What are the Suns doing?

Well, that's simple. Doing everything possible to avoid the luxury tax. To be fair, while it looks bad to give away picks left and right, it is a better alternative than selling Shawn Marion for 50 cents on the dollar. In a basketball forum I frequent, I've seen proposals for Marion that you would hate much more than the draft pick fire sale.

At any rate, let's go through the Suns major transactions since the decision to maximize cap space in 03/04 as well as picks in the next few years.

2004 salary cap trades (Marbury, Gugliotta, Jahidi White). Suns got 2 1's from the Knicks, which were both sent to the Jazz in the Gugliotta trade. Suns give 2005 1st that was part of the 1997 McDyess trade (pick was Sean May) to make White disappear.

2004 draft: agreed to trade #7 overall Luol Deng for worthless crap thinking Andre Igoudala would not be available. He was. The Suns received a 2005 1 (nate robinson). I don't understand why they couldn't back out since their guy was available.

2004 FA's: Nash (good), Q-Rich (ehh)

2005 Draft: Nate & q-rich for Kurt Thomas
2005 FA's: Raja Bell (good), Brian Grant (bad)
2005 trades: Joe Johnson for Boris & 2 1's (the first); acquired James Jones for a 2

2006 draft: used an Atlanta 1 (#21 Rajon Rondo) to make Grant disappear and get 2007 #1 from Boston; sold #27 (own pick) Sergio Rodriguez

2006 FA: Marcus Banks (ugh), Barbosa and Diaw extensions (good, ?)

2007 Draft: drafted Tucker, Strawberry; used Boston 1 to make James Jones disappear.
2007 FA: Grant Hill (should be positive)
2007 Trade: Thomas plus 2 1's for a conditional second in 2009 (most likely the condition specifies which of Seattle's two seconds Phoenix gets). I think (but am not positive) that Seattle used the Lewis trade exception to get Thomas. I don't think there's any value to the Suns--as I posted elsewhere, it is not a village bicycle. not that the suns would use it anyway.

2008: have Hawks #1 and Cleveland's #2; traded own 1 to Sea and own 2 to Indiana (James Jones)
2009: have their #1 and #2, and have 2's coming from Sea (Sea or Orl) and Golden State
2010: traded their #1 to Sea; still have #2
2011: have both picks.

So for Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk, the Suns have Diaw, Atlanta's 2008 #1, Cleveland's '08 #2 and $6 million (est) . Pretty good.

Conversely, the decision to create cap room to sign QRich has amounted to only a 2009 2nd to show for Luol Deng/Andre Igoudala and 2008/2010 #1s

And then there's Marcus Banks.

Anyway, I think the frustrating thing about the sale of the picks is that there are other options to get rid of the slotted salary, such as this year, drafting Tiago Splitter. But then james jones is still around, and who wants that?

So if the Suns can scrape up a decent big, they'll be fine, even if lacking in depth a bit. In hindsight, the machinations of the last two years are entirely the result of trading the #7 pick in 2005. If they draft Igoudala, there's no QRich (most likely--offer may not have been big enough, or the Clips would have matched), which means no Thomas trade (either of them), and probably no James Jones. Igoudala's contract is also smaller, so no need to get rid of Grant. In keeping picks in either 05 or 06, Suns draft a jarret jack or marcus williams (or keep rondo) type, so need for Banks.

Not that this is supposed to make Suns fans feel better.

Not a professional

So, back in the day, I was a big minesweeper guy. Thought I was pretty good--my best time is 98 seconds on expert. Joked about how I thought about dropping out of school and going pro.

Turns out that would have been a mistake.



38 seconds!

So watching this, it reminds me of what I always knew was holding me back--control/speed of the mouse (a three button helps and fast control) and of course the incessant need to mark almost every bomb (I counted Dion marking 54 bombs). i just didn't realize it was holding me back that much!

Bad timing

Saturday night (July 21), Joanne & I watched a couple of episodes of "From the Earth to the Moon", an HBO miniseries from 1998 about the Apollo missions. One of the episodes was "Mare Tranquilitatis", which was the lunar landing... on July 20, 1969. So close!

We picked up the set earlier this year at Costco--it was cheap (under $25), and I heard it was good. And it is. The story is engaging, production detail is outstanding, the sense of wonder/fear at being in space is palpable. Sometimes the rhythm and pacing is a little odd, though, because the series is often plot driven (the Apollo mission), rather than character driven (the cast is huge and rapidly changing that you only get into a character or three per episode, and those change each episode. It's not like Band of Brothers, which has a much more stable crew of characters).

But this isn't a DVD review.

The credits open with JFK's speech announcing the goal: "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

And it strikes me what do we, as a country, strive to do that is noble and with purpose? That is positive and based on hope, rather than a reduction of a negative?

I guess that narrows possibilities quite a bit--government, even when seen as an agent of change, focuses on raising to a median standard (welfare, healthcare) or limiting activity (environment). Areas of discovery are limited to science, and there's only so many activities that can capture the public's interest. The Arizona Republic hits on this to some degree in Sunday's lead editorial, stating "America needs another Sputnik moment."

Of course it's easy to look back on the Apollo missions with pride because it was successful. But that wasn't ordained. There was opposition to the cost or need or such exploration, and the sense of accomplishment only did so much--the 70's were wonderful after all.

Joanne asked where I was going with this, as the easy comparison is Iraq, which isn't really were i wanted to go, but there are parallels. And differences.

Perhaps I'm thinking too big picture. Maybe the real lesson is at a more individual level, about setting goals (or dreams), and creating an incremental plan of action to achieve that.

OK, I'm babbling now.

Back in business?

Maybe. Let's see what the two month summer hiatus did do the readership...

Some randomness:

Joanne & I will commonly pick up a baguette to go along with dinner. Not a big deal, right? Turns out, according to the side panel, each of the 24 servings has 160(!) calories, for a total of a whopping 3,840 calories. Which is more than twice what is in the entire tub of whipped butter that we sometimes use! So my tubbiness is not a result of my need to get jacked up, but it's the bread.
Who knew?

My latest internet distraction is the Comics Curmudgeon, which snarks on the multitude of bad comic strips in the world today. Doing a little research last night, I discovered that one guy, Nicholas P. Dallis, is responsible for the horror that is Judge Parker, Apartment 3-G and Rex Morgan, MD.

I sold our GE shares this week after it hit my $40 target this week. That looked good on Monday, bad on Tuesday, inconsequential yesterday, and bad again today. Let's hear it for randomly chosen sell targets. It's all relative, though. The "loss" of value since the sale is peanuts with the change in Motorola from October to now. Although I do feel guilty about complaining about that when we missed out on the 2000 crash.

Came across The Tyranny of Choice, a short article by Barry Schwartz that appeared in Scientific American around the time his book, Paradox of Choice, was published. You may also remember it being mentioned in my "classic" 3 parter on my no crap philosophy. It includes a 13 question test re if you are a maximizer or a satisficer.

Are you glad I'm back?

The Next Level

In a column posted at National Review, Mona Charen comments on the Republican debate, and includes this:

Rudy Giuliani completely missed the point of the question about abortion. Asked whether he saw a parallel between the anti-slavery and anti-abortion movements, he seemed mystified and responded, “Well, there [are] no circumstances under which I could possibly imagine anyone choosing slavery or supporting slavery.” But the point was that just as no one would choose to be a slave, no unborn child would choose to be aborted.

So is her point that a pregnant woman is a slave holder? If that's not the inference, then does the analogy fall apart?

I find it disturbing that politicians must have concrete positions on certain issues despite whatever importance they place on it. Not that I follow politics as closely as I should/you might think, the one takeaway I've gotten from Guiliani's position on abortion is that it is not a critical issue on his agenda. That's a negative in March, but less so in November.

I can understand why it gets built up as an important issue--it's a touchstone moral issue that "says" something about the candidate's world view. What I don't understand is how it is basically the only issue that politicians can run with a strong position on that issue only a win (which is changing, to some degree, with an influx of immigration-focused pols), and what appears to be a sizeable block of voters who will be persuaded by that single issue.

Particularly an issue in which the legislative process is subservient to the the legal process.

In Letting go of Roe (Atlantic 2005), Benjamin Wittes argues that the fight to sustain Roe is a hindrance to the pro-choice view:

Still, the liberal commitment to Roe has been deeply unhealthy—for American democracy, for liberalism, and even for the cause of abortion rights itself. All would benefit if abortion-rights proponents were forced to make their arguments in the policy arena (rather than during Supreme Court nomination hearings), and if pro-lifers were actually accountable to the electorate for their deeply unpopular policy prescriptions.

The following year, the Atlantic had a cover story, The Day After Roe, by Jeffrey Rosen, which offered a different view of the political machinations, but, in the end, the same outcome:

So let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the activists are correct and the long-anticipated moment has finally come to pass: Roe v. Wade is no longer on the books. What happens next?

The results might not be what you expect. The day after Roe fell, of course, abortion would be neither legal nor illegal throughout the United States. Instead, the states and Congress would be free to ban, protect, or regulate abortion as they saw fit. But in many of the fifty states, and ultimately in Congress, the overturning of Roe would probably ignite one of the most explosive political battles since the civil-rights movement, if not the Civil War. A careful look at how the pieces of the Rubik’s Cube might begin to turn the day after Roe suggests that access to abortion wouldn’t necessarily become less widely available than it is now; that the Democrats could gain politically, perhaps even seizing the White House and both chambers of Congress; and that, when the dust settles, in five or ten or thirty years, early-term abortions would be protected and late-term ones restricted.

I lean towards Rosen's perspective, maybe not so much in the final conclusion, but in the scope of the political battle. It would make gay marriage look like a .

No worries

So as a Knicks fan, i know about the leaving the bench thing. Kind of. That debacle happened in 1997 when I was in Edinburgh, so I didn't actually see it. Anyway, a Baylor U. blogger (likely Spurs fan) has a good recap of the Suns defense:

"If the league decides to apply the letter of the law to the Stoudamire incident, then they would almost be forced to do the same regarding a little noticed play earlier in the game which has since been pointed out by Steve Kerr on Yahoo! Sports:
"In a play that went entirely unnoticed until well after the game was over, both Duncan and Bowen actually left San Antonio's bench early in the second quarter after Francisco Elson and James Jones were entangled. Replays clearly show Duncan walking several steps onto the court as Elson and Jones appeared to be ready to get into it. Bowen then followed Duncan onto the floor, grabbed him and led him back to the bench. If the league does indeed follow the letter of the law, both Spurs players would also be suspended for Game 5."

And Duncan and Bowen made it further onto the court than Diaw or Stoudamire. The Spurs might have a better "altercation" argument, but they have a much worse "immediate vicinity" argument. Intent doesn't matter, right?

So, I would have to think not much to worry about. I'm not familiar enough with suspension history to know how strictly "vicinity" of the bench is applied. I do know that key word was added after the PJ Brown became PJ F. Brown.

And has it ever been noted that Steve Nash is a talented Teen Wolf? Except for the dunking of course...

More meta

So rather than a blog about something, this is turning into a blog about a blog. The output has been more sparse than I intended. I believe I've mentioned that a time or two already. What's disturbed me more is the lack of additions to "On Topic" over there on the left. In the past couple of weeks I just haven't found bigger topics interesting. Recent posts support this--the mantel, windows and century plant. As I think about/deal with these regular life things, my interest (for the moment) has waned in more global issues. Even my leisure reading is effected--when I pick up an Atlantic or the Economist, my attention wanders pretty quickly and I don't read as much as I had intended.

Anywho, I actually have a handful of posts started but not completed. I have the germ of the idea, an intro with no meat, so they are, on the most part, unfulfilling both in terms of me taking the time to make them readable, or in their present state, being readable. It's not inconceivable that I just don't have much to say.

Technically, I knew that at the beginning, but that's one of the reasons I started this was to get practice at developing a thought. One of the blogs that I check in on had a post about the composition time of different types of posts. There were 3 main types:

• the quick hitter: a link or random thought for the day, maybe 10-15 minutes.
• commentary: longer, but not too involved covering a personally well known issue. still this was a couple of hours in terms of writing, editing, checking etc.
• research piece: longer term, added to here and there over a couple of weeks. at least 10 hours of work, if not more. and it maybe gets some outside editing.
  

My vision/hope/goal was, and to some degree still is, to do a fair amount of the second and an occasional foray into the third. However, i have yet to spend over two hours on any post--even the thinkier ones are fairly stream of consciousness, with a final lookover from Joanne. Spending the longer time--that's homework! That's why I'm not pursuing yet another degree--I don't want (nor I'm a currently capable) to do that anymore.

But personal growth is supposed to require some effort, and I still have plenty of growing, and, for the time being, time to do it. So the challenge becomes "doing", instead of "thinking of doing," which is a fairly big problem for me, from this blog, to home projects, to purchasing decisions, and many other things.

To conclude, the underutilized question to get comments is: how do go about recognizing and addressing the need or desire for self improvement?

A new view

We got four wood clad, fiberglass windows from Craigslist for a very nice price ($~700 windows for $125 each) and got the first two installed this weekend. And I followed that up with my first stab at real trim carpentry.

Joanne thought it was worth the savings to get the picture windows for the TV room since we only opened the sliders that were there maybe twice in the almost four years we've had the house. So while we do not have the flexibility for venting, we get to enjoy unobstructed site lines. If only we had a better view...

At some point I'll break away from "This Old as Me House" trend I'm on and move on to something that interests you even less.

If you see it...

You will eat it. The New York Times has a piece on Brian Wansink, a Cornell professor who wrote “Mindless Eating”, about (as you might have guessed), the essentially thoughtless/instintive eating habits people develop.

But those plates have their own problems. Like most American dinner plates, ours are big — almost 12 inches in diameter. “Pretty ample,” as Mr. Wansink said. Fifty years ago, when Americans were a lot skinnier, plates were a lot smaller. Large plates and bowls lead to more eating for the same reason giant popcorn buckets do: they make portions look smaller. Short, wide drinking glasses have a similar effect.

There is also a quick list of 5 tips that effect eating:

• Hide the cookies, uncover the carrots
• Same goes at the office
• Convenience leads to consumption
• Don't get rid of the evidence
• Use your eyes to your advantage

1 & 3 are biggies with me. Well, almost. What I've found is not so much the hiding/out in the open is the big factor, but who purchased it. I feel like I'm more likely to eat the healthy stuff, rather than junk if I'm the one that made the purchase. When Joanne buys it, it's out of sight out of mind. But I'm equal opportunity on the snack food, on the most part.

As to the initial point above, we have the big plates and our regular restaurants have big servings, and I feel compelled to fill and finish, which isn't a great combo. Portion size is tricky. Maybe the smaller plate is the way to go. One thing I have been keeping track of (in some respects) is the weight of the food we prepare, but this more in regard to meat and pasta. The tricky part: the better job we did of making it, the more of it we'll want.

The point is that small changes can lead to meeting long-term weight goals. A pound is 3500 calories (roughly), so that means the reduction in caloric intake by that amount a month (~120 day) leads to 1 pound lost/not gained. And 120 calories is a fairly small amount--it's 8 ounces of Mountain Dew!

In good hands

When is the last time you priced your insurance?

Joanne & I had Allstate for the first couple of years (auto, then home), but I started shopping for new auto coverage shortly after Joanne got the Pilot. Progressive came back about 40% cheaper (I want to say it was $900 down to $520). The next closest was, IIRC, was about $700. So we went with Progressive.

Aside from the cost savings, the one thing that I've really liked about Progressive is the ability to easily price out changes in the policy. One big thing I discovered is that full glass coverage is probably not worthwhile. Based on our comprehensive deductible ($250), the increase in the premium for full glass would cover the deductible in 1.5 years. So unless I planned to replace glass at that rate (which, to be fair, is close to the rate my Civic got broken into), we're better off taking the risk of paying a glass deductible and self insure instead. Or maybe Progressive charges too much for that. At any rate, the transparency of rates is very nice and easy to get.

More recently, we changed our homeowners from Allstate to Liberty Mutual, with a savings of approaching 50% (from $800 to $430), but that included upping the deductible from $500 to $1000. What's odd is that I got two different quotes from LM. One was through a local broker, the other from the corporate office. Because of the ASU Alumni program, that knocked off about 15%.

Before moving on to life insurance, the one difficulty in shopping for home & car insurance is the importance of service quality. Is it worth paying a little extra for a good reputation of paying on claims? In the end, for us, it came down to the feeling that since no one is happy with their insurance company (looking at online reviews) except for those with Amica and Chubb, price can be the deciding factor, assuming a certain amount of due diligence.

Moving on to life insurance, we recently got matching policies from AIG through Accuquote. The initial salesperson was a bit of a jerk, more interested in selling me what he thought we should have (30 years, $500K), rather than what I wanted (10 or 20 years, $250K), so I ended up working more with a backend person (not on commission) to get the policy I wanted. Although there were some issues in getting a medical issue with Joanne sorted out (records from her surgery 2 years ago) and later, some paperwork from me, we eventually ended up with the 20 year policies.

I went back and forth on which was better, 10 or 20 years, but I concluded for us it was worth the extra money in years 1-10, to lock in the rate from years 11-20. I'm not positive that was the right call, but the difference isn't that huge (<$30/year). The 30 year was cost prohibitive, but the 20 year policy won't quite cover the college years of prospective offspring, so a 10 year policy, then a reassessment of needs at that time might be better... Anyway, there's no right answer here. One thing that I was more confident on was the amount. While most experts say 5-10 times salary, I thought we'd be fine on the low end, given our only debt is the mortgage, which if anything did happen to one of us, the policy would cover, and we each have token amounts from our jobs.

Two policies we don't have are an umbrella liability policy and disability insurance. The former provides additional coverage above the liability in other insurance (ie, it has a really high deductible), but I'm not sure I can see the benefit for us, thought it may be valuable to others. As for the latter, I *think* we each have some amount as job benefits, but that's not something I've looked at that closely. Perhaps I should...