Whoa
Something very disappointing happened while my attentions were dominated by the Olympics: the Royals completely went into the tank. It wasn’t that long ago that they had a four game lead on the Indians for fourth place, and Detroit wasn’t too far ahead in third. Keep things going, and there was a chance for 75 wins and a third place finish, a perfect building block for next year and beyond. Instead, they’ve lost 15 of 18, have sustained some crippling injuries, and now look poised to continue the tradition of anti-excellence the franchise has forged over the past 20 years. <a href=”http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/standings/index.jsp?ymd=20080804″>A month ago</a>, nine teams had a worse record…
Olympic Wrap Up
Sigh. The Olympics are over. What the hell do I do now? Actually, the Olympics didn’t dominate my time this year the way they did four years ago. But I had a two-week-old baby then and we just kind of sat on the couch for about 20 hours a day anyway. That year, the Olympics were a God-send. This year, once the girls watched their fill of morning TV, rather than switch to the games, I was trying to get them outside to do something fun and active. But there is always a moment of sadness when the flame is extinguished and I realize it’s going to be another four…
Usain In the Membrane
Usain in the brain! Sweet baby Jesus. As I said earlier, my favorite run ever was Michael Johnson’s 200M world record in Atlanta. Second, before this week, was the 4×100 relay in 1992, when the U.S. destroyed the field, Carl Lewis ran away and hid, and Dennis Mitchell went nuts after he handed off to Lewis.* Bolt’s two world records this week are suddenly in the mix. I shudder to think what the Jamaicans are going to do in the 4×100 relay. Just think how overwhelming the hype would be if Bolt had been born in Atlanta instead of Jamaica. You know, Usain sounds a little like Hussein. So if…
Mini-Olympic Notebook
Trying to keep these things shorter. I’ve never been a gymnastics guy, and this year has reinforced the wisdom of that decision. Not that I understood the scoring before, but it’s even worse this year. I’ll be the one millionth person to ask, how can you fall down on your dismount and still win a gold medal? My favorite technical aspect of the Olympics might be the curve cam in the long sprints. Especially in the 200, when the runners are flying around the turn from the start, it feels like they’re running right into your living room. Speaking of the 200, how would you like to be Shawn Crawford?…
Olympics Notebook
I’ll try to do these more often this week, to avoid 1000+ words of rambling. I forgot to mention in my first Olympics Notebook that I’m thrilled with NBC’s coverage in one big way: we have five channels of high definition coverage. S. laughed at me on the night of the opening ceremonies when I got terribly excited when I saw there were four new channels. Of course, two are fairly limited in what they show, mostly basketball and soccer. Another is in Mandarin. And the final added feed is in Korean. Those last two are fun to watch for about three minutes. But I’m getting a lot of three…
Getting Ready
With seven weeks to go, we’re finally cranking up the baby preparations. Of course, when you already have two girls, there isn’t that much original preparation to do. We moved the crib back up to newborn level today. We moved all of C.’s clothes out of that room and into her current room as well. Sometime this week, we’ll start pulling out all the infant clothes and restocking the dresser. We officially have a nursery again. That means we’ll have some Pampers in the house again soon, as well. Call me crazy, but I love the way Pampers, at least the newborn sizes, smell.* Our Costco Huggies we use beginning…
All Time Favorite Songs, 10-1
10 “Paid In Full” – Eric B. & Rakim, 1987. I’ve told this story before. In the fall of my year in the Bay Area, I discovered a hip-hop show on Stanford’s campus radio station, KZSU. The only problem was we lived way across the Bay, and I could only pick the show up on a small, portable radio that had a three foot antenna. So, to record the shows, I had to run a cord to an old-school tape recorder (this was 1987, so it wasn’t so old school at the time). That left me with a fuzzy, mono tape of the latest songs from New York and L.A.…
Oh Good Grief
I can’t believe that between the Olympics, the phenomenal weather, etc. I’ve forgotten to share some very important news: we’ve scheduled the c-section. If she doesn’t arrive sooner, Baby Girl #3 will arrive on October 3, sometime shortly after 10 AM. All continues to look well inside the Baby Mama. The Baby Mama herself is a bit tired and uncomfortable. But that comes with working as much as she’s worked the past couple weeks. After Friday, she only works once the rest of the month, so she’ll have some time to rest. The downside to her schedule is that she works the entire week before her c-section date. I’m wondering…
Olympic Notebook
The first of what should be many Olympic Notes entries over the next couple weeks. I looked back at the archives of my original blog today to skim through my thoughts on the 2004 games. I may have to pick out a few gems to share with you during this year’s games. I understand I have a problem of having a problem with people who have problems pronouncing foreign words, especially in the two languages I’ve studied. Even setting that aside, I was stunned at how many names of countries Bob Costas mispronounced Friday during the opening ceremonies. Apparently he suffers from that East Coast problem of refusing to pronounce…
Shall We Play A Game?
The Olympics kind of snuck up on me. All kinds of blog-worthy material there, so look for lots of that stuff over the next couple weeks. For now, I found this on Wired’s website and thought it required sharing. Even if you’re not a Geek, I bet you have a fond place in your heart for WarGames. It’s one of my favorite 80s movies and could have been a turning point in my life. I’m pretty sure I wanted to be Matthew Broderick for a significant portion of 1983. If I had just got that Apple //e I was begging my mom for, I might be coding somewhere on the West…