Author Archives: Tom

Saving for a boondoggle

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metroraillogo062007.gifBuried in this Chronicle article about increasing tolls on the Harris County toll roads and congestion on the Westpark Tollroad is the following nugget about yet another of the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s decisions that is contrary to its purpose of improving mobility in the Houston metro area:

Six months after the four-lane Westpark Tollway opened in 2004, traffic backups began occurring in certain areas, said Peter Key, toll road authority deputy director. Congestion has worsened since then.
The toll road authority would have preferred building a six- or even eight-lane tollway, Key said. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owned the land in the area, was willing to sell only enough for a four-lane tollway, he said. Metro wanted to keep the remaining land in case it builds a commuter rail line along the tollway, Key said.
Metro vice president John Sedlak said Metro has considered using the corridor for rail for several decades and may build a light rail line along parts of the corridor, from the Hillcroft Transit Center to an undetermined distance east of the West Loop.

As noted in this previous post, Metro’s bias in favor of inefficient rail lines is a costly bet for Houstonians. Those who are driving the Westpark Tollroad on a daily basis are finding out that such costs far exceed even the formidable expense of building inefficient rail lines.

Why is Richard Justice analyzing sports?

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justice0620B07.gifOne of the many curious aspects about the Houston Chronicle is that the local newspaper employs Richard Justice as a sports reporter and columnist. We already know that he has trouble evaluating baseball (see also here) and football. So, today Justice nails the trifecta of incompentence in evaluating Houston’s major sports teams with this post about Houston Rockets assistant general manager Dennis Lindsey’s decision to leave the Rockets to join the San Antonio Spurs front office:

The San Antonio Spurs have the NBA’s smartest front office. The hiring of Dennis Lindsey reenforces that notion. This is a tough loss for the Rockets, a very tough loss. He was excellent at what he did. Carroll Dawson had groomed him to be his successor, but Clueless Les went for Daryl Morey.

Who is calling who “clueless?” As noted in this post from almost three years ago, the Rockets have been mismanaged for a long time. The club has not won a playoff series over the past decade, one of the few NBA teams to hold that distinction. With the exception of Yao Ming, the Rockets’ draft picks over that period have been generally mediocre or poor. As a result, the Rockets have gone from being one of the top NBA teams playing in a sold out arena to the third best NBA team in Texas with an arena that often resembles an expensive mausoleum. Although Lindsey is certainly not responsible for all of that decline, his tenure with the Rockets coincided with that downturn.
So, owner Rockets Les Alexander went outside the organization to hire a new general manager. That hire may or may not work out, but it was certainly an understandable decision. Nothing that the Rockets have accomplished during Lindsey’s tenure with the club merited that Alexander simply hand him the job. That Lindsey is apparently cordial to Justice — as was former Stros GM Gerry Hunsicker — doesn’t justify Justice simply ignoring the facts.

How Not to use PowerPoint

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seth-godin-really-bad-powerpoint.jpgComedian Don McMillan nails it in this hilarious video. It’s a must view for anyone who has ever endured a bad PowerPoint presentation (is there anyone left who has not?). Hat tip to Craig Newmark.
Meanwhile, the WSJ’s ($) technology columnist Lee Gomes takes a look at the status of PowerPoint on its 20th (!) birthday.

All about Angel

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angel1.jpgNo, we’re not back in the 1960’s when pro golfers regularly puffed cigarettes on television under the stress of tournament competition. That’s new U.S. Open champion Angel Cabrera of Argentina on the left enjoying a quick smoke with his caddie this past Sunday. Golf Digest’s Jaime Diaz provides this timely and excellent profile of Cabrera, which includes this observation about Cabrera by longtime Houston golf professional, Charlie Epps:

Charlie Epps, a Houston-based teaching professional who lived in the small Argentine city of Villa Allende in the 1980s and met Cabrera when he was as a young caddie at the Cordoba GC, believes that Cabrera’s problems with keeping his composure stem from a deep-seated anger rooted in growing up in an impoverished broken home. “I remember that when he started playing he really had a temper–he just couldn’t handle bad shots–and that hurt him as a tournament player for a long time,” says Epps. “He’s a wonderful guy who had a lot of issues because of a very tough childhood, and with time he’s learned to overcome the them”

Meanwhile, Stu Mulligan over at the Waggle Room passes along more information about Cabrera in this interview with longtime Champions Tour pro Eduardo Romero, who is also from Argentina and is one of Cabrera’s sponsors.
Although not well-known outside of golf circles until this past weekend, Cabrera has long had a serious golf game. He is one of the Tour’s longest hitters and an excellent ball-striker. A balky putter has been what has kept him from being a regular winner on the Tour. He sunk a few putts this past weekend and it was enough for him to take home his first major tournament trophy. As with late-bloomer Lee Trevino a generation ago, it may well not be Cabrera’s last.

Summing up Oakmont

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oakmont061907.jpgSo, Phil Mickelson is probably not going to be able to play any tournaments for the next three weeks in preparation for next month’s British Open because of the injury to his wrist that he injured while hitting out of the absurdly dense rough at Oakmont Country Club for last weekend’s U.S. Open. Lawrence Donegan sums up how the the United States Golf Association can even screw up a nice story such as Angel Cabrera winning the U.S. Open:

But in the midst of a spirit-lifting triumph for the underdog there was also something of a travesty for the game itself as once again the organisers of this historic tournament laid out a course that bordered on farce. It takes some doing to engender sympathy for golf’s pampered millionaires but the USGA somehow managed to do exactly that.

In my view, the U.S. Open is easily the least enjoyable of all of the major golf tournaments and frankly not as much fun to watch as The Players or any number of mid-major tournaments. Perhaps having a few of the top players elect not to play in the U.S. Open because of injury risk might be what it takes to get through to the U.S.G.A. Their obsession with tricking up golf courses already elevates luck over skill in determining a champion. Now, it has become downright dangerous for the participants. And for those who think that a wrist injury is not all that serious for a professional golfer, remember what such an injury did to the once-bright playing career of former University of Houston golfer and two-time NCAA champion Billy Ray Brown.

The Next Business Prosecution

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With the Conrad Black trial winding down in Chicago, it’s about time for another dubious prosecution of a businessman, this time former Brocade CEO Greg Reyes, who is the first executive to be prosecuted for fraud in connection with backdating stock options.

Larry Ribstein has been following the case since the start and has excellent analysis of the selective nature of the prosecution.

Here is Steve Stecklow’s WSJ article on the trial.

Given the widespread nature of backdating, there are probably more criminal defense attorneys watching this trial than any other single prosecution of a businessperson over the the past five years. If a blogger pops up to cover the trial, I’ll pass it along.

The Texas Water Safari

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Texas%20Water%20Safari.jpgI’ve heard about The Texas Water Safari, but didn’t realize quite what is involved:

The Texas Water Safari begins in San Marcos with a gunshot that sends 200 paddlers madly thrashing across a murky pond.
Multicolored boats, ranging from six-seated scull-like canoes to single-seat kayaks, barrel into each other, tipping and tossing their occupants into the water. The bigger boats slam into the smaller ones, driving them toward rusty pilings.
Once the paddlers traverse the pond, they jump into the mud and drag their boats through thick brush to portage a dam churning with whitewater. They twist ankles and skin knees as they carry their boats down an incline of sharp rocks to the mouth of the San Marcos River near the center of Texas.
And that is only the beginning of the 262-mile endurance test that takes most entrants two to three days to complete and has enough danger lurking along the way to give Indiana Jones nightmares.
Poisonous water moccasins fall from trees. Wasps and fire ants are constant threats, mosquitoes and mayflies swarm at night.
In fast water, logs turn into torpedoes and trees tumble like boulders. In high water, hanging limbs snatch water jugs and knock competitors unconscious.
Paddlers navigate rapids in the first half of the race and cope with the broiling heat of the Texas summer in the daytime, then fight off hypothermia at night.
There are 12 classes for boats entered in the race, but competitors can use any kind of craft, as long as it is human-powered. No sails or motors are allowed.
No wonder it is billed as the worldís toughest canoe race. [. . .]
Remarkably, no one has died in the raceís 44-year history.
But many have come close.

Read the entire article. Golf, anyone? ;^)

Steroids, home runs and variables

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steroids.jpgThis post about Barry Bonds from a week or so ago prompted an interesting exchange in the comments between me and Gary Gaffney, a University of Iowa physician who blogs about steroid use over at Steroid Nation. Following on that exchange is this Michael Salfino/Grand Rapids Press article that raises questions regarding the conventional wisdom these days that steroid use dramatically increased home run totals in Major League Baseball:

Between 1995 and 2003, the era where, [steroids critics contend that] home run totals were inflated dramatically by alleged steroid use, each team hit, on average, 173 homers.
Unfortunately for [the steroids critics’ argument], home run totals per team post-steroid testing are actually up, not down: 176 homers for the average team in the average year.
Leaguewide, there were 5,250 homers hit on average between 2001 and ’03; 5,290 between ’04 and ’06.
One argument is that between ’00 and ’02, seven batters slugged 50 or more homers. Between ’03 and ’05, just one did.
But two batters, Ryan Howard and David Ortiz, hit more than 50 homers last year, and another, Albert Pujols, just missed with 49.
We again share the great insight by Art De Vany, professor emeritus of economics at the University of California-Irvine, that hitting home runs is an act of genius.
So, De Vany concludes, we must expect wide variance in the best years of athletes just like we accept wide variance in the best films of directors, albums of musicians or books by authors relative to their main body of work.
De Vany also concludes that large swings in individual home run performance are irrelevant to the steroids debate.
This year, teams are hitting homers at a 4,632 pace, which would be the lowest, by far, per team, in all the years cited by Kriegel except for ’95. The homer rate thus far could be a fluke that will correct itself going forward.
Still, it would be surprising if the year-end total cracked 5,000, about where it stood in ’02 and ’05. Swings of 10 percent are common in every era. In the modern context, that means a range of anywhere between 4,800 and 5,800 homers should be considered normal.

Professor DeVany comments.

And you thought your boss was bad?

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monty_210.jpgArgentina’s Angel Cabrera won the U.S. Torture er, I mean, Open Golf Tournament yesterday over Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk, but the more interesting story from the Open was Colin Montgomerie’s extraordinary effort to retain his “most unpopular golfer” status on the PGA Tour.
A couple of weeks ago, Monty summarily fired his longtime caddy while going through the worst stretch of his career. Thus, for the U.S. Open, Monty picked up a local caddy who had previously worked for Jack Nicklaus. Apparently, while Monty was missing the cut at the Open, things did not go swimmingly between Monty and his new bagman:

Colin Montgomerie’s love affair with the US Open is on the rocks after his latest attempt to win the championship ended in abject failure and an ignominious falling out with his 62-year-old caddie.
On a day when a quartet of Britons conjured up hopes of ending Europeís eight-year drought in the majors, Montgomerie slumped to his worst score in the tournament since his debut in 1993.
He missed the halfway cut at unforgiving Oakmont by eight shots and allowed the volatile side of his nature to wreak its revenge on the hapless Billy Goddard.
The veteran caddie, hired to carry Montgomerieís clubs after the 43-year-old Ryder Cup star sacked long-term bagman Alistair McLean last week, tried to find a kind word to say about his temporary employer.
“Heís a good guy but he just gets mad at himself,” said Goddard. “And he got mad at me, absolutely.” [. . .]
After contacting the caddiemaster at Oakmont Country Club to request an experienced bagman ó the main condition of his employment being that he should not talk too much ó Montgomerie was allocated Goddard, a man with a reputation as a kindly soul who can get along with anyone.
Even though Goddard is so valued that he has caddied for Jack Nicklaus, he was to learn that Montgomerie can be easily upset by what seem innocuous comments.
After a first-round 76 left him with plenty of ground to make up, Montgomerie was unable to cope with the increasingly difficult demands of Oakmontís penal rough and slick greens as he tossed shots away like a highhandicapper having a bad day.
Montgomerie was so distressed by an incident during the front nine of his second round that he walked over to speak to his girlfriend, Gaynor Knowles, on the 10th fairway and was overheard to say: “Itís such a shame. Itís really upset me. It really, really has.”
When Goddard was asked whether he knew what had caused Montgomerie to become so agitated, he admitted being responsible, saying: “On the fourth hole he asked me what the yardage was and I said: ‘Lay up or go for it?’. He said: ‘Iím going for it’. After he made a bogey on the hole, he said to me: ‘You should never have said the words lay up’. After that we hardly talked. That was the first taste I had of his reputation.” [. . .]
On the 18th his drive landed in such thick rough that he could not see the ball and hacked it only 10 yards forward.
When he launched his third towards the green, a youth yelled ëGet in the holeí to be greeted by the coldest stare Montgomerie could muster. As the object of his anger was identified, the spectator turned to the rest of crowd and appealed: ëI was only trying to encourage him.í [. . .]

So far, so good

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riceowlsbaseball.jpegThe Rice Owls are enjoying their sixth trip to the College World Series in Omaha so far as the Owls have won their first two games, have a couple of days to rest their pitchers before facing the winner of Tuesday’s North Carolina-Louisville Loser’s Bracket game on Wednesday, and are set up well to compete for one of the two spots in the best two-out-of-three final championship series that determines the champion. The Woodlands boys on the Owls are playing particularly well, which makes watching the Rice games in the series all that more interesting for me. Here is the bracket for the entire World Series, the World Series website, the World Series blog, as well as the local Rice Owls Baseball blog. Go Owls!