Houston's Olympic Dreams

Yesterday United States Olympic Committee members visited Houston as part of a week-long trip to five potential host cities for the 2016 Summer Olympics. The USOC will also be visiting Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco before deciding whether to submit an American bid to the International Olympic Committee. New York, the USOC's failed 2012 entrant, is not on the list this time around.

Houston, along with New York, Washington DC and San Francisco, was a finalist for the 2012 bid, and I'm glad to see that the USOC is giving Houston another chance to make its case for hosting the Games. However, I expect the city to be passed over, just like it was in 2012.

This isn't because the city is functionally incapable of hosting the Olympics; much of the infrastructure is already in place, it was widely reported that Houston had the best technical package of the four USOC finalist cities in 2012, and there's no reason to believe that local citizens, politicians and business leaders couldn't effectively organize themselves for the challenge.

But, on the international stage, it's all about perception. Houston's international perception ranges anywhere from "poor" to "non-existent." Moreover, the city has its summer climate working against it: it's hot, humid and vunerable to hurricanes. Last but not least, it was rumored that anti-American sentiment among some members of the IOC was working against the Big Apple's 2012 bid, which, if true, isn't exactly encouraging for any American bid for 2016.

By 2016, it will have been twenty years since the last Olympics in the Americas and it will probably be time for the Summer Olympics to return to this side of the planet. But IOC president Jacques Rogge has already indicated that he'd like to see South America host a future Olympiad, and Argentina, Brazil and Chile are all rumored to be preparing bids of their own. Even if the Olympics did return to North America, wouldn't it be more likely that they'd go to a city with a more temperate summer climate and more international recognition, like Chicago or Toronto?

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to see Houston host the Olympics. But let's be honest: Houston has about as much chance of hosting the Olympics as a snowball has of surviving Houston's August heat.

The weekend in sports

Good news: the Houston Cougars swept the UCF Golden Knights at Cougar Field. The nationally-ranked Houston Cougar baseball team is now 37-14 overall and 17-4 in conference going into the big showdown against crosstown rival Rice this weekend.

Bad news: the Houston Astros got swept by the Colorado Rockies in Denver. The Astros have lost six out of their last ten games.

Oh, and a tip to the FC Dallas fan who held up the "HOUSTON SUCKS" sign during Saturday's soccer game at Robertson Stadium: if you're going to toss weak smack, at least try not to do it when your team is down 3-0.

No martyrdom for wanna-be terrorist

Have fun spending the rest of your natural life in a concrete cell, scumbag.

Website Update

I've updated my page of aerial photos to include pictures of the Hoover Dam and Humphreys Peak that I took while flying back from Vegas a couple of years ago.

I'll be in Dallas for the rest of this week. Look for new postings when I return this weekend.

The Houston Texans and their first round draft pick

Unlike just about everyone else who lives in Houston and has an internet connection (or so it seems, at least), I just can't get myself too riled up about the Houston Texans' decision to use their first round draft pick on North Carolina State defensive end Mario Williams, as opposed to USC running back Reggie Bush or Texas quarterback (and hometown favorite) Vince Young.

For one thing, I'm just not a huge fan of the Texans, or of NFL football in general. I am a college football fan first and foremost; for me, pro football runs a distant second in terms of my interest. Yeah, I'll watch the Texans on TV sometimes - I've even been to a couple of their games at Reliant Stadium - and I'll hope they do well. After all, they are the local franchise. But I just don't have my emotions so heavily invested in them that I have strong feelings about who they draft.

However, I did follow the Texans closely enough to know that quarterback and running back just weren't dire needs for this team. The Texans sucked mainly because their defense was poor and their offensive line was abysmal. In 2005, the Texans had the worst offensive line in the nation, by far, in terms of sacks allowed. They also had the second-worst defense in the league in terms of yards per game allowed and were the worst in terms of yards per play allowed. Given those facts, the Texans' decision to use their number one pick on the top defensive player makes sense, even though Reggie Bush might have been the best overall athlete in the draft. The Texans, in fact, spent their first four picks on a defensive end, a linebacker, and two offensive linemen, which cleary indicates what the Texans staff perceives are areas of need.

Finally, the process of drafting college kids into the pros is no different than the process of signing high school kids into college: it is fundamentally a hit-or-miss affair. You never know exactly what you're getting or how well a player is going to develop and perform. Mario Williams could be a total bust in the NFL; he wouldn't be the first top draft pick to disappoint. But there's no guarantee that Reggie Bush will pan out for the Saints, either. So while some of the "experts," such as the Chronicle's Richard Justice or ESPN's Len Pasquarelli, are denouncing the Texans' choice, and others, like MSNBC's Mike Celizic, are praising the move, the fact is that all the fury surrounding the Mario Williams decision is, at this point, little more than speculation. We won't know for sure about Mario Williams until he actually spends time on the field, and until that happens I'm just not putting a great deal of stock into the discussion.

By the way: I agree with USAToday.com's Joe Saraceno: the NFL draft is the biggest and most overhyped "non-event" of the year. I'm glad it's finally over.

US gas prices since 1945

This CNN graphic tracks American gasoline prices, adjusted for inflation, since the end of World War II. As you may expect, gas is as expensive today as it's ever been. And, if the Energy Secretary is to be believed, motorists aren't going to see any relief for several years.

This is when I am thankful that a) I don't live or work in the distant suburbs, and b) I don't own an SUV.

Analyzing your daily commute

Via Planetizen: I found this sort of interesting: a guy who lives and works on the northwest side of Houston performed a statistical analysis of his daily commute to work to see what variables affect his daily commute and how, if at all, he can minimize the time he spends in his car on his way to and from work everyday.

He discovers that two of the most relevant variables in his daily travel time are the day of the week - Friday's commutes are the quickest - and the area school district's calendar. Both of these observations make perfect sense; the popular 9/80 work week results in fewer people traveling to work on Fridays, and when school is in session there is more traffic due to the presence of faculty, staff, buses and carpool moms all commuting to and from school. He also discerns that the time in which he commutes is a factor; if he delays his trip to and from work by just 30 minutes, he could save up to 30 hours a year sitting in traffic.

I thought it was an interesting read. Most of us don't put this much thought and analysis into our daily commutes.

Astros: panic time yet?

The Houston Astros are sitting atop the NL Central with a 13-6 record, which is tied for the best record in the majors. However, after last night's game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Minute Maid Park, there seems to be a hint of panic in the air.

For those of you who missed it: with a 2-1 lead in the top of the ninth inning, the 'Stros ace reliever, Brad Lidge, took the mound to try to earn the save. Instead, he loaded up the bases and then offered up a gopher ball to Nomar Garciaparra, who (grand) slammed it to left center field. The Dodgers ended up winning, 6-2. It was Lidge's first blown save of the season.

A disappointing way to lose, perhaps, every closer blows a save now and then, and Lidge still has seven saves under his belt - the most of any reliever in the majors - this season. So it's not really cause for concern, right?

Or is it?

As John Lopez writes in today's Chronicle, Brad Lidge is simply not the same intimidating pitcher he was just a year or so ago. His pitches don't have the same location, batters are getting to him with increasing frequency, and his ERA at this point in the season is 6.75, considerably worse than what it was at the end of last season (2.29) or in 2004 (1.90).

So what's going on? A popular hypothesis is that Lidge is still feeling the psychological reverberations of last October, when he gave up that mammoth three-run blast to Albert Pujols in game five of the NLCS, when the Astros were one out away from the World Series. Even though the Astros went on to beat the Cardinals in game six and advance to the World Series, having something like that happen to any closer in that situation has to be demoralizing. "The Pujols question will continue to hover over Lidge, at least in the near term. Amateur psychologists will wonder to what degree that seemingly devastating blown save affected Lidge," Lopez writes.

I don't really consider myself a psychologist, amateur or otherwise (although I do have a psych minor). In my years of watching sports, however, it's become obvious to me that two positions on which psychology has a huge effect are the place kicker in football and the closing pitcher in baseball. Perhaps it's due to the highly specialized nature of these jobs, and the fact that, so often, the outcome of the game is riding on the kicker's or the closer's shoulders. Get that last strike out, and you're the game-saving hero. Miss that last-second field goal attempt, and you're the game-blowing goat. In pressure-filled situations like this, maintaining a tough mental edge can't exactly be an easy thing to do. Why else would opposing coaches play psychological games like "icing" a field goal kicker by calling a time out right before the kick?

Is the mental aspect of his job getting to Lidge, as it has to other closers (the meltdown by once-dominant closer Mark Wohlers quickly comes to mind)? Lopez isn't the only Chronicle sportswriter who is expressing concern; Richard Justice is all over Lidge's problems (and how, perhaps, to fix them) in his blog.

I certainly don't know what the deal with Lidge is or how to fix it. Nor do I really know if there is cause for alarm yet. But I do know that Brad Lidge is key to the Astros' success. He was a big reason the Astros did as well as they did last year, and he's just as crucial a piece this year. The 'Stros just aren't going to get it done without him.

UPDATE: now it's two blown save opportunities in two nights for Brad Lidge. Ouch.

I'm, like, all over the internet and stuff...

I've finally penned the latest episode of my semi-regular series about the University of Houston Cougars and their Faithful Supporters with Internet Connections. Check out episode five of As The World (Wide Web) Turns - Cougar Edition over on CoogFun. Previous issues are there as well, but you have to scroll back several pages to find them.

And, check out the maps of the Dubai and Kyoto rail networks that I've recently drawn for urbanrail.net.

The college rankings game

I've always been critical of US News and World Report's annual college and graduate school rankings; in fact, I denounced them in a Daily Cougar column almost a decade ago. And I'm not the only one who feels like these rankings are controversial, flawed, biased and, ultimately, useless.

These rankings are generated not by any peer-reviewed academic or education journal but rather by a mass-circulation newsweekly (whose circulation lags well behind that of Time or Newsweek). Aside from the fact that the entire idea of ranking elite (and expensive) private universities like Harvard or Yale with urban public schools like the University of Houston is absurd, because the two schools serve completely different types of students, they are based on an arbitrary (and constantly-changing) methodology that relies heavily on a completely subjective reputation score.

Speaking of the University of Houston, US News's most recent law school rankings have generated controversy there; Law School dean Nancy Rapoport has tendered her resignation, apparently at least in part to student and faculty concern over the school's ongoing decline in the US News rankings. But, as Chronicle columnist Rick Casey explains, not everybody agrees with those rankings. University of Texas law professor Brian Leiter, who does his own law school rankings, believes the annual US News rankings are a are a "fraud upon the public." Leiter says that the University of Houston's law program is the second best in the state (behind his own school, of course!), not the fourth-best program in the state as the US News rankings claim.

The problem, Casey notes, is that 15 percent of the US News rankings are based on reputation scores given by hundreds of lawyers and judges nationwide. The University of Houston does not do well in these polls, which Leiter thinks are biased towards the east and west coasts. "I think many lawyers may simply not know the school, but have an image of Houston that does not project an excellent law school," Casey suggests.

So there you have it: a mass-market newsweekly, generating bogus college rankings, based largely on a subjective reputation score from a bunch of unaccountable non-academics. Surely, there are better and more honest ways to sell magazines, right?