TBWAIN - AKA Jeff Svare's Blog

Yesterday my son (he's 14) told me about something he wanted to do. During his exposition of this grand plan, I could feel every parental nerve in my body sending warning signals to my brain. I listened, trying to be patient and not interrupt, and shout "There's no way I'll allow you to do that!" After he was finished, I said, "I don't think that's a good idea." I repeated myself several times, hoping he'd get the gist of what I was telling him. It didn't work. Later that evening, he told my wife about what he wanted to do. She was much more direct in her answer. It was, "There's no way I'll allow you to do that!" At this point I inserted myself into the conversation, and said, "I already told him no." Son's rejoinder: "You said it wasn't a good idea." Father's response: "That meant no!" When I said it wasn't a good idea, that was a verbal clue which meant he should take ...

I know you're looking forward to my discussion of the three reasons why the Twins didn't make the postseason this year, but my attention has been drawn to the AL Cy Young award for this year. It seems like everyone is heralding John Buehrle as the man who will win. He shouldn't be. Johan Santana should. Through 29 September both Buehrle and Santana have the same number of appearances (32) which I think makes this a pretty fair comparison. Buehrle has been playing for the wire-to-wire champions (who've barely been able to maintain a winning record since the end of July), the ChiSox. The Twins however have been sliding all season, and may just barely be able to wrap it up over and finish over 500. If you ignore the press and the oft-heralded "smart ball" management syle of Ozzie Guillen, and look at the numbers it's clear that between Bueherle and Santana, Santana has been the better pitcher this year. Here's the numbers (sorry about the crappy formattin...

Actually, this piece should be titled "On Reaching .500 for the 4th Time." The First time was after the second game of the season, when the Twins beat the Mariners. That win was followed up with another over Seattle, and then loosing to the White Sox to hit .500 for the second time. The third time was the 6th game of the season, and their first series loss to the ChiSox. The Twins made it up to .727 on 16 April, but it's been a continual downhill slide all season long. After tonight's lost to the embarrasingly bad KC Royals, the Twins are at .500. Congratulations, you've achieved mediocrity. So, why after winning the AL Central title three years running did this happen? There are a few reasons that can be clearly identified. 1. No run support. 2. Allowing the other team to score first. 3. The Chicago White Sox (and no, it's Ozzie's "small ball" that did it!). I'll examine each of these in future posts, so stick around if you are interes...

Ren Cahoon, CIO of the National Archives and Records Administration gave a presentation that showed how the government's new electronic archive will work. I've been following this for a few years, and I was really excited to hear about this. On Thursday, September 8th, a contract was awarded to Lockheed-Martin to build this system. The cost? 308 Million. Yeah, that explains why no one has tried to do this before.

During his lunch presentation, David Rencher, Director of the Records and Information Division, made the statement that the Church has the capability of digitizing all 2.5 million rolls of microfilm within 6 years. As he said, "The planes are lined up, waiting." If you are into genealogy, this is exciting stuff.

The most newsworthy event of the day came during Jay Verkler's keynote presentation. He demonstrated the new collaboration tool that will be available through FamilySearch.org. This will allow users to search the database to find matching individuals among the other pedigrees that have been submitted. They can they attach that individual to their pedigree. This is a much different approach than existed with AncestralFile where a computer algorithim merged two individuals together. What I found when using AncestralFile is that the algorithm sometimes mismatched two people, and frequently could not identify that two persons were the same when a trained researcher can clearly see they are the same. The announcement and demonstration was so subtle that I wonder is everyone understood what they were seeing. Jay didn't announce a date when this would be available, but I would think that it should be sometime soon. After the presentation there was a small crowd that gathered around th...

I was out of the country on business for a couple weeks and found Internet access to be problematic so the frequency of my blogging has suffered considerably. My burning desire to keep up on baseball has suffered as well. Being forced to watch soccer games (sorry, "football") surrounded by hordes of alcohol-fueled fans just didn't cut it. Praise soccer all you want to, it's still nothing more than kick-the-ball-and-run repeated ad nauseum. This synapse-destroying activity is interrupted only by an occasional score accompanied by some announcer shouting out a lengthened "Gooooooaaaaaallllllll!" until he passes out from oxygen starvation. I guess baseball is just too cerebral for most people. Back to the lack of Internet access. I would think that when you consider that I was in two of the wealthiest countries in Europe, that wireless access would have been easy. Wrong. It was expensive and frequently very, very slow, on the order of 14.4 dialup slow. In refer...

We had the memorial service for my brother today. He passed away yesterday, the 29th of July after a three and one-half year struggle with cancer. Glen was a great brother. I'll always treasure the time that we spent together as roommates along with our other roomie, Mark, affectionately referred to us as MK VII Ltd. There were other good times, too. And after the service most of us got together for dinner at a nearby restaurant. Knowing he was going to die for some time has given me ample time to steel myself for this. It's been difficult, but I'm coping pretty well. One of my sisters asked me how I was after the service, and I told her I was OK. She said, "You're not." "Yes, I'm fine." "I want you to be fine." Knowing that I have access to that kind of support is a great source of strength to me. Two of my siblings couldn't make it to for the service. One is in the hospital, and the other lives in Mississippi. I would h...

Last night I finally got a chance to see my first baseball game this season. And it served to confirm two of my long-standing observations about the game. First, most people who are selected to sing the national anthem can't sing. This was horrific, screeching cat-fight, headache-inducing, nightmarish event that will haunt me for years to come. Granted, it's not the easiest tune to sing, considering that it's supposed to be based on an old drinking song. Because of that, I suppose it would always sound better after everyone has kicked back a pint or two. A the singer, being that well-lubricated, is certain to be able to hit those high notes without breaking. OK, I'm exaggerating a bit about how bad it was, but it was bad. Maybe the singer was nervous, which is understandable, and it is a tough tune, but this was not a good performance. Maybe that's why most people who sing it feel they can so freely embellish it with their "own musical interpretation....

I hate 'em. Not the electrical kind--although they're bad enough--I mean sports blackouts. The "I'm sorry, sir, we haven't sold enough tickets, so we won't be putting the game on television." ones. I hate 'em. I understand the reasons why they have them. The need to protect their market, and respect other markets, so that the revenue-sharing plan can keep all the teams in the black. But what do you do when you aren't in a market? Or, at least, it seems like you aren't in a market? At my house, the closest team is the Colorado Rockies. They're 320 miles away, so I guess that puts me in their market. But, there's no possible way that I can tell the kids, "Go pile in the car, we're going to a ball game!" The Los Angeles/California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have a AAA affiliate here, so you'd think maybe we'd get Angels games on the radio or tv, but no. I do get Rockies games on the satellite, but ...

Politics can be an ugly business to be in. At the best of times it is unpleasant, and at the worst of times, it's personal. Mean-spirited criticism never did anything positive for anyone. It hurts the person it's directed to, and shows to everyone else how petty and small-minded the assailant is. Recently, Pete Ashdown, the owner of my ISP, announced he was going to run as a Democrat against Orrin Hatch in the next election. Personally, I think it's great that someone wants to get involved in politics because they feel they can make a difference. I've probably had enough political involvement to last me the rest of my life. Just this morning, I learned that someone sent out an e-mail to "Republican activists" asking them to discontinue their service and "sign up with another provider." The logic in this? "...it still is not a good idea to support a Republican challenger like this Democrat XMission owner by using his services." A lo...

It must be June. The AP teachers are packing their bags and heading to Daytona Beach, Florida, for their annual "reading of the essays." Essays...the AP students have already forgotten them. Yearbooks are being traded around the senior tables, pages easily being filled in shiny glitter pens. There must be some larger plot there, the seniors think. Writing down feelings is so unnatural for most of them, but something about the glossy paper in back of a book full of mug shots makes it easier. Especially for the seniors. It's raining outside. The first time in forever that it's rained on the last day of school. The seniors wonder if it's a bad omen. Only rain in their futures? Perhaps. But as time passes, so will the horror surrounding the class of 2005, and this summer will be one to remember. The first time they were really free. Didn't have to go back to the same old building come the last week of August. There were choices to be made now. My daugh...

Sounds like a joke, right? Well, I was watching the news from the local Fox affiliate this morning while getting ready for work. One of the segments was talking up the Salt Lake City Reads program, and they were telling about the current young adult reader choices, City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle. The punch line to this joke? They were in a bar. Yep, that's where every kid I know goes to read.

Just this morning I was thinking about how busy things have been lately, and how I haven't updated my blog. In fact, Maren just told me that I need to update it. So I am. For fun, take a look at StoreWars .

As one sci-fi franchise is laid to rest, another prepares to take its final bow. Which makes me wonder: What's kept Star Wars going so strong that Star Trek was lacking? It certainly wasn't the limited creative control. George Lucas has maintained much tighter control over the franchise than Rick Berman and Paramount Pictures has. It might have been the marketing. Star Wars toys are much easier to find than Star Trek toys. But I don't think that's it either. Could it have been the strong recurrent themes Star Wars used throughout the movies? Perhaps. I remember the first time I saw those Imperial Storm Troopers and knew they were the bad guys even though they were wearing the white hats. Lots of people are making comparisons of "Revenge of the Sith" with the war in Iraq. IMHO, that's just silly. The themes of the movies are so heavily built on heroic imagery which has always served as a mirror for the human experience. Pick up a copy of Joseph Ca...

I've been keeping track of how the Twins are scoring by inning this season. It's not pretty. They aren't really scoring any runs until the 3rd inning. The 5th inning is pretty good, after then, it really tapers off. I've created a graph showing runs scored and allowed through 26 April to illustrate this. To see a larger copy of the graph, just click on it. The problem has consistently been allowing runs in the first two innings, and then trying to catch up. Fortunately, their pitching and middle innings scoring has kept them on the winning side of the equation. But you won't win the division when you are playing catch-up in your half of the inning. Ron, what'cha gonna do?

... When after 3 1/3 innings of work the reliever (who came on after an inning and 2/3rds) gives up a home run on the first pitch, walks a guy on 9 pitches (the same guy who struck out twice earlier in the same game), and then gives up another first pitch homer to tie the game! I love this game!

Through last night the Twins have played five games against the White Sox. They dropped both games of the last series, which moved them from a tie for first place, to two games back. These teams don't meet again until August 15. The Twins wrap their last road trip in Chicago on 22-25 September when they play four games before finishing the season at home agains the Royals and Tigers. In total, they play the ChiSox 13 more times this season. Last night's loss was a real tough one. Brad Radke's game score was 53, compared to Hernandez' 54. Brad is now 1-3, and Hernandez is 2-1 this season, with both wins coming against the Twins. Two of Brad's losses were to the ChiSox. This is certainly shaping up to be a tough series. It would be nice if the Twins had wrapped this series with at least a tie. Now they have to depend on other teams to beat Chicago and for them to win most of their series just to stay close until August. Checking out the scoring on these las...

Through the first 7 games of the season the Minnesota Twins have scored 29 runs and have allowed their opponents 29 runs. The Twins have not scored earlier than the third inning in any game, and have scored a total of 6 runs through the first three innings of those games. Their opponents have scored 17 runs through the first three innings, 12 in the first inning alone. They have scored 5 runs durring the middle innings, and 7 in the last three. The Twins have scored 17 runs during the middle innings, and 5 during the last three. In tonight's game, the Twins allowed a run in the first and second innings, keeping that streak of letting the opponent draw first blood. Then they allowed two more in the sixth. This time, Minnesota scored five runs in the first inning, the first time they scored in the opening frames this season. They followed up with two more in the fourth, and another in the eighth. 'Bout time they started scoring early in the game. Keep it up, guys! Congrats...

Or, When Bad Research Stays Bad. Okay, just for a minute, let's look at the way the children are listed on the family group sheet for Torjus Gahrsen and Guri Thorsdatter : 1. Serene, b. 1822 2. Gahr, b. 1807 3. Anne, b. 1809 4. Tor, b. 1812 5. Anne Gurine, b. 1812 6. Thor, b. 1814 7. Nils, b. 1816 8. Wils, b. 1816 9. Peder, b. 1819 10. Serine Targer There, b. 1822 11. Tarjer Serine, b. 1822 12. Martin Albert, b. 1852 Anyone see any problems here? There's plenty. I'll follow the numbering I used in the previous post to list the problems that I see here. Third: List children in birth order. That means the first child should be Gahr, who is supposedly born in 1807. Not Serene who was born in 1822. This ties nicely into my fourth point: Eliminate redundant data. Or in this case, duplicate individuals. If you aren't familiar with the Rules of Data Normalization you may want to take a look. While written to apply to relational databases, the principles apply to genea...