D's Notebook

Month: June 2015 (Page 2 of 2)

⦿ Saturday Links

June 13, 2015 /

Only three articles worth sharing this weekend.

It’s kind of a tradition that there be a Joe Posnanski story included. So here’s his take on the LeBron vs. Jordan comparison.

Such Great Heights

As much as I hate to admit it, I’m beginning to be swayed that this is both a legit question and there are reasonable arguments for LBJ. The biggest thing that makes it difficult is how much the game has changed since Jordan retired. I heard someone talking about how LeBron could play every position on the court, where Michael could not have done the same. Although some of that is because of size differences between the men, a lot of it is because the big center has largely disappeared from basketball. You can throw a tall-ish guy like LeBron into the low post for multiple possessions today. In Jordan’s time, he could post guards and small forwards, but there was no way you’d ask him to play the 5 spot.

Setting all that aside, LeBron is just a remarkable player. Whether he’s the best, the second-best, or X-best player of all-time really isn’t important. His true greatness comes from him being one of a handful of players in NBA history that you say, “No one else was ever like him before he came along.” Based on that, he, Jordan, Magic, and Wilt are the most unique players in NBA history.

Adrian Chen went deep for The New York Times Magazine on Russia’s Internet Research Agency, an organization designed to spread misinformation around the globe. It’s a fascinating look at how easy it can be to affect public opinion if you are willing to put the time and effort into it.

The Agency

Finally, a couple from Wales set sail to Spain in 1998. Then they kept going. They recently returned home after over 16 years at sea. There were some extended stops along the way, but can you imagine spending 16 years with your spouse in a boat? I love my wife but I’m pretty sure we’d be done after about a week.

The couple who went on holiday for a week – and didn’t come back for 16 years

Friday Vid

June 12, 2015 /

“Eyes To The Wind” – The War on Drugs

“I’m just a bit run down here at the moment…” Falling in the second half of their lovely Lost In The Dream album, perhaps no line sums up the disk better than this one. A weary proclamation of a man beaten up by the wallowing and self-flagellation that comes with romantic loss, it sets up all the glorious “moving on” tracks the dot the rest of the album.

Anyway, The War on Drugs are in Indianapolis tonight. I will be going to see them. I am very excited. Expect a few words about the show next week.

Enjoy your weekends.

R’s: Patience Is A Virtue

June 11, 2015 /

I’ve been thinking about my next Royals post for a couple weeks. In the interim, they had a slow and steady descent into their first extended cold spell of the season.

It began with concerns about pitching, as each member of the starting rotation had at least one terrible start and both Jason Vargas and Danny Duffy landed on the Disabled List.

Soon, though, the Same Old Royals appeared at the plate. The entire team began hacking at the first halfway decent pitch and kept hacking with no concern for working the pitch count. Each night, as the game rolled into the middle innings, the Royals’ starter would be sitting in the 60s or 70s in total pitches, while his opposing number was still comfortably in the 40s. There were far too many single-digit pitch innings for whoever the Royals were batting against.

But the pitching has steadied[1] The offense might be waking up, although with this team you never can tell. And the defense, as always, has been pretty rock-solid.

So despite their worst stretch of the season, the Royals are back in first place and go to St. Louis this weekend to face the best team in the National League sporting the best record in the American League. Perhaps most importantly Detroit has been playing terrible of late and are 4.5 games back. And Cleveland, the team that could be the biggest threat in the AL Central because of its starting pitching, is 7.5 back and four games under .500.

Even when they were losing nine of 11, I kept thinking the Royals were good enough to get the offense rolling again. They were just stuck in the inevitable bad stretch that every team encounters in a 162-game season. They may not match their 7-game winning streak that began the season. But there was every reason to think they could rip off a 9–2 streak to balance their recent scuffling. I don’t know that they’ve started that yet, but a four-game winning streak isn’t a bad thing.

I just wish they could figure out a way not to have every bat go cold at once. Although it’s going to be fun if they can get every bat hot again in the next couple weeks.

I love, LOVE, all the hang-wringing about Royals fans stuffing the virtual ballot boxes for the All-Star game. This opinion is not original, but you never hear complaining from the national media when the rosters are filled with Yankees and Red Sox, or when guys five years past their primes keep getting voted in as starters.

The All-Star game has always been a popularity contest. That’s why they let fans vote on the starters. The Royals are just one franchise in a league of 30 teams. There are 29 other cities that can go overboard for their players just as easily. Or, join forces to make the “right” decision to vote in the best statistical player at each position.

I also loved the Royals using their first two draft picks on pitchers from the Indianapolis area. Ashe Russell is from the school where my wife and her siblings went, and where our daughters are most likely to go. Nolan Watson likely grew up pretty close to S’s office. I didn’t see either kid pitch this year, but knew both of their names from hype before the season began. Never thought that the Royals would pick one, let alone both, of them. It would be awfully cool if both sign with the Royals and are pitching in Kansas City in 4–5 years.

  1. It was never as bad as some claimed. There were a number of individual bad starts sprinkled in there. But it’s not like the whole staff was suddenly giving up 5 earned runs per nine innings.  ↩

Old Films

June 10, 2015 /

Like many parents, we bought a camcorder around the time our first child was born.[1]

Like many parents, we recorded dozens of moments during our early years of parenting, sometimes letting the tape run long past the point when it should have been shut off because we were so utterly delighted with everything our child did.

Like many parents the camcorder slowly got used less-and-less as we added more offspring to the family. Once the first iPhone arrived in our home, we were pretty much done with our camcorder, and it has sat in its case in a closet for nearly six years now.[2]

S. had the brilliant idea last week that I charge the Sony up and give it to the girls to play with. The first step to turning it over to the girls, though, was making sure every moment we had put onto tape was safely backed up onto a hard drive. I was not about to let them destroy our only way of getting data off the MiniDV cassettes before I was sure we had multiple copies of the treasures recorded on them.

So for the past three days I’ve been hooking the camcorder up to the girls’ Mac Mini, selecting Import in iMovie, and letting the bits flow through the FireWire cable. I would occasionally sit and watch, or let the girls watch, as the movies that were being imported displayed on the Mini’s monitor. They loved it! There was much laughter and howling at their younger selves.

I loved it, too. I can’t remember the last time I watched any of the tapes. There are so many terrific moments collected on them.

A few observations:

Man do I love those babies who are in the 5–7 month range, when they’re just getting their personalities and you can get them laughing. So many wonderful moments of one of the girls laying on a couch or blanket, kicking their legs, and laughing at us making silly faces or noises at them. That’s just the freaking best.
It’s funny to see their personalities so soon. I see behavior on those videos from when the girls were 2 or 3 that exactly matches the girls they are today.
Asking babies/toddlers where their various body parts are never, ever gets old. There were probably hours of “Where are your toes? Where’s your belly?” etc. on those tapes.
Of the moments I saw, my absolute favorite was an epic 20 or 25 minute recording with a roughly four-month-old C. sitting in her excersaucer while M. played with her. The best part, though, was when I flipped the view-finding screen around so that M. could see herself while I filmed her. She freaking flipped out. She laughed as loud as I’ve ever heard her. She’d run up and mash her face into the screen, then back up and laugh again. When C. would appear over her shoulder, she’d scream “DERE C.!” And this just kept on going. I could only get her to stop mugging for the camera by asking her if she wanted to watch Big Bird. Then she quickly turned, waved backward over her shoulder to the camera, and marched toward the TV. Not good times, great times.
The girls are really looking forward to watching them all at some point this summer. And so am I. And I’m also kind of interested in what they come up with once I turn the camera over to them.

Along with the Sony Camcorder came our first Mac, since video editing was (allegedly) so much easier on a Mac. I wonder if S. wishes she could go back and rethink that buying decision.  ↩

Also, as the video function on our Canon point-and-shoot camera got better, it was easier to pick it up to catch a quick video of the girls rather than go find the camcorder and wait for it to start up.  ↩

Swim Until Exhaustion

June 9, 2015 /

The first full weekend of summer is in the books. Let’s go back a couple days to our first two days of summer vacation, last Thursday and Friday.

Nothing too exciting on the agenda either day. Some bike rides, softball hitting practice in the street, hanging out with a visiting aunt, a trip to the library. And the girls first two full swim practices of the summer.

Recall that we switched to a different swim team this year. This one is slightly closer to our home, although the one from last summer was less than 10 minutes away. But we heard the new one is a little better organized. They also swim the kids harder than our last pool. L. and C. did fine. L.’s swimming a little longer distances than she did last year, but it’s still well within her capabilities. Same for C.. They’re both tired after practice but are also able to run around and play afterward.

But poor M., with a double-digit age, moved up an age group. And she’s kind of getting her butt kicked. Which amuses us.

Last year she would swim a length of 25 yards, rest, talk, listen to her coaches, and then swim another 25. This year if they swim 25, they turn right around and turn it into 50 yards. Sometimes they have to swim 50 without a break. Or even 100 yards. M. is not the most efficient swimmer in the pool, and since each breath slows her way down, she’s working her ass off to get up-and-down the pool. I give her so much credit, though. She does not quit. She keeps chugging along, finishing each lap no matter how long it takes. And then she goes back for more.

What makes this funny and worth sharing is how she reacts after practice. Thursday night she swam with our neighbors while C. and I were at softball. When we got home, the families filled the fire pit and hung out for a bit. M. was dragging ass the whole time. Finally she sat down in a chair next to the parents and gave us this wiped out, sad kid face. I laughed and said, “M., you can never play poker.”

“What do you mean?” she whined.

“You can’t hide how you feel, babe. I can see you’re totally wiped out right now.”

“I’m not tired!” she whined back.

Moments later we looked over and her head was tipped against the frame of her chair and she appeared to be passed out.

“M., why don’t you go inside and go to bed?” I said.

Her eyes snapped open and she insisted she did not want to go to bed. Only problem was she was slurring her words. I laughed at her again.

“Did you drink some of mom’s wine?”

“Huh?”

Seriously, the girl was acting drunk.

We finally got her inside and in bed and she slept like a rock.

Then we did it all over again the next morning. Mid-day Friday she looked completely spent again. Even with another good night’s sleep, it took her until Sunday before she had all her energy again. And a couple days in the lake had her wiped out by Sunday evening.

This is good for her, though. She’s pushing herself to do things that she’s never done before. I keep telling her it’s going to hurt for awhile, but after a couple weeks she’s going to suddenly feel so much better and be more capable in the water. She seems to buy into that. Although she’s going to let us hear about it after every practice, I think.

Practice yesterday morning was cancelled due to the weather, and then we missed the evening session because of softball. The girls get back in the pool tonight[1] so I’m going to take it easy on them during the day. No 20-mile bike rides or anything like that today. The girls have an intra-squad meet on Thursday and then start swimming against other teams next week.

Our practice options are in the mornings on Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays, and evenings of M-Th. They ask that you attend at least four sessions of your choice each week.  ↩

⦿ Friday Links

June 5, 2015 /

Links

Figured I should start the summer off right by getting the links out on the normal day.

Tomorrow is the Champions League final. After a lengthy absence from the elite, Juventus is back in the title game after a surprise run through the knock-out stages. They were my first favorite European team; I adopted them after the 1994 World Cup because so many of Italy’s best players were on the Bionconeri. I followed them closely through their glory days of the ‘90s and into the early ‘00s, but after they were involved in a massive scandal that included possible match fixing, I shifted my loyalties to the easier-to-follow Arsenal of the Premier League. But it is awesome that Juve is back on the biggest stage of European club soccer. Maybe, just maybe, they can pull the huge upset off.

Grantland’s Mike Goodman looks at the inventive way in which the club has assembled a fantastic roster of players.

Find a Free Pirlo: How Juventus Built a Champions League Finalist on a Budget

Wait, “West End Girls” was hip-hop? That’s what Kenneth Partridge argues at the AV Club. If he’s right, that makes it the first hip-hop track to hit #1 on the Billboard charts.[1] Regardless, I’ve always thought that was a hell of a song. I love that slow intro, where the synths ease up until that unforgettable bass line drops.

With “West End Girls,” Pet Shop Boys set a high standard for U.K. hip-hop

Top 20 One-Hit Wonders of the 90s? Sure. Can’t argue with #1, which is just a fantastic song.

There’s been plenty about Bruce Jenner’s transformation into Caitlyn Jenner. Joe Posnanski takes a fine track, explaining how the legend of Bruce came about to a generation that has no idea what he stood for back in 1976.

Anything He Wants

As usual, I was about three weeks behind in my viewing of The Americans this season. And now I’m about three weeks behind sharing my thoughts on the season once I finally got to the finale.

Simply put, it was another phenomenal season. It was likely the most intense of the show’s three seasons. There were at least three moments that were utterly shocking and unforgettable. And the season ended with a first-rate cliff hanger that fans of the show will be wondering about until next January.

It’s such a shame so few people watch The Americans. It’s wonderfully written, expertly directed and produced, and every single character is well developed and beautifully acted.

There were several excellent summaries of where the show went over the most recent 13 episodes. I liked this recap of both the finale and the season as a whole.

Spies in the House of Love: Lies, the Limits of Honesty, and ‘The Americans’ Season 3 Finale

The Internet has turned us all into gearheads of one kind or another. If you have a hobby, chances are there is a subculture of sites on the web that provide folks the chance to answer the question “What’s in your bag?”

As I read more about photography, I’ve certainly gotten sucked into that world. Along with the constant virtual window shopping for more gear to add to my bag.

In this article, which is framed as a review of Fuji’s X100T camera, Randall Armor shines a light on the gearheads and implores people to stop worrying about what’s next and spend more time appreciating what they have. Good advice whether you are into photography, golf, or techie gadgets.

The Myth of More can get in the way of being inquisitive and thoughtful about what is right in front of you, right now. You can use whatever gear you have to examine your own astonishingly varied, nuanced and personal universe, the one all around you and the one that exists uniquely inside your head. Pictures and ideas are around us and in us, everywhere, all the time, but because we often become so obsessed with the tools that record them, we all too often never get to create them, let alone see them.

The Myth of More (Not Just Another Fuji X100T Review)

Finally, this is a lake weekend for us. I’ve always been a little skittish in water where I can not see the bottom. Watching this video, taken in Jellyfish Lake on the island of Palau, sure doesn’t help. At least it’s beautiful.

  1. As he points out, “Rapture” is disqualified for only having one rapped verse.  ↩

Friday Vid

June 5, 2015 /

“Inside Out” – Spoon

I have one rule when making general music lists: each artist/band gets only one entry. So whether it is a year-end list or a favorites-of-all-time list, I have to decide which song best represents a particular act.

For my favorite songs of 2014 list, Spoon’s “Rent I Pay” checked in at #11. But it took me much mental back-and-forth to decide which Spoon song to include. This lovely track, which has always sounded like Hall & Oates doing Trip Hop to me, was the other song in contention. Now that it has a video, perhaps I can consider it for 2015? Nope, that would break another of my silly music list rules: songs must be considered in the year they are initially released.

Summer Begins

June 4, 2015 /

Day one of summer! It’s right at 8:00 as I start this. Two of the girls beat me out of bed, despite letting them stay up late and being told to sleep in, but one is still zonked out. Of course, we could still hear noise from that one’s room after 10:00 last night. I, happily, slept in until the time we would normally be walking out the door for the trip to St. P’s. And since Thursday is not a morning swim practice day, we get to lounge around for the first part of the day.[1]

So why, the question has been posed often over the past couple weeks, are our girls out of school so late? Especially since we’re still on a traditional schedule, rather than a balanced one. We started at roughly the same time last August as kids who have been out for a week or longer. Looking back at the calendar, we had a few extra Mondays off that public schools did not have. And there was a long weekend in February that was built into the schedule to make up snow days before Spring Break. But we had zero snow days this year. So that’s why our girls are out a full week after the neighbor kids.

At the end of every school year, I read through the girls’ report cards and say, with much enthusiasm, “Oh thank goodness, you passed!” For some reason they don’t think this is very funny. Which guarantees I will continue to do it each June.

I think all three had really good years. L. LOVED her first year at St. P’s. She loved her teachers, her friends, getting up in the morning and getting ready for school, Sunday nights because going back to school was one overnight away, etc. From talking to other parents who help out at recess, she is always in charge of games and spends just as much time with the boys as the girls. St. P’s doesn’t have a student council, but it did, I’d guarantee right now that L. would be class president one day.

One more funny note about her I can share now that the academic year has ended. Her teacher was new to St. P’s this year. At an early kickball practice the fourth graders got an sneak look at her before the rest of the school. When we picked M. up, she said to L., “I saw your new teacher. She is soooo pretty!” Turned out her teacher was indeed pretty. And about 15 years younger than I am. At some point early in the school year, L. told me that if anything ever happened to S., she would want me to marry her teacher. I told her not to repeat that at school. That’s how dangerous rumors get started. Which S. would just laugh at. But still, better to knock that shit down before my library shifts came with whispers that I’m the dad who wanted to marry Ms. H.

C. had a solid year, too. Her grades reflect her personality perfectly. They’re generally good, but kind of drift as her attention drifts. We know that she has been extra nice to a couple girls in her class who need a little help in school. She’s a friend to just about everyone, although we’re beginning to see some separation between her and the boys in her class. She’s getting more artistic every day, did terrific with math, and loves to read.

And M. had a tremendous end to her year. Her grades had been very good every quarter, especially back in the first quarter. But each quarter she had one grade that was relatively poor. She struggled with math a couple quarters. She blew one assignment in science and social studies in different quarters that pulled those grades down. But this quarter she rocked it. She missed one point total in both social studies and vocabulary. With one exception, all her grades were above 95%.[2] And she worked hard and kept her math grade above 90% as well. We were very proud of her work to end the year.

I think school sports were good for her, too. It really pulled that whole group of girls together. It’s nice that they’re all super close for just a while before they begin separating into groups.

Oh, and while we were leaving C.’s softball game the other night, a boy from M.’s class who was one field over was yelling goodbye to her as we left. Her cheeks got rosy and she had a weird look on her face. She did not respond. Now, I have no idea if he was just being silly, or if he wanted her to notice him. She’s shown no outward interest in boys. But it’s right around the corner. Shit.

So good academic years all around. The girls swam for the first time with their new team last night. Summer has begun.

Which is exactly what I need. My motivation to do pretty much anything dried up about three weeks ago.  ↩

That’s what you need for an A these days. Am I remembering wrong, but wasn’t it 90% and above to get A’s when we were growing up?  ↩

May Books

June 2, 2015 /

At first glance, it was a light month. Two books?!?! What the hell? Ahhh, but the truth is more complex. One book took nearly three weeks to read. And in spare moments I was also reading books about photography. So, fear not. I knocked out my obligatory five books in May. I just won’t bore you with the details of the photography guides.

The Sympathizer – Viet Thanh Nguyen
Man, what a book. I read this just after reading Perfect Spy at the end of April. Which was good timing, as the main character in The Sympathizer may be a bit loosely based on Pham Xuan An, the focus of Perfect Spy. But this isn’t just some fictionalized version of An’s life.

In this case, our story is the written confession of an unnamed Vietnamese man being held in a “reeducation” camp in the late 1970s. During the war, he served on the staff of an important general in the Army of South Vietnam, spying for the North the entire time. When the war ends, he flees to America with his general while sending reports of the activities of the refugee movement back to Hanoi. He gets jobs, has adventures, finds himself working as a consultant on a movie about the war, has more adventures, nearly dies a couple times, and has to be party to two murders. Eventually he returns to Vietnam and is imprisoned despite his espionage efforts and forced to write, and re-write, the narrative of his years away in an effort to confess to all his wrong doings and short comings.

Nguyen’s writing is simply amazing. It is laugh-out-loud funny, incredibly sensitive and insightful, and goes in all kinds of interesting and unexpected directions. This book reminds me so much of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, one of my all-time favorite books. Another book that is a bit of a slog early on, but eventually sucks you in. Another book that can’t be raced through in a couple days but takes some serious time to work through.

I know this isn’t a very good summation of the book. That’s because I’m not sure I’m capable of writing something that can describe how good it is. This is the best book I’ve read this year, and it will be one of my favorites of the year as well.

The Bridge of Sighs – Olen Steinhauer
This is book one in Steinhauer’s Yalta Boulevard series, all of which take place in fictional Eastern European country during the Cold War. In the first volume, it is 1948 and the country is still trying to put itself back together after being occupied first by the Germans and then by the Soviets. Emil Brod is a new member of the country’s homicide unit and is greeted with mysterious coldness and contempt by his new partners. One even lands a punch in Brod’s groin at the end of his first day in the office.
6
Begging for work, Brod is assigned a murder case involving the country’s most famous song writer. Soon there is a second murder, a beautiful widow, connections to the highest levels of government, and even an appearance by the Nazis. Oh, and at least three attempts on Brod’s life. In time he earns the respect of his colleagues and manages to wrap the case up nicely.

Now the cool thing about this series is book two does not just pick up with Brod’s next case. Rather, it jumps ahead to the 1950s and the main character is a different member of the homicide unit. Then the third book takes place in the 1960s with a new protagonist. And so on. A nice little trick by Steainhauer to mix things up.

June???

June 1, 2015 /

Jeez. Another month that just flew by.

Games, practices, birthdays, the first couple lake weekends of the year. And the winding down of the school year. Cram it all into a 31-day stretch and we’re turning the calendar seemingly moments after we last did so.

L. wrapped up soccer yesterday. She enjoyed this season, but also developed some bad habits that were inevitable when she was, at times, playing against four-year-olds. Both she and we are glad that she’ll be moving up to U8 in the fall.

Her coach also coaches a U8 team and had her play with them in their final game of the season a week ago. She hung right in there, showing no fear against one kid that was much bigger than her.[1] When he had the ball, she dove in and tried to steal it. When he tried to stop her, she moved her body and tried to work around him. This was her first time playing against a goalie, so the couple times she got near the goal, she often shot from too-far out and the balls either went wide or were easily collected. She also made some great passes to space where other teammates could collect them. Late in her second quarter, she got the ball just inside midfield and took a mighty kick. It wasn’t a terrible shot as there was no one between her and the goal. And the goalie just happened to be staring at his belly-button.[2] Unfortunately the ball slid just wide of the goal. There was a gasp among the parents as they realized the tiniest kid on the field might kick it in from 40 feet away. In her final period, she got to play goalie, which she’s never done before. She came charging out when the best player on the other team had the ball and he whistled a shot over her shoulder and into the goal. But she handled a couple other loose balls well and made quick throws downfield that got her offense going. She had a lot of fun that night.

C. still has at least five softball games left. We’ve been rained out two of the last three weekends, plus did not play over Memorial Day weekend. So she got a bit rusty. After going through a five game stretch where she reached base 19-straight times, she took the collar and struck out in all three at bats last Tuesday. She was very upset after the game. We worked a lot over the weekend and she was back to smacking the ball over my head. Knock-on-wood she’s able to do that again tomorrow night.

I believe I mentioned a week or so back that M. has declared that she wants to run cross country in the fall. We pulled out good, old Google Maps over the weekend and plotted a couple courses through the neighborhood that she can begin run/walking with us. Her aunt and uncle just happen to live exactly a half mile away. So if we can get her able to run there-and-back she should be in good shape to begin practice in August and work up to the 1.8 miles she’ll need to be able to run in September. Of course, this is all theoretical at this point. She may hate it once we’re forcing her to run and yelling at her when she whines about being tired.

Memorial Day weekend was our first, full lake weekend. Gorgeous weather, good friends joining us, and a generally successful start to the summer season.

Now we’re in the final countdown of the school year. The girls get out at 11:00 am Wednesday. Today is desk cleaning day, tomorrow is field day, and I think there is a lot of movie watching in between. The girls keep asking why they get out a week after just about everybody else, both public and Catholic schools, around us. It’s those damn random Mondays we get off throughout the year, plus the mini-break that’s built into February to make up snow days before spring break. While the other kids on their swim team are in the pool this morning at the first practice, they will have to wait either until tonight’s session or Thursday morning. It all depends what the weather is like this evening.

Anyway, it’s June. Which is freaking hard to believe. We’ve been working on a list of things to do over the summer to keep us busy. The girls have been calling it their Summer Bucket List, which makes me laugh a little bit. I guess they are things we want to do before the summer dies, so that name seems appropriate.

This kid was a normal-sized 8-year-old. When our coach told a couple of his smaller kids to “stay close to the tall kid,” he turned and said, “Hey! I’m not tall!” I think we just taught him a valuable lesson about perspective!  ↩

Literally. He had his jersey pulled up and was picking at his navel.  ↩

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