The theory goes like this:

“People are friends with other people of similar height.”

A few things need to be clarified and defined.

First, I will tackle the definition of “similar height.” I define similar height as three inches. Not three inches on either side of your height as defined by someone 6’0” having friends 5’9” to 6’3”. Rather, three inches total. As an example, I am 6’3”, and I would say most of my friends are between 6’0” and 6’3”.

Next, I will tackle the definition of “friends.” This can be tricky. I will start by stating that this is gender specific. A group of tall men might be friends with a group of short women. I have not completely decided if this theory applies to females, so for the sake of my theory, I’ll claim this is for men only. I will define friends as non-work related people. People you have become friends with who do not currently work with you. At work you are somewhat forced into hanging out with a group of people. I acknowledge in a bigger company this isn’t universally true and that bigger companies offer more diversity in relation to height. It stands to reason that it is easiest to meet and talk to people and become “work friends” with others you are forced to deal with on a professional level. Compare the work setting to a setting like college. In college it may be easier to meet others that live in your dorm or participate in the same activities as you, but the college years are for meeting anyone and everyone. You may go to a party with a few people, but hang out and spend most of the night socializing with other people. I think people tend to gravitate towards others of similar height, and these people tend to become your true friends.

Finally, I think the best place to witness this theory in action is at a bar on a Saturday night. Why not a Thursday or Friday? Thursdays and Fridays are big days to go out with “work friends.” Sit in a bar (preferably a crowded bar so people are forced to stand) and watch the groups of people talking. It is amazing. You will see a group of four or five guys all between 5’5” and 5’8” talking. Next to them will be three or four guys 6’2” to 6’5”. Next to that group will be a group of six between 5’9” and 6’0”.

Again, almost everyone I have mentioned this to likes to disagree right away. Most think it is not possible. They will disagree until they pay attention and notice the same thing. “People are friends with other people of similar height.”

Short disclaimer (pun intended): Obviously this theory doesn’t apply 100% of the time. My group of friends consists of a couple of guys who are 5’9” – 5’10”, and we are not friends with them just because they agree to drive the rest of us around.

I don’t know about you, but I have a better way to spend 12 seconds of my life. Cell phones have been around for a long time and voicemail systems and answering machines have been around for close to 30 years. We know how these things work. Have you ever used the “more options” feature? And more strange than the more options feature is the “paging” option. When is the last time you paged someone? I’d guess the last time I paged someone was 1997. We are passed this. Let me just hear the recipient’s voice and then hear the beep. I can take it from there.

I have an iPhone and played around with it to see if I could remove the AT&T voice after my greeting, but did not have any luck. I called AT&T to see if they could simply disable this for me. It took a few phone calls and I received a few different answers. Answers ranged from “We have no way to turn it off.” to “The AT&T voice prompt is different based on the voicemail system you are using.” Hmm. Ages ago I was involved in implementing a new phone system for my employer. I remember there being a simple check box to ENABLE the automated attendant or DISABLE automated attendant. That was about eight years ago. There is no way this is not an option on current voicemail systems (wireless or corporate systems).

After three or four phone calls (and a small threat to “look for another carrier for all of our corporate accounts”) you will no longer need to listen to the 12 seconds of Miss AT&T after my voice to leave me a message. Rather, you can just start recording after my last words and the immediate beep. It is worth mentioning, in my current role I have no authority over which cell phone carrier we use, but after getting nowhere on an issue that I knew could be solved, I decided the exaggeration was necessary.

How much time is wasted? It depends on your carrier and apparently the voicemail server you are utilizing. Depending on the source you use, there are about 270 million cell phone subscribers in the United States (Verizon has more than 80 million subscribers, AT&T is just short of 80 million subscribers, Sprint has roughly 50 million subscribers and T-Mobile 30+ million subscribers). If one phone call was made to every cell phone in the U.S., and that call is not answered, a total of 37,500 days / 900,000 hours / 54,000,000 minutes / 3,240,000,000 seconds are wasted every day on these “auto attendants.”
Do everyone a favor and call your cell phone company and demand they remove their auto attendant message so we can all add time back to our lives. Threaten the fact that you will move your entire corporation, consisting of 4,000 – 5,000 users to a new carrier if you must, to get them to make the change. You don’t even have to say where you work.

For AT&T call: 1-800-331-0500

Even as an unbiased fan I think the lottery system is broken. The NBA has changed the rules of the lottery multiple times, can’t they do it again? What if they had four pools of teams? Right now 14 teams are in the lottery. Here is my suggestion.
• Teams 13 and 14 simply draft in those positions. This year, that would be Indiana who finished 36-46 (missed the playoffs by three games) and Phoenix, who finished 46-36 (winning record, would have been the 5th seed in the East, missed the playoffs by two games in the West).
• Teams 9, 10, 11 and 12 pull names out of a hat to draft in those positions
• Teams 5, 6, 7 and 8 pull names out of a hat to draft in those positions
• Teams 1, 2, 3 and 4 pull names out of a hat to draft in those positions
Why doesn’t that work? Teams sandbag at the end of the year now hoping for one more ping pong ball. You could still technically have a weighted lottery in each group. Or just give each team an equal chance within that group. That would give a 25% chance for each team in each group to get the highest pick in that group. That has to be better than the current system.

The lottery clearly isn’t the only reason the Wolves are terrible, but a little luck can’t hurt.

Let’s recap the past few years.

2005: Minnesota drafts Rashad McCants (Danny Granger was selected three picks later)
2006: Minnesota drafts Brandon Roy (3rd team All-NBA this year) with the 6th overall pick and traded him for Randy Foye, the 7th overall pick.
2007: Portland and Minnesota tie for the sixth worse record in the league. There is a coin flip, which Minnesota wins so they have a slightly better chance in the lottery. BUT, Portland moves up from the 7th pick to the 1st pick and takes Greg Oden (could have had Kevin Durant). Minnesota ends up with Corey Brewer. Not a great draft overall.
2008: Minnesota gets the highest draft pick in their history (#3 – last time they had the #3 pick they took Christian Laettner after Shaq and Alonzo Mourning). They draft OJ Mayo and trade him for Kevin Love. –> I’m still holding out hope that this works out. They could have drafted Russell Westbrook or Eric Gordon….hmmm.
2009: Minnesota and Memphis tie for the fifth worse record in the league. Minnesota wins the coin flip, giving them a slightly better chance at moving up in the lottery. BUT, Memphis moves up to the #2 spot and Minnesota moves down to the 6th pick.

I want to be excited for basketball in Minnesota again. I want to root for the Wolves. It’s been tough since KG left and tougher given the decisions the front office has made and the terrible luck the franchise has had in the lottery.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=X10dlU5cU0A

And here is Shaq’s, which I think is hilarious. Mostly because you know these guys don’t dare say “no” to Shaq:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTxGmqdntwo

I love that guys like Shaq, who is 37 years old, can still laugh and have fun getting paid to play a game.

As I look at the bracket and the matchups, there are things to remember. No 16 seed has ever won a game. Only a couple 15 seeds have won. Every year at least one 12 seed beats a 5 seed and the 7 seed vs. 10 seed game is a 50/50. Last year was the first year all four #1 seeds have made it to the Final Four. How long will Ty Lawson be out for UNC? Can Marquette and UConn contend with the injuries to their key players? Who will be this year’s Stephen Curry? I get excited just thinking about all of the great basketball that will be on in the next few weeks.

You can view my bracket here.

On top of all of this, softball starts in April. March is most definitely the best month of the year.

By the time I got in high school I was ready to try contacts. I was thinking my eyes were the reason I couldn’t shoot very well (basketball). I tried contacts for a couple of months and hated every day. I must blink slow because the sweat would burn the bejesus out of my eyes when I was wearing the contacts. That was the end of that experiment and the last effort I made to be able to see.

It was the last effort until after I graduated college. I went to the eye doctor and asked about glasses / surgery. He asked the standard “can you read the letters on the second line down?” With my left eye, I was okay. With my right eye I had no idea of there were four letters or eight letters. At the end of the appointment, he said I was fine and didn’t need glasses at all. Right or wrong, I liked the answer and left the office.

A few weeks ago I gave the eye doctor another try, and had a similar conversation (“Better #1 / #2?), and again the result was “no glasses.” Nice! I did ask for an explanation as to why I needed glasses my whole life until now. The answer was that maybe growing up my eyes were really slow to focus and as I aged and began to read more, my eyes learned how to focus quicker. – Whatever. I liked the answer.

Most surprising about the appointment was that the technology for testing a person’s eyes has not changed in seeminly 50 years. “Better #1 / Better #2?….Better #1 / Better #2?” If I heard it once, I heard it 50 times. I feel like the technology with this should have advanced by 2008. A $50 digital camera can focus in less than a second. Isn’t there something that could automate the process of bringing letters into focus for an individual at an eye exam?

1st sign of trouble….
After they boarded the first class passengers and the “gold-super-elite-I-fly-15%-more-than-than-the-average-customer” people they gave the “boarding all rows / all passengers” call. The last 30 of us got in line to board the plane. One normal looking woman about 15 people ahead of me in line made this obnoxious sound and walked over to the garbage can to spit. This was especially unusual because she did not try to hide what she was doing at all.

2nd sign of trouble…
As I board the plane heading to my seat in the second to last row I see that the window seat next to the woman spitting in the garbage can is open.

3rd sign of trouble…
I take my seat next to this woman. She immediately opens “the bag” in the seat pocket in front of her. She spits in it a couple of times as I try to rationalize what’s going on with her. I’m thinking she has something sharp in her mouth that she doesn’t want to swallow….or maybe her kids put dog food in the cereal box and she bit into this morning and now she can’t get the taste out of her mouth. The plane takes off and I’m waiting for the crew to give the “it’s okay to use electronics” announcement. Before they have a chance to make that call….

Trouble…
The woman next to me starts puking. She doesn’t puke once or twice, she pukes consistently for the entire two plus hour flight. I had two thoughts as this lady was puking:
1. Why me? Why did I have to be the one sitting next to her? There were 150 people on the plane and I had to be the one sitting next to her. It is a good story if it happens to someone else, and I’d rather hear the story than tell the story.
2. I felt bad for this poor lady. I have no idea what was wrong with her. I knew I didn’t want to breathe her air. She was stuck. Anymore airlines are not very forgiving if you want to change your flight. She was stuck flying yesterday. It was a completely full flight so they couldn’t move her to first class or somewhere where she would have more space. She was stuck in the middle seat in row 25. And I was stuck in the window seat next to her in row 25.

Needless to say, I didn’t get the work done that I had hoped to complete.

The other reason I am a big KG fan can be seen in this video. Pay attention to how KG describes the situation in Las Vegas over the summer. It’s as if he is saying, “yeah, that makes sense…what the heck.” “No nonsense.”

Maybe most of my fear was that McFale pulled off this trade and I have no confidence in him as a General Manager. I feel like teams call the Wolves when they are desperate and need to steal some players.

Some time has passed and I have warmed up to this trade. Mike Miller is a solid player. He averaged 16.4ppg and 6.6rpg last season with Memphis. He shot over 50% from the field and over 40% from three. Playing with an inside force like Al Jefferson will only make him better (assuming Big Al can learn to pass out of a double-team). Kevin Love plays the game the right way. He is strong and gets in good position for rebounds.

If OJ Mayo averaged 16.5ppg and 6.5rpg this season, he would have a shot at Rookie of the Year. So, we get those stats out of Miller AND get Kevin Love. We also dumped Marko Jaric and Antoine Walker in the deal. Walker was easy to trade since he was in the last year of his contract, but getting rid of Jaric’s contract (a mistake McFale brought on a few years ago) was a good move.

My concerns about McFale as a GM and Wittman as a coach are still there. What style of basketball to the Wolves play? As an avid fan I should know this, but I don’t. This is Wittman’s fault. They need to define a style. Again, I like Randy Wittman as a person, but not as a coach. I just don’t ever see “NBA Championship Coach” being written next to Randy Wittman’s name.

I’ve warmed up to this trade a bit, but I’m anxious to see how it plays out. I’m hoping I can learn to love Kevin Love as a basketball player.