last enemy ship sunk by the U.S. Navy in World War II.

cycling / Monday / Samford — Comments Off
5
Dec 11

When everything comes due

Having not been on my bike in a few days I set out for a 45 mile ride today. And I realized, somewhere around mile 15, the purpose of this activity: This is an exercise with a primary purpose of allowing a far-off part of the body to explain unique pains to the central nervous system.

I do like it. And though they should arrive earlier and stay longer, the endorphins that kicked in at mile 36 were glorious.

There is an easy five mile route near home and, for a moment, I considered hanging on to make a nice round number. But I realized I was mostly freewheeling from mile 40 on. I’m blaming the red lights.

Grading today. I’m going to say this, and almost exclusively this, for the better part of the next week. May as well get used to it.