End of This Particular Spree

I started doing the "one post every day, minimum, for July" thing on a whim; my friend and fellow blogger Sage, a.k.a. "The Boy Yo Momma Warned You About", swore to tweet at least twenty times a day (or a maximum of 2,800 characters/day) every day for the entire month of July. I thought, hell, if he can send a load of Internet text-messages every day, I can definitely do a blog post every day. 34 posts later, I'm all written out. (I was also researching and writing news articles, applying for writing gigs, reviewing shows, etc. on top of the daily posts, so it turned out to be a huge amount of writing). 

I think this'll help me when I start writing my senior thesis this fall. Doesn't matter if it's great or terrible, just sit down every day and write something about the topics you're interested in. Why? Because you said you would. Make it like practicing an instrument. Chew some ideas over with your friends, brainstorm and write everything down. I'm going to take the fishing-net approach to writing my senior I.S., at least for the start: don't try and harpoon one idea at a time, go catch all the little ideas and see which ones pan out.

This is kind of rambling, though, and talking about the near future isn't the point of this post. This past month, I wrote about the NFL. I wrote about opera. I wrote about... special relativity, and described how fireworks look from a plane, and analyzed movies and applied logic and broke down sci-fi tropes and posted photos and did research and wrote all kinds of wildly varying junk. And I just wanted to say, to everyone who spent time reading all of this babble, thank you very much for doing so. That means a lot to me. 

I definitely won't be posting as often in August (thank God). I'll be putting up more pictures on the Tisdel's Temerity Flickr account, upload limits permitting, and hopefully some videos that I'll throw on YouTube. I'll also be posting bits of whatever tentative body of work I settle on to start the Senior I.S. parade. I hope you enjoy what I've got to offer, and once again, thank you for reading. :-)

The Philadelphia Eagles Look Mighty Like the Miami Heat Right About Now...

How they're paying for it I don't know, but Philadelphia is doing this year what the Miami Heat did last year, or what the Bears did in free agency with Julius Peppers and all the rest of their free agents. The Eagles have signed or traded for four former Pro Bowlers and one guy who probably should've made it... in the last four days. Nnamdi Asomugha, Cullen Jenkins, Jason Babin, Vince Young and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie have the rest of the NFC East shaking in their collective shoes about now. (Johnnie Lee Higgins doesn't, but just wait.)

Philadelphia, as a team, tied for 10th last year with 39 sacks. Babin and Jenkins, between them, had 19.5 sacks last year (and Jenkins played only 11 games). They will instantly make life easier for Trent Cole and Brandon Graham, who will likely be used in a rotation. Jenkins can play inside as well as outside, but the Eagles now have an enviable stable of guys who can get after the passer. They look a lot like the 2007 New York Giants on the line. 

The secondary is phenomenal. I've never been a Rodgers-Cromartie fan and I think he's overrated, but having a former Pro Bowler as your nickel back (not to mention one that's only in his fourth season) is an awe-inspiring possibility. If they keep Asante Samuel, and I don't know why they wouldn't, the Eagles are stacked. 

The reason why I think these signings are going to work, as opposed to the Redskins' traditional spending sprees that always fell flat, is because the collective talent level in Philadelphia was already so high. Two excellent receivers in DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin, a competent tight end in Brent Celek, a good RB in LeSean McCoy, and of course Michael Vick himself. Their offensive line isn't great, but that's less of a factor with a scrambling QB like Vick. 

The only thing that could derail this express is injuries. The team got Vince Young to do backup duty because Vick is likely to miss time this year as well; it's the cost of doing business, so to speak, of having a scrambling QB. Jenkins has a long injury history, Graham missed most of last year and Jackson has also missed time. If Andy Reid can coach 'em, though, and if the Eagles stay healthy, they're officially the team to beat in the NFC (alongside the Packers). 

Stray notes:

-On the other side of the league, New England just keeps making itself better. Albert Haynesworth and Vince Wilfork on the same line could be almost unfair, if they get the former to work hard. 

-Unnoticed in all the scrambling, the Bears picked up former Jets bust Vernon Gholston. Keep an eye on this signing. Gholston is built like Hercules, but never fit as a 3-4 OLB or 3-4 DE in New York. If Rod Marinelli and Mike Phair can teach Gholston the ways of the 4-3 and turn him into a legitimate pass-rusher, look out below.

-Speaking of the Bears, I don't get their receiving corps moves. Roy Williams had his best years with Martz in Detroit, but that was four years ago and Williams isn't the Pro Bowl type. Plus, whatever happened to Greg Olsen? He's built along the lines of Jermichael Finley, but Martz never utilized him the way McCarthy's been able to deploy Finley. The Panthers got a steal there. 

-New Orleans and Green Bay always get compared because their coaches' fates were linked: Sean Payton was considered seriously in Green Bay before Mike McCarthy came on board, and Dom Capers was the Packers' third-choice defensive coordinator after Greg Williams (now the Saints' DC). Both teams look extremely deep at WR and RB, especially since the Saints just signed my longtime crush, Darren Sproles. If Drew Brees isn't throwing picks, I don't really know how you stop that offense right now. The NFL's opening game could be one of its best all year.

Photos from the Beautiful California Coast

Hey gang! No text-post today, but by way of my "31 posts in 31 days" goal, I've put up a collection of pictures that I took on the San Francisco coastline, in a park called "Golden Gate National Recreation Area". I have some hundreds more pictures from the trip, but I chose to take out the 63 from this location (that weren't duplicates, poor or stupid shots) and focus on nature-type shots (flowers, trees, etc). There are a bunch of decent ones and a very few very good ones, but I'm not going to tell you which I think are which, so hah. Find out for yourself!

You should be able to find them in the link below; if not, leave me a comment and I'll see what I can do. They are under "Tisdel's Temerity", my newly launched Flickr counterpart to this site, so hooray!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65561393@N03/sets/72157627311775752/

Enjoy,

Andy

...What the Hell Just Happened?

Today, a Haitian man offered me $20 to look up the name of a hotel in the Yellow Pages. He then told me that I "looked honest" and offered me $200 to hold $5,000 in cash for him for half an hour while he went off and slept with a prostitute.

...I am not making this up.

The guy came up to me while I was locking my bike outside Radio Shack. He asked me if I worked there (I'm wearing shorts and a cross-country T-shirt), asked if I spoke French (Me: "Un peu"), then asked me to find "Brownstone Hotel" in the Yellow Pages for him, and kept saying he'd pay me $20. I told him that I didn't have a Yellow Pages on me, and he said "Oh! They do" and led me into the check-cashing place next door. I looked through the yellow and white sections, and surprise surprise, no such hotel exists in Milwaukee. (Google Maps confirms this.)

This total stranger then proceeded to confide in me that he'd just met a prostitute up the block and was intending to go sleep with her, but he had $5,000 in "insurance money" that he feared she would somehow steal. He told me that I looked like an honest type, and offered me $200 if I would be back at this location in half an hour with the money. I told him that he could probably use the money more than I could if he was a recent immigrant, and he started talking about a will and inheritance money and a supposed $150,000 in cash that was waiting somewhere for him. I suggested that he open an account at North Shore Bank, which is up the street a few blocks from that location, and deposit his money there; he told me that he'd left all his identification at the hotel (another hotel?) and that the prostitute was waiting on him.

Of course, I turned the guy down. I was going to go buy a video camera, for Chrissakes, not get into some ridiculous Haitian imbroglio. How do I know that anything the guy is saying is true? What if the money wasn't his, i.e. stolen? What if he didn't come back; what the hell do I do with it? I repeatedly said no, and he kept saying "Don't you want to earn some money? You look like an honest guy!" Yep, and at the risk of self-congratulation, maybe a little too honest for this kind of shady weirdness.

Seven Steps to Successful Stone-Skipping

This is something I created as a 'tutorial' for an online application, and I thought I'd use it as my post for the day because it exhaustively details something that's generally simple and instinctive. Let's get to it: skipping stones like a BOSS!

Step One: The Water.

Your first task, as an aspiring stone-skipper, is to find a body of water and wait for a calm day. The closer to absolutely flat the water is, the easier it will be to skip stones upon. For safety’s sake, make sure that there are no people or boats in the area where you’re going to be skipping. If you can’t find calm water but still want to skip, your best bet is to skip parallel to the incoming waves, not straight into them. This gives you a decent chance of throwing into the relatively calm troughs between the wave crests.

Step Two: The Stone

Your second task is to find a good skipping stone. The ideal stone is flat on both sides, has its weight evenly distributed (so there aren’t any lumps that will throw off its flight) and fits comfortably in your hand. The stone should nestle comfortably into the natural curve of your relaxed hand, which goes from the tip of your index finger to the base of your thumb. However, any reasonably sized flat stone is a good candidate for skipping. If you live in an area with lots of slate or shale rocks, I’d recommend those; they tend to be very light and flat, and are thus easily skippable. If it’s your first time, make sure to use your worst rocks first—you won’t get your stones back, so be judicious.

Some good candidates.

Step Three: The Grip

Now that you’ve got the stone, you need a proper way to hold it. Relax your hand and hold it with your thumb facing up. Hold the stone lightly with your index finger and rest it on your middle finger, with your thumb on top of the stone (again, lightly) to provide balance. The stone should balance on your middle finger, about on top of your knuckle.

For your index finger, rotate the stone and let your finger slide across the circumference of the stone. Pick a point on the stone that ‘catches’ your finger instead of letting it slide past. That is going to be the point that gives the stone its spin. If you’re right-handed, the stone will come out of your hand spinning clockwise (counterclockwise for lefties) because that point catches against your finger as you throw. (For heavier stones, use your middle finger, or even both at once.)

That point at the top of the stone is an ideal "catch".

 

Step Four: The Angles

You want the stone’s surface to be parallel to the surface of the water when it strikes. When you throw, aim about 10-15 feet in front of you. The distance will vary depending on the size and weight of your particular stone, but that’s a good distance to start with. The stone should leave your hand on a horizontal line, sinking downward through the air instead of arrowing through it. For lighter stones, aim closer to yourself while still keeping the stone flat in your hand; a light, flat stone thrown over a long distance (25 feet or longer) will usually turn over in flight and sink immediately.

Step Five: The Wrist

Skipping has little to do with your arm muscles. The power comes from the snap of your wrist when you release the stone, which is also what facilitates the spin. The snap also determines the speed at which the stone leaves your hand.

As you throw, your upper arm should remain more or less stationary. Draw your hand and wrist back, to gain power, and then snap both of them forward when you release the stone. At the instant you snap the wrist, your index finger should be the only part of your hand that is affecting the stone’s flight. The thumb and middle finger are there to keep the stone flat, but they should be relaxed enough that the stone spins out of them without effort. Your index finger, hand and wrist should all work together to impart spin to the stone. Remember: your index finger should be mostly unmoving throughout the throw. It’s the stone that spins around your finger and, hopefully, leaves your hand on a flat line to the water.

Step Six: The Stance

Stand sideways, with your non-throwing hand closest to the water and your feet parallel to each other. Your side will be facing straight towards the water, and your feet facing about 45 degrees to the left or right of your side (if your side is 12:00, your feet will be at around 1:30 if you’re right-handed and 10:30 if you’re a lefty). As you draw your hand back and prepare to throw, shift almost all your weight onto your back foot. I find it also helps to drop your back shoulder a little, which will help you get the stone closer to the ground and make it easier to throw a flat trajectory. The entire motion looks a lot like a baseball pitcher’s throwing stance.

When you release the stone is a matter of preference. Some people find it easier to release when all their weight is on their back foot and the hand/wrist is the only thing going forward; others like to have their torso moving forward slightly, shifting the weight partially onto the front leg, as they throw. This is a matter of taste; experiment and find out what works for you.

Step Seven: Putting It All Together

The most important thing to remember is to keep the stone flat. Make sure it’s flat when it’s in your hand, and make sure to throw it so that it’ll be flat when it hits the water. This is key to getting the most skips out of the stone. A good grip and good angles will help you do this, and a good stance will make it easier for you to make a nice flat throw. After you’ve mastered this, you can play around with the speed and power of your throw, and find a combination that fits your throw best.

Finally, have some fun with your newfound skills! Get some friends, head to the beach, assemble your stones and start skipping as a group. Once you all have mastered conventional skipping, you can try more exotic things like skipping with your non-dominant hand, skipping multiple stones at once or skipping backhanded (like throwing a Frisbee). Enjoy!

James Jones or Jordy Nelson: Who Should Get Paid?

The Packers have a decision to make in their wide receiver corps.

Ted Thompson loves his wideouts, and one of the Packers’ biggest strengths since he came on board has been an extraordinarily deep group of wide receivers. With Greg Jennings and Donald Driver starting, and James Jones and Jordy Nelson backing them up, the wideouts helped take Green Bay all the way to the Super Bowl.

Now it’s contract time, and we have to look at the overall group. Driver will likely retire within the next year or two, and his production has fallen off to the point where he’s more of a No. 3 now than a No. 2. James Jones is a free agent, while Nelson’s rookie contract ends after this year. Whoever gets the contract will eventually replace Driver as the No. 2. So assuming they can’t pay both*, whom should the Packers sign to a long-term deal?

To answer that question, let’s take an in-depth look at both receivers.

 James Jones #89

Over four years (one mostly curtailed by a knee injury), Jones has caught 149 passes for 2,069 yards and 13 touchdowns, averaging 13.9 yards par catch. He has worked primarily from the No. 3 slot on the depth chart, and has fumbled six times. He led the team this year in average yards after the catch, at 5.16 per, and had two 100-yard games (Minnesota, Dallas). He had one 100-yard game in 2009 (Tampa Bay), one in ’08 (Jacksonville) and one in ’07 (Denver).

Jones definitely possesses more natural talent and speed than Nelson. He’s extremely good at catching low-thrown balls and bailing his QB out on the scramble drill (40 first downs in ’10 to Nelson’s 18). According to the Journal Sentinel’s Bob McGinn, he’s “built like a brick outhouse” and “able to snatch the ball as well as anyone on the roster”; witness his the one-handed touchdown against Minnesota or the fade route over Atlanta’s Brent Grimes for examples.

He’s also prone to drops at the worst possible times. Jones dropped a slant route against Dallas and go routes against Miami, the Jets, the Giants, the Eagles and the Steelers that likely would’ve all gone for touchdowns. In addition, a Rodgers interception against the Dolphins and a Flynn pick vs. the Patriots happened when Jones appeared to quit on the routes. Jones has the speed to outrun the defense on go routes, but he drops too many passes overall (17 in the last two years).

Jordy Nelson #87

Nelson has mostly worked out of the No. 4 slot for the past three years, catching 100 balls for 1,268 yards, six touchdowns and a 12.7 ypc average. He dropped four of 83 targeted passes in his first two years before dropping 10 of 92 this year (inc. playoffs). His résumé includes four drops in the Super Bowl, but more importantly, nine catches for 140 yards and one TD. Also has six fumbles in four seasons, including four lost. Has just one 100-yard game besides the Super Bowl, catching four for 124 against the Giants in ’10.

Nelson’s biggest strength is knowing when to step it up. Played extremely well against the Giants and in the four-game postseason, Super Bowl included. Also made the clutch touchdown catch on fourth down at Atlanta (regular season). His breaks aren’t particularly crisp, but he’s big enough (6’3”. 217 lbs) to effectively box defenders out with his body and keep them away from the football. Definitely the best run blocker among the WRs. Does a good job evading contact at the line of scrimmage. His route-running, hands and agility are all pretty average.

The Verdict?

I honestly don’t have a definitive answer. When I started this, I kept thinking about Jones’ copious drops, and thought that Nelson would be a better, more consistent option. But Jones is more talented and a better possession-type receiver than Nelson is at this stage, and also runs crisper routes.

Both players have benefited from their matchups against No. 3 and 4 corners, and of coverage slanted towards Jennings and Jermichael Finley. I think, however, that Nelson is a bit more suited to deal with defenses paying more attention to him. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of a contract offer they make to Jones, and whether they value Nelson’s big-game production more than they do Jones’ superior potential.

 

Best guess: Nelson.

*Ted Thompson will need cap space to sign players like Clay Matthews, Josh Sitton and Jermichael Finley to long-term deals in the next year or two. Also, Greg Jennings’ contract expires after 2012, so assuming that the Packers can pick only one receiver is a reasonable assessment.

Not Calling People Back Is Bullshit (Are You Listening, Corporate America?)

I’ve spent my fair share of time shilling myself to potential jobs and internships. Over the past year or so, starting with my internship search at American University and continuing throughout this spring and summer, I’ve probably submitted close to a hundred résumés, cover letters and writing samples.

Very few of them resulted in a job offer. That’s fine. I get that it’s a competitive environment, particularly journalism-centered jobs, and that I’m not right for every place, and that there are tons of qualified candidates out there. That’s not my problem. My problem is when I send an email or a printed packet to a lot of workplaces, I might as well be sending them into the Great White Ether. They just vanish, unnoticed and unremarkable, never to be heard from again. Even follow-ups or personal visits can’t induce a response.

This is BULLSHIT.

This is the single biggest thing that ticks me off about the job application process. I get that workplaces are busy, and I also get that when I’m applying to the office of a U.S. Senator (for example), I’m one of hundreds of gazillions of people who are applying. But someone has to be looking through all those résumés, right? Somebody’s paging through the digital archives and looking at all those emails from all the young and (slightly) desperate potential coworkers out there. So is it really asking too much for them to send a quick reply message?

Whether it’s an acceptance or a rejection or a copy-pasted statement of “Thank you for emailing the office of Senator Kohl”, ANY response is a good one. It lets me know that even though maybe nothing came of my efforts, at least I was noticed by the Powers That Be… and enough of those notices might result in a job, eventually. No reply email and it’s like I asked for an internship from the Moon. It’s discouraging, it’s depressing and it’s just plain inconsiderate.

Tell you something. When I’m the head of some major business endeavor or journalistic enterprise or what have you, my ground rule will be this: Everyone gets a call back. If they’re nice and polite and they provide contact information, everyone who sends their info to my company will get some kind of a response. It might be “I’m sorry, we’re not hiring right now,” it might be “I’m incredibly busy right now, but try me again next week and I’ll see what I can do” (and we’ll keep that promise; that’s another thing that drives me up a wall, broken promises) or it might just be “You’re probably better off looking elsewhere”. But no matter what, everyone gets his or her info looked at and everyone gets a response. That’s called being goddamn considerate.

(P.S. It’s easier to tolerate when it comes from, like I mentioned, an incredibly busy Senate office or something. But the local Kohl’s? Or some mom-and-pop endeavor that probably has a maximum of 25 applicants over the course of one summer? Come on, guys. You really have no excuse.)