Week 5 Rankings have Michigan at the Top

So, my new rankings for this week have Michigan at the top and initially they had unranked Texas Tech at the top, with Alabama and LSU #17 and 18. That all looked really wrong so I spent the last hour and a half looking for glaring errors and I found one - not in the algorithm but a typo or misaligned column. That resulted mostly in the strength of schedule numbers being way off. Anyway, these new rankings for week 5 look pretty good, with the exception of Michigan at the top. Just in time to watch the new episode of Pan Am.

I like that my computer ranks Clemson #4, more respect than the poll voters give them. The one team that my computer seems to have way off is Wisconsin, fresh off a good beating of Nebraska. And of course, I like that Georgia Tech is ranked so high. They seem to now be on a collision course to go into homecoming on October 29 against Clemson, both with 8-0 records. Both the Yellow Jackets and Tigers will be bog favorites in their next 3 games - GT vs. Maryland, Virginia, and Miami; Clemson vs. Boston College, Maryland, and North Carolina). Hopefully College Gameday will be in Atlanta that day.

Some computer predictions for week 6 games:
@LSU 34, Florida 16
Oklahoma 31, @Texas 23
Auburn 31, @Arkansas 30
@Georgia Tech 40, Maryland 23
@Virginia Tech 24, Miami 21
@Wake Forest 28, Florida State 26
Georgia 30, @Tennessee 28
@South Carolina 31, Kentucky 14
@Clemson 35, Boston College 13

Don't ask for someone's number and then never call

I don’t understand women sometimes. I’ve been a regular customer at a local restaurant lately. I always sit at the bar and always order one of two things – grilled tilapia or salmon – and always see the same bartender M on Monday night. So, we were on a first name basis and after M dumped her boyfriend, she asked for my number. I obliged, hugged goodbye and left.

After a few more trips, M said “Why haven’t you called me?” “Because you didn’t give me your phone number, but you have mine. Why haven't you called?” “Well here's my number…” A few days later I called and left a message, mildly suggesting we get a drink after she gets off work. A couple of weeks pass, she doesn’t respond and I don’t mention it when I see her at the bar. Now she says she promises to call me and really does want to hang out when she's not bartending.

So I refrain from going to her restaurant for a couple of weeks and then M sends me a text: “You gonna come visit me tonight?” “Maybe. Do you miss me?” No response so I didn't go and haven't been since. I guess I am mildly interested in her but these are signs of being undependable, and I can’t handle undependable.

ASsure, ENsure, INsure

Alright, it’s time for a grammar lesson. I’ve seen these words misused a lot lately and I feel a need to make sure my friends know how to properly use the three words. While they have the same general idea of guaranteeing that something will be done, assure, ensure, and insure are not interchangeable.

 

This line was in an email I received earlier today at work: “Make sure you get our CE and BIO folks down quickly to evaluate and assure all materials are properly handled.” It really irks me when highly educated people, in this case a colonel, make simple grammar mistakes. Typos and carelessness that occurs from going too fast is one thing and easily overlooked but things like using the wrong word make you look dumb.

 

Insure has to do with money and guarantees some financial retribution if things go wrong. To insure is to “secure from harm of loss.” The ones doing the insuring are almost always insurance companies. State Farm insures the driver so that he woudn’t be liable for the whole cost of an accident. Doctors, likewise, are insured by insurance companies to protect them from being financially liable if the doctor screws up a procedure or gets sued by a patient.

 

Assure has to do with one’s feelings. To assure is to “put someone’s mind at rest.” A assures B that he will show up at an expected time. Being assures of something should remove doubt or anxiety and make someone feel better about a particular event. The object of the verb assure must something alive that has feelings.

 

Ensure is merely a guarantee that something will be done. To ensure is to “make certain of something.” It’s sort of a promise and has no implication of financial redress. If I host a party, I will ensure that there is an adequate amount of food and drink. (Ensure is the word that should have been used instead of assure in the quote in the second paragraph.)

Investing in Chipotle

One of the first things I did when I got a job and started having regular income was put some money in the stock market. One of the things I regret is not investing as much as I could afford in Chipotle. Instead, I only invested a small amount in Chipotle and my portfolio overall has performed only slightly better than the Dow in these 3+ years.

 

You all know I love Chipotle and how it would make me so much happier if someone would bring one to Warner Robins.  I might well be able to afford to do it myself if I had put all my money in Chipotle stock for the last 3 or 4 years. Then again, if I could afford to open a restaurant, I wouldn’t do it here – I’d go some place where I actually want to live, like the Dunwoody.

 

And I’ve always heard that you shouldn’t invest in companies just because you like their products so I didn’t put much into it. There were doubters all around about how Chipotle could continue to grow so rapidly and those doubters have continued to be proven wrong.

 

Three years ago to the day, Chipotle stock traded for $60.31 per share and at the moment it is trading for $344.53 per share. Wow! That’s a 471% increase. In that time, the Dow Jones is up 1.17%.

 

Yesterday when Chipotle got to 335, I sold all but one of my Chipotle shares. There’s no way this can continue to go up so much and analysts have been saying for awhile that it’s overpriced and way overdue for a major drop despite the fact that it is perhaps the best company in the fast casual food industry.

Week 3 Rankings

Georgia Tech and Georgia both won big last weekend. Tech set several school and ACC records with their 768 offensive yard performance against Kansas. The ACC fared reasonably well in it's slate of marquee non-conference matchups. Clemson beat Auburn and Miami beat Ohio State soundly but Florida State was outclassed by Oklahoma and West Virginia barely held off Maryland.

This week, my computer rankings look a little more normal as Oklahoma is the clear #1.

A few computer predictions for week 4:
Georgia Tech 31, North Carolina 28
Georgia 33, Mississippi 24
Clemson 30, Florida State 24
Arkansas 31, Alabama 30
West Virginia 28, LSU 26

Fall Tournaments and Travel

August has gone by quickly and it's time to start looking for exciting things to do after the labor day regional this week.

August was fun (not as fun as July which is always the best month of the year) and included playing in 2 sectional bridge tournaments and 2 local tennis tournaments. This week I'll be at the regional bridge tournament in Atlanta, apparently playing 5 days, which will actually be the longest I've played at a regional, and my playing time will be split with Alli and Bryan.

For the fall, there seems to be a lot of interesting things. On the non-bridge scene, I wanna go see Third Day perform in Alpharetta on Oct 1. I want to go to GT homecoming against Clemson Oct 29 and the Thursday night game against VT Nov 10. Who wants to accompany me to any of those?

GT homecoming coincides with the Charlotte regional, which is disappointing, but I think GT homecoming will take priority, as long as some of my friends will be going too.

The game against VT is conveniently scheduled at the beginning of a long weekend (Fri Nov 11 is Veterans Day) so I'm thinking I may fly to a regional (Virginia Beach or Daytona Beach or Niagara Falls) the morning after the football game.

I guess I'll go to the Seattle NABC around Thanksgiving. That will be a good time to catch up with Hitesh, Arwa, and any of the others who migrated from GT to Microsoft.

I've always been disappointed the there are no regionals scheduled to end on Columbus Day (Mon Oct 10 this year) but this year there is one - Ottawa (Oct 10 is Thanksgiving in Canada). I really want to go to that tournament via Montreal with Shaz.

Sadly the league voted to keep the men's 4.0 tennis league Saturdays at 9:30 rather than moving to a week night so I still won't be making to to more than about half of the matches.

I also feel like I'm due for a Europe trip but that probably won't happen this fall.

Tournaments have a winner and losers

Last year I wrote a piece on flex leagues and why I dislike them. People don’t like to organize things and people are willing to pay for people to organize events so that we can play a lot and play against a variety of people. In leagues and tournaments you sign up and show up at the assigned time to play. Without leagues and tournaments, many of us wouldn't have the motivation to call up a friend or two or three and organize a game. Arranging doubles matches in tennis and teams for team events in bridge are quite possibly the two most stressful things in my life.

People play in tournaments for a few other reasons: they are competitive and want to have a couple of days immersed in whatever sport or game they play and they want to see and be seen.  To achieve these things, there must be a winner (and a bunch of losers) in each division/bracket/event and the winner must be determined in a timely-enough manner such that the other competitors will be around to witness it and the results should be posted online so competitors who leave the tournament early can find out who won. Tournaments are largely social events but part of the fun of tournaments is in getting to show off and having some sort of a crowd to watch the finals. If people want to just play for fun, not care about winning or getting tired, they’ll just play socially.

Andre going up for a serve.

If a tournament is said to be Saturday and Sunday, unless there is some natural disaster or loss of power or just an abundance of rain, by the end of Sunday, there should be a winner. This could go for any sport or game but in this case I am referring to a tennis tournament that was held this weekend at the new tennis center in Perry.

Before I go on with this rant, let me acknowledge that tournament organizers should be commended for getting it organized to begin with – it’s a tough job that most people don’t want and it’s almost impossible to satisfy everyone but there are some things that are essential to having a good tournament. This tournament in Perry was actually quite nice except that there are no winners – at least not any winners that anyone will know about. I fully intend on playing both of the finals matches that I am in even though scheduling them myself irritates me.

People like scores. Tournament draws should have scores. When we see that someone won, we like to know whether that person won 6-0, 6-0 or 7-6, 6-7, 7-6. No, we shouldn’t be concerned with embarrassing someone who lost badly. Matches should have staggered start times. Yes, most tennis matches take about an hour and a half but there is a wide variance. So, with 8 courts, if a match starts on each court at 9:30, should you schedule the next set of matches all for 11:00, and then another set of 8 matches for 1:00? No, the start times should be staggered. Schedule a couple of matches for 10:30 (some people will have really short matches), some for 10:45, and the rest for 11:00 or 11:15. For the next group of 8 matches, do the same – stagger start times between 12:15 and 1:00.

Those are both very minor complaints compared to this one: FINISH THE TOURNAMENT. Tournaments have winners, not just finalists. Don’t leave at the end of the last day of the tournament and tell the people in the finals to play the match on their own time whenever they can agree. I bet about half of these final matches won’t get played simply because of having to schedule it themselves. If the idea of the tournament is to not finish the weekend tournament on Sunday, schedule the matches for Monday. Schedule all of the matches to finish. And include in the advertisement that divisions with large turnouts may have the finals on Monday evening. I would have no problem with this other than the fact that it discourages out of town players from attending, but simply refusing to schedule the finals is absurd. Or you could start the tournament Friday night if the concern is having people play too many matches in one day. If the tournament flyer accurately stated that matches for the finals will not be scheduled, I would not sign up. If the tournament flyer said that some divisions may have Monday matches scheduled or Friday night matches would be scheduled for some larger divisions, I would still sign up with barely a second thought. I expect I am in the overwhelming majority opinion on these things but if I'm not, well, maybe I'm wrong.