My Life Blog

On Top of Na Pali
Originally uploaded by bill_eisenhauer.

As of this morning, we have been back from Kauai for as long as the time we were there; two weeks. So how are we doing?

Suzanne has a persistent cough which she had prior to the trip, during the trip, and now after the trip. It seems to have taken a turn for the worse, so she visited the doctor on Friday. This weekend she’ll be taking lots of drugs to kill it off. Given the length of time this has lingered, the doctor has prescribed some serious stuff. So her vacation buzz has to be pretty low right now.

Me, well I managed to keep stress-free this week even though one of my buddies at work is out on vacation (in Hawaii!). Trails that used to lead to his desk were now leading to mine. But I managed to fight off the discontinuity of my work life. At the end of the week, I was working on a massive change which involved almost 100 of our source files. So I guess I’m thinking fairly clearly. So my vacation buzz is not dipping as dramatically as Suzanne’s.

I chose the accompanying picture because I had forgotten to post it to Flickr. You’ll note in the bottom right that there is a finger intruding into the picture. We’re sad to say that almost every picture not taken by us on the hiking trip has a finger or a camera strap in it. I’m not real adept at magically fixing these, so we’ll have to live with them until I figure something out.

Let’s see, only sixty more weeks (or so) until our next long vacation. Now that’s a vacation buzz-kill.

It was suggested to me either seriously or in jest today that the Dallas Mavericks made the NBA Finals this year to accommodate the NBA’s need to restore big market teams into their premier event.  In short, talent and superior preparation alone weren’t the reason the Mavericks advanced to the Finals.  Rather, its an NBA conspiracy.

To me, this is baseless and reeks of sour grapes.  So let’s take a look at the teams that the Mavericks eliminated and do some analysis.

The regular season lasts roughly six months, while the playoffs last a little over two months.  In the regular season, the NBA and the TV networks have the ability to showcase any team in the league.  But curiously, the Mavericks come in fourth among the Western Conference playoff teams.  The leaders were the Lakers (34), Phoenix (33), and San Antonio (30).  The Mavericks were seen 27 times.  Memphis came in 7th with 7 viewings.  Based upon these numbers, the Mavericks were at best the fourth choice among the available Western Conference teams.  So far, it doesn’t sound like a conspiracy.

If there was ever a media darling, it was probably the Lakers as they held the biggest market.  But somehow the league could not engineer a Lakers upset of Phoenix in the first round.  I will grant you that it was a close series (4-3). 

Note also that the Los Angeles market had a second chance with the Clippers.  Again, down they went to the same Suns, this time in the second round.  And again, a close series (4-3).  So far, still no proof of a conspiracy.

The series in question is the San Antonio series.  Again, San Antonio should be the preferred team based upon the stated regular season preference.  But if the preference of the alleged conspirators had flip-flopped then how would they get the Mavericks into the Finals?  Its doubtful you could manipulate players in the 2nd round; just look at the key players and tell me who you’d have to buy out.  So there’s no way that could happen.  The only other people on the court are the referees.  So let’s take a look:

PF = Personal Fouls
SF = Personal Fouls by Starters
NP = Number of players to get in the game
W  = Win followed by point differential.

Game 1:
  Mavs:  PF(24), SF(14), NP(10)
  Spurs: PF(20), SF(15), NP(10), W+2

Game 2:
  Mavs:  PF(27), SF(15), NP(12), W+22
  Spurs: PF(26), SF(12), NP(12)

Game 3:
  Mavs:  PF(26), SF(14), NP(9), W+1
  Spurs: PF(33), SF(23), NP(10)

Game 4:
  Mavs:  PF(24), SF(18), NP(8), W+5 OT
  Spurs: PF(26), SF(16), NP(8)

Game 5:
  Mavs:  PF(26), SF(16), NP(10)
  Spurs: PF(19), SF(13), NP(8), W+1

Game 6:
  Mavs:  PF(29), SF(14), NP(10)
  Spurs: PF(19), SF(13), NP(8), W+5

Game 7:
  Mavs:  PF(32), SF(21), NP(10), W+8 OT
  Spurs: PF(25), SF(23), NP(8)

I’m using personal fouls as a basis for determining whether referees may have intervened.  I make full concessions that the aggregate numbers may not tell the entire story.  A key foul at the wrong time may be equally as devastating as 5 discretionary fouls throughout the game.  Also, a team can rack up a lot of fouls late in the game as they try to slow the game down to make their comeback.

Turnovers and other judgment calls factor in too, but are not included here.  But if you accept that foul-calling is the primary method for a ref to influence the game, then here you go.

In Game 1, you could argue that the Mavericks were wronged as they have a +4 for fouls in the game.  The starters match fouls for the most part.  To me, this looks even.

In Game 2, SA has fewer fouls called on the entire team and on their starters and they lose by 22 points.  Granted, the starters sat the bench much of the game.  No wrong-doing here.

In Game 3, SA gets into foul trouble and is +7 for total fouls and +9 for fouls by starters.  Early on, this is a suspect game if you are conspiracist.  SA loses by 1 point.

In Game 4, SA is +2 for total, but -2 for their starters.  For the Mavericks, Erick Dampier fouls out coming off the bench.  Diop fouls out as well.  The Mavericks win in OT.  This looks pretty even to me.

In Game 5, the Mavs lose the PF battle 26-19 and have +3 for their starters.  They lose by 1 point.  This game makes up for Game 3’s imbalance.

In Game 6, the Mavs outfoul the Spurs by a whopping 10 and the Spurs win by 5.  Given the disparity, you’d have to feel that the Mavericks are being conspired against.  10 fouls is a huge disparity.

In Game 7, the deciding game, the Mavs get called for 7 more fouls than the Spurs.  Fouls by starters are roughly equal.  Even with the disadvantage in calls, the Mavs push the game to overtime and win by 8.

If there is a conspiracy, the evidence cannot be uncovered through these stats.  To me, this looks like an even series that was decided by the players.  And Dallas was the deeper team.  They consistently played deeper into their bench with more substantial minutes.  The Spurs could only go eight deep and then they were done.

It should be pointed out that foul trouble for SA was a much worse fate than for the Mavericks.  As deep as the Mavericks are, they are better prepared to survive foul trouble.

Sorry guys, myth busted.

For those who don’t know what the term means, check out the definition at Wikipedia.  But even as you read the definition, realize that the term doesn’t quite describe what’s going on here.

Here’s the story.  When Suzanne and I were in Kauai, we were reminded again that the word "wahine" meant a Polynesian woman or a lady surfer.  Somewhere along the line, I was playing with word combinations and came up with Teeny Wahine.  We thought it was so catchy that we considered using the cool name alone to spin off some form of business.  Young women’s surf apparel came to mind first.

So because I’m forever the dreamer, I did some research on the domain name and found that teenywahine.com was taken.  But the website was not very impressive and in fact the website name does not even match the domain name.  So I researched teeny-wahine.com instead.

I had registered the domain name after looking up the availability of a trademark on the name.  To my surprise, I found that it had been abandoned.  Or so I thought.  Suzanne had a friend research the trademark and we subsequently found out that it was owned by a company called Wahine, Inc. who produce a defunct magazine.  There is no website for the company or the magazine.

Her friend’s research also revealed that the Quicksilver division of the Roxy apparel company was interested in the trademark.  If you go to the website, you’ll surmise that they are into surf wear as well.  So it appears we had the right idea, but were a little too late.

So in the end, all we have is the domain name.  If you’ve already visited it, you’ll see that I’ve utilized Yahoo’s simple web page wizard to put up a for sale sign.  So we are cybersquatting for now, but we had much bigger designs.  So there you go.

In the Nokia parking lot, I saw a black Saturn Sky; a roadster from Saturn!   I’ve been driving my car, also a roadster, for 6 1/2 years and I don’t have car envy, but I had to do a double-take when I saw this car.  And to be honest, I didn’t immediately connect with the iconic logo and had to search the car to see it in writing.  Imagine my surprise.  I mean, Saturn?!  But damn.

See a video here.

I have an "old" 20GB iPod which no longer holds its charge for very long.  I had pretty much retired it in favor of a new 60GB iPod.  It had previously made its way to work with me every day, but since it only remained charged for an hour or so, it soon lost its appeal.

At the same time, I’ve been wanting to get access to all my music in my car.  I have a six CD changer, but I rarely change out the CDs.  For whatever reason, I never think about it and its inconvenient to find a CD that I want.

So I combined these two scenarios by buying a cigarette lighter power source and a cassette tape interface for the old iPod.  Now the old iPod travels in the car with all my music and its charge capacity is not a factor since it has a constant power source.  Sweet.

I think its only a matter of time before CD changers go away completely.  And even iPods probably have a limited life span in that environment.  It seems like some sort of wireless solution must be around the corner.  As in, I’ll have my own channel out in the ether of the Internet and my car (or my home equipment) will be able to access it.

In the words of Kip, "I love technology."

re·sil·ient     ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (r-zlynt)
adj.

1. Marked by the ability to recover readily, as from misfortune.
2. Capable of returning to an original shape or position, as after having been compressed. See Synonyms at flexible.
3. Dallas Mavericks.

Wow.  The worst first period I’ve seen in a while, but no give up when down by 18 points.  Or down by 15 midway through the third period.  If you do not believe this team is for real yet, there will be no convincing you.  The evidence is before you in multiples.

A prediction here: the combination of Avery Johnson and Mark Cuban will produce many titles.  Cuban has the resources to go out and get the pieces and Avery knows how to piece them together like no other I’ve seen in a while.  Whether the first title arrives this year is yet to be seen, but there is no reason to doubt it after games like last night.

For the non-techies, SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and is used by websites to encrypt data when needed.

I could probably have titled the post a bit better, but couldn’t figure out how to make it concise.  My real question is: why are new web sites no longer bothering to encrypt your sensitive data?  I’ve noticed many new sites that don’t bother to encrypt your sign-up and sign-in data.  The problem with this is that anyone snooping Internet data can intercept that data.

Many of these sites don’t have sensitive data other than the sign-up information, but sometimes people use the same log-in credentials over and over.  I will not say if I am guilty of this.   But for those who are, if your credentials are intercepted on one of these sites, then they can be tried on other popular sites — like email sites.

I think this is a by-product of how easy it is starting to be to build and host a web site.  So my point to this post is that you should be mindful of who you give your credentials to.  If you are lazy, have one set of credentials for the secure sites and have another set of credentials for untrusted sites.  That way you can survive an interception.

For web site developers, consider coughing up the money for an SSL certificate and make the necessary programming changes if you wish to be considered in the trusted category.

We are now officially back one week into the "real" world.  Suzanne and I agreed that we had to somehow prolong that relaxed vacation feeling.  We coined it the "vacation buzz."  So how are we doing?

Well, I think quite well. 

Last night, we went to a local restaurant called Bahama Breeze.  Just go to their website and you’ll see that it was quite an appropriate choice for us.  The website suggests that "you don’t worry, everything is going to be alright" and gives you a great initial view of the ocean through a palm tree frame.  While we weren’t big fans of the calamari, we both enjoyed the mahi-mahi.  Suzanne said the Key Lime Pie was the best she’d had in a while as well.

Things are still a bit dodgy at work, but I resolved to not let it bother me.  And so it didn’t.  But let me tell you, there are many there that need vacations to restore their energy and sense of humor.  My jokes and my tan weren’t appreciated by all.  I guess when you are in a bad mood, there are few things that can deliver you from it other than an extreme scenery change.

Suzanne is off doing some power shopping right now.  Returning to the mainland has brought new inspiration for what needs to be done to our "nest."  And so quite a few things have been purchased in today’s first shopping session.  She’s off taking care of the twilight portion of the shopping double-header now.

And now I look forward to the Mavericks - Suns game.  If the Mavs win, they go to the Finals.  Fortunately, this is the only time I feel stress as yet.