TBWAIN - AKA Jeff Svare's Blog

Or not. As this is the season of Christmas cheer, peace on earth, and goodwill toward men, I thought I'd publicly air my frustrations in trying to return a piece of defective software to my local Target store. Here's the e-mail I sent to their customer service department just a few minutes ago. On Wednesday, 27 December 2006, my son purchase a computer game, Cabela's Outdoor Adventures (SKU 20102842, receipt redacted ). I installed the game, and when he tried to play it the video would not display. I then spent a considerable amount of time verifying that all the video, sound, and monitor drivers on his computer were up-to-date, and tried again, with the same result. I then contacted the manufacturer's technical support for assistance. They had no idea why the game would not work. We verified the computer it was installed on met all the system requirements before purchasing. I attempted to return the game today to the store where it was purchased and secure an in-s...

From my childhood, one of my favorite Christmas movies was The Bishop's Wife . Not the dreadful one with Denzel Washington (whose work I really enjoy, especially Crimson Tide ), but the 1947 version with Cary Grant, David Niven, and Loretta Young. I think my favorite scene was when Dudley (Cary Grant) decorates the Christmas tree using his angelic powers. During the course of the show, Dudley find himself falling in love with the bishop's wife (Loretta Young), and she with him. All because the bishop's attentions are focused more on building a new cathedral than on his wife and daughter. Years later, I began to appreciate the closing scene of the movie. Bishop Brougham is struggling trying to write his Christmas Eve sermon, and Dudley takes over the task, dictating to the typewriter what the bishop's sermon will be. It's an eloquently short sermon that plainly teaches that charity is what we should be giving to one another. "Tonight, I want to tell you abo...

Today, 31 October, a few minutes after 10 in the morning, our Miniatute Schnauzer passed away. She had two seizures on Monday, the last one continuing for over an hour and a half. When we finally got her to a vet, her temperature was over 110° F. She continued to seizure during the night, and the high temperature probably caused brain damage as well as ruptured several organs as she hemmoraged during the night. We took her to her regular vet in the morning, and we were with her when she passed away. We got Asta from county animal shelter in 1991, when she was only a few months old. She was a dear family member who grew up with our kids. We have lots of fond memories of her and will always remember that she had the softest fur of any dog, and was the most beautiful Schnauzer we had ever seen. She was called lots of things by us over the years. Ai-ai, "The Protector from the farm", schnozzler, nostril, dingy dog, Astro, paranoid pooch, and other names. Thanks for being a...

What was Gardenhire thinking? Santana had struck out 8, the Twins were down by 1 run. Santana had great stuff going, but his pitch count hit 107. Evidently that means his arm is in immediate danger of falling off. Maybe Gardy was afraid that Frank Thomas was going to homer off Johan again. So, showing no confidence in his ace, he pull him for Jesse Crain. Who immediately serves up a home run pitch to Thomas. This reminds me way too much of Game 4 of the 2005 Division Series when he pulled Grant Balfour at the beginning of the eighth inning. Santana started that game too. Johan gave up one run through five innings, and was relieved by Balfour. Balfour didn't allow a hit, and struck out two in his two innings of work. The Twins were up 5-1, and Balfour was smokin' the ball past the Yanks. What happened? Sheffield singled. Rincon throws a wild pitch allowing Sheffield to go to second. Matsui walks. Williams singles, scoring Sheffield. Posada strikes out. Ruben Sierra (remember him...

After an extremely successful career as the premiere example of carrier-based aripower, the Navy has retired the F-14. And I'm sad to see her go. The F-14, in all it's variations has been described as the 60's musclecar of naval aviation. Her replacement, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is easier to maintain (read: cheaper) and carries a heavier payload. It also has shorter range, and lower top speed. More Super Hornet specs can be found here . Most people never had the opportunity to see a Tomcat in real life. The closest most got was Top Gun or JAG . Which, I'll have to admit, isn't all that bad. But having seen VF-1 Wolfpack deployed on USS Ranger CV-61, real life was so much better. The Tomcat was a maintenence-intensive craft, requiring 40 hours on the ground for each hour in the air. But, dang. She sure was pretty. Even sitting in a hangar, she looks mean, cool, and sexy. Put her in the air, and she's mean, cool, and sexy. Here's to everyone who...

\Roddenberry taught the world to say\"Beam me up, Scotty." Actually, that line of dialogue was never uttered in an episode of Star Trek. It's a popular myth. "Mr. Scott, three to beam up." That is actual dialogue from the series. But not in the first episode. I remember sitting on the floor in front of the tv in our house on 13th Avenue South in Fargo, North Dakota at 7:30 pm to watch the first episode of Star Trek . Little did I know then what an effect it would have on my life. I was barely seven years old, but I was already a die-hard sci-fi fan. While I liked Star Wars when it came out, and anxiously awaited each and every movie that followed, they never caught my imagination as totally as Star Trek did. Maybe it was because Star Wars was about humanoid aliens and Trek was about the human experience among aliens. I don't really know. I do know the best Trek eps have always been about how our humanity reacts to the larger world around it. Some o...

After I had checked my bag at Gardermoen airport last week I decided to ask about upgrading my seat on the Copenhagen to Chicago leg of the trip. Evidently Scandinavian Airlines has some whacky policies about issuing or purchasing upgrades. There were plenty of seats available in Business class, so seating wasn't a problem. After waiting about 15 minutes for the ticket agent to help me, she said there were plenty of seats, but the upgrade would cost about 8,000.00 USD. That's Eight Thousand dollars. Eight grand. Why so bloody much? Evidently SAS' policy is that if you upgrade one segment, you have to upgrade all of them. Even the ones that have already taken place. My Chicago to Stockholm leg, for example. Last year, I missed my flight from Chicago to Oslo because of bad weather in Chicago. So I had to stay overnight on my own dime. The United Airlines people had to change my flight from Chicago so I arrived in Europe in Frankfurt rather than Munich. This change al...

I took the train from Göthenburg to Oslo today. While we wewe stopped in Halden the Norsk Tolkontroll came aboard to talk to each passenger to see if they had any goods to declare. They're just looking for the usual stuff, asking the usual questions. "Where are you coming from, where are you going, do you have any alcohol, tobacco, or illegal drugs?" They've got all the makings of Latter-day Saint missionaries. They're in the second compartment right now (15:11) and it smells like they found something. :-) I think missionaries would approve of the dress code as well. T-shirt, blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a gorgeous black cocker spaniel. Who really likes getting his ears scratched. We're just pulling into Sarpsborg . Here's the latest in a series of odd-looking rail cars. A 29.2 cubic meter, 12 thousand kilogram container with a square opening running through the center of it. I wonder what it's for? While eating out a few times in Sweden I dis...

Or, If We're in Sweden, Don't Let Me Order the Drinks Do you remember that line from Star Wars (back when it was Star Wars , and not when it was Star Wars: A New Hope ) when Han says to Luke, "Don't get cocky." Hm? I was feeling pretty good about how well I was making myself understood here in Sweden. I was able to get through Immigration, customs, buy a ticket for the bus into town, check in at the hotel, and buy a few things and ask directions. Yeah, I thought I was doing allright. Then we went to dinner. The waiter came to take our orders and asked what we wanted to drink. I said, "Vann, vennligst." Or in English, "Water, please." Then I noticed he took away all the wine glasses from the table except for mine. "That doesn't seem right," I thought to myself. I a couple of minutes he came back with a bottle of water for our table, and a few minutes later he came with a bottle of white wine for me. I said, "No thank, I ...

The men's room wall, that it. The past week we've been in Moab, Utah taking a little vacation. That in itself is another story, which I'll probably never post here, for various reasons. Moab is somthing like another city in Utah, Park City. Both are recreation destinations each shares a considerable liberal attitude, which I oftimes don't understand, and more frequently don't want to both trying to understand. They're world view is different from mine, and it's probably better that way. So at one point during the week I found occasion to use the men's room in one of the restaurants we were eating in. Glancing around I noticed the testostorone-charged sophomoric expressions that I thought dropped out of fashion when someone graduated from high school. Well I was wrong. One bit of writing caught my eye. It said, "Victary [sic] to the Iraqie [sic] resistance! Troops out now!" Of course, as with all written material of this ilk, it was undat...

SCO , the company that has made a name for itself by claiming it owns Linux and for suing IBM, has announced it's offering Unix developers $1000 USD to receive training in its EdgeClick Developer Challenge . The winner of best wireless application gets a BMW M5 or $100,000 USD. Ja, and the fine print of the agreement probably says that SCO gets the patents and all rights so they can build up their war chest . Just for giggles, I did a search on IBM's website for the term "SCO". I got 20,298 hits .

The Detroit Tigers' manager, Jim Leyland , was ejected from his first game this season. Ostensibly, it was for arguing balls and strikes with the home plate umpire Paul Nauert. After the game, he was asked if this was something he did to "get his team fired up." His reply: "That's high school [stuff]." Ron Gardenhire has been ejected from at least four games so far this season. The Twins have been treading water trying to stay above .400 most of the season. This was Leyland's first ejection. The Tigers are currently in first place, two and a half games ahead of the ChiSox. Perhaps there's a lesson here. Perhaps it's that Gardenhire is a lousy manager.

Barry Bonds: Better baseball through chemistry . Not. If you want my opinion of better baseball, take a look at the wrapup on last Friday's game between the Twins and the Mariners. Two great young pitchers, Francisco Liriano of the Twins and Felix Hernandez of the Ms. Hernandez gave up just three runs on five hits, struck out eight and walked one. Liriano pitched a four hit shutout, also walked only one, and struck out eight. What I wouldn't have given to have been able to see that matchup. Yeah. That's better baseball.

Barry Bonds hit his 714th home run today, to tie Babe Ruth for second. Here's all I've got to say on the matter: C 21 H 30 O 5

Last night, 17 May, Johan Santana pitched what may have been be best game of the season for the Twins. He gave up four hits, walked one, and struck out 12. On the flip side, he gave up two runs (both earned) on a two-out, one-one homer in the eighth. This gave him a Game Score of 77. The Tiger's pitcher, Justin Verlander , gave up six hits, and hit Michael CUddyer. Despite the six hits, the Twins didn't score. Verlander's Game Score? 70. A really impressive outing. So, did the Twins make this an easy win for Verlander? Here's a comparison of the two pitchers: IP ER BB HR K ERA 61.1 22 13 6 70 3.23 Santana 51 18 14 7 27 3.18 Verlander Other than strikeouts, Johan and Justin are pretty close. Innings wise, Johan's pitched one more game. Looks like Verlander's a better pitcher than he gets credit for. Maybe this knowledge will make the loss easier to deal with. Nah.

I was reading my old hometown newspaper today, and saw that their sportswriter, Mike McFeely , feels the same way about Rondell White as I do. Here's what Mike said: Designated hitter Rondell White, our choice for Nice-Guy Pro Jock of the Year, has to go. He’s paid to hit. He’s not hitting. Any questions? White’s been an embarrassing free-agent signing for the Twins. His zero home runs, 10 RBIs and .185 average make him the least productive DH in the American League. He also calls for the Twins to bring up Kubel to play outfield along with Hunter and Cuddyer as well as moving Stewart to the DH role. Interestingly enough, that's where Shannon was batting on the 15th. He went 1 for 4, with a single and RBI. The entire article can be found here (registration required) .

Last night, May 9th, the Twins showed their impressive ability to only be able to capitalize on crappy pitching. Back on May 3rd, they unloaded on Joe Mays, scoring 6 runs on 8 hits in 3 and 1/3 innings. Of those six runs, only two were earned, which makes me suspect that they had more assistance from the other side of diamond than from their own dugout. Joe's arm just isn't what it used to be, and the Twin's took full advantage of it. Mays' game score for this outing was 29. After they pulled Mays, the Twins went back to facing major league pitching and promptly shut down. If they would have kept going against the Royal's bullpen they way they went after Mays, they should have scored 16 runs on 22 hits. Of course, projections like this lie more in the realms of fantasy, so it probably wouldn't have happened. As it was, the three relievers combined to pitch a one-hitter with four strikeouts over the next four and two-thirds innings. Back to last night's...

Can anyone answer this question? What player holds the record for the most errors in a World Series? I don't know the answer, but Willie Davis committed 3 errors in game 2 of the 1966 Series . All of them in the 5th inning! The Orioles scored 3 runs, eventually going on to win the game 6-0. Incidentally, Jim Palmer pitched a complete game shutout in that game, and became the youngest pitcher ever to do that. Thanks to Ken for letting me know about Willie Davis' unenviable feat!

Ruben Sierra spent the first two weeks in April at extended spring training. On 18 April he was called up from Fort Myers (the Twins' Class A team), and eleven days later, he ruptured the biceps tendon in his left elbow. According to the report, the MRI found a rupture at the elbow. I've had one of those MRI's as well. As good as they are, mine didn't show that my injury involved a complete separation of tendon from the bone. I had to have surgery to determine that. I'm familiar with the repair to correct a distal biceps tendon rupture . I had surgery to fix it just over two years ago. Even though I successfully completed rehab, my right arm still isn't as strong as it used to be, and I still have numbness on the inside of my forearm (which bugs the heck out of me!). Reuben is going to try rehab rather than surgery. I tried rehab before I tried surgery, too. Let me clue you, Ruben, rehab doesn't fix the problem if you've pulled the tendon off...

Here's some changes I'd make if I was in charge of the Twins. 1. Send Liriano back to AAA to get him into a rotation where he's pitching every 4 or 5 days. 2. Dump Rondell White and Reuben Sierra. Their productive days are behind them. 4. Bring up the Jasons. Kubel could DH and play outfield, and Bartlett could take over for Castro at short. 3. Reevaluate the coaching staff. If they're sound, make the players listen to them. Especially to Joe Vavra. Tori isn't producing the way he should (who is?), and Morneau looks to be levelling off as a perennial average batter. He's got a lot more potential. 4. Plan on bringing up some arms from AAA to get them some experience. Radke's gone after this season, and I'm seriously wondering how Kyle Lohse won in arbitration again. :sigh: