best song of 2019

Worlds of Fun - Roller Coaster History

When I was going to Worlds of Fun as a kid, there were three roller coasters:

Zambezi Zinger (opened 1973)
Orient Express (1980)
Timber Wolf (1989)

I only rode Zambezi Zinger because I was 7-9 years old and the other two were too intimidating/I probably wasn't tall enough anyways.

Well the Zambezi Zinger was closed in 1997 and Orient Express closed in 2003. So here's the list of current roller coasters:

Timber Wolf (1989) - everyone describes as rough/rickety
Mamba (1998) - steep af
Boomerang (2000) - no desire to ride backwards/upside down
Spinning Dragons (2004) - spinning while on a coaster
Patriot (2006) - an inverted coaster that goes upside down
Prowler (2009) - this one looks the best for my style

Cast-Iron Honey Garlic Chicken

Add some olive oil, then butter to a medium-high pan. Season the chicken thighs and place skin down in the pan. We're not trying to cook it through, so all you need to worry about is getting the perfect golden brown skin. Remove the chicken and add potatoes and carrots to the pan. Same idea, cook for 8-10 minutes to get some nice brownage on the veggies. Meanwhile, make a sauce and preheat the oven to 425. This time I did honey, barbecue, soy sauce, chicken stock, soy ginger vinaigrette. Remove the potatoes and carrots and add onions. Then add garlic and the sauce. Simmer for a few minutes then add the chicken and veggies back in.

Above is ready to go into the oven. It gets 15-20 minutes in the oven. Below is after it comes out of the oven. The veggies are tender, the chicken is cooked through. 

Plate with the sauce over top. 

Board Man Gets Trophy

I was all set to write a post about the NBA. It was going to be about how the Warriors won 4 titles in 5 years, and the one year they didn't win was the year they won 73 games and were up 3-1 in the Finals. I was then going to make a point how the Warriors are obviously incredible, but also that you have to give LeBron a ton of credit for being able to interrupt that dynasty to bring a title to Cleveland of all places.

But thanks to Toronto, that's not the post I'm writing today.

- - -

Let's look back at how the Raptors did it. In the first round, they dropped their first game to the Magic at home before reeling off four straight.

The Raptors trailed the 76ers 2-1 in the next round. In Game 7, with the game on the line, Kawhi got the ball and did this.



His shot hit the rim, he crouched, and still had time to wait for the ball to go in.

And then in the next round, the #1 Milwaukee was up 2-0. The Warriors were in the process of sweeping Portland so everyone was already talking about if they needed Durant back to beat Giannis in the Finals. And then the Raptors won 4 straight.

Then the Raptors beat the Warriors in 6. 3-0 at Oracle. They closed that arena for good by owning it. They trailed in every playoff series except the Finals.

And now the Raptors have their first title in franchise history.
For the first time in history, the NBA Champion is not from the United States.
A Canadian team has won the World Series and NBA title more recently than the Stanley Cup.

Kawhi has a Finals MVP in multiple countries, which is a record that is unlikely to be matched anytime soon.

- - -

Since the Spurs and Wade have retired, the list of active players with multiple titles is short.

There's Curry-Iggy-Draymond-Klay-Livingston with 3.
There's LeBron with 3.
Durant with 2.
Kawhi and Green with 2.

(And it's hard to tell because there's not a great tool out there that has active filters, but I don't think there's that many more stars that I'm missing.)

- - -

And after all that, I have to remind everyone how fragile these narratives are. How things outside of your control affect your narrative all the time. At the end of the game, Curry had a good look to win. Klay is out with a torn ACL and Durant is out with a torn achilles. But Curry's shot affects their ring totals and legacies. And times that times a million, with all the plays and transactions and injuries.

No title should have an asterisk. But in a way, every title could have one because of all the little things outside your control that alter your legacy. (When you look back at Brady, if you change 3 plays of things outside Brady's control (Dee Ford offsides, Falcons sack in 28-3, Seahawks passing from the 1) the Patriots could be 0-6 in the Super Bowl since 2004. And then if you change 3 in the other direction, the Patriots could be 9-0 including 19-0. All without changing a thing from Brady's actual play. That's the fragileness that I'm talking about. Do everything the same and you might win 6 Super Bowls in or you might win zero.

Klay and Durant played at an All-Star level this year. But whether or not they get a ring was outside their control.

Lucky / Unlucky Sports Highlights

I used to embed random videos all the time on this blog. Don't really do that anymore, but this one was too good to pass up.

Golf Highlights

I subscribe to the theory of "Give the people what they want." And clearly what the people want is highlights of me playing a golf video game. Here you go!

I created a golf course: In the Clouds

I wanted to record a playthrough to show off my course, somehow I played way worse than normal--I guess the pressure of knowing this was being recorded got to me.

Bowling Scores

Today I played two games with the boys. I rolled a 133 and then a 145.

Edit: And then on June 2 I rolled a 145 followed by a 130.

Previous scores (found via the family blog):
162, 122 and less than 122 - July 2012
147 - August 2016
137 - August 2015

Breaking down NBA Finals Scheduling

The NBA Finals started on May 30 but a potential game 7 wouldn't be until June 16. That seemed really drawn out to me. So I thought it warranted a look back to see how the schedules got drawn out over time.

To do this, I'll look at some 7 game series and how many total days they were scheduled for:

2019: 18
2016: 18
2005: 15
1994: 15
1984: 17
1978: 17
1974: 15
1960: 14
1955: 11

(Fun Fact about 1955 Finals. The Fort Wayne Pistons made the finals but their arena was booked so their Finals home games were played in Indianapolis. Also, They played a game in Syracuse on April 2 and then in Indianapolis on April 3! The Pistons would move to Detroit in 1957.)

- - -

If you just played every other day, you could finish in 13 days.

Here's what it would look like if you played every other day plus a travel day:

Day 1
Day 3
Day 6
Day 8
Day 11
Day 14
Day 17

The NBA basically does this now, except there is an additional day gap between game 1 and game 2.

Here are the days of the week broken down by 2019 Finals games:

Thursday: 2
Sunday: 2
Wednesday: 1
Friday: 1
Monday: 1

Sure seems like the NBA doesn't want to play Finals games on Saturdays.

- - -

I thought the 2005 schedule warranted a closer look as it was the most recent (modern) 15 day schedule. It followed the 2-3-2 schedule.

Day 1 - Thursday
Day 4 - Sunday (travel)
Day 6 - Tuesday
Day 8 - Thursday
Day 11 - Sunday (travel)
Day 13 - Tuesday
Day 15 - Thursday

Clearly this schedule was driven by the belief that the day of the week was the most important factor. Both times the series switched cities there was only a 2-day gap. But the series also included two 3-day gaps covering non-travel days, to avoid Saturdays.

- - -

There's nothing inherently wrong with today's schedule, I just think the extra days are annoying, breaking up the rhythm of the series. If I were to design a schedule it would include the following restrictions:

Only 2-day gaps between games 1 and 2, games 3 and 4.
3-day gaps for travel aren't mandatory as proven by the 2005 schedule.
And to please the NBA, no Saturdays.

Here's a nice 14-day option:

Here's a slight variant that starts a day earlier, allowing for an extra travel day after the first city.

Nice flow, eh?

HC Housekeeping

A few notes about the blog itself.

First up, it always bothered me how I left the Denver Burrito Search unfinished. I had a two-way tie at the top and planned to go back to both one more time to declare a winner. Well, I had two years in Denver and never did it and then moved away. So this week I went back and declared a winner.

In going through the site looking for other series, I realized I hadn't done a Fav Five in a while so I fixed that.

And last, I'm excited about my personal 2020 Census project. In 2010 I took stock of where I stand on lots of things and it's fun to see how I change and grow. Here's what I'll be looking at in 2020:

• favorite bands
• favorite albums by my favorite bands (plus top ten favorite albums)
• favorite foods
• favorite movies
• favorite video games
• favorite books
• favorite hobbies
• favorite sports teams
• projecting my personal future in 2030
• predicting 2030 on a world/society scale

also these weren't a part of the 2010 census, but I did rank sitcoms in 2013. I should add favorite tv shows for 2020

Chiefs Fav Five: 2019

It's been a while since I've done this. Not only is it fun, but it creates a great time capsule. None of my favorite Chiefs players from 2015 are on the team anymore. But hey, there are some new ones to put on!

Let's go through the roster

Travis Kelce
Mitchell Schwartz (first ever OL to even get honorable mention from me)
Patrick Mahomes (shocker)
Darwin Thompson (Damien Williams is good so I like him, but I have high hopes for the 6th round pick)
(WR is wide open. Sammy Watkins has a chance this year to join the club.)
Chris Jones
Tyrann Mathieu (Despite him not playing a snap for the Chiefs yet. Frank Clark will take time to earn this)
Juan Thornhill (another rookie)
(I also have hopes for a UDFA for the first time, Gary Johnson to make the roster. Mostly because he's a Johnson LB out of Texas.)
Harrison Butker


(2019 Training Camp Update: I'm already more excited about Mecole Hardman than Sammy Watkins. Watkins is the better player obviously, but it's fun to get excited about a rookie. Likewise, still very jazzed about Darwin Thompson. I know it's rare for rookies to actually turn into all-stars, but still.)

This was tougher than I thought. I like so many Chiefs players, but favorites, those are harder to come by.

5. Butker
4. Mathieu
3. Jones
2. Kelce
1. Mahomes

Sharks beat Avs in 7

I don't really need to go into any detail when this does a pretty good job. 

Just figured I would say something so that years from now when I'm looking through Hoagie Central for Avs playoff stuff, I'll at least have this post.

Sports Market Analysis

In writing the previous post, I stumbled across this handy chart of the top 52 sports markets by size.

For the purposes of this post, I will use the chart's definition of 4 major sports. Here are some interesting nuggets:

Houston is the largest market without a team in all 4 sports. There are 7 markets smaller than have a team in all 4 sports.

Denver is the smallest market with a team in all 4 sports. There are 4 markets bigger that are missing at least one sport.

NY and LA are the only markets where every sport has at least two teams. New York's hockey market is the only one in the country with 3 teams.

Seattle at #13 in the country is the largest 2-team market. #52 Buffalo is the smallest 2-team market.

Orlando at #18 in the country is the largest 1-team market. It's basically the same size as Denver which has 4 teams.

New Orleans and Buffalo are lucky to have 2 teams, based on their size.

Tampa and Orlando are a little over an hour away from each other. The only sport Tampa is missing is the NBA and that's all Orlando has. Match made in heaven.

Seattle should get a NBA and NHL team.

Measuring the Popularity of Sports

What's the best way to measure a sport's popularity? Let's start with average viewers on national broadcasts.

If you were looking at that chart, would you say there are 3, 4 or 5 major sports? To me it looks like there's 1 major sport.

Here's an interesting chart of peak events, by sports:

(I even went back to the 2017 list to see a MLS peak, but soccer peak that year was a US-Mexico qualifier.)

The bottom line is that football dominates everything. NBA is ahead of MLB. College football and basketball are still doing well. And NHL and MLS are really in the same tier as NASCAR and golf and the rest. 

Sources:

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2018/04/nhl-viewership-nbc-nbcsn-regular-season/
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-sport-had-highest-viewership-141700953.html

Creative Insticts

This is a brief follow-up to this post, my best post of 2018.

I've noticed that whenever I see or hear something that impresses me, my first instinct is that I should create my own version.

I listen to Radiolab and I think I should become a radio journalist. That I should get some audiorecorders and start making my own long-form stories.

I remember fondly the Oregon Trail game from the 90s and think that I should make a modern version. I find programming sites and jump into coding.

...

And then I realize that I don't really want to make my own Radiolab. I just think they're really good at what they do.

There's moments where I want to do X and moments for Y and Z, and on and on, but I don't have time or energy (or the skills and resources) to do everything. So I often have to take a step back and focus on what I really want to do.

...it's an ongoing struggle where I often lack clarity.