The World According to Shawn
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
I'm excited to be going to Manchester again, it is one of my favorite cities in England. I've been back and forth between Ireland and England alot over the last year, I've seen a good few cities in England now so here there in order from favorite to least favorite.
1.) London - In my opinion it is the capital of the world, everything that happens anywhere happens here first.
2.) Manchester - If it was in any other country it would probably be number 1 on my list, but it's hard to top London.
3.) Leeds - I was pleasantly surprised at how much Leeds had going on. It reminded me of Boston alot, especially the city layout.
4.) Nottingham - The castle in the city centre and the oldest pub in England gave the city a real British feeling.
5.) Blackpool - A really small city, but there is so much to do there. It is alot like Atlantic City in New Jersey. Replace AC's casinos with amusement parks and nightclubs and you have BP.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
After writing the post about the baseball milestones that were recently reached, I decided to look more closely at my statement about Glavine being the last pitcher to reach 300 wins.
I have to take back that statement as I found a whole crop of pitchers that I think will one day reach or come within 15 wins of 300 victories.
There are 4 catagories here. Pitchers with the Best chance to do it barring injury, Pitchers who can likely reach the milestone, those who will come close, and too soon to tell.
Best Chance at 300
C.C. Sabathia - He is only 26 years old and has seven years of experience starting Major League games. In his seven years with the Cleveland Indians he has amassed 95 wins and looks to be on pace for his first 20 win season in 2007. If he keeps on the pace he is on now and plays for as long as say Roger Clemens, he will have no problem not only passing 300 wins, but he should reach 350 without a problem. I hope I don't jinx him by writing this.
Tim Hudson - He is a little bit older at 32 years old, but in his nine years of pitching he has 134 wins for the Oakland Atheletics and the Altlanta Braves. He is having easily the best year of his career, and only an injury could slow him down over the next couple seasons. I can see him winning between 15 and 20 games for the next eight or nine seasons with the Atlanta Braves team he has behind him now. That sounds alot like the career Glavine has had to me, except for the Cy Young awards.
Likely to reach 300 wins
Johan Santana - This one is questionable because it would take him atleast 10 more years at his best level to reach 300. Its not completely out of the question because he is only 28 years old and has 91 wins. He has 2 Cy Young Awards already under his belt and realistically he could end up with a couple more before he is finished. If he leaves the Twins and pitches for say the Yankees with its high powered offense, he has the potential to win 25 games in a season.
Roy Halladay - He seems to pitch every game like it is the World Series. I can't count the amount of times that I have seen him carry a game into the 9th inning going for a complete game shutout. Halladay has a Cy Young award and a season of 22 wins. His total number of victories over his ten year career is 109 so far. Looking at Curt Schilling's career he didn't have a really good season until he was 34 years old, so with Halladay at 30 years old he has plenty of time.
Will Come Close
Barry Zito - He is a really good pitcher stuck on a bad team this year, and even with the best curveball in baseball he can't help the San Francisco Giants win games. He has 111 victories so far and is 29 years old. If he has to go through years of the Giants rebuilding then he will ultimately fall short of 300, but it should be interesting to see towards the end of his career.
Mark Mulder - The last of the big three in Oakland. At one point I thought he was going to emerge as the best of the young bunch of Oakland pitchers that Billy Bean put together. Fast forward a few years later and he has been Stuck on 103 career victores since the end of the 2006 season. If he can get back to the way he was playing in his first few years in Oakland, he will come close to 300 but I doubt he will pass it.
Josh Beckett - He was suppose to be the next Roger Clemens after he dominated the Yankees in the World Series a few year ago. He had a couple of bad seasons after that, and now is finally on track again with the Red Sox in 2007. He should definitely win 20 games this season, and might even take home the Cy Young Award, but with only 72 wins, I am predicting he will come up short in the end.
Too soon to tell
Scott Kazmir - 31 wins at age 23, but stuck on a really bad team that doesn't seem to be getting any better.
Rich Harden - 31 wins at 24, Injury is more his problem. If he could stay healthy for a season I could make a better assesment.
Carlos Zambrano - I was really close to putting him on the list above, but I decided to leave him down here for a while. 78 wins at 26 years of age.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
When I was in high school I wanted to take french classes, but someone I ended up in Spanish, and I hated it. I had no interest in learning to speak Spanish, and I don't know why. I was always interested in French. I didn't get the opportunity to take French until I was at Northeastern University. I loved the courses and I learned alot of the basics, however I never practiced so after a while I forgot it.
When I started working at Interconnection a few months ago I was excited to get the chance to try to speak French again for the firts time since my classes. Instead of the proper stuff I learned, I quickly found out that the majority of them speak in slang. In the French language they really stress the pronounciation of each word unlike in English, but when you speak in a french slang it becomes less important, I suppose in a lot of ways that is like English slang.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
In 10 days I will be going to my cousins 21st birthday party in Blackpool, England. The last time I went in February, I had a great time, but this time could be even better, because its the last weekend of the busy season there.
My intinerary looks like this for the five days:
Wednesday: Flight leaves Cork airport around 9 pm and arrives in Dublin at 9:45 pm. Spending the night in Dublin and most likely going out for drinks.
Thursday: Flight leaves Dublin around 11:15 am and arrives in Blackpool International at 12:20 pm. Spending the night in Blackpool and most likely going out for drinks there.
Friday: Taking a train sometime in the morning from Preston to Manchester. Spending the day and night in Manchester, Going out to one of many nightclubs there, should be be the best night of the trip.
Saturday: Taking a train back to Blackpool via Preston, and going to my cousins birthday party.
Sunday: Flight leaves Blackpool International around 3:10 and arrives in Dublin at 4:00. Taking a train or bus fron Dublin to Cork and writing about everything I did over the 5 days of madness.
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My intinerary looks like this for the five days:
Wednesday: Flight leaves Cork airport around 9 pm and arrives in Dublin at 9:45 pm. Spending the night in Dublin and most likely going out for drinks.
Thursday: Flight leaves Dublin around 11:15 am and arrives in Blackpool International at 12:20 pm. Spending the night in Blackpool and most likely going out for drinks there.
Friday: Taking a train sometime in the morning from Preston to Manchester. Spending the day and night in Manchester, Going out to one of many nightclubs there, should be be the best night of the trip.
Saturday: Taking a train back to Blackpool via Preston, and going to my cousins birthday party.
Sunday: Flight leaves Blackpool International around 3:10 and arrives in Dublin at 4:00. Taking a train or bus fron Dublin to Cork and writing about everything I did over the 5 days of madness.
Monday, August 13, 2007
How do you know if people respect you?
Maybe there isn't one answer for that question, but for me one obvious sign is when they respect a decision that you have made.
For example, whenever I say no to someone, they seem to take it as a yes or a maybe. It might have something to do with me changing my mind in the past, or it could just be a sign of disrespect. It's one of the most annoying things in the world to me, when I've made up my mind on something and yet people think they can pursuade me, by twisting my arm.
(1) comments
Maybe there isn't one answer for that question, but for me one obvious sign is when they respect a decision that you have made.
For example, whenever I say no to someone, they seem to take it as a yes or a maybe. It might have something to do with me changing my mind in the past, or it could just be a sign of disrespect. It's one of the most annoying things in the world to me, when I've made up my mind on something and yet people think they can pursuade me, by twisting my arm.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
In what was a very interesting weekend in baseball in America, three different players set a few records.
Barry Bonds hit his 755th homerun to tie Hank Aaron and then yesterday he hit number 756 to become the new career homerun leader. If you've been alive for the last 5 years, you know that this record is probably the most controversial thing in sports. He's been on a pace to hit about 800 homeruns for a while now, and whether or not steriods played a part, he's still a phenomonal hitter, just look at his averages.
One of my favorite Mets players of the last few years, Tom Glavine won his 300th game. Based on the way the game works today, it is very possible that he may have been the last pitcher who will reach 300 wins in a career. To put it in perspective Pedro Martinez who has been an excellent pitcher for the last 13 years only has 206 wins and for him to reach 300 he would have to play atleast another 8 seasons.
Last but not least my personal favorite Alex Rodriguez hit his 500th homerun only eight days after turning 32, which puts him on a pace for somewhere near 900 home runs if he plays as long as Barry Bonds has palyed. Congratulations to all of them!
Thursday, August 02, 2007
I did my morning routine of reading the news in the morning, local, national, and international and was surprised to see the story about the bridge collapsing in Minneapolis. I was last there in February of last year, and I remember Interstate 35 W very well because its basically the main route between St. Paul and Minneapolis. It's funny that something like this happened because only a few days ago I was thinking about old buildings such as the FlatIron building in NYC. For example this building was completed in 1902 and made with an Iron interior and brick and cement exterior. Materials weren't made to last forever, so who is the person responsible for checking that buildings like this are still suitable to be inhabited? I know there are structures in parts of the world that are centuries older than anything in New York but I suppose I'm just curious as to what happens when all the tall buildings that we've built get old and structurally unsound? Imagine the demolition team that has to take down the Empire State Building in say the year 2899. Random though huh?
In other news I am returning to Boston and NY/NJ on September 14th for a two week holiday, I'm really excited about this trip, but already sad about it at the sametime. My parents have begun moving to Florida so when I arrive half of the family will be in NJ and the other half in Florida.
