The Chris Gonyea Project

I’m trying out the Almost Spring theme that won an award in the WordPress 1.5 Theme Competition. Big props to Becca Wei for designing such a neat theme.

The colors I probably will play around with and I want to switch a few things around in the theme, but it is exactly what I have been looking for.

Thanks Becca for making this available to the WordPress community!

Check out the winners at the WordPress 1.5 Theme Competition. Such amazing themes, I wish I had half the talent these guys have in their toe Look for a redesign of this blog based off of one of those themes.

You would think that being an alumi of an university radio station would make me very interested in discovering new bands and be obsessive with collecting music. For some reason, since I graduated, I have hardly put any effort into discovering bands. Boycotting local radio stations doesn’t help, but who needs corporate radio these days with iTunes and streaming audio. The problem is I haven’t even invested time into checking out new artists on iTunes or listen to streaming audio.

Not surprisingly, additions to my music collection have gotten pretty sparse over the past 7 or so months, to the point where I only buy music from bands I am already a fan of.

Why is this the case? Working a lot plays a huge part into it. Seeing how I am not in the office much, I am unable to take advantage of my time at the desk and listen to streaming audio of some net radio station. Since I am in the car a lot, I refuse to listen to corporate radio stations, which narrows down my listening habits to a pretty good sports radio station…which doesn’t help too much when it comes to discovering new bands.

Then there is iTunes. Great for listening to 30-second clips of unknown artists, but it is tough to form an opinion of a song with just 30 seconds of a song, especially when the 30 seconds isn’t an interesting part of the song. Seeing how money doesn’t grow on trees, it seems pretty foolish to throw $0.99 around on bands I don’t know a thing about. I could find the band on iTunes, then visit their web site and hope they offer at least full streaming versions of a couple of their songs. However, that takes time and time is in short supply these days.

Back in the day (what, 3 years ago? Man that is sad…), MP3.com was pretty decent for trying out new bands, because there was no risk (note: this was before they sold themselves out and lost what rebellious nature they had). I could listen to a full song of any song of any band/artist. I could then download that said song for free and listen to it on any MP3 player to figure out if I really liked it. You know how much music I went through during that time? I estimate I probably listened to close to 500 unknown bands. Assuming I did like the band, I was willing to purchase that band’s CD.

How to solve this issue is really bugging me. The classic albums I love are great and I will never give them up, but at some point there is only so many new and inspirational things you can hear the 1,000,000th time “Losing My Religion” hits ones’ eardrums…I need to diversify and find new bands.

As owner of the Jolly Green Giants, a fantasy baseball team in the GFBA, I attended the annual draft yesterday. Like I said, the draft was held live in person for the first time ever and we had decent turnout as well. It was a blast and I am already looking forward to next year’s draft.

Let me say this, if my team turns out to be close to its projected numbers, I think I will have a very good year. While I don’t have many standout stars outside of Pujols, I do have a lot of young players who are due for spectacular seasons. I also have a lot of quality depth…there isn’t a real dropoff anywhere on my roster. I took some quality risks I believe in the later rounds with rookies and other players who have shown promise.

Here is who I drafted…

Catchers (2): Joe Mauer (Twins), Chris Snyder (Diamondbacks)
First Base (1): Albert Pujols (Cardinals)
Second Base (1): Jose Vidro (Nationals)
Third Base (1): Mike Lowell (Marlins)
Shortstop (1): Bobby Crosby (Athletics)
Middle Infielder (1): Jason Bartlett (Twins)
Corner Infielder (1): Dmitri Young (Tigers)
Outfielders (5): Milton Bradley (Dodgers), Miguel Cabrera (Marlins), Coco Crisp (Indians), David Dellucci (Rangers), Nick Swisher (Athletics)
Utility (1): Adam LaRoche (Braves)

For pitchers, my staff looks like this…

Starters (5): Rich Harden (Oakland), A.J. Burnett (Marlins), C.C. Sabathia (Indians), Javier Vazquez (Diamondbacks), Joe Blanton (Oakland)
Relievers (4): Billy Wagner (Phillies), Jose Mesa (Pirates), Mike Gonzalez (Pirates), Brandon League (Blue Jays)

Finally, on my bench and ready for action the second half of my team goes on the DL…

Position Players (1): Placido Polanco (Phillies)
Pitchers (2): Tom Gordon (Yankees), Scot Shields (Angels)

My main focus now is to see if I can improve in any positions. I definitely could use another power bat and I would like to find another starting pitcher to eat up innings. Might be able to trade some of my bullpen arms for help in that area.

This year should be much better then last

Today is the my fourth fantasy baseball draft as a member of the Gagnon Fantasy Baseball Association, a league put together by my friend Brian. It is a head-to-head league and the most competitive I have ever been in. The first two seasons in the league, I did extremely well, making it to the semi-finals in both seasons.

Last season was an utter disaster, with me landing in a three-way tie for last place in the league. That I blame squarely on myself, as I didn’t put as much effort in the past as I previously did and I had a horrid draft as a result.

This year will be different. I have put together several lists/guides to use in the draft, making it easily the most prepared I have been going into a draft. Taking no prisoners this time around

The cool thing about the draft this year is that we are doing it live, with almost everyone meeting up at a room at SNHU and doing the draft in person. This is simply going to rock and is going to be quite hilarious.

My three keepers this year are:
1B Albert Pujols
OF Miguel Cabrera
P Javy Vazquez

As you can tell, my team last year was not too good to look at outside of Pujols. However, this year, I expect big years from all three.

I will post on how things went in the draft later tonight.