I am reading through that book on database design, and it has helped me greatly in formulating an effective database for my research projects.  The book has also shown me where I have made mistakes before in previous attempts at database development, and I hope to create something more useful this time around.  Maybe I'll have something more tangible by this weekend, but there is a fair amount of work ahead of me.

I know that a number of you have experience with database design and development, and some of you have offered your assistance.  I acknowledge your offers and I am very grateful for your support.  At this time, however, this is expertise that I'll need to acquire at some point, and I'll need some time for myself.

You might have noticed that I've taken down the post on adjusted plus/minus.  I haven't deleted it, but until I have some results to show I'd like to keep that metric close to my vest at this time.  I prefer to be open and direct about the work that I do, and I have felt very conflicted about taking down that post.  I believe very sincerely that adjusted plus/minus has tremendous promise if it can be perfected for soccer, but I need to settle the data collection and information retrieval problem before I investigate new metrics.