Boston Celitcs

There’s a lot to write about and it’s been a while since I’ve last written so I’ll try to be concise.

Danny Ainge made a mistake getting Telfair from the Trailblazers. His pick turned into a quality rookie, Brandon Roy, who is already better than Telfair.  I felt at the end of the season that he should have been traded, much like Dan Dickau was traded last year. I’ll give Ainge credit, when something isn’t working he moves on quickly.  Telfair is one of those and clearly the team knew it, according to Springer’s  basketball section in today’s globe (what a great reporter BTW).  So if that’s the case why did Wyc Grousbeck make the situation even more difficult for Ainge by announcing that Telfair’s name plate had been removed? While other teams assuredly knew that the Celtics were looking to move him, he needn’t lower his trade value further by announcing to the public that he was no longer wanted.  Perhaps there are other reasons. Perhaps he felt it was more important to indicate to the public that this kind of behavior is completely unacceptable and the Celtics would have nothing to do with it. Perhaps the team felt the trade value of Telfair was so low and they expected so little in return for him that it was more important to send a message to current and future players that this behavior is unacceptable. Perhaps after a horrendous season management felt this was a perfect opportunity to garner some good will from the Celtics fan base by taking a stance.  While I agree with the sentiment, I can’t agree with the execution.  Instead state that Telfair is suspended, even if that probably means little during the off season.  But to so clearly indicate that the ax has been placed over his head does little to make Ainge’s job any easier. There are other ways to distance the team from Telfair without handcuffing Ainge.

Still, get rid of him. It’s clear that Telfair should not be in the league if a rookie, Rajon Rondo (who I love), can outplay him. No, Telfair should have gone to college or should be down in the developement league. I hope Telfair knows this.

Alumni Panel

I just returned from participating on an alumni panel for the computer science department for my alma mater, University of New Hampshire. The idea behind this panel, aside from given panel members and audience members free pizza, is to talk about the transition from academia to the work place. I was joined by two other alumni, Zachary Waters of AMD/ATI and Anshul Chadda of EMC. Most of the student questions revolved around the process of getting a job (recruiters, interviews, salary negotiations). There were was a lot of interesting discussion despite the small turn out for the presentation–the weather was miserable and I can understand students who didn’t have to venture out to not be there. Some interesting questions were:

• Should I use a recruiter directly out of college? (many pros and cons: extra knowledge about salaries, cons: companies have to pay recruiting fee)
• How do I negotiate a salary directly out of college? (salary.com or payscale.com)
• Is it polite to send thank-you messages to engineers as compared to managers or HR staff? (not to engineers, but definitely to managers/HR)
• What can I do now to prepare myself for the industry? (projects, thesis, look for jobs in areas you love)
• Is it bad to turn down an offer for a particular job but apply for another at the same company? (if you didn’t turn down the previous job because of money, sure why not)
• Does a thesis or a project look better for a company? (I always vote on the thesis–I’m very proud that my thesis still is on the self in the CompSci department at UNH. If a company views a thesis and a project with equal weight, then which is better for you? I think a thesis is a bigger accomplishment, I know mine was. While I do write a blog, I’m not a good writer so a thesis pulled me out of my comfort zone and made me a better writer.)

In particular it was good to Professor Bergeron, Professor Sparr, Professor Russell and Professor Weiner again. Sadly, I didn’t get to see my thesis advisor, Professor Hatcher aka “The Big Guy”. I miss working with them!

Sports Night and the difference between men and women

After watching all seven seasons of the West Wing with a bunch of my friends, we’ve continued our love of all things Sorkin by watching Sports Night. It is a wonderful half an hour sitcom that ran for two seasons in 1998. Anyway, in one episode Casey (male) calls Dana (female) “smoky” in a (supposedly) mock flirting session (Casey’s character is divorced and our of the dating loop). Dana liked that and was floating for most the episode. See this entry to read more about the episode.

But, to the point, here’s an edited down email between a female friend of mine and me about that Sports Night episode:

K: you think i’m smoky? [Ed: I was joking I have to use that line next time the group got together.]
K: (that’s a quote, too. and you can call me smoky anytime you like.)
Me: or would you prefer to be “a slow drink of whiskey” ?
K: nope. i definitely prefer to be smoky. i don’t drink or smoke, but i like to think being smoky isn’t about cigarettes, it’s about mystery.
Me: I’d rather be a summer’s Sunday afternoon hammock.
K: well, you’re just plain weird, then.

You have to realize that K has a wonderful sarcastic sense of humor. I’m not weird (I think I doth protest too much). So guys and gals, what would you want to be? I believe that in general guys don’t care to be a mystery.

beer summit

On Saturday I once again participated in a rite of spring–the Beer Summit. There were fifty different breweries and over two hundred different beers. Usually I pay attention to what I drink, even taking this notes, but this year I found myself without pen, paper and more importantly the burning desire to record the yummy beers. I felt this time like going on vacation without taking my camera, so-to-speak. So I wandered the rows set up at the Castle Park Plaza and enjoyed the company of my friends (Ryan, Liam, Ray and Ruth). Liam however took some great notes. Checkout his nice review of beers we drank at the beer summit.

I heartily second Liam’s endorsement of the apricot wheat beer from the Ithaca Beer Company. Yum!

Let’s Get The Ball Rolling

Welcome! Inspired by my friend Liam and his wonderful blog (http://othemts.wordpress.com/) I’m starting my own blog. Where did the idea name of this blog come from? I’m sure not unlike other people, crazy ideas have popped into their head and while they laugh at them and not tell people, I’ve tended to tell my friends. Much to my surprise they weren’t offended but laughed and usually extended the whacky thought or proposed their own. So while I won’t put all those thoughts here, I will put some of them mixed in my own observations on life.

This blog isn’t really intended for you. Nope. It’s for me and, perhaps a few of my friends. Right now I’m blogging this from my favorite coffee shop, True Grounds (www.truegrounds.com), and enjoying one their excellent chai before heading off to play basketball at noon with the guys. We’ve been playing together for, what, 18 years. No, I’m not that old. I remember playing basketball with them in high school if that helps. Yesterday my basketball team (I play in the Play Forever League of never too late–www.nevertoolate.com) lost miserably (30+ points). We actually played better in the first half when we only had 4 players. Can’t blame the late comers, we all played poorly in the second half. While I had an OK game (10 points, 4-8 shooting, 2-2 FT, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 TO), it was garbage time for most of the game which gave me the opportunity to dismiss winning the game and focus on practicing my own skills (a philosophy I’ve applied with much success to my best sport, tennis). The PFL is run by Steve Bzomowski, who also has an excellent blog but about basketball: http://hoopstips.wordpress.com . Steve is a former assistant coach at Harvard and an excellent basketball coach and a wonderful writer. His college degree in English is evident here. I’ve always been amused by his literary references when criticizing us in his basketball classes.

True to my title I’ll at least share a whacky vision I’ve had this week. I’m taking an improv comedy class at Improv Boston. Occasionally we’ll do pass and receive lines where one person enters the stage and offers a line. Another person, coming from a line on the other side of the stage, replies and the original person concludes the scene with another line. Although I shouldn’t *plan* a line as it hurts the performance of improv, I can’t help thinking that opening with this line would crack up my class mates:

“Hello, I’m Marci and I’ll be your rectal consultant.”

Happy Sunday!