Fantasy (and a little bit of reality) Football 2009

The NFL season starts this Thursday. As a Denver Broncos fan, I’m still not sure if I’m looking forward to the season starting. I’ve been following the team for about 25 years, and I can’t remember a season when they were not expected to be competitive at the beginning of the season. In that period, only twice have lost double digit games: 1990 (5-11) and 1999 (6-10).

For a couple decades, John Elway alone could will the team to competitiveness. As long as he was under center, you know the Broncos had a chance. Once he retired, Mike Shanahan was a great coach and stable force. The past few seasons were fairly mediocre and featured late-season collapses, but they never reached the depths of becoming a laughing stock like Detroit, St. Louis or Oakland.

Denver has actually been a remarkably stable franchise. It has not had consecutive losing seasons since 1971-72. They always have a chance. It makes following the team fun.

Now? I have no idea what to expect. With a new coach, new system and drastic roster turnover, it could get ugly.

If you listen to the experts, Denver should win 4 to 6 games this year. Looking at the schedule, I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s brutal. But this is the NFL, things change dramatically from year-to-year, so I don’t put too much stock in that.

I’m willing to give new coach Josh McDaniels the benefit of the doubt. Accounts from inside the organization are that he’s not as much of a jerk as he is perceived after the Cutler and Marshall fiascos. He’s a smart guy and architected the best offense in the history of the NFL. That has to count for something.

Denver still has a lot of talent, and the change has brought a fresh attitude to the team. I think they will be better than most people expect. Put me down for 9 wins, just don’t ask me where those 9 will come from. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

Fantasy Football

Now onto what really matters, fantasy football! Last week, we had our Yahoo league fantasy football draft. This is our 6th season with primarily the same crew. It’s a 10-team league and we keep pretty standard scoring except we have 6 points for passing TDs and we adopted points-per-reception this year. You know, got to keep it fresh.

I like my squad’s chances this year. I had the 6th pick. Here are my draft results:

1. (6) Michael Turner
2. (15) Tom Brady
3. (26) Anquan Boldin
4. (35) Thomas Jones
5. (46) Marshawn Lynch
6. (55) Eddie Royal
7. (66) Braylon Edwards
8. (75) Antonio Bryant
9. (86) Ahmad Bradshaw
10. (95) Jamal Lewis
11. (106) Fred Jackson
12. (115) Kyle Orton
13. (126) Patrick Crayton
14. (135) Jabar Gaffney
15. (146) James Davis

(I’ve since dropped Orton and Gaffney to make room for a Kris Brown (K – Hou) and Philadelphia’s defense.)

The only disappointment I had was in round 4. I’m not sold on Thomas Jones this year, but the players I had targeted in that round: Ryan Grant, Pierre Thomas and Wes Welker, went right before my pick. It was either Jones or Kevin Smith, so I went with the old vet.

I am very excited about the Lynch (5th) Jackson (11th) combo. Essentially, for two middle round picks, I have a top 15 running back. I also think Jackson will be a viable fill-in, especially in a PPR league. He had 37 catches in limited action last year.

I was very pleased to end up the value I got with Boldin (3rd), Royal (6th), and Bryant (8th). I think Eddie Royal is going to have a huge year. Huge.

My wild card is Braylon Edwards. I actually think he’s got his head on straight this year, and he looked really good in camp and preseason. I think he’s out to prove everyone wrong about last year. And besides, who else are they going to throw to in Cleveland? Mike Furrey? The passes have to go somewhere. Put Braylon down for 95 catches, 1,400 yards and 12 TDs. That’s right.

Obviously, my hopes for a 2nd championship (2007) rest with Brady. If he can throw 4,000+ yards with 35-40 TDs, I’ll win it all. If his shoulder falls off, I’ll be in the middle of the pack. I usually take a QB somewhere between rounds 5-8, but I decided to go all-in this time. Brees and Manning were off the board by my pick in the 2nd round, and those three were my only 3 sure-thing QBs this year. Everyone else has question marks.

One final fantasy football projection: James Davis will be the #1 rookie fantasy running back by the end of the year.

I’m more excited about the fantasy football season than the real one this year, which is pretty sad. However, I have higher expectations for Jimmy’s Hotdogs than the Broncos.

Go Hotdogs!

Slow down

This article from the Washington Post is over two years old, but I just came across it via @jetsetcitizen. It’s a long article, but if you have 20 minutes or so, it’s worth the read.

To sum up, the Post did an experiment in the Metro station in DC during morning rush hour. They had Joshua Bell, a world famous and award winning American violinist, play for 45 minutes to see how many people would stop in the middle of their morning commute to listen. I’ll make you read the article to get the exact numbers, but needless to say, very few did.

They recorded the performance and put together a 2:30 video:

While watching that video, I became overwhelmed with sadness. The time-lapse clips highlight the drone-like mentality that we each go through our days with. I don’t even think it’s that we’re so busy that we don’t notice these things. We all complain about how busy we are, but somehow we manage to make time for the things we really find important.

To me, it illustrates how insulated we are. Keep your head down, get to work, work hard, collect your check, go home. That’s the life we’ve all been conditioned to live. If you stop to listen, you’re wasting time. You’ll fall behind, you’ll miss deadlines. You’ll score low on your next performance review at work. You’ll get let go. You’ll miss a couple mortgage payments. You’ll be homeless.

That may be an exaggeration, but that’s the mentality we have. Unless you are working your ass off, you’ll never succeed and you’ll lose everything. Is that true? Is that how our lives have to be?

As I read the article and watched the video, I kept asking myself,

Would I have stopped to listen?

Catholics Come Home Video

My dad showed this video to me last Friday. It was done by CatholicsComeHome.org, which is an organization that works to extend an invitation to any fallen-away Catholics to come back to the church, no matter what the reason for their absence. I think it’s a wonderful evangelical mission.

This video really makes me proud to be part of the Catholic Church. Our church has taken a lot of criticism over the years, some very warranted, but much of it comes from misunderstanding. As a human-run organization, the church is not perfect, but this video sums up what the church stands for at its core and what it means to live and serve as a follower of Christ.

Apple’s design philosophy, take it or leave it

Interesting article about a talk given by Apple’s lead designer, Jonathan Ive: (via @redstarvip)

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2009/07/jonathan_ive_th.html

My favorite quote is at the end of the article, when Ive says, “We maybe would have a difference of opinion, but I can say it’s that way because that’s the way we wanted it to be. There’s not an excuse.”

Apple is ok when people disagree with them or don’t like them. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we were all so confident in ourselves and our organizations that we did not feel the need to defend or justify ourselves? (Or worse, to cave to what other people want from us and go against what we believe in.)

Failure and fixed vs. growth mindset

I’ve read a couple things on failure recently that have stood out to me. I can’t remember the earlier article, but the latest one I read was from Peter Bregman on HarvardBusiness.org (via @redstarvip). Both articles have the same premise, that the ability to deal with and rebound from failure has a strong connection to our own mindset.

The basic concept is that people have fixed mindsets or growth mindsets. From Bregman’s article, Why You Need to Fail:

“If you believe that your talents are inborn or fixed, then you will try to avoid failure at all costs because failure is proof of your limitation. People with a fixed mindset like to solve the same problems over and over again. It reinforces their sense of competence.

“But if you believe your talent grows with persistence and effort, then you seek failure as an opportunity to improve. People with a growth mindset feel smart when they’re learning, not when they’re flawless.”

I’m beginning to realize how often I’ve approached things with a fixed mindset. How often have I said (or overheard someone else say), “I’ll never be good at playing the guitar, I’m just not musically inclined,” or “I’ll never finish a marathon in less than four hours, I’m just not that athletic.”

How often do we come at things in life with preconceived notions of what we can and cannot do. In most cases, if we go into something thinking we can do it, we either won’t try, or we will fail at it. Most of the time, as the article says, we probably don’t even try.

Marcus Aurelius once wrote, “Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.”

Tonight I picked up the guitar and practiced my chord progressions until my fingers hurt too much to play… 10 minutes later. Tomorrow, I’ll do it again, hopefully for 12 minutes.

Beastie Boys at the Orange Peel

I'm Big on the Pig

It’s not often you have the opportunity to see an iconic band that is still relevant at a small music club. The Beastie Boys usually play 25,000 seat amphitheaters and football stadiums. I’ll never forget having tickets to see the Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine play at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC back in 2000 on their “Rhyme and Reason Tour,” only to have the show cancelled after Mike D got hurt in a bicycle accident. I’ve been waiting for the chance to see them ever since. (By the way, what a show that would have been! It still draws a tear to my eye.)

As my sister once put it, Nicole and I don’t just do stuff, we have adventures. I think it’s one of the best things about our relationship. It certainly keeps things interesting. Right now, we’re fortunate enough that we can kick off in the middle of the afternoon for a road trip blitz up to Asheville for a show on a Wednesday. We hit the road at about 3, hoping to get in a pre-dinner beer at an Asheville brewery tasting room.

The Big Gnome Travelling Road Show

Pregame

Our first stop was Wedge Brewing Company, one of Asheville’s newest breweries. They set up shop in an old warehouse in the arts district down by the river. They have a really cool porch which you can see in the photo. It is bordered by a wrought iron fence that was built by the artist who used to own the building. A very cool venue to have a beer. I sampled the witbier, Nicole had the Iron Rail IPA. Both excellent.

On the porch at Wedge Brewing Company

We only had time for one round, as we had to meet up with our friend Red for dinner at Barley’s Tap Room. The Barley’s in Asheville is less than one block from the Orange Peel, so it makes a perfect place to grab some pizza and a beer or two before the show. Unfortunately, our other friend, Big A, was detained for a bit, so he couldn’t meet up with us for dinner.

At Barley's

After waiting in line for a bit, we finally made it into the Orange Peel about 20 minutes before show time. If you’ve never been, the Orange Peel is one of the best places to see a show. It’s in an old warehouse and simply one big floor with a large bar to the left of the stage.

There are no obstructed views and there really isn’t a bad place to stand. They have an excellent beer selection, featuring many local Asheville breweries. They also work hard to keep the place clean, including the bathrooms, and they haven’t allowed smoking inside, even before it was banned in the city a couple months ago. All around, it’s my favorite venue.

The crowd before the show

My companions

Onto the Show

We knew it would be a great show when we saw the surprise opener come out, none other than Biz Markie. My friends Big A and Boot Cut have a great story about seeing Biz in Orlando, so he’s always been a legend in our circle. It was amazing to see him open for the Beasties.

He came out with a turntable and proceeded to scratch some records and threw together a time-travel inducing montage of classic 1990s hip hop tracks. It may have been the best opening act ever.

Biz Markie spinnin' records

After Biz closed with his classic “Just a Friend,” the Beastie Boys came out to Remote Control. It’s tough to put into words seeing a group that you’ve been listening to for 20 years, but never seen in person.

What was also odd was that they now look like dads, “but cool dads,” as Nicole put it. They’ve got salt and pepper hair, were wearing button up shirts and pants. Even though they look older, and I’m sure they’re a bit more toned down than they used to be and I don’t think they can jump around as much as they did when they were younger. However, you can still see that twinkle in their eye and they’d flash those devilish smirks to let you know they still had the juice.

Left to right: MCA, Mike D, and Ad Rock

We were really treated to two shows in one. They mostly did their rap songs, where they were just on mics with Mix Master Mike spinning the beats, but they also interspersed several stretches where they pulled out instruments and went with a “real band” thing.

Ad Rock

MCA played bass, Mike D was on drums, and Ad Rock donned the guitar. They even busted out a few instrumentals, including Ricky’s Theme, Sabrosa, Gratitude and a new one called Electric Worm. The Beastie Boys are often just thought of as a hip hop rap group, but they started out as a punk band in the late 70s, so they have developed some serious music ability over the last 30 years.

I won’t claim they are the greatest musicians ever, but they had serious skills on the instruments. MCA was right in front of us on bass, and he totally brought out the funk. Looking at their work over the years, the rock influence is obvious, as they sampled from Led Zeppelin, Dylan and the Beatles, and you can totally see it when they perform live.

Country Mike

MCA

The highlight of the night, at least for us, was when Biz Markie came out to sing Benny & the Jets. It got a little hot up in the Peel this far into the show, so Biz had to go shirts off. It was a watershed moment in music history.

One interesting bit about the show was that they only played one song off Licensed to Ill, Posse In Effect. There was no Fight For Your Right, Paul Revere, Girls, No Sleep Till Brooklyn or Brass Monkey. (I really wanted the Peel to serve Brass Monkey, as I’ve never had it. Oh well.)

It makes you wonder, now as 40-somethings, what they think of the songs they wrote in their youth. It’s probably the same way I look back at my early to mid-20s. Yeah, it was fun, but I sure was silly.

Finally, they wrapped up with my favorite Beastie Boys song, Sabotage. (It also has to be the best music video ever.)

Now two days later, I’m finally recovered. The show still seems a bit surreal. They are back to business now, headlining Bonnaroo tonight. I’m glad I got to see them at a small club in Asheville, NC. Who would have thought?

Let’s Rid the World of “Click Here”

One of my biggest irritations on the earth is the use of “Click Here” for hyperlinks. Website users, myself included, scan content quickly. We don’t want to read every word. We scan pages for headings, hyperlinks, lists, and pictures. Anything that stands out.

The great thing about a descriptive hyperlink is that I know what I’m going to get when I click on the link as soon as I read the link text. If it says “Click Here” I need to read the text around the hyperlink to understand the context of the link.

It sounds like a small thing, but as impatient as Web users are, you need to do everything you can to avoid annoying them and get them to the information they seek as quickly as possible.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:

• Click here to read Jakob Nielsen’s report on writing for the web.

• Jakob Nielsen’s report on writing for the web is a must read.

Which one is understandable more quickly?

I bring this up because over the weekend, I was reading an article in The State newspaper on the front page of the Drive section from Saturday, June 6, 2009. They obviously copied this article directly from a website, but in the article it says, “Click here to compare…” Last I checked, I can’t click on a newspaper. Nice to see the editors of the newspaper are paying attention.

Below is another of my favorite examples of all-time. This is from the Consumer Reports website. See how long it takes you to understand which “click here” you need to click on to take some action.

Click on the image to see the full-size version

Instead of simply listing available actions and hyperlinking those actions, they forced me to spend 20 seconds reading the entire page so I could understand what I needed to do. I could have gotten it in 3 seconds if they had done this:

• Become a subscriber
• View our customer service page
• Access your account

I hope you can see that “click here” has got to go. It is a lazy way to write Web content. It makes reading and navigating on the Web much more difficult, and is completely unnecessary if we simply spend a few extra seconds to figure out how we can create descriptive hyperlinks.

Thank you for your support.

Beastie Boys in Asheville

I just got two tickets to see the Beastie Boys at the Orange Peel in Asheville next Wednesday! Holy crap! That is unbelievable. For those unfamiliar, the Orange Peel is a music club that might hold 1,000 people. The Beasties have played stadiums, and they are going to be playing a club.

I had to fight through Ticketweb server problems for like 15 minutes before it finally went through by some miracle. A few minutes later, I checked back and it was sold out.

Wow. Words cannot express my excitement.

One Year in Greenville

June marks the one-year anniversary of Nicole and me moving to Greenville. It’s hard to believe that one year ago, I quit my job and moved here with no assurances. Pretty crazy, eh?

So far, we really like Greenville. First, being closer to the mountains is great for us. We can be hiking in about 15 minutes. Cleveland Park and Falls Park are awesome parks to have right in the middle of downtown. I don’t know of any other southern city that has 2 miles of parks, complete with trails and running paths, smack in the middle of the city.

Snow day at the rock quarry

There’s also a lot to do in the city. In the summer months, there are free outdoor concert festivals Wednesday through Saturday nights. There’s a cool music club, the Handlebar, nice restaurants and bars, and of course, my favorite beer bar, Barley’s Taproom.

The first cookout at the Manor, July 2008

Over the past year, I’ve had the chance to do a lot of things. We found a great church community at St. Anthony of Padua. The spirit, faith and support of that community are unlike anything other place we’ve seen. It is truly unique and inspiring.

I’ve also gotten involved with an awesome homebrewing club, the Upstate Brewtopians. There are some very good homebrewers in that group and I’ve learned a lot from them. On the porch of our house, I’ve managed to brew 5 batches of beer, including the infamous Slain Troll’s Blood Stout. Most exciting, though, thanks to Brewboy, I’ve acquired two kegs, which now make up a kick-ass 10-gallon homebrew system. I can now brew all-grain batches with the best of them.

Big Brew Day with the Upstate Brewtopians. Look at the size of those tanks!

However, it hasn’t been all fun and games. Adjusting to a life without a regular paycheck has been more stressful than I’d care to admit. Paydays are great, but the wait in between is not for the faint of heart.

I would say, one of the best things to come out of our entrepreneurial lifestyle is that we have done a good job of cutting our expenses. Since moving to Greenville, we have cut our expenses by nearly 30%. Once we eliminate our debt, that will save us another 10% each month.

By minimizing and simplifying, we hope to lay a solid financial foundation for the rest of our lives. Without being encumbered by bills and payments, we hope to be able to have the freedom to pursue our dreams and do the things we feel called to do.

They say that necessity is the mother of all invention. Well, I can say with certainty that if I had gone straight into a nice paying job, we never would have gotten this lean, and I don’t think we would value simplicity and debt-free living as much as we do now.

What does the next year hold? The only thing I can say is that we’ve signed our lease for another year at the Manor, so Greenville will have us for at least another year. Nicole and I both have big plans and aspirations, so we hope to share those with you as we achieve them along our journey.

No matter what, it’s certain to be a wild ride. Our days of the daily grind are long over.

Commercials Before Internet Videos

As companies and individuals look for ways to make money on their websites, one emerging trend is to run a 15 to 30-second commercial before video content plays. You click on a video to play, the commercial runs, then you see the video content you wanted to see. Obviously, they don’t give you the option of skipping these advertisements, because everyone would if given the chance.

One lesson I learned several years ago, when Flash was all the rage to incorporate in a website, was that Flash intros on websites were extremely irritating to users. If you insisted on having a Flash intro, you had better have a skip intro button available. Usability tests confirmed that Flash was bad.

Remember the 7-Second Rule? Website users will wait, on average, 7 seconds for content to load and to find what they are looking for. If it takes longer than that, they are likely to lose interest and leave.

These two ideas led to one of the core axioms of Web design:

Anything that impedes or delays a user’s ability to get to the information they seek is deadly to a website’s effectiveness.

With more and more Web content going to video, I think these video commercials are worse than Flash intros, and worse than TV commercials, for that matter. On some sites, every time a video loads, they show you a commercial with no way of skipping it.

That’s a 15 to 30 second delay every time I watch a video, even if the clip I’m watching is only 15 to 30 seconds itself! At least on TV, I typically get to watch a few segments, or 5 to 10 minutes, in between commercial interruptions.

One reason I gave up TV was that I hated commercials. I’m really starting to get tired of these video ads on websites, too. I wonder how this is going to play out in the long run. Will people show more patience on websites than they have in the past to watch content they want to see, or will people stop clicking?