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.

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.