A Great Idea for Croftina's History Class

Croftina! I have a great idea for your history class. First, you need to clear off a whole wall. Then, make 25 blank time lines that run from 1750 to the present. Give each of your students a time line and have them each pick some figure/data/trend and do research to track it through US history, plotting their results on the time line. You could track population, steel output, GDP, incidents of flu, size of the military, acres of conservation land, etc... - you get the idea, there must be many more. Then, line up all of the time lines on your wall. Now you have 25 data sets through history, correlated in time so you can how they interelate and how they are effected by major events. Your students could see how population shot up after WWII, or how conservation land was a big deal during Teddy Roosevelt's administration. Wouldn't that be sweet?

We could even take this idea and make it into a website. I envision the website containing one time line and a long list of things to plot one side. The user could click on a checkbox next to whatever item he/she wanted and it would be plotted. Click on another one and it would be plotted on the same axis. You could uncheck to get rid of plots. Of course, the plots would have to be normalized in some way b/c the y-axis for every item would be different.

BCS Alternative

Coach, very interesting article from Bill James. I've been waiting for years to hear from you a legitimate alternate proposal, a way to replace the BCS system. Let's have it, in depth and detail!

Genesis of the FEG

For my first real blog post, I'm going to cover the origins of the Football E-mail Group. I have saved every e-mail I that ever written going to back 2004. So I looked through some around spring of 2006 and found the e-mails that I consider to be the forerunners to what we now know as the modern day FEG. There are posted verbatim a few paragraphs below (with a few spelling corrections).

The back story is as follows: I had been working in my lab where I mostly sat in front of a computer all day and needed an occasional distraction from work. Since Satish had recently moved to England, I decided to write to him about English Football. I included Arnold partly because he's just a good guy and partly because I found the idea of sending Arnold football e-mails humorous b/c he neither likes nor cares about football (at least back then, we've converted him now).

In these 3 e-mails we discuss the 2005/2006 Champions League final between Arsenal and Barcelona, and get pumped for the up coming 2006 World Cup. The last e-mail is the best b/c that's the one where we introduced Croftina. You also need to know that Tutte is one of our many nicknames for Satish. It has a long origin, but the bottom line is that it means shit in Hindi. Without further ado, here they are:

May 19th, 2006; From Nick, To Satish and Amol:
First of all, congratulations to Tutee and Barcelona for their victory- they were the better team and it was well deserved. Although, Tutee, I say it's a little BS that Barcelona, who just happens to be the best club in the world, is somehow your second favorite team. That's like being a Brewers fan and claiming that you also like the Yankees.
Anyways, let's get to the game. Arsenal started off strong and had a few good chances in the first 15 minutes. Henry probably should have put one of those away. I knew that Barcelona was the heavy favorite going in, but those first 15 minutes gave me hope - i really thought it was going to be a great game. And then my worst nightmare comes true. Jens Lehman gets a red card. This was just devastating. The foul was obvious and the ref either had to give Lehman a red card or let the Barcelona goal stand (a lose-lose situation for the Gunners). At the time, I was hoping the ref would let the goal count and we go on playing with 11 men. The ref decided the other way, and even though Rhonaldino couldn't convert the free kick, I was destraught. It looked like any chance of a victory, or even a good game, was gone. I would have rather played a goal down with 11 men than have it be nil-nil with 10 men.

But then Sol Campbell scored a textbook goal and it looked like we might hang on for a while. Of course, Barcelona was too strong in the end and scored two goals in 4 minutes to seal the win. A tough loss, but the Gunners should keep their heads held high after such a valiant effort.

May 21st, 2006; From Satish, To Nick and Amol:

great assessment by coach
i agree, the tempo of the match totally changed when lehman got sent off and campbell's header was brilliant which hopefully means that he will be on form for the big stage.

i am elated at the barca victory but would have like to see more ronnie magic. i have to say that, former celtic, larrson came up big. despite the short time he played i would say he was the man of the match.

the goat of the match was THE REF...i mean has he ever heard of playing the advantage and giving the yellow...this would have made for a much more even match.

ultimately, the team that was suppossed to win did and all is right in the world.

coach have you heard that theo walcott made the england squad?

i'm going to watch the england b team play next week against belarus in reading. theo walcott, michael owen, jermaine defoe will be playing as per rumors. i'll let you know

i'm going to sleep,

satish

May 22nd, 2006; From Nick, To Satish, Amol and Croftina:
Keen insights from Tuttee. I agree all around. I'm quite worried that Arsenal is going to lose a number of key players (Henry, Pires, Cole, ... any others?), but hopefully we can keep our defense in tact and develop the promising young talent that we have to make another run at the UCL title next year.

Now, on to even bigger things- The World Cup!!!
I've added Croftina to the team for these crucial discussions. Croftina has been in and out of the squad due to behavorial issues (ie not responding in a timely manner) but I think we have to include him in the World Cup team b/c of his tremendous upside. An in-form Croftina is truly a sight to behold.

I'm not sure that Satish and Croftina have met, so let me give some brief introductions.
Satish is pretty much your average Indian guy. He enjoys drinking, he LOVES to eat, he just got engaged and is looking forward to pumping.
Croftina is pretty much your average white guy. He lives in Connecticut with a bunch of other white people and is always running around doing things.

Let's get started with the only team that matters- England. I love our line up, but unless Owen and Rooney get fit soon, we're not going to score any goals. I'm worried about both of them- It will be a miracle if Rooney is ready by the second round and Owen is going to be too rusty. The reserve strikers, Crouch and Walcott (?!?), don't exactly instill fear into the hearts of opponents. It would be such a shame if Rooney is not fit, b/c with him we'd be unstoppable. Just look at the rest of our line up: Becks, Lampard, Cole and Gerrard in midfield and Cole, John Terry, Neville and Campbell in defense. Who can compete with that midfield? Joe Cole is having the best season of his life, Gerrard has led Liverpool to the UCL and FA Cup titles in successive years, Becks, although not as dominant as he once was, still has to have something left in the tank and Lampard is runner up for footballer of the year. Amazing!

Please discuss your thoughts on this brilliant English side and how pumped up you are for the start of the World Cup.

Coach, out

Welcome!

Welcome to my newly created blog. This is all very new to me, but I'm excited to try it out. First some background. My main man Croftina set up this blog as a Christmas present to me. He gets a lot of e-mail from me on various topics and I guess he thought I should consolidate all of my musings into one location.

I'm not sure yet what course this blog is going to take. I guess we'll see.

Footballin' in the New Year

Its a new year, let's attack Football with renewed vigor.1. Huge Man U - Chelski clash this weekend- Sunday 11am EST. I assume Croftina and Dave will be meeting up at a local bar. Or perhaps your rivalry is too tense. Should be a great game, for the tension, not necessarily the tactics.2. The transfer window is open! Who's buying whom? It sounds like Liverpool, Chelsea and Man U are staying put - anyone heard anything to the contrary? Arse, on the other hand, are looking to buy (I hope). Right now the hot name for Arsenal is Andrej Arshavin, who we all remember from Euro 08 as the diminutive Russian playmaker extraordinaire. At least, he was extraordinaire in one match and everyone seemed to jump on his bandwagon. Not sure I like this move, if it happens. The only defense is that Cesc is hurt and we need someone to take over his attacking midfield role. Arshavin could be great, but he's exactly like every other Arsenal midfielder - quick, attack minded, good ball skills, and small. We need a hard man in the mold of Roy Keane, not another Walcott/Nasri/Denilson.3. Very telling that Arsene fielded a strong side in our FA Cup match last week. Usually he sends out the youngsters for those - is the FA Cup our goal now? I guess we could do worse. Arnold is still pulling for the title.4. Conor, we need to help out our main man Satish. You see, since he's been back in the states, all of his footballing knowledge has gone out the window. Over break I asked him to name a starting 11 for Liverpool and he threw out names like Crouch, Hyypia, Ian Rush, ... (just kidding about Ian Rush). We must get this once proud FEGer back on track and up to speed.5. Lastly, and most excitingly, Croftina set up a blog for me. What should I blog about? Should I call myself a blogger? This is all very new to me. I'm excited to try it out. I figure I already waste enough time writing FEG e-mails, why not post them so the whole world can enjoy our banter. As of now, the blog consists of a few start up posts that Croftina did - mostly he copy and pasted from old e-mails of mine.

Coach at Alta

17" of snow in the last 24 hours at Alta. Let's take a look at some video from last season to get us fired up for this year!

Must-Haves

Ok team, I have new topic for consideration.As I was going over Maxwell's equations earlier today, I thought: if I ever teach high school physics again, I'll definitely have to show my classes Maxwell's Equations in their full, elegantly simple glory. Here they are (I would show them in differential form):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwells_equations#Table_2:_Formulation_in_terms_of_total_charge_and_currentThey wouldn't understand what the equations meant, I barely do. But that's not the point. The point is that these equations represent immense human accomplishment and greatness. Everything in electrodynamics can be derived from those 4 compact equations. The information contained in them is astounding. And so I would make a point of telling my classes that the understanding isn't important - that can come later if you happen to pursue physics. The important thing is to recognize that you are in the presence of greatness. These equations have had such an unbelievabley pervasive impact on our society (how often do we use things relying on light and electronics?) that everyone should at least see them once in their life. 15 years from now you'll be at a cocktail party and some interesting fellow will be talking about Maxwell's equations, and you can say, oh yeah, I remember seeing those one time. So this got me thinking - what other experiences are "must haves", even if we don't appreciate them at the time. I'm thinking of two types of experiences. The first group I would say are ones that represent the highest achievements of our culture/society/species, as I claim the Maxwell's Equations do. An example on the other end of the spectrum might be a night at the New York Opera. I would probably be bored most of the time, and certainly couldn't appreciate it the way some art fart could, but hopefully I could recognize the quality of it all, and maybe someday I would be at a cocktail and some interesting fellow would be talking about Opera and I could chime in and say, oh yeah, I've been to one of those before. This leads to the second group of experiences that I would catergorize as "must haves": the big, important, universal ones that everyone has (or should have). These are the ones that we can commiserate over and bond over - go to a baseball game, swim in the ocean, stand on top of a mountain. These are just things that everyone should do at least once in their life.So, that was a round-about way of getting to my list. Our goal is to expand this list and then go check off the ones we haven't already done. Without further ado:

• See Maxwell's Equations
• Got to a baseball game
• Spend a night at the Opera
• Swim in the Ocean
• Stand on top of a mountain
• Drive across the country
• Hold a baby
• Get punched in the face (Croftina, you can have dibs on helping me accomplish this one)
• Get drunk
• Make out in the back seat of a car
• See a symphony
• Go to The Louvre
• Speak in front of a large audience
• Go hunting
• Camp out in the woods
• Volunteer to help someone really needy
• Stay up all night
• See the stars on a clear night
• Do something active until physical exhaustion
  

Alright, I'm running out of steam. I'm a little light on high culture ones, so you need to help me out there. Surely there are hundreds more. I turn the list over to you guys.Coach, out

College Hoops 2009

It's almost the New Year, lets start things off on the right foot with a couple of points about college hoops.1. I plan on continuing my policy of referring to all Big East teams in "Cuse" style. This year I will limit it to only Big East teams.2. The Cut lost to The Town a few days ago - any comments from the Huskie fans? 3. Is anyone better than Len Elmore?4. Every year I take your CHEP dues and put them to use carrying out my duties as Commissioner. Two years ago I traveled to Durham to present Dan with his MOE, last year I put together a very high quality video, and this year I went to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield Mass. That's right, me and fellow CHEPster Croftina made the trip to basketball's Mecca. I learned many fascinating things, such as: James Naismith was Canadian!!!!; The group that he first taught basketball to was actaully a collection of "incorrigable" middle aged gentlemen; Coach has vertical leap of 13 inches; John Wooden was first inducted as a player, later as a Coach; The Celtics were originally a barnstorming team from New York; The NIT used to be the most prestigious tournament in the country; The old timey players (we're talking 1920s) would wear knee pads for reasons that were not at all explained. What else did we learn, Croftina?5. That reminds me, none of you have paid your dues, so you each owe me $150 ($50 for the past 3 years). I take personal checks or paypal.6. It's about for Mooks to give us his annual explanation for why The Cuse has not lived up to his pre-season hype and why they are going to be awesome next year. Take it away, Mooks. Actually, I have no idea how the Cuse are doing, but didn't some of their players get arrested?That is all for now, see you in 2009.Coach, out