Conner's Blog

I was inspired today when I came across this site by The Opie which lists the 1,000 beers he drank in 2009. If you know me at all you know I’m a big beer drinker. I love drinking beer, trying new beers, and bathing in beer. Okay that last one is a little creepy and wrong, but still the point is I like a good cold beer after a long days work, or after a lazy morning of watching Youtube videos. So I’m starting my own project and have setup Daytum to keep track of my beer consumption this year. So far I’ve had seven beers this year. If you are interested, you can monitor the decline of my liver here*.

I’m tracking what beers I drink as well so it should be fun to see how many different types of beer I can try this year. I’m kind of excited about this.

*Someday Daytum will allow me to easily embed a panel showing my beer count on my site and not force me to send you elsewhere to see my consumption.

2009 was an great year, between my online life and my social life, I’ve expanded my circles in so many ways it’s almost unbelievable.  I’ve posted on this blog 92 times and received 497 comments . I’ve taken 696 photos that I felt were good enough to be posted on Flickr. I’ve made jam, curry, gnocchi, and more than a few pizzas. I’ve met so many new people it’s not even funny, and have made a bunch of new friends.

That being said I didn’t accomplish a lot of the goals I set for myself at the start of the year.  I’ve hardly put a dent in my MN to do list and I only accomplished three of my seven goals for the year. But I’m fine with that. If I had known how my year was going to go, I wouldn’t have set those goals like I did. Instead I would have made the following list.

• Meet close a 100 new people in real life by using the Internet
• Break out of my comfort zone and do some crazy public speaking
• Shop locally as much as possible
• Eat out at many new restaurants
• See more live musical performances than I had in all previous years combined
• Get a photo on Minnpics
• Fall in love with street food
• Discover a ton of new music, including lots of local artists

Yet that’s the beauty of life. You set goals for yourself and even if you don’t accomplish those goals, you usually end up better for it. I’m going to maintain a few of the goals from 2009 going into 2010. I will bike a century and I will look up my relatives. My MN to do list is going to undergo a major renovation and I will try to do more of it.

My major goals for 2009 are to move my career to a place I’m happier with, keep meeting new and interesting people using whatever resources I find, and keep doing what I’m doing. I’m not going to say my life is anywhere near perfect, but it is great. I can’t wait to see what 2010 brings.

I’ve seen a lot of people panicking over O.J. Mayo’s game last night.  Suddenly Kevin Love is a nobody and Kevin McHale made another trading mistake.  Can we all please calm down?

First let’s look at the situation.  The Sun’s are not a good defensive team.  In the last few weeks they have given up 23 points to Ramone Sessions.  23 points to Ben Gordon,  and 23 points to both Danny Granger and T.J Ford.   None of these players other than possibly the exception of Ben Gordon are high scoring players.  If Mayo had scored 33 points against the Celtics I could see a legitimate reason for worry, but I think I could score a point or two against the Suns.

Second, last nights box score looks good, but if you compare season stats Love actually looks better.  Mayo is averaging over 39 minutes per game.  During those 39 minutes he is averaging 21 points, 1.4 steals, 5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 2.9 turnovers, and shooting 45 percent from the floor.  Kevin Love is playing about half as much as Mayo, at around 25 minutes per game.  Also, he came off the bench for the first five games.  Love is averaging 10.2 points,  1 block, 1.5 assists, 1.2 turnovers, 6.7 rebounds, and and shooting 43 percent from the floor.  Here is a quick table for comparison.

As you can see Love is barely being outscored by Mayo, his rebound total is much better, and his assist to turnover ratio of 1.2 is  better than Mayo’s at .83.

Now I’m sure someone somewhere will say that if Jefferson just had Mayo alongside him, the Wolves would be on their way to a championship.  Just remember that we already have a guard who can score 30 points per game in Rashad McCants, and I know I don’t want to see him on the floor for 39 minutes per game.

So let’s all just take a deep breath and remember there is a lot more to basketball than just putting the ball through the hoop.