Archive for April, 2009

Vinyl Hunting 4/26/2009

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

My Morning Jacket - ZIt’s been awhile, but I made a return trip to the record store. I wasn’t on planning on purchasing anything, but I found a couple of records I couldn’t pass up. Once again I went to my favorite record store in Madison, Strictly Discs. So, here’s an update to my vinyl record collection.

Z – My Morning Jacket

I saw them live in Milwaukee a few months ago with a couple of friends. Before the show, I knew very little about the band. I enjoyed the show and started listening to Z. I really like this album. This might sound strange, but I think this album sounds like Elton John, if Elton John rocked. Wordless Chorus is probably my favorite song on this record.

Speaking in Tongues – Talking Heads

I continue to build my Talking Heads LP collection. Outside of Burning Down the House, I wasn’t originally a huge fan of this record. As time goes on, I have started digging this album. I really enjoy Slippery People and This Must Be the Place.

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No one runs on Mark Buehrle

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

While watching the White Sox / Orioles game tonight, I was pleased to see John Danks pick Brian Roberts off at first. I’ve noticed that Danks has improved at keeping runners at first. In his rookie season, baserunners were 91% successful (with 2 pick offs) and last year they were only 74% successful (with 6 pick offs). That’s nothing compared to Mark Buehrle.

A baserunner against Mark Buehrle has a better chance of being picked off then actually swiping a base. In his career, he has picked off 61 baserunners and only given up 36 stolen bases. That’s incredible. Even outside of Buehrle’s pick off move, only 41% of baserunners have been successful stealing. The league average is 73%.

I started wondering, what kind of an effect does this have? I’m going to break it down by adjusting WHIP. WHIP stands for Walks + Hits per Inning PItched. Essentially, WHIP looks at the number of baserunners per Inning (excluding errors). Buehrle’s pitched 1865.2 Innings, given up 1937 hits and 431 walks, so a 1.269 WHIP.

Among active players, a 1.269 career WHIP is the 21st among active players . That feels about right, he isn’t an Elite pitcher, but he is still very good. Now, what if we remove his Pickoffs (61) from his Walk+Hit total? That ends up with a WHIP of 1.236.

Does this make any difference? That adjustment moves him up to 15th. Now to be fair, I didn’t adjust all of the players in baseball, just Buehrle. Still, the guy he passes up (Brandon Webb) only has 8 career pickoffs, so Buehrle benefits from a change like this more than any other MLB pitcher.

Obviously, adjusting the WHIP like I did isn’t really a helpful exercise. WHIP does a good job of measuring baserunners per inning, so no adjustment is really needed. My point is that while Buehrle might lack the strikeout numbers of the elite pitchers, there is something to say about a guy who has pitched 8 straight seasons of 200+ IP and is excellent at neutralizing the opponents running game.

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#cubemusic – Twitter Hash Tag

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

For those of you who aren’t very familiar with Twitter, many times there will be a hashtag that people place inside their Tweets so that others can follow a particular topic.  For example, those who are saying something about Earth Day will include “#earthday” in their Tweet.  Here is a link to the most recent #earthday tweets.

During the NCAA Tournament, I found it useful to follow the #marchmadness tag and appropriately tag my tweets regarding that issue. I found that some people even tagged their tweets with #marchmadness and the team they were following (ie #wisconsin). It was fun to look back at all the instant responses to Trevon Hughes’ buzzer beater.

Lately, I’ve started using my own tag that I hope will eventually take off. I listen to music at work and I started Twittering about any album I decided to listen to next. I’ve started tagging it #cubemusic. As you can see, it hasn’t exactly taken off yet. The only people who have started using it are my co-workers, @strivinglife and @danconderman. So, I’m going to keep checking those search results to see if anyone else starts using #cubemusic. I have 70 followers, so someone’s bound to pick it up eventually. Until then, feel free to follow me, along with my music choices at work, on Twitter @rmlumley.

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Virginia 09 Vacation Recap

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

A lot of people have been asking about my vacation, so I thought I’d just write about it on here.  It was a very enjoyable time.  Molly and I drove straight-thru to Virginia on Saturday and came back, driving straight-thru, the following Saturday.  In between this time, we mostly hung out with my family and my friend, Matt.

Cannon Ball in Yorktown, Virginia

On Saturday, we left Madison at 5AM and arrived to Yorktown, VA at midnight.  The most exciting thing we encountered on that trip was our lunch at Chick-Fil-A.  That Sunday we mostly rested and visited with my Aunt & Uncle, with Matt and my cousins coming over for dinner as well.  On Monday we visited Yorktown and I took the picture you see with a cannonball still stuck in the side of a building.  On Tuesday we went to Williamsburg with my Aunt and my 4 year old cousin, Emily.  That evening, we drove to Chesapeake and met with Matt to watch the first half of the NCAA Championship game.

On Wednesday we relaxed and stayed in.  Thursday was our trip to Baltimore to see the Yankees/Orioles game at Camden.  Camden Yards is great, but the game was pretty disappointing.  I also experienced the horror of Northern Virginia traffic.

We relaxed and grilled out on Friday with family and Matt.  We left at 5 AM on Saturday and arrived back in Madison at 9:15 PM.  The way back included a failed stop in West Virginia where both the bathrooms were out of order.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip.  I’m not a big fan of having the entire week of vacation planned out, I like to just take things day by day.  The only day we planned ahead for was the trip to Baltimore on Thursday.  I have spent a lot of time in Yorktown, VA, so the trip was about seeing the people, not the attractions.  I also enjoyed all of the food we ate.  My Aunt made us either pancakes or waffles every morning.  Molly and I have decided that we’ll probably make this an annual trip.  My Uncle just got a pretty sweet boat, so we’ll probably push it out to May every year.

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Vacation Time

Friday, April 3rd, 2009

It’s 11:00 PM and I’m about to go to bed.  Tomorrow morning, Molly and I are waking up and going to attempt to drive straight thru to Yorktown, VA.  It is about a 16-17 hour drive, so we’ll see how it goes.  She’s going to take the early shift (which I’ll sleep during), I’ll drive in the afternoon, she’ll drive the evening and I’ll finish up the late hours.  If we get tired, we’ll get a hotel somewhere along the line.  The problem is I’d like to at least get 12 hours of driving in, but I don’t want to stay at a hotel with only 4 hours remaining.

I’m going down to see some family and meet up with my friend, Matt.  The only thing I have planned out is a Yankees/Orioles game in Camden Yards.  Everything else is up in the air and I’m pretty pleased about that.  It sucks when your entire vacation is scheduled out.  I plan to relax, eat some good food and have some nice conversations.  As long as that is accomplished, along with a safe drive there and back, it will be a very successful vacation.  Besides, I’m ready for a week away from work.

Be sure to follow this blog and especially my Twitter for updates during the vacation.

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