July 2003 Archives
Some closing comments for this year's Tour de France:
It was a great Tour to watch but this year was a real nail-biter. For Lance Armstrong to ride for almost 84 hours and end up with a one minute lead, well, that's damn close. He really gutted it out this time around, and from where I sit he's no dead lock for a sixth win - which will make next year interesting to watch as well. Everybody will think they have a shot.
We were camping this weekend and so I didn't get to watch Saturday's final time trial until we got home on Sunday. I was dying to find out what happened, but first we let the kids pick a movie to watch. Of course they picked Mary Poppins, which clocks in at over two hours. Aaagh! We need a second television. While the movie was on Katy was getting race reports from her folks. She teased me a little bit but didn't leak any of the important news.
The time trial was very exciting and I was glad that I got to see it without prior knowledge of the outcome. The bad weather added a level of difficulty and drama to the proceedings - it seemed inevitable that Armstrong or Ullrich would crash, it was just a matter of who and when. Ullrich did fall, and after that Armstrong didn't seem to be going all-out, happy to just maintain his lead.
In general, I thought that OLN's coverage of the race was spectacular. However, after Saturday's time trial they succumbed to a Fatal Blunder. They interviewed a celebrity.
Apparently Robin Williams is a big cycling fan. Or maybe just a big Lance Armstrong fan, who knows? He managed to get a ride in one of the chase cars following Lance for the time trial. Good for him. Anyway, OLN wasted five minutes on Mr. Williams, who basically riffed on "staring at Lance Armstrong's butt for an hour" the whole time.
Hey guys - here's an idea - maybe you should find somebody to talk to who, oh, I don't know - maybe actually RODE in the race that day? Or who has something meaningful to add to the coverage? I mean, mad props to Mr. Williams for getting to ride in the chase car, but in the end he's nothing but a fan with connections. Move along, nothing to see here.
To end on a positive note, Tyler Hamilton, That Guy With The Broken Collarbone, finished fourth. Fourth! Insane!
I trust that most of my readers are familiar with the benefits to be gained from the generous application of sunscreen. And if you aren’t slathering your kids with SPF 125 or so you may as well turn yourself in to Child Protective Services, just to save your friends the trouble.
But do you have any idea how much kid's sunscreen costs? A 8 oz bottle of Coppertone Water Babies SPF 45 cost me $12 at the grocery store the other day. $12!!! That's $128 per gallon!
Sorry, kids, you're going to have to play inside until after the equinox...
About two months ago I was sitting in Mike’s office and my cell phone rang. It was my college buddy and fellow spud Greg, calling to offer me a ticket to an upcoming Devo/Cake concert. As Devo is my favorite band and Cake is one of Mike's I figured we would be going. (I have forgiven Greg for not calling me until he realized that he had an extra ticket to the show. I guess it's just my good luck that his girlfriend dropped him like a hot rock.)
And so it came to pass that Yoshi, Mike, and I went to Orange County last Tuesday to see these two bands. It was a good show.
On the way back home, Yoshi lamented that Devo was no longer innovating. It’s sad but true – Devo has joined the nostalgia tour. No song they performed was released after 1982. (Great Googly Moogly, that was 21 years ago! Somebody get me my Geritol.) I came up with a metaphor that I thought summed up the whole performance – for both the band and the audience:
“It’s like getting a sip from the water fountain next to the Fountain of Youth.”
We all just wanted a little taste of it again.
Yes, I am indeed running behind. Many stories are clamoring to be told. In the meantime, here are some pictures from last weekend's Legoland Odyssey.
The Tour de France is a big sporting event.
As such, I need somebody to discuss it with at work. Sadly, I seem to be the only cycling geek to be found in my office. Here are some random thoughts:
Are cyclists tough? Well, Tyler Hamilton broke his collarbone in two places at the end of stage 1, back on July 6th. Since then he's ridden over 1,500 miles. He can't be on any serious painkillers because he would run afoul of the sport's doping rules.
Are cyclists "good sports?" It seems so. I have enjoyed seeing the camaraderie between riders this year. Yesterday Lance Armstrong went down in a freak crash when his handlebars got tangled up with a fan's food bag. Did Jan Ullrich, his main competition for the overall lead, take advantage of this turn of events and streak away? No. He waited for Lance, just as Lance had waited for him once two years ago. Very classy, especially when you consider that it could very well cost Ullrich first place.
In other sports news, I wish I had a little league coach like this when I was growing up.
Today we went to Legoland. I will provide a full accounting of the trip, complete with pictures, later. For now I will regale you with an amusing anecdote.
Katy had gone to get some ice cream for us to share. After she was well out of sight, Claire started getting agitated. "What if Mommy gets me chocolate ice cream? I don't like chocolate ice cream!"
So I started a little game with her to distract and reassure her. "Who has known you longer: Mommy or your friend [insert name here]?" I asked. The answer, of course, was [giggle] "Mommy!"
After a few rounds of this I went in for the kill. "So who has known you longer than anybody? Mommy. Do you think Mommy would forget that you don't like chocolate? Of course not." She was happy once again.
[The astute among you can see where this is heading. It's like watching Wile E. Coyote sometimes, isn't it?]
Two minutes later Katy returned with the ice cream. What flavor do you suppose it was?
(To be fair, it was half-chocolate and half-vanilla. I wasn't going to mention that - never let the truth get in the way of a good story and all - but my conscience bothers me sometimes. Either way, Claire was, in fact, upset all over again to see any chocolate ice cream in the dish.)
I'm back in my reading groove.
This week I went and got myself a Library Card, and I'm not afraid to use it. I checked out Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Asimov's Foundation, mainly because I hadn't read either of them.
I plowed through Catcher in a couple days - I suppose I can see why it's a popular appointee to banned book lists. What's the big fuss, anyway? Perhaps some of my more literary readers can explain what the particular genius of this work is.
I was thinking about reading a bunch of banned classics this summer but I'm having trouble coming up with much. Lord of the Flies is next, but then I've kind of run into a roadblock. Most lists of banned books I have found online have lots of stuff I've already read - the Harry Potter series, Huck Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird - mixed in with nonfiction titles like "Talking to Your Son and/or Daughter About, Well, You Know..." Not the kind of stuff you read for pleasure.
I also want to catch up on my "classic" science fiction - thus the Asimov. I'm enjoying Foundation so far - it's not at all what I expected.
Anyway, help me out and make a book suggestion in the comments, okay?
[Do NOT suggest Jordan's Wheel of Time series, thankyouverymuch. He's already exceeded his adjective limit for the decade.]
Tuesday night Katy and I went to the Hollywood Bowl. It's funny, the first question everybody asked me when I mentioned we were going was some variant of "what's on the program?"
The answer: Who cares? We were at the Bowl for a other reasons. Among them are:
- Sitting outside at dusk and enjoying the cool of the evening without being attacked by insects. I always feel smug about the lack of insects.
- Enjoying a picnic that included wine, cheese, shrimp cocktail, and complete sentences uninterrupted by children. (That one is for you parents out there.)
Sure, the pot is sweetened when you get to hear the L.A. Philharmonic for $5 each. I love walking up to the ticket booth and saying dumb things like "Give me two of your best cheap seats." Anyway, you can't go to a matinee at your local 25plex for that. (To be fair we also paid $6 for the parking shuttle. I will maintain that $16 is a pretty friendly price.)
Other benefits included getting to sing the Star Spangled Banner with the L.A. Philharmonic - we were relatively alone in our section and Katy wasn't exactly belting it out, so I felt like I was singing a solo. I also got a free trip down memory lane when they played Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol, a piece I played approximately one million years ago, back when I was still molesting the bassoon in the Oklahoma Youth Orchestra.
Anyway, if you live in L.A. you really ought to go some night. If you're totally stressed out about the program drop me a line and I'll talk you through it.
Claire and Cam are still camping with Katy's folks. In our daily report we heard that Cameron asked this question yesterday:
"Have you forgotten how to spoil us, grandmommy?"
Now that is a question guaranteed to shake things up a bit.
The power was out for several hours last night, and so our clocks were not a reliable indication of the actual time this morning. I pulled into the parking lot of the train station only to watch the 7:19 pulling out at what I thought was 7:15.
Curses! The next train isn't for almost an hour.
So I pulled the car around and headed for the next station, ten minutes away. (I figured that if I missed it there I was at least on the way to the freeway.) I quickly passed the train and managed to catch most of the lights. I still wasn’t sure if I’d built up enough of a lead but I pulled into the crowded parking lot at the next stop, grabbed the first spot I saw in the overflow-overflow lot, and ran to the platform just in time to hear the familiar bells of an approaching train.
Now I’m sitting here on the train typing this and thinking “What was the big deal about catching the train?” I guess I just wanted to see if I could do it.
A question for the Woman On The Elevator this morning:
Was the loud sigh and glare as I entered the elevator really necessary? Was it really that painful to wait an additional ten seconds to get to your floor this morning?
Katy's folks took the kids camping for a few days. Wow is it quiet around here.
We celebrated by going out to a movie, followed by dinner - and we didn't have to pay for a sitter! Woo Hoo!
Saw Pirates of the Carribean - I really enjoyed it. All you've heard about Johnny Depp in this picture is true. He is crazy, over the top, and absolutely fantastic in this film.
I will say I wasn't thrilled with the way they tied up some of the loose ends - I'm willing to suspend disbelief for a lot of things but there's some strangeness afoot at the end. Oh, and if somebody tells you to stay until the end of the credits to see "something," a la Ferris Bueller, just skip it. It's not worth wading through all the names to get to.
My brother-in-law Johnny was recently pitching me on one of his favorite new garments: The Utilikilt.
I'm not sure I could pull the look off - but it's fun imagining the disbelief it would generate should I wear one to work.
Last weekend when we were at the beach, my chair collapsed behind me when I leaned back on it. "Cheap piece of crap," I thought to myself as I carried it back to the car.
But when I was throwing it out I remembered just how long I've had that chair. It was part of one of the greatest grocery store purchases "evar."
We were on our way to the desert for my bachelor party, a weekend camping trip in Joshua Tree (then a national monument, now a national park). We just needed to make one more quick stop before we headed out.
The grocery store checker gave me a strange look as 14 twelve-packs of beer (ranging from imported stuff to Lucky Lager), two beach chairs, and one large can of pork and beans slid by on the conveyor belt. (I would scan in the receipt, which I of course saved, but time has faded the ink to the point that it is unreadable.)
I don't think I can complain about getting nine-plus years of service out of a grocery store beach chair.
You may remember my grousing about the last batch of beer I brewed. I tasted it during bottling and it was Quite Bitter.
Tonight I decided to be brave and try a bottle. What was I thinking? It's fabulous! It's got a nice floral hop signature without getting in your face too much, and this bottle was well carbonated. Before I wasn't going to give any away because I didn't think anybody would like it. Now I'm not going to give any away because I'm a greedy bastard.
Furthermore, the fools in marketing who suggested the name "Acrid Ale" have been sacked. Sacked, I say!
Yes, it's early. But I'm totally wired up right now. You see, Katy just rode off in the back of a sheriff's car.
She was up closing our front windows and noticed a minivan doing a slow cruise of our block. She got suspicious when she saw a couple kids jump out and examine our neighbor's truck. They pulled up next to another neighbor's car and stopped. When she saw the dome light in that car come on she came to wake me up.
"I think somebody's stealing a car stereo out front. I'm going to go get the license plate."
My protective instincts had me awake quickly and I told her that I would go check it out. I pulled on some shorts and told her to call 911, but they were gone before I could get out the door. I walked down to survey the damage, and sure enough the dashboard was smashed up and the stereo was missing. I felt bad for the victim - in this case, the same kid who threw "the big party," - but that seemed like the end of the story. Have you ever heard of a stolen car stereo being recovered? Me either.
A quick aside: As I walked back up to my house, another car came around the corner and slowed as they approached. I was getting a little freaked out - not many people are driving around my 'hood at 1:30 in the morning. I felt a little silly when they tossed a newspaper on my driveway.
Anyway, sheriff's deputies came by about five minutes later and told us they thought they had the offending parties pulled over. (I am duly impressed with the efficiency of the local constabulary on this point.) The owner of the car had come out by then - turns out he had seen some of the action as well - and the deputies took them both to do a field ID on the minivan and the missing stereo.
How's that for a little Monday morning excitement?
[Epilogue: The stereo was returned within an hour of the theft. Don't mess with the redhead.]
Today we went to the beach. I played volleyball in bare feet on the hot sand. I think I burned the soles of my feet.
I'd recommend not doing that. It hurts.
I trust everybody had a good Fourth of July.
We had a busy day. It started with a trip to the local parade, then over to some friends for lunch and a swim. In the evening we got together with some neighbors in the cul-de-sac for a barbecue, with the traditional fireworks viewing capping it all off. I daresay it was a fairly typical Fourth of July experience, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It's a good life I lead, and I feel pretty lucky.
I made ice cream again this year, but this time people actually ate some. This year I opted for vanilla with chopped up Snickers bars and toffee bits. Yum.
Today I am going to loaf. I might straighten up the garage in a little bit but I think that will be the limit of my productivity for the day.
I have waxed rhapsodic in this venue about Neverwinter Nights. Thursday night I played multiplayer for the first time with Yoshi, Mike, and Travis. Very very cool stuff.
I will reiterate - if you enjoyed playing D&D, you should get this game. Multiplayer was as close as you can get to a "paper and dice" shared gaming experience. It is conceivable that I could play D&D with my old high school friends again, without having to troop down to the SWOSU library building - how cool is that? (Kris, Dean, Joel? Are you getting this?)
As with all roleplaying games, much of the experience hinges on the DMing. Travis spent a ton of time coding the original "Ravenloft" D&D module into Neverwinter Nights, and the effort he put into it shows. Frankly, I'm impressed. He did a great job building it and running the module. I think that multiplayer would probably be fun no matter what, but Travis has me sucked in to the storyline and looking forward to finishing the adventure. Good stuff.
To the Great White North!
Vancouver, Canada has been awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics. I'm taking the family. It's going to be great!
