stoutfellow

Andrew Cashner is likely to be the Padres' opening-day starter; he took enormous strides forward as a starting pitcher last year, and if he can stay healthy he will be a solid performer, possibly an All-Star, for years to come.

Cashner was born on September 11, 1986. In other words, his fifteenth birthday was the day the towers fell.

Time passes. In some ways, too fast; in others, not fast enough.

Today's culinary experiment, another slow-cooker dish, was labeled "Mediterranean Minestrone Casserole". It seems a bit too liquid to deserve the name of "casserole"; it's more like a good thick vegetarian stew, with tomatoes, garbanzos, carrots, green beans, onion, garlic, and a variety of spices. (The recipe called for "Italian seasoning", which I didn't have and didn't want to buy; I went online and found a recipe, and made a little bottle of the stuff.) Very tasty.

Meanwhile, it's 22-0 at halftime. Go 'Hawks!

I have been a baseball fan since 1969, during the Padres' first season.

In all that time, I have yet to see an explanation of the idea of sending up a pinch-hitter for your pitcher and having him sacrifice. Damn, if you haven't taught your pitchers how to lay down a good bunt, you're doing it wrong!

Gah.

One of the few highlights of last season for the Padres was the performance of catcher Yasmani Grandal (and isn't that a fine name?), who came over in the Mat Latos trade and displayed a decent glove and a fine bat; he was their cleanup batter by the end of the season.

Today, Grandal was hit with a fifty-game suspension for using a banned substance - testosterone, in this case.

He's young enough that I'm open to accepting this as a youthful blunder, probably in response to an early-season injury. (Open to, I say; I'm not saying I will accept it as such....) A lot of Padres fans are very upset, though. Me, I'm just angry, but not in a zero-tolerance way. (I still remember the sad case of Alan Wiggins, back in the '80s.) It is at least some consolation, in the worst-case scenario, that the Padres do have another prime prospect at catcher in Austin Hedges, but he's still a couple of years away, I think.

Stupid kid.

Chase Headley has simply been on fire for the Padres since the beginning of August. Today, he hit a grand slam to put away an 8-2 win and take over the NL lead in RBI.

I'm thinking the kid deserves serious consideration for MVP this year. (And oh, am I glad they didn't trade him at the deadline! Now, what are they going to do with Gyorko?)

Today, I had to go onto campus to take care of some paperwork. It's a beautiful day, warm and clear - perhaps a touch on the humid side, but a far cry from what it'll be in even a month's time. On campus, the air was filled with the scent of the flowering dogwood, and the local Canada geese were leading their goslings about. (A flock of half a dozen crossed in front of the bus; maybe twice that many waited on the curb until we were past.) In the University Center, an Elvis impersonater was performing; I waited through a rendition of "If I Can Dream" (my favorite Elvis song). His voice was a bit deeper than the King's, and was a little too polished, without the emotional roughness of the real thing, but he wasn't bad.

I think I've figured out what to do with the leftover noodles. I've got sandwich fixings, in the form of sliced turkey and Monterey jack; I think I'll cut up a couple of slices of the turkey, toss it with the noodles, and then shred a slice or two of the jack on top. A minute or two in the microwave should produce a tasty dinner - or at least an edible one!

Meanwhile, the Padres seem to have decided to cut their losses on the keystone duo of Hudson and Bartlett, releasing the former and DLing the latter. They've brought up Cabrera to play short, and one of the kids they got from the Angels in the Frieri deal to handle second. Neither of them is likely to make heads turn, but they should be able to hold the fort until the prospects - Gyorko, Spangenberg, Weems, Peterson - are ready.

Solicitors are ringing the phone about every ten minutes, but I can't just ignore it - there might be a call I need to take. Buggrit. It's spring; I won't let them get me down.

Ah. So the Padres aren't going to go 0-162 this year. I was starting to worry. They should have won last night's game too, frankly; bad baserunning kept what would have been the decisive run from scoring.

Let's see if they can do better in their next series.

Next week is Spring (sic) Break, so as of today I have about a week and a half off. I'll probably go onto campus at least once, though; I've got a stack of papers from my History of Math class to grade.

It's actually been pretty warm the last few days; I wore my windbreaker rather than my heavy coat the last two days, as the highs got into the low 60s F. This morning, though, a boomer rolled through, complete with small hail, and the temperature dropped sharply. They were forecasting snow for tomorrow, but apparently that's dropped out of possibility. Maybe some rain (and maybe another thunderstorm tonight). Still, the rest of the week should be nicer - crisp, at the worst.

It's been an eventful week. On Wednesday, I noticed a 2-3 inch separation on the outer left seam of my pants. I was complaining to the secretary that I'd have to pick up needle and thread and do some sewing, for the first time since my Scouting days. She frowned at me, reached into her desk, and pulled out a sewing kit. I had no choice but to take it, return to my office, and commence sewing. I did a crappy job, but it'll hold for a while; maybe I'll hunt up a tailor during break week. (I have at least two pairs of pants that could do with a tailor's attention....)

Also on Wednesday, we had a faculty meeting. Among other things, the Chair announced that he'd been informed we'd be able to move into the new Science Building in February 2015. We had to make a decision on permanent fixtures; everyone seemed content with installing whiteboards in all of the offices and labs, and blackboards in the classrooms, so that went well enough. The architects sent us the plans of our part of the building - the second floor, and half of the third - but the legend was missing, so we couldn't tell what all of the symbols meant. (One hexagonal symbol prompted the suggestion that perhaps we would have jacuzzis....)

This morning, I made a major advance in my research. I seem to do some of my best thinking while waiting for the bus, showering, or walking the dogs.... My Master's student is also making major strides; I don't think he'll be able to finish this semester, but probably by the end of summer. I still haven't heard anything about either of the papers I have out. (I need to finish up the joint paper with my old student CK; all that's left is the intro and the bibliography, but I keep being distracted by my new research.)

My new bus book is A Tour Through Mathematical Logic. It's about eight chapters long, and I've finished the first four; much of what was in them I already knew, but having it organized helps, and there was some new material as well. The next chapter, though, is on model theory, about which I know nothing, and the rest of the book is likely to be tough going.

I've been worrying about the prospects for the Senate in this fall's elections; more than two-thirds of the seats that are up are Democrat-held, and quite a few of them are in red states. Throw in about half a dozen D retirements, and things looked pretty bleak. However, this week's news has cheered me somewhat. The Democrats already had a very good shot at picking up a seat in Massachusetts and a somewhat lesser chance in Nevada, but with Olympia Snowe's unexpected retirement in Maine, that seat looks like low-hanging fruit as well. Bob Kerrey's decision to run in Nebraska gives at least a decent chance of holding that seat - which I'd considered a sure loss, along with the North Dakota seat Kent Conrad is leaving. There are also interesting rumblings out of Indiana.... I'd say the Republicans' chance of taking the Senate has dropped below 50%. (Nate Silver is going to post his evaluation of the current situation sometime in the next few days; I'll be interested to see what he thinks.)

And, of course, spring training has begun, and several of the young arms of the Padres - Bass, Wieland, Erlin - are already impressing the coaches. I doubt the Padres will be in contention this year (although stranger things have happened), but once the kids start arriving - Grandal, Gyorko, Spangenberg, Liriano, as well as some of the older prospects like Darnell and Decker - they'll be a force to reckon with. Speed, defense, and above all pitching are what they're going to have to rely on, and from what I've read of the youngsters, they're what the doctor ordered.

Weatherwise, the last week and a half have been a rollercoaster. Thursday the 12th was cold and damp, culminating in a couple of inches of snow that night and the next day. On the weekend, the temperature boomeranged back into the 60s F, melting most of the snow. At the beginning of the next week, it turned chilly again, this time with rain to wash away the last of the snow. Midweek was cold again, turning frigid on Thursday and Friday, culminating in freezing rain Friday night. Today wasn't too bad, although very wet - Gracie's been bouncing in and out, all muddy-pawed. The highs are supposed to hang in the mid-40s F for most of the coming week, after a round of thunderstorms tonight. At least the forecast is for clear weather starting tomorrow.

I more-or-less finished (no intro or bibliography yet) the first draft of my current paper last week, and immediately (as usual) decided it wasn't well-organized. Two of the sections I'd divided it into proved unexpectedly short; I'm going to chop one of them up and parcel it out to the two surrounding sections, and I think I see how to flesh out the other one. It's a short paper - I estimate maybe twelve pages when it's finished - but it's the right length for the online journal I'm going to submit it to. I've got two other papers out, but I'm still waiting to hear whether they've been accepted. Once I finish this one, I'll start thinking about how to write up my current research. (I doubt I'll actually write it until sometime next year; it's still kind of formless at the moment.)

My two Master's students are both making good progress. One is writing up her thesis, and hopes to present by mid-February. Her co-adviser and I are a little nervous about this one; it's the first thesis under the new Mathematics Education program, and we're not sure what the parameters for acceptance are going to be. As for the other, I suggested he shift his focus to a narrower range of the problem, and he surprised me by coming up with a complete answer to that subproblem. He then suggested which direction to go in next, and it looks both doable and interesting. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with.

What else? 1493 was interesting, but not as much of an eye-opener as 1491. I'm reading another volume in the Ring of Fire series, and have realized that I've pretty much lost track of who's doing what to whom; with such a large stable of authors and an enormous cast of characters, closer attention needs to be paid, but I'm not sure the series really merits it. My current bus book is a biography of Hugo Black; I was concerned by the hagiographic tone of the introduction, but the author isn't hiding Black's blemishes.

"Sinfest" is still on fire; Fuchsia's dilemma is getting more intense, since the appearance of the Storytime Zombie.

I'm not sure whether to be amused or horrified by the spectacle of the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

I don't really care about the football playoffs, at this point, but I'm looking forward to the baseball season. The Padres' farm system has started cranking out prospects, and they just began arriving at the end of last season. The next two seasons should be exciting. (Not that I expect the Friars to break .500 this year....)

Heigh-ho. I really should get back to my bookkeeping.

It's been a fairly good week, all things considered. I still haven't finished polishing the prisms paper, but I've begun looking at polygons, and quadrilaterals, from a new perspective, and it seems quite promising. I just finished reading China Mieville's Kraken; he remains one of the champion producers of Weird in the field. (I may post a review in a day or two.) I'm almost done with History of the Conquest of Peru, and have concluded that, even by the standards of the day, Francisco Pizarro was a right bastard. The paperwork for my new account with MassMutual has been completed, and the rollovers should be in progress.

And the Cardinals won the World Series. They're not my favorite team - they're actually around #6 on the list - but no team higher on the list made the playoffs, and I do, after all, live in the St. Louis metro area, so....

(On the personal level, a good week. On a larger scale: not real happy about some of the stories coming out of, e.g., Oakland and Nashville; refresher courses on the First and Fourteenth Amendments would seem to be in order.)