Welcome to Jim's Place: 2011

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

My last post was about me buying a new pair of running shoes. This post is just to show off the new mattress and box springs that I bought last week. If any of my imaginary readers are wondering, I purchased a Stearns & Foster Fiona Pillow Top from my local Mattress Firm location. This is the third mattress set that I have bought from them. The set was delivered last Friday, but I then promptly left town for the weekend. I got back home on Monday and finally got to try out my new bed. I have to say that it is very nice.

I also have to say that my recent spending spree is not complete with just a new pair of shoes and a new bed. Watch this space for what is next on my list.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Time for New Kicks

I posted about purchasing a new pair of running shoes back in March. It was now past time to pick up another pair, so the other day, I stopped by the new Inside-Out Sports location that recently opened near my place. I am quite happy with my current shoes which are the brass-colored ASICS GT-2150, and I still wear my previous pair of the GT-2140. For the new pair, I skipped the next generation which would be the GT-2160. Instead, I went with the current generation which is the GT-2170. I got the maroon.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

NBA Switcheroo

The National Basketball Association is currently in a state of suspended animation. Not to be outdone by their NFL counterparts, the owners of NBA teams locked out their players back in July. The owners are looking to improve the financial status of their teams, but the players do not see any issues with the status quo. I will not attempt to resolve that particular issue, but I will attempt to correct another issue that is rampant in the NBA. Of course, I am referring to the issue of team names that do not match the cities which those teams call home. I promise my solution to this issue does not touch the Los Angeles Lakers.

My proposal starts in Canada with the Toronto Raptors. That team occasionally wears throwback uniforms bearing the name Huskies in reference to the professional basketball team that was based in the city back in the 1940s. Step one in this process, the Toronto team adopts to the Huskies moniker full time.

For the second step, the process moves to California. The Sacramento Kings may eventually become the Anaheim Royals or something similar. The team could be moving into Honda Center which is home to the NHL's Anaheim Ducks. Regardless of the move, I would suggest the team drop the monarchy theme and pick up the Raptors nickname. I would suggest the team avoid the dinosaur reference however and embrace predatory birds. Instead of the Raptors name, the team could even go with California Condors.

A royal nickname has now freed. To me, the obvious landing spot for the Kings name is Memphis where the Grizzlies would become the Memphis Kings. The name would have a lovely dual reference. The primary theme would be Egyptian pharaohs since the city of Memphis is a named after one of the capitals of ancient Egypt. (Similar to Cairo, Illinois, both the Egyptian city and its American namesake are tied to rivers, the Nile and Mississippi, respectively.) The Tennessee city has enthusiastically embraced the Egyptian reference already. For the team's third uniforms, a garish Elvis jumpsuit theme would be used in honor of the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

While grizzly bears are not native to Tennessee, they have been known to inhabit the Rocky Mountains. Therefore, the Utah Jazz could become the Utah Grizzlies. This seems like a great idea except for a minor issue. There is already a professional hockey team that goes by the same name. That team plays in the minor-league ECHL. I will just assume that any conflicts between the two teams over the name can be resolved amicably.

The next step is completely obvious with the Jazz name returning to New Orleans. The team in NOLA changes its name from the Hornets to the New Orleans Jazz but keeps its Mardi Gras-themed colors. In the final step of the transition process, the Hornets name returns to Charlotte. Since the team in New Orleans would keep the current colors associated with the Hornets, the team in Charlotte would need a new design. I would suggest using black and gold like the old WFL football team with that name. The color combination would be unique in the NBA.

Changing the name of the Charlotte team to the Hornets would free up the Bobcats name. I have previously established my disdain for that nickname, and I doubt there would be any takers for that one.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Double Duty

This is not a great picture, and I apologize to my imaginary readers for the crappy photo quality.

I saw the container in the middle of the picture at the place where I get my hair cut. I tried to discreetly take a picture of the item with my cellphone. I assume this particular product a favorite with the ladies for several reasons. Based on the surrounding products, I would assume Kenra is the name brand of this product. However, I am not sure what this is suppose to be even after searching the Internet. Perhaps it is from the Kenra Platinum collection. It looks similar to this "Freezing Gel", but the bottle shown in that link does not seem quite as shiny. The place where I get my hair cut also carries haircare products from Redken, but this does not look like any of their products either.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Thank You BCS

First, congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals for winning the 2011 World Series. Second, general opinion is that this year's World Series between the Cards and the Texas Rangers was one of most dramatic of all World Series. I agree that this was definitely an exciting series, but I do not think it was the best ever. In my opinion, the best World Series was the 1991 edition between the Atlanta Braves and the Minnesota Twins. That is even though Atlanta, my personal favorite team, did not win. Many people also rank as the best the 2001 World Series which had the Arizona Diamondbacks overcoming the New York Yankees. I really can not argue with that selection.

I have covered this particular rant before, but I still do not understand why playoff systems are considered the best method for choosing champions of sports leagues. A playoff tournament is really only useful for determining the best team over the month (or whatever duration) of the tournament. However, I do not think that playoffs are particularly useful for determining the best team over the length of the whole season. In the case of this baseball season, the Cards were tied with the Boston Red Sox for the eighth-best record with 90 wins and 72 losses. If instead of teams from the American and National Leagues being seeded separately in the postseason tournament, teams from both leagues were seeded together, St. Louis would have had to played Boston in a tiebreaker game.

The Cardinals only sneaked into the playoffs on the last possible day because Atlanta lost their last game. If Atlanta had won their last game, a play-in game between them and Cardinals would have been required. Of course, the Cardinals were only in position to claim a postseason berth in the first place due to Atlanta's epic late-season collapse. In early September, Atlanta had an 8.5-game lead over the Cardinals in the Wild Card standings but managed to miss the playoffs.

The current Super Bowl champions of the NFL are another example of not the best team winning the league championship. To clinch the bottom seed on the NFC side of the playoff bracket, the Green Bay Packers had to win their final regular season game against their archrivals, the Chicago Bears. As a sixth seed, the Packers had to win three consecutive playoffs games on the road to make Super Bowl XLV. As an aside, Super Bowls are held at neutral sites, and Super Bowl XLV was played at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. In the game, the Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers who were the second seed from the AFC. The best teams during the regular season and thus number one seeds in the playoffs were the New England Patriots from the AFC and the Atlanta Falcons from the NFC. Neither of those two teams survived the playoff tournament in order to play in the Super Bowl.

On the other hand, the highest level of college football has a process where the two best teams meet in the championship game at the end of the season. Instead of a playoff tournament, the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) has postseason bowl games. The top four bowl games plus the championship game are included in what is called the Bowl Championship Series (BCS). With the BCS, teams are ranked using a formula that combines human voting and computer-based algorithms. The BCS rankings along with some other considerations are used to decide the matchups for each of the four major bowl games with the two highest-ranked teams guaranteed to play in the BCS National Championship Game. This process ensures that one of the two best teams will be crowned the champion for the season.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Jim's Travels: Boston

As chronicled on these pages, I have been traveling quite a bit lately. A few weeks back, I flew up to Boston to hang out with my friends Shawn and Alan. Shawn lives in the Boston area with his wife Jess. Since Alan was going to be in town for work, I got invited up for the weekend.

As is the norm for my friends and I, the visit revolved around drinking, particularly of the barley and hops variety. Shawn and Alan pick me up from Logan International Airport on Friday around lunch time. We preceded to one of Shawn's favorite chicken wing joints for some grub and brews. I enjoyed a pint of Harpoon IPA with my chicken wings.

Afterwards, we headed over to Sunset Grill and Tap which is located in Allston neighborhood of Boston. I decided to order a flight of beers from Boston-area breweries. The flight included Beer Goggles Barleywine from Wormtown Brewery. As to be expected from a barley wine, this one had a big flavor and was high in alcohol (10% ABV). Even the small flight sample of the brew was difficult to finish. Another beer in the flight was Dočesná Czech Hop Harvest Ale which is the 38th offering from Harpoon Brewery's 100 Barrel Series. The other two brews were Dean’s Beans Coffeehouse Porter from Berkshire Brewing and Great Pumpkin Ale (!) from Cambridge Brewing.

The rest of that Friday has faded into the haze. It should be no surprise that the start of Saturday was spent recovering from the night before. Saturday afternoon, Shawn, Jess, Alan and I made our way over to the Boston Beer Company for a tour of the brewery known for producing Samuel Adams beer. I had done the tour by myself on a previous visit to Boston, so I was already familiar with the discussion of beer ingredients and the brewing process. The tour ended with a beer sampling that included their flagship Boston Lager and the seasonal Octoberfest. The new selection to me was the Samuel Adams Latitude 48 IPA.

Saturday night was dedicated to birthday parties for some friends of Shawn and Jess, including the friend who was the inspiration for this post. The first stop was a bowling alley which had candlepin bowling instead of the ten-pin type with which I am familiar. I elected to skip the bowling and instead focus on my beer which was an Oktoberfest Lager from Berkshire Brewing Company. This was my second brew from BBC in as many days.

After stopping at a wine store to pick up a party gift, we proceeded to the house of another birthday girl who was sharing a party with yet another birthday girl. The party featured a wide selection of alcoholic beverages and good food. Guests could entertain themselves with beer pong and bean bag toss. I partipated in both activities during the course of the evening. In between glasses of Sangria and Jell-O shots (which were consumed in memorable method), I squeezed in a few bottles of beers. Two of the brews were from Harpoon Brewery. One was their UFO Hefeweizen, and the other was their Summer Beer. I also had a Smuttynose Finestkind IPA. Smuttynose Brewing Company is located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

That wraps up the Boston trip. Since returning from Boston, I have traveled to Los Angeles, but there will not be a post covering that trip. I should have a return trip to Montreal in a couple of weeks and a week-long trip to Vegas at the end of November.

Monday, October 10, 2011

ACC Realignment

The lost children of TCU announced today that the school has decided to continue its wandering ways. The Horned Frogs are reneging on their previous agreement to join the Big East Conference starting next year and are instead taking their long-coveted spot in the Big 12 Conference. They will replace the Texas A&M Aggies who decided to take their injured egos to the Southeastern Conference.

In other recent news from the land of musical chairs in college athletics, the University of Pittsburgh and Syracuse University will be moving from the Big East to the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The exact time-frame for the move is still up for negotiation. The move will obviously affect scheduling for all sports as well as result in a change to the divisional alignment for football and possibly other sports.

The simplest solution to the realignment issue would be to add the Pitt Panthers and Syracuse Orange to the existing football divisions which are named the Atlantic and Coastal Divisions. The ACC specifies a permanent rival from the opposite division for each team. In this case, Pittsburgh and Syracuse would become the designated rival for each other. In the chart below, schools in the same row are permanent rivals. I decided to add Pitt to the Coastal Division since it is closer to the far-flung University of Miami. Therefore, Syracuse ended up in the Atlantic Division.

Atlantic Division	Coastal Division
Boston College Clemson Florida State Maryland N. C. State Wake Forest Syracuse	Virginia Tech Georgia Tech Miami Virginia North Carolina Duke Pittsburgh

While this lineup is perfectly acceptable, I personally prefer geography-based alignments for sports leagues. Dividing the ACC between northern and southern teams could result in conniptions from the four schools located in North Carolina since the dividing line would result in one of those four schools being isolated in a separate division from the other three. A more interesting solution might be to divide the conference along an east-west dividing line. Going almost strictly by the geographic coordinates of the schools results in divisional alignment below. The University of North Carolina is actually further east (79° 3′ 0″ W) than Pittsburgh (79° 57′ 11.78″ W), but it mostly works.

West Division	East Division
Virginia Tech Wake Forest North Carolina Clemson Georgia Tech Florida State Miami	Virginia N. C. State Duke Syracuse Maryland Pittsburgh Boston College

I juggled the permanent rivals a bit. I think the Miami Hurricanes and Boston College should play each other every year. The reason should be obvious. Having the orange-clad Clemson Tigers play the Syracuse Orange every year is just humorous if painful on the eyes.

Another idea for dividing the conference into east and west divisions would be to pair up the teams in the conference and then divide each pair geographically. That would result in the alignment below. The permanent rivals are based on how the teams were paired up.

West Division	East Division
Syracuse Pittsburgh Virginia Tech Wake Forest North Carolina Georgia Tech Florida State	Boston College Maryland Virginia N. C. State Duke Clemson Miami

Obviously, quite a large number of alignments are possible. Another suggestion would begin with the current divisional lineups. To placate the four North Carolina schools, Pitt and Syracuse are added to the same division. The two North Carolina schools in that division are moved to the other division. That would result in an uneven number of team in each division, so one other team has to switch divisions. In the alignment below, I added Pitt and Syracuse to the Atlantic Division and moved the N. C. State Wolfpack and Wake Forest Demon Deacons to the Coastal Division. I also switched the Virginia Cavaliers over to the Atlantic Division where they could be matched with the Virginia Tech Hokies as their permanent rival.

Atlantic Division	Coastal Division
Virginia Boston College Clemson Florida State Maryland Pittsburgh Syracuse	Virginia Tech Wake Forest Georgia Tech Miami Duke North Carolina N. C. State

This alignment also represents a modified north-south lineup with Clemson and Florida State being in the northern division. This lineup should be more acceptable to the North Carolina schools than a true north-south division. Another suggestion would be to swap Florida State and Virginia Tech. In that case, Clemson would be the odd southern team in the northern division instead of one of the four North Carolina schools.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Great White North by Northwest, Part II

This post is a continuation of a previous post that recounted my trip to Vancouver, BC and Portland, OR. The first post covered my stay in the lovely Canadian province of British Columbia which was first trip to Canada. I have subsequently made a second visit to the Great White North this time to Montreal.

This was my third trip to Oregon, and I very much enjoy the area. As I have mentioned in a previous post, Portland is known as "Beervana" due to the large number of breweries in the area.

I always look forward to taking advantage of that fact when I visit my friend Alan. We planned our own beer tour on the first day of my visit. Unfortunately, the trip was several weeks ago, so time (not to mention the beer) have started to dull my memories. I do remember that our first stop was not a bar, club or restaurant but a food cart to grab some lunch. After walking past the various carts lining Alder Street, Ninth Avenue, and Tenth Avenue, we chose Emame’s Ethiopian Cuisine. While the food was excellent, it turned out not to be quite as enjoyable as our beer crawl progressed.

I do not remember the name of first bar that we visited, but it was know for the number of whiskeys it carried as can be seen in my photos. Instead of a whiskey, I had a pint of the Total Domination IPA from Ninkasi Brewing Company. I finished the glass, but I would not say that I particularly enjoyed the brew. Our second stop on the tour was Silver Dollar Pizza II. I enjoyed a glass of the Sweet Leaf from Off The Rail Brewing which is located in Forest Grove, Oregon.

For our next stop, we crossed Broadway and stopped into Bailey’s Taproom. This place recently replaced their previous method of displaying the list of their beers with a large display located above the bar. I enjoyed a very nice Kölsch-style ale from Occidental Brewing Company which is named Cloudy Summer. Alan has trouble finishing off his Bourbon Barrel Cappuccino Stout from Lagunitas Brewing Company. Together, we managed to finish off the glass. After Bailey’s, we crossed Ankeny which is a small side street and stepped into Tugboat Brewing Company where I had a Amber Lamps.

Things now start getting particularly hazy. Luckily, I have my handy dandy Twitter account to remind me of the beers I consumed, albeit not exactly where I consumed them. The next beer on the list is a hefeweizen from Pyramid Breweries which is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. For a time, this brew was branded as "Haywire Hefeweizen", but the name has since reverted back to just "Hefeweizen" with the "Haywire" being dropped by the wayside.

The hefeweizen was followed by Twilight Summer Ale from Deschutes Brewery which is one of the Oregon's more well-known breweries. Skipping ahead to Saturday, I accompanied Alan along with his wife and daughter to a picnic for his company which Alan has been responsible for organizing. At the picnic, I had bottles of Mirror Pond Pale Ale and Black Butte Porter both of which are from Deschutes. I also had a bottle of Widmer Hefeweizen from Widmer Brothers Brewery. At the picnic, I enjoyed a small box of maple and bacon ice cream from Fifty Licks Ice Cream in Portland. The maple leaf on the box represents the maple flavor is not a reference to my previous stop in Canada.

Backing up a bit, Friday night continued with beer tastings at the Cascade Brewing Barrel House. I chose to taste sour beers which were on the fruity side. I had the 2011 Nightfall Blackberry, the 2010 Apricot Ale, the 2010 Sang Royal, and the 2010 Kriek. Honestly, I mostly remember those beers being difficult to drink.

Moving on to Saturday night, Alan and I decided to hit some bars in his Lake Oswego neighborhood. We started with some beers at Maher's Irish Brew Pub. There I enjoyed some Magners Irish Cider with Guinness layered on top. The next stop was Firehouse Pub where we ordered a couple of baskets of chicken wings. The wings were over the top on the hot sauce. The extra hot wings led to copious amounts of beer of which I lost track. According to Twitter, I had a blonde ale from some brewing company with "Island" in the name. That turns out to be not particularly useful information. We finished up the night down the street at Gemini Bar and Grill, but those beers are also lost to the drunken haze.

I did have one more Oregon brew before flying home. In the Portland airport, I had a draft of Mom Hefeweizen from Rogue. It seems this beer is also known as Half-E-Weizen, but I will not hold the various names against it. Anyway, that beer is the end of my trip to Vancouver and Portland. Next up in Jim's travels is Boston and then Los Angeles, possibly Santa Clara, maybe a return trip to Montreal, and one or two trips to Las Vegas.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

A Beginning

Note: As could be surmised by several of my previous posts, I have been traveling a good bit recently. While looking to kill time during a recent layover, I decided to try my hand at some creative writing. I only managed an opening paragraph. I suppose this story is intended to be erotic fiction as opposed to a Harlequin romance. At the risk of this site being slapped with the dreaded "Adult Content" label, here is my attempt at fiction.

During a layover in a generic airport, I am sitting at in a restaurant with a drink in my hand. Neither the crappy airport food on the table in front of me nor the random sporting events on the multitude of televisions around the bar are particularly interesting to me. Entering the restaurant is a woman in a conservative business suit. I can not help but notice her black stockings and expensive-looking three-inch heels. We make eye contact as she makes her way towards the table next to me. She smiles. She takes off her dark suit jacket before taking a seat in a chair across from me. Unconsciously, she unbuttons the top of her sheer cream-color blouse to let her well-sized breasts breathe. Her skirt rises up her thigh just a bit as her nicely-curved hips shift in an attempt to get more more comfortable in the uncomfortable chair.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Hypothetical Season for Texas

I am afraid this topic will be another that is not of much interest to many of my nonexistent readers. This particular post has been sitting in draft for quite a long time. It feels like I have been working on this post for over a year. I am not sure exactly, but that might not be too far from the truth. I believe that I started writing this post back in 2010 when top-level universities changing athletic conferences was current news. Once again the shifting landscape of college sports is in the news.

Texas Christian University (TCU) is one of the schools that will be changing their conference affiliation. While not exactly geographically-correct, the Horned Frogs will be moving to the Big East Conference for the 2012 season. Of course, TCU switching conferences is reminiscent of the children of Israel wandering in the desert. The Big East will be the fifth conference for TCU in recent memory. Their athletic program was a member of the Southwest Conference until 1996, then the Western Athletic Conference through 2000, followed by Conference USA (C-USA) until 2004, and the Mountain West Conference until this year.

One of my thoughts on this topic is close to being out of date with several schools from the Big 12 Conference, including the University of Texas, considering bolting for the recently expanded Pacific-12 Conference. My thought was that the Texas Longhorns would be able manipulate the Big 12 in an effort to create the possibility of seasons where they could make it all the way to the national championship game while only playing once outside of the state of Texas.

The first step would be for the Big 12 Conference to expand back to twelve team by adding two schools located in Texas such as the University of Houston and Southern Methodist University (SMU). (I originally included TCU prior to the announcement of their move to the Big East.) Both the Houston Cougars and SMU Mustangs are currently members of C-USA. With the exit of Texas A&M University from the Big 12, yet another school would need to be added to keep the number of schools in the conference at twelve. Therefore, I will include UTEP (University of Texas at El Paso) who are also from C-USA in this hypothetical situation. With the addition of the schools from Texas, the Big 12 would again be divided into North and South Divisions with the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University moving to the North Division.

North Division	South Division
Iowa State Cyclones Kansas Jayhawks Kansas State Wildcats Missouri Tigers Oklahoma Sooners Oklahoma State Cowboys	Baylor Bears Houston Cougars SMU Mustangs Texas Longhorns Texas Tech Red Raiders UTEP Miners

In the magical season for the Longhorns, their non-conference games could either be played at home or against teams from Texas, such as a rivalry game against the Texas A&M Aggies. For their conference schedule, they would play the five teams in their division and three games against teams from the North Division. One of the interdivisional games would be the Red River Rivalry game against the Sooners which has been played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas for many years. One of the other two interdivisional games could be a home game. The third game would be an away game played outside of the state of Texas.

Assuming the Longhorns win their division, they would play in the Big 12 Conference Championship Game. Several times in the past, the championship game has been played in the state of Texas. It is not a stretch of the imagination to assume that Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas would again be a frequent home to the game. The stadium is the new home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys and hosted the Big 12 Championship Game in 2009 and 2010. Speaking of the Cowboys, their owner, Jerry Jones, would like to see the new stadium get the chance to host the BCS Championship Game. The people in charge of the BCS have stated that they would consider the idea. Thus, it might be possible at some point in the future for the Longhorns (or any of the other Texas schools) to play for the national championship in their own state.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Coffee At Work

One of my coworkers recently bought a Keurig coffee machine for our lab at work. He also bought a variety of K-cups. So far, I have tried two of the flavors. I have enjoyed several cups of Caramel Vanilla Cream from Green Mountain Coffee. I do not think that the vanilla and caramel combination is quite as good as plain French vanilla, but it is much better than the combination of butter toffee and coffee.

I have been trying to cut down some on consuming caffeine, so I tried a cup of the decaffeinated version of Donut House coffee which is also by Green Mountain. I think decaf coffee is somewhat pointless, but the Donut House brew was quite drinkable.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Layered

This post continues the theme from my previous three posts of pictures taken from my cellphone. It also continues some of the discussions from the most recent post.

In that post, I covered Crispin Cider and Cottonwood Pumpkin Spiced Ale, and I mentioned a half-and-half with each of them plus Guinness stout. I was back at the neighborhood bar yesterday evening, and I took the opportunity to enjoy one of each.

The first picture shows the cider and stout. The half pint of cider was poured first, and then the Guinness was floated on top by pouring it over a spoon. The Crispin Cider company calls this creation the Crispin Velvet.

As expected, it was quite lovely to drink.

The bartender had to rummage through a drawer to find the pouring spoon, so I felt obligated to have another half-and-half. The pumpkin ale and Guinness was next. The ale was poured first and again, the stout was floated on the top. Some places on the web call this concoction a Black and Orange. I had one of these the other day, so I knew it would taste great. The Cottonwood is a spiced pumpkin ale. The spice adds a unique twist to the flavor of the Guinness.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Picture Perfect 2

In a previous post, I discussed beers that have their own glassware. I showed two examples taken from the camera which is integrated in my cellphone. It seems that this might be a new reoccurring topic.

In my most recent post, I finally got around to discussing my trip to Vancouver. That was my first visit to Canada. Prior to publishing that post, I had already made a second visit to the Great White North.

This time, I visited Montreal which is located in the province of Quebec. This was a quick trip to visit a customer and a vendor, so there is really not enough to discuss in an extensive post.

While in Montreal, I stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel. One evening during my stay, I had dinner in the hotel at the Sarah B. absinthe bar. I did not try any of the drinks that featured the signature spirit. Instead, I had a beer, Leffe Blonde, which was poured into its own branded glass. Before having a taste of the brew, I snapped a photo of the glass.

Last night, I stopped by the local neighborhood bar where I previously enjoyed Palm Speciale Belge in a branded glass. They also recently began offering Crispin Cider which arrives into its own branded glass. For some reason, the recommended method for enjoying Crispin is poured over ice.

I enjoy hard ciders, and I enjoyed the Crispin. The ice does seem to make the cider more crisp. I am looking forward to enjoying a Crispin Velvet which is half a glass of the cider with Guinness floating on top (hopefully minus the ice).

As can be partially seen in the photo of the Crispin glass, my neighborhood bar now has Cottonwood Pumpkin Spiced Ale on tap. I enjoyed the pumpkin ale in a half and half with Guinness poured over top (another common theme). The Cottonwood brand of ales were previously brewed by the Carolina Beer Company which was part of the Carolina Beverage Group. The parent company decided to focus on contract brewing, so back in January, their Carolina Blonde and Cottonwood brands were sold off to Foothills Brewing . I have enjoyed several offerings from Foothills which is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I think this change will help alleviate some of the confusion surrounding the various breweries named "Carolina".

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Great White North by Northwest, Part I

As previously promised, here is my post on my recent trip to Vancouver, BC and Portland, OR. The trip was for both business and pleasure. I was in Vancouver for business to attend the SIGGRAPH 2011 conference. The stop in Portland was to visit my college friend Alan.

The SIGGRAPH (short for Special Interest Group on GRAPHics) conference was held in the Vancouver Conference Centre which is located on the shores of Coal Harbour. The conference center is an interesting building and is known for an interesting piece of art. The views around Coal Harbour (which also seems to be known as Vancouver Harbour) are simply spectacular. Located next to the conference center is an airport for seaplanes called the Vancouver Harbour Water Airport. My coworkers and I all regretted that we did not have the opportunity to take a tour on one of the seaplanes.

Past the seaplane airport is the Mill Marine Bistro which is a restaurant and bar that overlooks the harbor. My coworkers and I had lunch there on our first day and then later returned to enjoy some of the local beers on tap. The bar features draft beers from the Whistler Brewing and Granville Island Brewing. I tried the Altitude Honey Lager and the Weissbier Wheat Ale from Whistler and enjoy both. It seems that the name of Whistler's honey lager has now been changed to Bear Paw.

I tried three different brews from Granville Island Brewing at various places around Vancouver during my trip. The first was the Robson Street Hefeweizen, the second was a pint of the English Bay Pale Ale, and the last was the Island Lager.

While in Vancouver, my coworkers and I enjoyed several fabulous dinners. The bartender in the hotel bar assured us that Gotham Steakhouse was the best of the breed in Vancouver. It was the only steakhouse that we tried during our visit, but it definitely got our vote as the best. Our waiter assured us that the grass-fed beef available in Canada was much better than the best grade of meat grown in the United States. The restaurant's website tells me their beef is from the prairies of Alberta. Interestingly enough, our waiter suggested that I not get my steak rare which is my usual preference. He told me that Canadian beef is lean, so rare is not sufficient for getting the juices flowing. I acquiesced and enjoyed a fabulous medium rare steak.

The next night, our group wanted seafood. Our hotel bartender again provided an excellent suggestion with a place called Joe Fortes. From what I remember, the raw oysters were fabulous, as were the calamari and beef carpaccio. For my entrée, I had a dish that was the daily special. I believe the fish was sole. It was buttery and sweet which was unexpected. I thought it was an excellent dish which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I enjoyed quite a few different brews while I was in Vancouver. The restaurant in our hotel had Rickard's Red from Molson on tap. I enjoyed several brews at Mahony & Sons, an Irish pub located in the convention center complex which also seems to be called Burrard Landing. In addition to some of the previously mentioned brews from Granville Island, I tried the Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale and the Stanley Park Noble Pilsner. In my tweet about the Stanley Park brew, I stated that it compared favorably to Sam Adams Noble Pils.

On our last night in Vancouver, our team had dinner at Smiley's Public House. It was Thursday, so I enjoyed the steak frites special for $13. That would be Canadian dollars, of course. I also enjoyed Driftwood Farmhand Ale which is a Belgian-style saison.

In a future post, I will cover my visit to Portland which was the second part of my trip.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Picture Perfect

A camera (if not two) is now a standard feature on most cellphones including my own. I find that the camera is very useful for taking pictures of beer, and the beers that are most interesting to view are the ones that are contained in glasses with their own logos. I recently enjoyed two brews that were served in their own branded glassware. While my photography skills are the less than perfect, the bad photos had no effect on the brews.

The first brew was Oktoberfest bier ("bier" is German for beer) from Paulaner Brauerei ("brauerei" is German for brewery).

A word of warning, the brewery's webpage is very musical. The beer is a very easy drinking Oktoberfest brew. In fact, it was easy to drink more than one.

I also had more that one of the second beer which was Speciale Belge from Palm Breweries. The glass says Palm is Belgium's amber beer. The beer was new on-tap at the neighborhood bar. Several folks at the bar did not care for this new offering, but I thought it was quite tasty.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

NHL Realignment Proposal (continued)

Here is one more realignment suggestion for the NHL. This one is just a minor change from the second suggestion in my last post. I just switched the Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens. Another change is water-based divisional names. Honestly though, the North Pacific Division could remain the Northwest with four of the five team currently in the division. The South Pacific could be the Southwest or just the Pacific also with four of five teams remaining. The South Atlantic could be the Southeast with three teams being held over. The Great Lakes Division could remain the Central with the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings being holdovers. The North Atlantic could be the Northeast, with the Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens remaining. The Mid-Atlantic could be the new Atlantic Division with holdovers Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers from the current version. I also considered North Central for the Central/Great Lakes and South Central for the Mid-Atlantic. However, the name South Central has some negative connotations.

Northern Conference
North Pacific Division	Great Lakes Division	North Atlantic Division
Calgary Flames Edmonton Oilers Minnesota Wild Vancouver Canucks Winnipeg Jets	Buffalo Sabres Chicago Blackhawks Detroit Red Wings Ottawa Senators Toronto Maple Leafs	Boston Bruins Montreal Canadiens New Jersey Devils New York Islanders New York Rangers
Southern Conference
South Pacific Division	Mid-Atlantic Division	South Atlantic Division
Anaheim Ducks Colorado Avalanche Los Angeles Kings Phoenix Coyotes San Jose Sharks	Columbus Blue Jackets Pittsburgh Penguins Philadelphia Flyers St. Louis Blues Washington Capitals	Carolina Hurricanes Dallas Stars Florida Panthers Nashville Predators Tampa Bay Lightning

Sunday, August 28, 2011

NHL Realignment Proposal

I have previously discussed realignment for the NFL and MLB. I had hoped to cover realignment for college sports, particularly the BCS conferences, prior to the start of the 2011 college football season. Unfortunately, I have yet to get around to that topic. In the meantime, here is a plan for realigning the National Hockey League.

With the NHL franchise previously located in Atlanta moving north to Canada to become the reborn Winnipeg Jets, the NHL will be realigning its teams for the 2012-13 season. The simplest realignment plan would be for Winnipeg to move to the Northwest Division of the Western Conference. The team would mostly likely displace the Minnesota Wild who would then shift over to the Central Division.

One of the more eastern teams in the Western Conference would be reassigned to the Eastern Conference to replace the Winnipeg team. The Columbus Blue Jackets, Detroit Red Wings and Nashville Predators are all hoping to be the team that takes Winnipeg's spot in the east. For these teams, the move represents reduced travel costs and fewer late starting times for road games. Picking which team will get to move will take some politicking. As a Carolina fan, I hope Nashville will get the nod and join the Hurricanes along with Florida, Tampa Bay, and Washington in the Southeast Division.

Instead of the obvious and simple plan, I think the NHL should consider a more radical realignment plan. With the new franchise in Winnipeg, the number of NHL teams located in Canada rises to seven which is 23% of the 30 franchises. However, a Canadian team has not lifted the Stanley Cup since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993. The drought has now stretched to 18 years. Considering Canadian teams made up 20% of the league over most of that span, it would be expected that a team from Canada would win the championship once every five years.

To promote more games between the Canadian franchises, I propose that the current Eastern and Western Conferences be eliminated in favor of Northern and Southern Conferences. Obviously, all seven of the Canadian teams would be in the Northern Conference. The Northern Conference would contain mostly older, more established franchises including all of the "Original Six" teams. Some exceptions would be the Ottawa Senators and Minnesota Wild who are recent expansion teams and the relocated Winnipeg team which began as the expansion Atlanta Thrashers. The Southern Conference would have more recent expansion and relocated franchises but would also have five of the second six franchises (the sixth being the defunct California Seals/Cleveland Barons).

Below a straight geographically-correct realignment. Each conference is split into West, Central and East Divisions similar to the NFL divisions prior to its 2002 realignment.

Northern Conference
West Division	Central Division	East Division
Calgary Flames Edmonton Oilers Minnesota Wild Vancouver Canucks Winnipeg Jets	Buffalo Sabres Chicago Blackhawks Detroit Red Wings Ottawa Senators Toronto Maple Leafs	Boston Bruins Montreal Canadiens New Jersey Devils New York Islanders New York Rangers
Southern Conference
West Division	Central Division	East Division
Anaheim Ducks Colorado Avalanche Los Angeles Kings Phoenix Coyotes San Jose Sharks	Columbus Blue Jackets Dallas Stars Nashville Predators St. Louis Blues Tampa Bay Lightning	Carolina Hurricanes Florida Panthers Philadelphia Flyers Pittsburgh Penguins Washington Capitals

I think switching some teams would definitely improve the above proposal. For instance, swapping the Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens would put all three of the northeast Canadian teams in the same division. The seven Canadian teams would thus be concentrated into two divisions which would result in more match-ups between the Canadian teams.

I would also group Carolina, Dallas, Florida, Nashville and Tampa Bay in a true southern division. I renamed this division the South Atlantic. The other division affected by this change ends up with a mixed bag of teams that stretches from Philadelphia to St. Louis. I renamed this division the Mid-Atlantic. I do not think the names of the different divisions matter too much. I reverted back to the current division names for the Northwest and the Pacific and changed the name of the northeast division to the North Atlantic. The final result is below.

Northern Conference
Northwest Division	Central Division	North Atlantic Division
Calgary Flames Edmonton Oilers Minnesota Wild Vancouver Canucks Winnipeg Jets	Chicago Blackhawks Detroit Red Wings Montreal Canadiens Ottawa Senators Toronto Maple Leafs	Boston Bruins Buffalo Sabres New Jersey Devils New York Islanders New York Rangers
Southern Conference
Pacific Division	Mid-Atlantic Division	South Atlantic Division
Anaheim Ducks Colorado Avalanche Los Angeles Kings Phoenix Coyotes San Jose Sharks	Columbus Blue Jackets Pittsburgh Penguins Philadelphia Flyers St. Louis Blues Washington Capitals	Carolina Hurricanes Dallas Stars Florida Panthers Nashville Predators Tampa Bay Lightning

Interestingly enough, it seems that the NHL is considering what I think is an even more radical proposal which would reduce the number of division from the current six down to four.

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