Another Trip Down Memory Lane

I wanted to find a specific old photo from many years ago. The problem is that, given the (lack of) organisation of my old photos, it was at least an hour-long undertaking. I never found the one I'm looking for, which I'll call "The Car Bust" photo. Maybe Mike has it, and maybe I took it out of the collection earlier and did something with it. While searching through the photos, the following were of some interest. Going backwards in time...

First, here is Mike at the Hôtel Karukera in Montréal, a few days before The Car Bust.


When showing this photo to my daughter and telling her it was an old photo of me, she asked if I was the head in the right foreground. No respect, I tell ya!


"One sock up, One sock down" was the trademark of my youth (if not my entire life).

Personal Curling Records

The curling season is finally over. What will I do with my Thursday and/or Saturday nights? I don't know. But (and this is yet another post that is more a "note to myself" than something of interest to the world) I thought that I would finally write down somewhere the won-loss records of my prior curling teams. This way I can have a record of it before I forget it all. Also, these are the teams' records -- it doesn't count games where I subbed for another team, and it does count the few times when I was absent.

I don't know why there is all that blank space below, at least on my browser.

Season	Skip	Wins	Losses
2004 Fall	Preston	3	7
2005 Winter	Green	9	1
2005 Fall	Clay	8	2
2006 Winter	Miller	6	4
2006 Spring Mini "1"	Kenney	2	3
Career Totals		28	17

Remember May 4, 1970

For as long as I can remember, for e-mail messages that I would send on or near the fourth of May, I would append the words "Remember May 4, 1970" to my signature. Of course, this is not really "for as long as I can remember", since I am old enough to remember the days when e-mail was not a common household occurrence. Anyway, I have had people ask me what happened on that date, like was there a baseball game or something? Probably, but that's not exactly what I had in mind. It's now been 36 years. 36 years before I was born was..., well, never mind.

For more information on what I'm talking about, here's the Wikipedia page. Gotta get down to it.

--
Remember May 4, 1970.

Spotted Dick

A while ago, I saw some overpriced "new recipe" spotted dick for sale in the grocery story, and I couldn't resist. We finally got around to eating it with dinner tonight. Yum. Everyone enjoyed it, especially the kids. I'm sure that I could write all kinds of jokes on the subject, but I won't. Instead, imagine there is one in this sentence here, and don't be afraid to try things with funny names.

Weekend Photos

Here are some photos from the recent trip to the in-laws.


Do you want to buy some parts? I hear someone inquired about the engine and transmission. The asking price is $400 for the engine and transmission, or $500 for the whole thing. To me, this is backwards. If I owned the truck, I'd ask $500 for the engine and transmission, or $400 for the whole thing!


This next one wasn't from the weekend trip. It's the tree in front of our house. (Some botanist, please let me know what kind of tree this is.) It's only in bloom for a short time each year, so I thought I'd capture the moment.

Biking "Weigh In"

One thing that I use a blog for is a handy place to keep notes to myself. This is one such post. However, since nobody wants to read the details of my weight, I'll use an encoded numbers.

Today was the first day this year that I bicycled to work. When I do that, I use the showers in the Fitness Centre there, along with taking my weight at what I assume is a reliable scale. Despite the desire of my geeky nature, I will not keep and post a spreadsheet where I can graph my weight by day. However, I do want to record my weight at the start of the "biking to work" season. We'll call today's weight "10". This compares to the 2005 "bicycling to work" season's starting weight of "8" and ending weight of "11".

I don't have any particular weight goals or resolutions, and I'm not making any here. Like many people, it certainly wouldn't hurt me to lose a bit of weight. So, it might be nice to get down to "5". It would also be nice to avoid getting up to "15". Dropping it to "0" this summer would likely take more of a behavioural or dietary change than I'm willing to voluntarily make.

Early Presidential Selector

"Everybody's Doing It!" The selectsmart.com Early (2008 US) Presidential Candidate Selector, that is. As suggested by The djl Zone and THEJESZONE, my results are below. What do your results look like?

I'm probably more concerned about economic issues than djl (who ended up with all Democrats up high) and less concerned about them than JES (who ended up with 5 Republicans on top). So, maybe it's not a surprise that I have a mishmash of Republicans and Democrats up high.

If I tried it again, I might end up with totally different rankings, and the odds of me voting for a Republican or Democrat are slim. But I think I'll read more about Hagel and Warner.

Percent

Rank

Item

(100%) 1: Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) Information

(98%) 2: Ex-Gov. Mark Warner (D) Information

(93%) 3: Ex-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R) Information

(92%) 4: Ex-VP Al Gore (D) Information

(87%) 5: Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) Information

(85%) 6: Sen. John McCain (R) Information

(83%) 7: Sen. Evan Bayh (D) Information

(80%) 8: Gov. George Pataki (R) Information

(80%) 9: Sen. Joseph Biden (D) Information

(79%) 10: Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D) Information

(79%) 11: Sen. Russ Feingold (D) Information

(77%) 12: Gov. Bill Richardson (D) Information

(77%) 13: Sen. Sam Brownback (R) Information

(76%) 14: Sen. John Kerry (D) Information

(75%) 15: Ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) Information

(74%) 16: Sec. Condoleezza Rice (R) Information

(71%) 17: Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) Information

(70%) 18: Rep. Tom Tancredo (R) Information

(70%) 19: Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R) Information

(67%) 20: Sen. Christopher Dodd (D) Information

(64%) 21: Gov. Mitt Romney (R) Information

(62%) 22: Ex-Gen. Wesley Clark (D) Information

(62%) 23: Sen. George Allen (R) Information

(62%) 24: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D) Information

(61%) 25: Ex-Sen. John Edwards (D) Information

See the most frequent top results for this selector
See Google information for the above results.

The Math Olympian

I don't know much about the "Math Olympics". I mean, getting information from my son is difficult. I know that, one or two months ago, a few students from his class scored high enough on a test to have the opportunity to travel to another school and compete in this event. But my son had little idea how many students were competing in each event, which ages participated, how many people won awards, or anything like that. But, he was indeed the only one from his school to win a first place gold bronze medal, or any medal at all. So, it's impressive, but we have no idea how impressive!

(The djl Zone is on in the background.)

Which European City Do You Belong In?

I'd have guessed something more Central Europe-ish, like Berlin or Munich or Vienna or Budapest. But it came up London for me. It did for Levy too. Which city do you get?

Of course, I'm not sure I'd trust a site that misspells "Sydney".

You Belong in London

You belong in London, but you belong in many cities... Hong Kong, San Francisco, Sydney. You fit in almost anywhere. And London is diverse and international enough to satisfy many of your tastes. From curry to Shakespeare, London (almost) has it all!

What European City Do You Belong In?

Back in the Fantasy Baseball Saddle Again

When we last left fantasy baseball, I was celebrating the 2005 championship of the Dave Spiwack League. I have since humbly renamed my team in honour of that event. After week 1 of the '06 season, I again find myself in first place. Sure, it's early, but I'd rather be in first than in last at the moment.

The point is this post is that I have no confidence that this good fortune will last, and I wanted to keep a snapshot of the standings. This proves that, at one point in the season at least, my team was actually in first place.

The 438 Steps

No, this post isn't about a remake of The 39 Steps, the Hitchplop flick from 1935.

Not long ago, my wife purchased a cheap pedometer. It's the sort of thing that if I get one day's of use out of it, I'll be satisfied. That is, it seems like a fun thing to try, but I don't think I'd want to wear one every day.

I discovered a few things:

• At work, if I walk to the near restroom, a round-trip is 82 steps. If I walk to a more distant restroom, a round-trip is 438 steps.
• Given how little I walk, the 356 extra steps is a non-trivial addition to my day.
• One site recommends 10,000 steps per day as a benchmark for good health. How close do you come?

By the way, that site says that their pedometer cost less than $30. I think ours cost about $5.

Last Light by Terri Blackstock

I read this novel for my book club, and while it is a work of fiction, it makes for a good contrast with the previous book that I reviewed. In it, the world is much simpler and black and white. For example, the drinking of alcoholic beverages is only associated with disreputable characters, guns are good, it's OK to mess up the police's efforts in a criminal investigation if you're a good person who's really upset, and so on.

The premise of the book is a largely unexplained outage to just about anything electrical. Later, this is narrowed down to an unexplained worldwide failure related to semiconductors. Some electrical items, like simple battery-powered flashlights still work. While I felt the technical details were somewhat lacking, some of the characters feel it was a direct Act of God which (just for starters) caused airliners to fall from the sky on page 2, sending all aboard to fiery deaths.

I think the duration of the book is about the first month after the outage. Another thing that wasn't clear to me was the post-outage economy. Money seemed important to everyone, but it wasn't clear that there was anything to buy. Some rudimentary law enforcement is in place, but as far as I can tell, the police was just about the only part of the economy that was functioning. It wasn't clear how the police got paid, or in what.

The book is the story of how the Branning family from the Birmingham, Alabama area deals with the crisis. The family is well-off. Father Doug is a middle-aged stockbroker; mother Kay is a stay-at-home mother, and they have 4 children, aged between around 22 and 10. As you would expect, they are ill-prepared to deal with such a catastrophe. In part, the book is an interesting thought-experiment looking at what would happen should we lose our technology. As you would guess, a stockbroker and a well-off housewife don't exactly have the skills to make it in a pre-electrical world. And neither does most of society.

The book would be somewhat interesting if it focused on just dealing with the outage. But one area where the book fails for me is when it adds a neighbourhood murder ("Plot Device #2") to this plot. For a while, at least, the book becomes a murder mystery, with the characters trying to track down the killer.

I'm hesitant to give such a book a low rating. Obviously, the author tried hard. Also, a friend who knows a lot more about literature than I do said he loved it. Virtually all of the reviews on Amazon say it's good. But I found the characters to be unrealistically one-dimensional. When the whiney-loser adult daughter finally gets into a bit of trouble, instead of having sympathy, I thought that it was about time she was getting what she deserved. Maybe my next comment is obvious, or maybe it's insulting, but this isn't serious literature. I'm not sure if it's meant to be. It reminds me of the sort of thing that you might pick up at an airport bookstore, (it is easy reading), pass some time with it on a flight, and then throw it away when you land. Two stars out of five.

2006 First Daffodil Day

It seemed like it took forever for the daffodils to bloom this year. From the state of things yesterday, I was pretty sure that today would be the day, and it was.

I didn't remember exactly what day they bloomed last year, so I checked my blog. It turned out that last year's date was 31 March. This year's date was 30 March. That's almost as close as you can get, and it shows that my impression was wrong. They're not any later this year than last.

Happy Spring to those in the Northern Hemisphere. Happy Autumn to those in the Southern.

2006 Father-Daughter Dance

The girls selected where we'd go out to dinner before the dance. We also, as the girls planned, went out for coffee after the dance. I don't have a photo of that.


Mmm, those mints are good!

The Stones Get Political!

I'm not a huge Rolling Stones fan. But it's hard to avoid a certain level of familiarity with them if you're any sort of fan of rock music. While a song like Sympathy For the Devil does show a bit of intelligence in its writing, when I think of the Stones, I first think of lines like, "You make a dead man [whatever]".

However, the song My Sweet Neo Con from their latest album, just came up on Yahoo! In it, the boys get a tad political. Check it out.

I guess Mick and Keith share some of the same views as Donald Miller.

Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

I'm a little hesitant to write about subjects such as politics and religion here. This isn't because I don't find those subjects interesting or important. It's more because I assume that my regular readers ("Of which I have none," to quote Tom Lehrer) are less interested in reading my ramblings in these areas. Instead, these subjects are better suited to in-person discussions, or at least on a more interactive forum than this one. But I do make rare forays into these topics, as I will here.

Today's topic is Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. Where should I start? This is a good book.

---

OK, it's been two weeks since I started the review of this book, ending with what's above the line. I haven't found the time to spend on this post, but I'll try to finish up now and keep it short. As I said, though, this is a good book. In it, Miller writes largely autobiographically (I think it's called memoir-like) about his spiritual life, as well as his struggles, and his views regarding different aspects of Christianity.

To begin with, Miller's not a big fan of the term Christianity. He seems to feel it has too much "baggage," meanings, and negative connotations to many people. He prefers to use the term Christian Spirituality for his personal spiritual life as distinct, for example, from the actions of certain armies in 1100 AD or other things that Christianity might be asked to answer for.

In short, I think that the best way to sum up the book is like this: Have you ever gotten the feeling that in certain Christian circles, you're not considered a good Christian (or a good person) unless you share the goals and views of a certain political party? (Yeah. What's up with that?) I have, and so has Miller.

• If you have too, then this is a good book for you to read.
• If you haven't, but are a Christian who largely agrees with the current US Administration and its party, then this is a good book for you to read.
  

He is a non-conformist by nature (which isn't always a good thing) and rebels against some of what he sees are the failings of modern North American conservative Christianity. But he's no liberal when it comes to his beliefs. Basically, he shows it's possible to be a Bible-believing Christian, to sincerely put loving God and others as first in his life, and not be bogged down by others who would try to limit him in achieving these goals.

While reading the book, in a few places, I'd think, "Hey, I'm like that." In a few others, I'd think, "I wish I was like that." As I mentioned above, this might not be always a good thing, but there you have it.

As for a rating or recommendation, I'm hesitant to suggest to non-Christians any particular "religious" book. If or when I do, I assume that the book had better be good, or else you'll be turned off by my future recommendations. I'll give it 5 stars out of 5, recommending it to Christians. To non-Christians, I'll suggest it if you'd like an explanation of what Christianity (or "Christian Spirituality") could or should be.

The Greatest Part of My Heritage -- It never really happened. :-(

Compared to some people, I don't have a large family in terms of known or living relatives. Also, I'm not aware of any relative of mine doing anything earth-shattering or being all that famous.

Except for one thing. Since a young age, I always knew I was somehow mysteriously related to the person who invented the "reflectors on a stick" that you see on the side of the road or highway. Or maybe he only invented a particular type of reflector on a stick. The details were lost on me, but I seem to recall it somehow related to the white ones that I would see on highways. I've probably "known" this since I was 4 or 5 years old, but I never knew who the great inventor was. I didn't let this bother me. As I mentioned, there is a lot I don't know about my family.

Today, it all came crashing down.

I was talking with my mother, and the topic of her and my relatives came up. I asked her who was the mysterious reflector inventor. It turned out that it wasn't a relative, but the father of a friend of my father. Or maybe they weren't really friends. I didn't want to ask about that.

2006 Pinewood Derby Cars

Here are our Pinewood Derby cars for 2006. The official car is the first one in the first picture. The others will be in the "Open" division.

My joke about this annual Cub Scout event is that the fathers make cars for the boys, and then everyone pretends that the boys make them. There is probably a wide range of opinion as to what is the appropriate level of involvement for a boy of specific age. I would guess that young boys are generally less skilled with woodworking today than they were 75 years ago or so. At the local level, this is supposed to be a "family" activity. In my family, the kids design the cars, but don't necessarily do all of the work.

For the past two years, my brother-in-law used his artistry with power tools to cut the cars out of the blocks of wood. That option was not available this year, so Marty filled in. Compared to what I'm used to, Marty is a "Measure twice; cut once" kind of guy. On the other hand, I commented to my brother-in-law that I preferred to measure once and cut twice. He responded that he liked to cut three times without measuring at all, since it was faster that way.

Anyway, here's a front view of the cars, G, A, & T:


And here's a rearish view:

A New Kind of Charity (Call Me Ishmael)

I'm reviewing the IRS tax publicatation on charitible contributions, and came up with one I hadn't considered before. From Publication 526 (I'm not making this up. How could I?), it says:

Expenses of Whaling Captains
Beginning in 2005, you may be able to deduct as a charitable contribution the reasonable and necessary whaling expenses paid during the year in carrying out sanctioned whaling activities. The deduction is limited to $10,000 a year. [...]
Whaling expenses include expenses for:
• Acquiring and maintaining whaling boats, weapons, and gear used in sanctioned whaling activities,
• Supplying food for the crew and other pro-visions for carrying out these activities, and
• Storing and distributing the catch from these activities.

Let's see.... I'd like to help out a charity... I could give to some group like my local house of worship, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the War Amps, Amnesty International, or something like that. Nah, I think I'll just go kill some whales instead!!

Favourite Literary Character Day, 2006 Edition

When we last left Literary Character Day, I was bemoaning the fact that we went and rented and purchased costumes, and the slight bit of snow ruined our plans. This year, we didn't rent or buy anything, but just went with what we had on hand. We ended up with:

• Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island. I never read that one, but I think I saw the cartoon once.
• Anneliese, from Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper. Yeah, I guess that's not exactly a well known literary work. But 85% of girls of that age want to go as a princess.
  
• Anne of Green Gables. I've never read that one, but given my interest in Canadian literature, I probably should.

From the reports I heard, it seems like actually dressing as a character from a book was a pretty rare thing.

The Latest Sandwich Innovation

As I've mentioned before, I'm often being subjected to "new" things for lunch. The latest is Tabasco Sauce as a sandwich condiment. This is yet another thing that an adult would never think of. It's OK, I guess. I mean, I can't complain. If I did, I'd have to make my own lunches.

Song of the Day

As I'm here at work (check the date of the posting) the following song appeared on Lauchcast:

Ugly Kid Joe / Cat's in the Cradle

I cranked it.

Caffeinated Taxes and Music Selections

I don't consider myself to be a huge coffee drinker; maybe I'm a minor-to-moderate coffee drinker. I drink decaf more often than not, and when I want some at home, I make instant. There are only two situations when I'll brew a pot of coffee at home. That's either when coffee-drinking friends and relatives visit, or when I'm working on my taxes. Today was that day, so I'm feeling extra caffeinated at the moment.

I had my Yahoo! Launch station playing as I worked. Since it's been a while since I've posted a playlist, here is today's. There's a bit too much "Adult Alternative" for my tastes, and some artist ratings have been adjusted down. And, the following list is in reverse order.

The Killers Andy, You're A Star
Reel Big Fish She Has A Girlfriend Now
The Blues Project Where There's Smoke There's Fire
Three Dog Night Feeling Alright
Ten Years After Skoobly-Oobly-Doobob
Rusted Root Hands Are Law
Monty Python's Flying Circus Track 1
Soul Asylum Runaway Train
Guster Fa Fa
Johnny Cash Desperado
Adam Sandler Joining The Cult
Arlo Guthrie Alice's Restaurant (The Massacree Revisited)
Metallica Garage Days Re-Revisited '87: Crash Course In Brain Surgery
George Carlin The 11 O'Clock News
Jars Of Clay Love Song For A Savior
Jim Croce You Don't Mess Around With Jim
Howie Day She Says (Brauer Mix)
Geddy Lee Moving To Bohemia
Paul McCartney Fine Line
Jason Mraz Geek In The Pink (Radio Edit)
The Blues Brothers Soul Man
Gavin DeGraw Follow Through (Radio Edit)
Kenny Rogers Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town - Kenny Rogers & The First Edition
Ben Harper Steal My Kisses
Bowling For Soup 1985
Eddie Izzard Jesus In Religions, Part Two
Ryan Adams The Sadness
Robert Palmer One Last Look
Blondie Rapture
Blind Melon No Rain
Roger Miller Do Wacka Do
Loretta Lynn Have Mercy
Warren Zevon Play It All Night Long
Rodney Dangerfield Unhandy Husbands
Tori Amos Spark
Tom Lehrer Lobachevsky
The Kingston Trio Reuben James (Live)
Depeche Mode Suffer Well
Aerosmith The Reason A Dog
Natalie Merchant Ophelia

Holes by Louis Sachar

My children enjoy reading books, and when I want to give them a book as a gift, I sometimes have a hard time deciding on what books that should be. When I was my daughter's age, I struggled reading Black Sunday by Thomas Harris, which is a book I wouldn't recommend to anyone, let alone a child. (I don't think I ever made it to the climactic Super Bowl scene.)

Anyway, one way I've been getting book ideas for my kids is to check the list of Newbery Medal Winners. One of these was Holes by Louis Sachar. I had heard somewhere that this was an interesting book for children and adults, so I bought this one as a gift, and then read it myself.

Holes is the story of young Stanley Yelnats. (I don't recall how old he is in the book.) Stanley is mistakenly convicted of theft, due, it is claimed to a curse placed on his "no good dirty rotten pig-stealing great-great-grandfather", whose descendants are cursed to bad luck because he didn't live up to a promise made to an old Latvian gypsy woman. Stanley is sentenced to Camp Green Lake, where, in order to build character, the residents are required daily to dig a hole five feet deep and five feet around in a dry lake bed.

It becomes clear that the people running the camp are looking for something, beyond building character. But what is it? And who will find it first?

Interspersed with the present-day story are some flashback scenes, both to the Latvian old country, and to the Green Lake area of 110 years ago. How do these fit together and how do they relate to the present story?

While I heard that the book was recommended for adults, it is still very much a kids book, both in length and in depth. Don't be led to think otherwise. I've tended to say that I prefer short books, but this is rather shallow compared to adult literature. But does this make it a bad book? Not necessarily.

Still, despite the awards, I'm not a big fan of the book. I thought that the first 2/3 or so was rather slow moving, though it was interesting how all the threads wove together. Also, before reading it, I had no idea what the holes were being dug for. I don't want to give away the story or anything, but I had assumed that they might be related to space aliens or a portal to another dimension, or something like that. Instead, the answer is a little more mundane.

As a kids' book, I don't have anything against it. If a child is able to read a book of this magnitude, I can't think of any reason to go against the Newbery Committee, even though I've found the few other Newbury books I'm familiar with (Shiloh, The Slave Dancer) to be better. But as adult reading, there's not a lot to recommend it, unless, perhaps, you want to read the same thing that your child does. Two stars out of five.

No More Mr Nice Guy

When I go to Chess Club, I like to play everyone else, and not just the adults. Since there are a number of regularly attending teens and pre-teens, last night I found myself playing a girl who was around 13 or 14. (I'm lousy at guessing people's ages. For those that know her, it was the daughter of the club president.) Anyway, fairly early in the game, I had a slight lead of a pawn or two in materiel, and she moved her queen into a square where my knight would have captured it, without me even losing my knight. Because of the nice guy I am, I gave her a chance to take back that move, which she accepted. Then, she won the game (not immediately, of course).

I don't record my games, but I (playing white) had an unusual setup that caused me to castle late on my queen's side. I had most of my power on the king's side, pushed my queen's knight's pawn up a square, and ended up being checkmated in the midgame on those open diagonals with her queen and black bishop.

That's the last time I'll do that!

Cool Music Video

(Someone said that's the Swedish team.)

Hammerfall - Hearts On Fire
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EisVuJcrMY&search=Hammerfall)

Electronic Plumbing

Author's Note: It's been a long time since I've posted anything here. What follows is an idea I've had for a while for a post, but never got around to posting.

What's the deal with electronic plumbing? At work, the lavatories are still decorated with their original circa 1955 furnishings, except for one area of note. The toilets, urinals, and sinks all have little person detectors, and all work automatically. Only rarely do you get a nice "refreshing" blast when and where you don't expect it.

My question about all this is, what's the point? Who are they trying to protect? I mean, are they trying to conserve water? Or is this to keep me germ-free, so I don't have to touch those dirty handles? (Seriously, I assume that these things aren't very sanity.) And what happens when the electricity goes out?

The paper towel holders are manually operated. Am I putting myself at risk by using my hand to operate them, rather than using my elbow like I've seen another guy doing?

And how will germs deal with the situation?

Today's Lunch

included a peanut butter, honey, and banana sandwich. When I started to protest, I was told, "You told us to give you things we like and things we make ourselves."

What could I do?

I need to have a talk with my daughter.

I mean, the daughter that makes my lunches. Today's lunch: Peanut Butter and Mustard Sandwiches.

Xiangqi and a Business Idea

I guess I'm not that bad of a chess player. I mean, for the general population, I'm a pretty good chess player. But, once you get into the "set of adults that are good chess players", then I'm not really all that good. Anyway, that's beside the point. For whatever reason, I'm interested in learning to play xiangqi, or Chinese Chess. I don't know a whole lot of the history of chess, and there are conflicting theories anyway, but it's obvious that xiangqi and "international" chess share a common ancestry. Most of the xiangqi pieces have a corresponding piece in chess. For example, xiangqi horses are very much like chess knights, except that they can't jump the same way. However, the xiangqi cannon seems unique!

One problem I am having with the game is that it's all in Chinese! I mean, traditionally, the pieces are discs with Chinese characters printed on them. So, not only do you need to learn the game, you also need to learn the characters. Now, I can recognise a handful of Chinese characters, but if I want to play online or buy a set, I'm basically limited to something looking like the following:

Wow. I mean, if I spent some time on it, I could probably get used telling the elephants (who are like weak bishops) and the cannons apart. But it would take an even greater effort in teaching them to my kids or anyone else. It ain't likely.

What I would like to see (and would buy one if I could find it) is a Xiangqi set that has pieces that look a lot more like "international" chess pieces. Maybe they could have the "traditional" (or Simplified, for you Chinese language buffs) character on one side, and a more language-neutral symbol on the other.

I did find the following photo on the web. If you're familiar with chess, it's a lot less intimidating than the above one, isn't it?

I'd like to be able to play online with a set like the second one. I'd probably buy a set like the second one. I might even consider getting into the business of selling them. But probably not.

The List

As suggested by our friends over at The djl Zone, I will list all the stadiums/arenas/venues in which I've seen a sporting event. There's a good chance I'm forgetting a few. Here they are, in no particular order within the sport types.

MLB
Candlestick Park (San Francisco)
Dodger Stadium (Los Angeles)
Royals/Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City)
Busch Stadium (St. Louis)
County Stadium (Milwaukee)
(Old) Comisky Park (Chicago)
Wrigley Field (Chicago)
Tiger Stadium (Detroit)
Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati)
Municipal Stadium (Cleveland)
Jacobs Field (Cleveland)
Three Rivers Stadium (Pittsburgh)
Olympic Stadium (Montreal)
Fenway Park (Boston)
Yankee Stadium (New York)
Memorial Stadium (Baltimore)
Vererans Stadium (Philadelphia)
Fulton County Stadium (Atlanta)
Turner Field (Atlanta)

MiLB
City Island Park (Daytona Beach)
Thurman Munson Stadium (Canton)
Cooper Stadium (Columbus)
Joe Davis Stadium (Huntsville)
Greer Stadium (Nashville)

NFL
Municipal Stadium (Cleveland)
Fawcett Stadium (Canton)
Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati)
Browns Stadium (Cleveland)

CFL
BC Place (Vancouver)
Commonwealth Stadium (Edmonton)
Canad Inns/Winnipeg Stadium (Winnipeg)
Memorial Stadium (Baltimore)
Ivor Wynne Stadium (Hamilton)
SkyDome (Toronto)

USFL
Tampa Stadium (Tampa)
Giants Stadium (New Jersey)

WLAF
Legion Field (Birmingham)

Arena/Indoor Football
Nationwide Arena (Columbus)
Civic Arena (Pittsburgh)
Civic Center (Canton)

College Football
Doyt Perry Stadium (Bowling Green)
Ball State Stadium (Muncie)
Dix Stadium (Kent State)
Rubber Bowl (Akron)
Yager Stadium (Miami)
Ohio Stadium (Ohio State)
Spartan Stadium (Michigan State)
Pitt Stadium (Pittsburgh)

NBA
Richfield Coliseum (Cleveland)

ABL - American (Women's) Basketball League, 1996-1998
Battelle Hall (Columbus)

College Basketball
St. John Arena (Ohio State)
Value City Arena (Ohio State)
Savage Hall (Toledo)
MAC Center (Kent State)

Women's College Basketball
St. John Arena (Ohio State)

NHL
Richfield Coliseum (Cleveland - exhibition between Pittsburgh Penguins and US Olympic team)
Civic Arena (Pittsburgh)
Nationwide Arena (Columbus)

Minor League Hockey
Fairgrounds Coliseum (Columbus)
Von Braun Civic Center (Huntsville)
Gund Arena (Cleveland)

College Hockey
University Ice Arena (Kent State)
Value City Arena (Ohio State)
Bradley Center (Milwaukee-Frozen Four)

MLS
Crew Stadium (Columbus)

Indoor Soccer
Civic Center (Canton)
Richfield Coliseum (Cleveland)
Convention Center (Dayton)
Fairgrounds Coliseum (Columbus)

College Lacrosse
Ohio Stadium (Ohio State)

Pro Indoor Lacrosse
Nationwide Arena (Columbus)

Club Lacrosse (only "interesting" venues listed)
Bobby Dodd Stadium (Atlanta)
Neyland Stadium (Knoxville)
The University of the South (Sewanee, TN -- what's the stadium name?)
Glass Bowl (Toledo)

College Fencing
Larkins Hall (Ohio State)

Australian Rules Football
Telstra Dome (Melbourne)

The Missing Magical Mystery Post

I was going to post about something, but instead, I think I'll go to sleep. Sorry; maybe next time.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

In general, I like time travel stories and movies, so I expected to like this one. And, in general, I did, except for some points which I'll get to momentarily. But first, let me explain the story:

Henry DeTamble is a not-so mild mannered twentysomething librarian with a slight genetic abnormality. He uncontrollably time travels, which is compared to an epileptic having a seizure. While he has no control over the time, place, or duration of his forays out of the present, in general, he ends up in places that are important to him. One common destination is to the home of his wife, and these tend to be when she is between the ages of 6 and 18. So, one theme of the book is a what-if. What if, growing up as a child, you knew your future spouse as an adult? (But then, when you first meet your spouse in real-time, your spouse is close to your age, and actually younger than those times you spent with him as a child. So, he has no present knowledge of those past meetings, because they are still in his future. Confusing, huh?) This what-if makes up a good portion of the book. By the way, if you think about it, the answer to the question is that you'll end up with a pretty messed-up person.

The cover states that the Chicago Tribune calls it "A soaring celebration of the victory of love over time." And maybe it's more of a love story than a time travel story. While forward and backward time travel is involved, there aren't any "visions" of the future and the past as you might see in more of a SciFi novel. Also, while the future and the past are known, it turns out that they can't be changed. With no hope of changing the past or the known future, the reader is left to wonder if there is any hope of changing the present.

There were a few other negatives with the book. It was a tad too "explicit" for my tastes in reading material. Also, it was just too l o n g and seemed to drag on for a bit, but then I'm a slow reader. Still, it was about 540 pages, and I wonder if the author could have told the same story in 200 or so fewer pages.

All-in-all, though, there were more positives than negatives. It was an interesting story that, other than its length, made for fast reading. The main characters and their predicament were interesting. But don't think about it too much. It's the kind of book that, the more you think about it, the more flaws you can find. Along those lines, I was going to give it 4 stars, but I think I'll instead make my rating

Three stars out of five.

Finally, if you read it, there was something I didn't understand, and maybe you can explain it to me. Near the very end of the book Clare made a piece of art. The way it was explained, it seemed to hold some significance for her future. But, I couldn't figure out exactly what it meant. (Maybe I should try reading it again.) But, my question is, what did this tell us about what her future would be like? I got the impression that it was supposed to be obvious, but maybe it wasn't.

APÏ

Lately at work, I've been discussing work-related things with a developer in France via e-mail. As you know*, an API is an "Application Program Interface". However, in the e-mail from France, it was spelled APÏ. I guess the e-mail hadn't yet met its quota of diaereses**.


* Or, as anyone with internet access can determine by entering "define: API" at Google.

** No, this is not an intestinal ailment.

Omniless

Almost 11 years ago, I used my insurance settlement from the totaling of the short-lived LTD, plus a little more, and bought an over-priced '89 Dodge Omni for $2500. I was attracted to the car, since it didn't have anything on it that could break, like an automatic transmission or a radio. Since I expect a car to last 1 year per $1000 paid, I'd say we got our money's worth. We put on about an additional 100,000 miles, but this is another car that didn't quite get up to 200,000 miles.

We've probably owned it about a year too long, but it still runs, despite the bad habit of stalling when stopped, or just when the clutch is depressed. We've been advised that it would likely cost more to repair it than it is worth, so (effective late last year) it has been donated to charity.

I hope that they can get something positive out of it.

See if you can make out the old stickers.

(DFV, I still feel bad about your Akron Experience in this car.)

Bundesrepublik Super Nintendo

I'm becoming big fan of Wikipedia. However, one piece of advice I've seen is "never trust a Wiki". I'm currently reminded of how true this is. The current article for Germany begins as follows:

Super Nintendo, officially the Federal Republic of Super Nintendo (German: Super Nintendo or Bundesrepublik Super Nintendo) is one of the world's leading industrialised countries, located in Europe.

This is all cute and everything, but if someone can do this sort of overt vandalism, surely someone with other (more sinister?) objectives can more subtly skew articles away from the truth to push his or her agenda.

Un bon plan à découvrir !!!

While I no longer consider Yahoo! to be my primary home e-mail account, I still use it for some things. Yahoo! does seem to do a pretty good job of filtering out spam from its e-mail, as I rarely see it. In English. Je ne parle pas français, but for some reason I've been getting French spam. The most recent one had "Un bon plan à découvrir !!!" as its subject.

While it is somewhat annoying (of course) to receive such junk, I do take some solace in that I don't understand it anyway.

But if you'd like to "Gagner de l'argent pendant qu'on surfe sur internet," (Make money while you surf the internet), let me know and I'll hook you up.

Poppy Seed Rolls, Number Two

Don't feed poppy seed rolls to babies.

Trust me on this one.