The New Math
Those of you that know me, know that math isn't exactly my strong suit. It's not that I can't do math... it's that I just don't care enough about it to put forth the effort. But you wouldn't believe the amount of "applied" math I do at work.
If I ever have kids (more on that concept in another post, some other day), and they whine to me, "When have you ever needed to do algebra since you got out of school?" believe you me, I have the answer.
Like, for example, during the 1998 home run race. Every day, I had to calculate Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire's projected home run totals for the season, and also figure out how many dingers they'd need to hit per game to break Roger Maris' record.
Or tonight. I have to do what I call "Golf Math." There's a big golf tournament at the Country Club of Columbus this week, and I obviously can't get every golfer in the tournament on every hole of the course. In order to do that, we'd need 20 photographers each with their own camera. So, instead, I get to do "golf math."
Ok, so the girls' leaders tee off at 9:10 a.m. They're teeing off in groups 10 minutes apart. That means at approximately 10:20, they'll reach hole #7. Why is that hole important? Well, golf courses are very large, and I have very heavy equipment to carry. Quite simply, hole #7 is the hole closest to the parking lot. Then I can skip over to hole #9 (a very short walk) wait about 10 minutes, and get them again on the ninth green.
Golf math is a lot harder on the first day of the tournament. The problem then is that you don't know who the good golfers are going to be, so you have to get video of everybody that has even a shot at winning the damn thing. It's also a lot harder when there's a lot of people in the tournament, or it's a really big golf course. The Buick Challenge used to be a logistical nightmare for me. The first day I covered it (my first week at the station), I carried the equipment so far that my shoulder actually was bleeding at the end of the day. By the end of the tournament, I was just planting myself at the 18th green and calling it good.
Those of you that know me, know that math isn't exactly my strong suit. It's not that I can't do math... it's that I just don't care enough about it to put forth the effort. But you wouldn't believe the amount of "applied" math I do at work.
If I ever have kids (more on that concept in another post, some other day), and they whine to me, "When have you ever needed to do algebra since you got out of school?" believe you me, I have the answer.
Like, for example, during the 1998 home run race. Every day, I had to calculate Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire's projected home run totals for the season, and also figure out how many dingers they'd need to hit per game to break Roger Maris' record.
Or tonight. I have to do what I call "Golf Math." There's a big golf tournament at the Country Club of Columbus this week, and I obviously can't get every golfer in the tournament on every hole of the course. In order to do that, we'd need 20 photographers each with their own camera. So, instead, I get to do "golf math."
Ok, so the girls' leaders tee off at 9:10 a.m. They're teeing off in groups 10 minutes apart. That means at approximately 10:20, they'll reach hole #7. Why is that hole important? Well, golf courses are very large, and I have very heavy equipment to carry. Quite simply, hole #7 is the hole closest to the parking lot. Then I can skip over to hole #9 (a very short walk) wait about 10 minutes, and get them again on the ninth green.
Golf math is a lot harder on the first day of the tournament. The problem then is that you don't know who the good golfers are going to be, so you have to get video of everybody that has even a shot at winning the damn thing. It's also a lot harder when there's a lot of people in the tournament, or it's a really big golf course. The Buick Challenge used to be a logistical nightmare for me. The first day I covered it (my first week at the station), I carried the equipment so far that my shoulder actually was bleeding at the end of the day. By the end of the tournament, I was just planting myself at the 18th green and calling it good.
Stumble It!
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