I am being worked entirely to death here. Basically, though, what I wanted to announce is that I am now on Facebook and you can friend me here if you so desire.

Also, to clear up that relationship status thing - I never publicly announced it because I'm rather shy, but Katie and I have been dating since the end of my junior year of college because I finally had the guts to ask her out. We are quite happy together and she is considering moving in with me in Boston right now. Hopefully this'll get even better...I can see us getting married someday.

I really am a sap, aren't I?

 Screw you for getting me addicted to Square One TV all over again.

I'm on Twitter! Follow me here.

Life sort of got in the way, I think. Things like being eliminated from the NCAA playoffs by one game and getting a job at a Boston stat firm tend to do that to you.

Originally, I just wanted to post this, but there isn't much substance to that and I haven't written anything in a long time, so here goes...

I guess my college career didn't end the way I imagined it would. Losing the conference by one game is just absolutely crushing, especially considering that the year before we went all the way. For a while, it led me to question my leadership skills - had I done everything wrong? Was this somehow my fault? Had I let this team down? I almost actually got depressed over the possibility that our failure to repeat as conference champions was my responsibility.

I talked to Gage then, and he set me straight, reminding me that this was an entirely different team than the one we'd gone to Omaha with. This new group was young and inexperienced and there was nary a power hitter to be seen. Randall did evolve into the staff ace, however, and although 'Drotti went through some hard times (he lost his grandfather this year) even he had a resurgence and became the hitter we all know and love again. And this year's freshman class really does have a lot of potential. I'm extremely excited for them.

I passed on the team captaincy to three people - Aidan, Sheridan and Nobu are going to work together as a trifecta. All three of them have different leadership styles, so I figured it was easier to have them all share the power instead of give it to one of them and watch the other two complain about how he was mismanaging things. I can only hope this gets Slumberwood back to the postseason...I'm sure they all want to see the Blatt one more time before it's gone.

I really would like to know what this is, Sheridan. I figured if anyone would understand LJ bots here, it would be you.

(I am mildly amused by the picture of the anteater accompanying this entry, however.)

Oh - I've been a very busy senior lately, but I promise that there will be official roster updates to the slumberwood page soon! We have six new freshmen to introduce you all to and they're really doing quite a lovely job this year. I'm very proud of them!

They just found the 46th known Mersenne prime at UCLA. Link here.

UCLA group discovers humongous prime number

Sun Sep 28, 11:02 AM ET

Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a 13 million-digit prime number, a long-sought milestone that makes them eligible for a $100,000 prize.

The group found the 46th known Mersenne prime last month on a network of 75 computers running Windows XP. The number was verified by a different computer system running a different algorithm.

"We're delighted," said UCLA's Edson Smith, the leader of the effort. "Now we're looking for the next one, despite the odds."

It's the eighth Mersenne prime discovered at UCLA.

Primes are numbers like three, seven and 11 that are divisible by only two whole positive numbers: themselves and one.

Mersenne primes — named for their discoverer, 17th century French mathematician Marin Mersenne — are expressed as 2P-1, or two to the power of "P" minus one. P is itself a prime number. For the new prime, P is 43,112,609.

Thousands of people around the world have been participating in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, or GIMPS, a cooperative system in which underused computing power is harnessed to perform the calculations needed to find and verify Mersenne primes.

The $100,000 prize is being offered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for finding the first Mersenne prime with more than 10 million digits. The foundation supports individual rights on the Internet and set up the prime number prize to promote cooperative computing using the Web.

The prize could be awarded when the new prime is published, probably next year.

___

Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com/

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

This week, I had my first full baseball practice as team captain.

And I think I have my work cut out for me.

The freshmen are good, but they're clearly nervous because we're the defending (fictional) College World Series champions and they think they've got something to live up to. Gage is gone, so I have to write the scouting reports by myself. Hyram is the de facto staff ace since Brennan was drafted, although the biggest impact that has is its transformation of our tough-as-nails closer into a lonely junior who had to get to school from Louisiana by himself instead of meeting Brennan somewhere along the way like usual. Brody having low morale is bad because Brody is the go-to man in the ninth, and closers operate on confidence. Jack and Landon aren't around to pick up the offense anymore, either, so we need to find some power somewhere.

Oh, and did I mention that Sheridan Travers is a junior now? That's probably the scariest part.

I like this team, but I'm not sure how good we really are. We're solid, but I don't think we're magical anymore. We don't have Brennan's fierce, intimidating glares from the mound anymore, or Jack and Landon's fearsome bats...and most importantly, Gage's sheer catcher aura. Nobody messed with Gage. Our mystical freshman battery, which grew up in game two of the College World Series, is now a sophomore battery, their fresh faces aged a little bit (especially Benny, who has the burden of following Gage as Slumberwood's starting catcher).

On the plus side, 'Drotti and Travis have grown up, too, and they're already helping out the freshmen the way Sheridan, Aidan and Noburu helped them last year, which is a good sign. They're taking their duties of being upperclassmen very seriously, which I like. At least there's something positive in all of this...

Both Aidan and 'Drotti have tagged me to write the big sentimental entry, so here goes.

This, in short, was the best experience of my baseball life.

I've had a lot of good experiences in my baseball life. I can still remember playing T-ball for the first time. I recall many games from my Little League days. I have a lot of memories of my high school career (not that it was an overly-successful one). I also umped Little League games in high school, which once led to me calling my younger brother out on strikes. He hated me for a few hours until I fixed his swing in the backyard and he knocked a triple in his next game.

College started out rough. As a freshman, I found that I was blocked at third base by an older student. And many of those older students were all ego and no skill, as well, and they made it rather difficult for us to form any sort of team unity. I bonded with fellow freshmen Hyram, Landon, Jack, Kyle, Cody and Brennan (though I was weary of Oswald at first, although he turned out to be fine), as well as sophomore catcher Gage Wetterman. I was stunned to find that Gage had been a starter since his freshman days, but I soon saw why - even though he was younger than some of them, the pitching staff followed his every beck and call out of respect for his game-calling abilities. I realized then that if I gained the respect of some of the older students, I might just survive.

By my sophomore year, I was an official starter, and two freshman infielders named Sheridan and Aidan came in to fill spots left open by graduating seniors. Along with Noburu, the new center fielder, and a slew of pitchers (namely Marty, Brody, Cuthbert and Piers), they actually seemed to cooperate and play like a team, and I decided I liked them all. As a result of this new teamwork, the team actually posted a winning record that year. It wasn't enough to win the conference, but it was a winning record, and I was pleased with that result.

This year, though, was entirely something else. Two new upperclassmen - Cecil, a former cricketer, and Sam, a transfer from American University - joined the squad, as well as four incredibly important freshmen. Travis has to be the most reckless outfielder I've ever seen, but there isn't anything he can't catch. His roommate, Randall, and his personal catcher, Benny, worked together on what was probably the most important game of the season - the second game of the College World Series - and were downright brilliant. And 'Drotti, who I actually met the summer before this season in Chatham when I was playing for Hyannis in the Cape League, was the one who was convinced we could get there in the first place. I'd never personally known a left-handed second baseman before, either, so he fascinated me as well as constantly impressed me.

And that's how we got here. It was these people who brought us this far, and it was these people who made sure we finished the job. I'd like to thank each and every one of them for what they've done this season. We needed all of you, and none of you let us down. Thank you.

(...uhm, also, Gage kind of named me captain for next season, and I'm a little terrified. But I'll deal with that when the time comes.)

Normally I'm the one on the team who writes the thoughtful entries. I take my time and pen these long entries that have meaning to them, or at the very least I try to. But since this is the first time this has ever happened to me in my college career, allow me to be somewhat incoherent today.

WE ARE GOING TO THE COLLEGE WORLD SERIES IN OMAHA, NEBRASKA.

Okay, I'm done now. Again, thank you.

Today was the draft.

As I'm sure you've seen on some of the other players' journals, we're hosting a Super Regional here at Slumberwood for the first time in history. Today we sat in the clubhouse and watched the draft together. I am currently a junior, as I've mentioned before, and this gets harder every season I spend at Slumberwood. When I was a freshman, one or two players were drafted, and I remember being very excited for them but not feeling too much attachment. As a sophomore, the bonds were stronger, so things were more bittersweet.

But this year, we have some pretty important people going, some people I have now been playing with for three years. I decided not to enter the draft - I want to finish my college career as a senior with a degree - but a few of my teammates did. Two of the biggest cogs in our lineup, Landon and Jack, were both taken in the early rounds - they bat third and fourth in our lineup, and I can still remember when they were freshmen and were at the bottom of the order. Our staff ace, Joel Brennan, was picked up pretty early, as well - which means we've got a new staff ace in Hyram, who will be a senior next year.

But perhaps the biggest blow is losing Gage. Gage is a senior and is the undisputed leader of this team. He handles our pitching staff beautifully, takes responsibility for all the goings-on here and is probably the person I want to win the College World Series for the most. He's the only senior on the team, and for all he's been through, he deserves it. His presence in this clubhouse will be sorely missed next season.

I'm incredibly happy for everybody here, although I can't help but feel a bit melancholy about the whole thing. These people have been my friends for a long time, and I'm going to be sad to see them go. I wish them all the best in the Minors...but for now, we've got one more thing to take care of in Omaha. We just have to get there first.

Today's game was a meaningless win. I wouldn't mind winning tomorrow, as well, although that win would be just as meaningless.

You see, on Friday we clinched the conference. This simply astounds me - we've never done that before, at least not in the three years I have been here. I was absolutely stunned. I stood there on third and watched as Brody closed the game out routinely, and then right as that last strike hit Gage's mitt we were all off and running even before the umpire called the pitch. We just knew. I'd never been in a player mob before - my high school team was never solid enough to win championships, and Slumberwood has never gone this far before.

And yet next week we get to play in the regionals. This is just astounding.

I am actually having trouble organizing my thoughts about this right now. What I do know is this - the team might be going to Japan together, presuming Coach Huntzinger decides we can go and play there. There's a tournament that we've been invited to that involves college teams from all over (including some from various countries), and I personally would love to go. (I think Sheridan and Noburu, the former of whom is nearly fluent in Japanese and the latter of whom is fluent and has family over there, would love to go even more.) I just hope this works out...

Something positively beautiful happened last night. It's not every day, after all, that a young man is diagnosed with cancer, recovers from it, returns to his career as a Major League pitcher, and then hurls both the clinching game of a World Series and notches a no-hitter on his belt the next season.

Normally I would throw all sorts of stats into this, but I put the most important ones in the title of this entry. This particular game was just different...it's not about numbers. Sure, Lester had only two walks on the night, and his pitch count was higher than it has been all season (of course, this was his first complete game in the Majors, which explains that) - but that's not what this was about at all. This was about a pitcher showing us that he's past his disease now and wants to be recognized as a ballplayer now. Not 'the cancer kid,' but a ballplayer.

I hope everyone sits up and takes notice. This is why we kept him instead of pursuing Johan Santana - this was the Lester we saw. And now everyone else can see it, too. And it's beautiful.

Just got back from 'evening practice,' which wasn't actually held in the evening at all, to discover that Julian Tavarez was designated for assignment so we could place Sean Casey back on the roster. I can't say I'm too surprised to see him go, of course, but I'll certainly miss him (and his absurd antics) around here. The pitching I won't miss incredibly much, however, although he could really eat up some innings. Now if I recall correctly, they were considering a trade with the Rockies involving Tavarez, so maybe he'll wind up signing with Colorado. Only time will tell, I suppose.

And I'm sure my creator (1863_project) will find this article on Charlie Zink interesting - he talks about the new pitches he's added to his arsenal in it. It's a pretty cool read.

“I’m throwing four pitches,” said Zink, who is 4-2 after being the winning pitcher as the PawSox beat Norfolk, 8-5, at McCoy. “I have a fastball, curve and changeup, too.”

Zink has made particular use of his fastball and changeup. His fastball is in the low 80s. His changeup is interesting because it is about the same speed as his knucklers, in the 66-71 range.

“Before I went to the knuckler, I thought the changeup was my best pitch,” Zink said.

He wanted to continue to throw the change, as well as his other pitches. But he was told he should focus on the knuckler.

This season, he struggled in his first start, giving up five earned runs in three innings in a loss to Indianapolis. Afterward, he had a conversation with Rich Sauveur, the team’s new pitching coach. It turned out to be a significant chat.

“I was told I should use my other pitches,” Zink said.

That aside, I'll just hang around with the rest of the infield until the Sox game starts tonight. Buchholz vs. Hernandez - this should be an interesting one, shouldn't it?

I guess that even though it's past two in the morning I should get the first post out of the way so that my LJ doesn't look like an empty shell.

I had my last final this morning. My last final as a junior - it's just amazing. I can't believe I only have one more year of this and that's it. (I already decided that even if I do get drafted, I'll come back for my senior season - I have a degree to finish!) I have to stay here on campus until the college baseball season is over (we're shooting for Omaha - we just moved into first place in the conference standings this weekend!), so I won't be returning to Maine for some time, but Vermont's not bad at all. It's just lonely in Slumberwood - there's nothing to do out here save for go to frats (and I avoid those; they're not all that pleasant, as I found out as a freshman).

I think I'll probably go to bed soon. There's no reason to still be awake, is there?