adrian is rad

I bought a bike this week. It’s road bike, a few years old. It runs well. I’m going to modify the set up a bit to make it more into an around-town bike, but I’m liking it so far.

(I’m definitely getting rid of the red bar tape.)

I’ve seen very few of the Superbowl ads but I liked this NFL ad with music from the Arcade Fire.

Odd things about watching the Super Bowl outside of the country:

• None of the commercials. Well, there were commercials but they were all EPSN’s own commercials about its programs. They repeated often—there are lots of commercial breaks during the Super Bowl—and got old quickly.
• The announcers for the ESPN International broadcast were different than the ones for the US (CBS?) broadcast. Big differences:
  • They referred to the sport as “American Football”.
  • They explained many more rules than the normal American broadcasts do, including ones that seem quite obvious to me. They also explained what a “slot receiver” was. Despite this they left unexplained many other football terms, guards “pulling”, names for routes, various penalties, and intricacies of various positions.

So that was strange. But it was a fun game! Go team!

I wanted to get a more local cap to be my go-to cap (my A’s hat, seen here, is my current go-to). Going through a thrift store I saw a rugby cap that had a good design and was pretty cheap, so I picked it up. Apparently I don’t know the teams very well because Waratahs are actually from Australia. Ooops!

Maybe I should just pick up a Western Province cap, like this one.

Update: Problem solved!

This is really strange:

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I really like these vintage Japanese baseball cards.

You’ve probably heard the story: rookie quarter back of a bad team leads his team in a comeback (against an admittedly bad team). Six points behind, on the second to last play of the game, he gets hit so hard that his shoulder is separated and, by rule, he has to leave the field…unless the opposing team calls a time out, which it does. He throws off the doctors and reenters the game to throw the winning touch down.

Now watch the video. The quarterback was miced. The video is pretty inspired.

I’ve always loved NFL Films even before I followed the game–they bring the game to a mythical level, symbolic struggles with giant men.

On Friday I saw the cricket one-day South Africa vs England. SA gave the red coats a thorough romping so that was good but the whole event was fun. I went with a family friend and spending time with him was great. The weather was gorgeous. The stadium sits in the shadow of Table Mountain. And the people in front of us were nutso and entertaining, a spectacle all on their own.

Yesterday I went to Paternoster, a fishing village (and tourist favorite) a hundred kilometers up the coast or so. I had some really delicious and very fresh fried crayfish and we walked around the beach looking at the fishing boats. It was a nice time away from the city.

One thing I appreciate about Cape Town is that in about half an hour you can get solidly out onto the open road. Nothing-in-sight-but-the-road open road.

Today was pretty relaxed, hitting up the Turkish Baths at Long Street and going for a long walk, ending up at Disa Park where I took some photos.

Just a couple weeks left now till I head back to the States. It seems weird that it’s so soon. At the same time, I recently passed the mark making this the longest time I’ve been out of the country continuously.

1. A Friday in an empty apartment. Megan, P. David and I sitting on the floor having beer, talking about Pittsburgh, stories, friends, music and mostly avoiding where I was moving to in three days. I don’t know how long we sat there or what all ways said. For a couple hours there I forgot the echo.
2. A Sunday in a furnished apartment. The Reekies, Christine and I at a simple table with a simple meal and nice bottle of wine, talking about Taipei, cricket, football, and the state of the nation. We didn’t sit for too long but time hung with the laughter and chatter. For a couple hours there I forgot the echo.

Long Street Baths, the pool I use, is open 7am-7pm, which doesn’t leave a lot of time to swim outside of work hours. During work hours it’s gloriously empty, but whenever I’ve tried going before or after, it’s crowded.

Tonight it was packed. Actually, it was so packed that it was interesting. There were enough swimmers that if everyone stopped at the same end of the pool, there wouldn’t be enough space for everyone to stand at the wall. The system depended on at least some people moving. Similarly if everyone was swimming at the same time, there’d be collisions.

I’m sure there are systems or parts of systems like this in real life. Bus garages, perhaps, that don’t have enough spots for all the buses to be parked at once. Or delivery systems (UPS, trucking, etc). Can you think of any others?

Anyway, just something that made me think.

I recently read a few interesting articles about football and I thought I’d share.

Chuck Klosterman writes about how football has succeeding by being the most liberal sport but winning over America by appearing to be conservative. I don’t know if he’s right but he is pretty entertaining.

My wife is awesome, but she hates football (as wives are wont to do). Every game seems the same to her. I will be watching a contest between Kent State and Eastern Michigan on a random Thursday night, and she will say, “Go ahead and watch that game. I will just sit here and read this magazine featuring a plus-sized black female TV personality from Chicago.” Two days later, Georgia will be playing LSU for the SEC championship. Now she will want to rent Scenes from a Marriage.

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Michael Lewis writes about how the place kicker has no upsides, with even one big miss ruining a career.

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The same author also writes about Coach Mike Leach and his crazy pass-heavy Texas Tech offense. Michael Lewis is the sort that likes finding people breaking the ‘rules’ and still winning and here’s another example.

To prepare his receivers’ ankles and knees for the unusual punishment of his nonstop-running offense, Leach has installed a 40-yard-long sand pit on his practice field; slogging through the sand, he says, strengthens the receivers’ joints. And when they finish sprinting, they move to Leach’s tennis-ball bazookas. A year of catching tiny fuzzy balls fired at their chests at 60 m.p.h. has turned many young men who got to Texas Tech with hands of stone into glue-fingered receivers.

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Finally, there’s an old Sports Illustrated article about a beareded, long-haired barefoot punter in the 1970s. It’s a pretty entertaining read just for the player talking about the Establishment, man.

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In other football news, the Steelers seem to have played a little better after starting out 1-2. They still don’t seem as solid as they did last year (particularly defensively), but I’m liking that the offensive line looks decent for once and that Mendenhall is getting some carries. I also like the irony that is our kick returner getting credited for tackles on opposing kick returners. That’s fun.

A friend’s mentioning his overtime for working today reminded me that it’s a holiday in the States. I’d totally forgotten. Enjoy your day off. My next holiday is Sept 24, Heritage Day.

I’ve made some friends here, or acquaintances at least. There’s a group of young people working at NGOs, the hospital, schools and churches. They’re mostly from South Africa but there are some Germans and things in there too. These are some of the same people I played soccer with on Thursday. On Friday I went to a residence on the hospital grounds to play a board game and hang out with some of them. That’s what passes for night life here in Ingwavuma but it was a fun time.

On Saturday I took public transportation alone for the first time here. Public transit here (which is quite similar to Cape Town’s public transport) are ‘taxis’. These are minibuses, SUVs and the like, which people flag down to get in and then get off where they need to, paying a set fee for the distance to the driver. It’s sort of like a hybrid between a taxi and a bus in American terms. Fare from here to town is R7, a little less than $1.

I’d taken them with some people from Ziseze before, but Saturday’s trip into town was my first alone. Great victory! Except I got there at 1:10pm and the shops close at 1pm. What kind of town has shops that close at 1pm? But I walked around for a while and got a coke at a take-away place that was still open.

a sheep in the road in ‘town’ in Ingwavuma

The “town” of Ingwavuma consists of a small shopping plaza with less than a dozen establishments, only a few of those are bigger than the couple hole in the wall take-away places. There is a supermarket, a building supply place, a gas station, a furniture store, an electronics store and a barber shop. Across the street are maybe a dozen stalls where people sell (probably home-grown) vegetables and things. Goats may be wandering in the street; cattle aren’t far away.

the water spigot at Okhayeni Primary School–the school doesn’t have running water

One of the places I’d got to via taxi was one of the schools the radio project works in, Okhayeni Primary School. The radio project group has called themselves what translates to the Okhayeni Strong Recorders. I think this is a pretty rad name.

Sunday I went to a local church which is mostly made up of Zulus. The preacher spoke in English but a member of the congregation translated on the spot–I was really impressed with this guy, incidentally. The service itself wasn’t particularly noteworthy besides it lasting 3 hours, but as I sat waiting for the service to start, some of the gathered, mostly women, sang some hymns in Zulu rather spontaneously. One started a hymn without any prompting or communication with others but many others soon joined in, filling out the harmonies. Some of them were particularly gorgeous and gave me chills.

a somewhat typical homestead around here with some older mud-and-stick buildings and some more modern buildings

In the afternoon I went for a long walk down the hill along the main road, turning back only when I was hot and sweaty and miles away. The road was surprisingly quiet and besides the occasional homestead, it was mostly just grass and trees and hills and valleys around me.

Homestead does tend to be a more appropriate term than home here: most places people live have multiple smaller buildings bunched together. Often they’re separated out by function–one may be the kitchen; one may be the sleeping quarters.

One Zulu exchange that I’ve enjoyed particularly is as follows, and it definitely loses something in writing, in the rhythm and cadence:
One: Sanibona (hello, to a group)
Group, in unison: Yebo! (yes, or general acknowledgment)
One: Ninjani (how are you, to a group)
Group, in unison: Siyaphila (we are fine)

I’ll play. Sure, I’ll play. I haven’t played since I was thirteen, I laugh. I won’t be very good.

Look at me! I’m fast! Look, I just got the ball away from that good player. Look, I’m on a breakaway! Amazing! Oh, I missed the shot. I’ll get it next time.

I do not get it next time. I’m old. I slow down quickly. Soon I’m hunched over, hands on my knees, breathing deeply with a bit of wheeze in my throat. They play on. I hold up my hand to wave off any concern. They are not concerned.

But, in the end, it’s good times. I run and sweat. I sprint and wheeze. My sides hurt; I tell an opposing player to stop being so fast. He is very fast: like lightning. It’s competitive—and I want to play well—but no one keeps score.

Just one part of a really nice day.

The boys are playing soccer today. On the gravelly red clay it’s a different game than the grass game, just like blacktop basketball is different from the hard court variety. I haven’t see a slide tackle; I don’t think anyone will take a dive to draw a penalty. I’m not sure if there are even penalties in this game.

Zesize: soccer field front. The center itself to the left. The yellow rondavel left of center, is where I’m staying

The idea of Lebolla–the bride price–is apparently still very much followed in rural South African culture. Fana, a guy who I’m working with here, suggested 12 cattle or upwards of R50,000 is required these days. Of course there are some who can afford it, but it seems some who are otherwise ready to get married are not solely because of the onus of the lebolla.

One of my favorite SA traditions is not really that old nor is it that impressive. On the country roads, there are often slow vehicles–heavy trucks, half-working bakkies, cautious drivers–while other wish to go highway speeds. The slower vehicles will often slide over onto the shoulder to make it easier for the faster driver. The faster driver will then turn on his hazards for a couple seconds—”thanks”—and then the slower will flash his headlights—”pleasure[1]“. I love that little back and forth.

I don’t know much, but I know that 25L of water weighs a fair amount. And if I carry that up a hill from the spigot to my place every day, I’ll have strong shoulders and back by the end of these couple weeks.

The colors here are instantly memorable–the dark red of the clay, the greens of the plants, the off-whites and browns of the thatched roof houses.

It’s hot during the day. It’s winter, remember. In Cape Town, it felt like winter. Houses don’t have heat and I was wearing a sweatshirt or an outer layer almost constantly. But here, it seems to be summer already. I may be wearing pants, but that’s more because it seems that’s proper at the center than the heat. It’s a dry dry heat. It’s not unbearable, but it’s warmer than one would expect for winter.

[1] often said as in “my pleasure”, the equivalent of “you’re welcome.”

In the waning evening light, teenage boys are doing calisthenics on the soccer field. I know it’s a soccer practice—they’re on the field and there’s a ball in the center—but right now it looks more like some sort of synchronized dance.

The field is of the red dirt, clay really, that’s common in this part of the world and the the goals are each three thin logs nailed together, two sides and the top. I can see a woman walking along a dirt path with a water bucket balanced on her head. There’s something very Out of Africa about this. Except I’m not falling in love with someone that’s not my husband. Am I thinking of the right movie?

And aside from the fact that this is quite rural, I’m not blazing any trails. Others have come before me. I don’t have a rifle at my side to fend off wild beasts; I have to worry more about my laptop being stolen than a lion charging me.

It’s so still. Besides an occasional car on the one paved road to Ingwavuma, there’s just crickets, rustling leaves and voices of people in houses and huts down the hill and across the valley.

Of course I’ll get antsy—I get antsy in big cities too—but I think this will be good for me: the stillness, the simplicity.

It gets dark early here. The boys must not be playing any soccer today; it’s nearly dark and they’re doing sit-ups in a circle; someone’s counting them off in Zulu it sounds like.

Three unrelated topics that are on my mind.

On race: I forgot how blunt people[1] can be about race in South Africa. Having lived in places where mentioning race is equated with racism, it’s a bit shocking. I wouldn’t say these people are racist just for being aware of race–it’s simply a nation that’s very conscious of race as it was a very prominent difference for many years. There’s still racism, of course, it’s just not always the same as the blunt language.

On baseball: I watched a baseball game this afternoon. ESPN World replayed last night’s BoSox vs. Tampa Bay game. I didn’t realize they aired baseball in this market–though I do remember them airing pennant-hunt and playoff games in Asia when I was there in the fall a couple years ago, but those markets are much more interested in baseball than this one. I also saw an ad for Sports Center, though it’s the world edition so we’ll see how it is. Maybe the top 10 plays will still be good.

On coincidental encounters: Yesterday at a small shopping center, I passed two American girls (judging by accents), one of whom was wearing a University of San Francisco sweatshirt. Not only is that that town I just came from, I was on the USF campus the day before I left. Not in South Africa, but there was nevertheless an odd coincidence on Tuesday. We ran into a friend of my aunt’s while out on a walk with her dog in a small town outside London and it turns out she’s about to go to San Francisco to visit her brother. Her brother lives in Noe Valley on 26th St., which is probably within five blocks of where I just lived in SF (also on 26th St.). And I’ve undoubtedly walked by his house as I used to walk up 26th when I needed some peace and quiet.

[1] By “people” I mostly mean people of my parents’ generation. I have had few lengthy conversations with people my age in South Africa and their attitudes are possibly/ probably different.

I sold my car recently and my two bikes (road, fixed gear) over the last few weeks.

Selling my car is a bit strange, but I haven’t actually used it much for most of the time I’ve had it. Not having a bike, though, is weird. Since I left for college[1] there hasn’t been a period for more than about two weeks that I haven’t had a bike. First thing I did when I moved to California was buy a bike (a funny old Lemans Centurion road bike-> commuter conversion). I’ve had two or three bikes for much of the time I’ve lived here. Even when I went to Germany and Taiwan, I bought bikes pretty quickly. But here I am without a bike and without plans to buy one soon[2]. It’s strange indeed.

[1] and before college I owned a bike, too, but I never rode it.

[2] this has to do with a number of factors, nagging knee injury among them.

(But if you do want to see someone getting a bike, check out Scott’s drool-worthy new frame.)

Heading to lunch the other day with Dug, I saw a newly opened store front for My Dutch Bike. I thought it was pretty cool. After all, I think these solidly built, three speed utilitarian bikes are great. I had one in Germany and enjoyed it. And I think for a lot of the populace, they’re a good option.

But then I looked at the price. $1600? What???

I saw similar bikes in Asian: China and Taiwan especially. The one here, by Phoenix, I found in Jakarta where it was for sale for, I believe, $75 brand new. I think it was a single speed, but it’s absolutely bomb-proof and is really classy to boot. Note the mechanical linkages for the breaks instead of cables. For that price I should have gotten one and shipped it over here.

It happened.

I had people over for the game. We had pierogies* and kielbasi from a Russian deli in the Outer Richmond and finished off with Klondike bars (originally from Islay’s). Good times.

*potato and cheddar–among the best pierogies I’ve had.

[click to see it larger]

I found this while I was home. See if you can pick out my dad.

I was a bit surprised that while there are some Johnny Weismuller types in the photo, there aren’t the Michael Phelps-like triangles-on-top-of-legs that you see in every competitive swimmer today. And the people in the photo weren’t slouches–some of these people held records and beat international competition.

Fact #4: The Pirates’ front office actually knows what it’s doing.

No. Really. And trust me, that was a hard sentence for me to write. The Microsoft Word paper-clip guy even popped up and said, “You appear to be talking crazy. Need me to contact the psychiatric hospital?”

There are some other funny lines and there are even some insightful lines in this Page 2 article about the Pirates.

please please please please

I don’t know why I just remembered this, but one of my favorite toys growing up were the Centurions toys. I don’t really remember watching the show or particularly what it was about, but these bionic guys were great toys to play with. The swimmer guy (Max apparently), was the one I had and I just loved that guy. My brother had the flying guy.

I’m not sure quite why he was my favorite. I’m still a swimmer now, though. I think I have a point in here somewhere.

Update: My brother just reminded me of M.A.S.K. toys which were pretty incredible, too. I remember having Gator, which was one of my favorites.

Wow. Hours, possibly weeks, of my childhood, right there.

yellowed page out of my circa 1992 Tim Wakefield scrapbook

Here’s some baseball stuff that I’ve seen recently.

Tim Wakefield, who, yes, I’ve followed since his Pirates days, had a no-hitter through 7 1/3 last week. He’s 45, has been in the majors 17 years and he’s never had a no-no, as they call them. Watch the highlights or read more.

A Ranger named Ian Kinsler had a 6 hit game including the cycle last week. Highlights. He has two singles, two doubles, a triple and a home run. How’s that for a good game?

Do you realize the Pirates are 0.600 and are a game out of first? Crazy. Can it last? We can—and should—hope.

The new Yankee stadium has overpriced seats and the four games in there are already empty seats.

WHY NOT WASH YOUR HANDS?

Protect the water you swim in and the health of those you swim with. Keep poop out of the pool by washing your hands.

Is that necessary? Was their a rash of problems with feces in the water?

I’m just remembering going to a Pirates game at the old Three Rivers Stadium with a friend of mine, Josh L. I think this was in 8th grade. I think I’d won tickets from somewhere and they were good, 10 or 15 rows up along the first base side. Up until that point they were the best seats I’d sat in.

We got there early and the players were still out doing warm-ups. One Pirate came up to the wall and started signing autographs. We rushed down; we wanted his autograph! While he was signing my program, I asked him a question.

“Do you like playing baseball?”

“Yeah, I do. Do you?”

“Yeah!” I lied. I didn’t play baseball anymore.

Afterward, we tried to figure out from the scratch of lines on the program who this player was. There was definitely an ‘X’ in there. I’m still not sure who he was.

I have very little interest in basketball, but I found this article about Shane Battier (by Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball) long but fascinating. Battier doesn’t have good stats, in the traditional sense, but makes his team better when he plays. It makes me want to take an interest in basketball and start running some stats about it.

On the topic of stats, Nate Silver (of Baseball Prospectus, FiveThirtyEight.org) predicts the Oscars using stats. Interesting!

And, on the topic of Michael Lewis, his book The Blind Side, a book about football’s left tackle, was preceded by a NY Times Magazine article, Ballad of Big Mike. It’s more of a narrative than a stats-filled article, but it’s still pretty interesting.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

One for the polydactylic hand’s extra finger!!

People who know me may be wondering why I haven’t posted much about the Steelers, given that they’re in the big game.

Don’t worry: I’m excited plenty. I’m wearing my 86 jersey right now. I find it almost cruel that they’re making me wait two weeks between the AFC Championship and the Super Bowl.

In a related topic, Scott referred me to an interesting NY Times slideshow of alternate Superbowl 43 logos. I think I like two retro designs, this one and the one below, the best.

I’m not an activist. I have opinions about things, sometimes even strong ones, and I support some charities and volunteer time (though I suppose music DJing is activism in a certain light), but I guess I’m not programmed to be the type to be moved to work in an activist manner.

So it’s a little weird that today I joined an activist group, the San Francisco Bike Coalition. They’re very vocal in local planning, organization and transportation decisions. That’s fine, but given that I spend a non-zero amount of my time on a bike in this city, I appreciate that they make my life (and those of other cyclists) easier (e.g. free bike valet at events, working for more bike storage on public transportation) and safer (both by awareness and getting bike paths and lanes put in).

With the Steelers playing the Cardinals in the Superbowl, let us remember that they were, for a season, the same team.

(Let us forget, though, that they were horrible.)

View Larger Map

I did my first long bike ride in a while yesterday and certainly my first new route in a long time. It mostly hugged the water around the bay and coast of San Francisco. It was based on the SF Chronicle’s “Outer Limits” ride. It ended up being about 27 miles.

It was a gorgeous day yesterday. Warm, but not hot, clear, even out by Ocean Beach, and there were some gorgeous views throughout. I also went through a number of parts of San Francisco that I’ve never seen before: the Presidio, Seacliff, Land’s End, Lake Merced and parts of the Marina.

I also missed some turns, went the wrong way and blew a tire (while riding without a spare for the first time I can remember) and so I almost got stuck out on the Great Highway (among all those ghosts). It’ll be better next time.

I spent 48ish hours in Pittsburgh a little after Christmas. It was my first trip there in two years. I’ve already posted a couple from the trip, but here’s a bit more.

I love Pittsburgh. I’ve lived in something like nine places at this point, but the longest tenure and most formative years were spent in Western Pennsylvania. I didn’t really didn’t think much of it while I lived there, but in summers of college and afterward on visits, I realized how much I liked it. Let’s say that everyone I know who didn’t grow up there thinks I talk too much about Pittsburgh for their liking.

When Pittsburghers say “Pittsburgh” to non-natives, they often mean Western Pennsylvania. Culturally, linguistically and in landscape it is a region that is pretty unique region. And driving to Pittsburgh from Southeastern Virginia, I could tell when Western PA was getting near–Cumberland, MD seemed very familiar. A shrinking town in a hill with similar architecture. And maybe it’s selective memory mixed with nostalgia talking, but I think if you lean your head against a car window and look out, through the trees and at the sky, you can tell just from that when you hit Western Pennsylvania.

Pittsburgh surprises me every time I go back, both by changing and by staying the same. I didn’t expect there to be cyclists on the road or to have the same experience at a number of places that I had 8 or 10 years ago. Coming from a place where bars and restaurants and people turn over every few years, it’s odd to be in a place where something is still pretty new if it was built five years ago and many people have spent their whole lives in the region.

One of my favorite traditions is late night pizza at Mineo’s. It’s cheap and good and the company is unbeatable.

A newish place to me is Pamela’s Diner. They have great food at reasonable prices, compared to what I’m used to. I’d been introduced to the original (in the Strip) a few years ago by a friend from out this way who’d moved to Pittsburgh. It’s still good.

I’d been to Jerry’s and to Paul’s CD but I’d never been to Dave’s Music Mine. I don’t know how that hadn’t happened before, but it’s a pretty cool place. It’s got a good used selection and their soul records are pretty good.

I had a couple pinball aficionado friends that lived in Pittsburgh for a bit. One introduced me to pinball at the Beehive. I liked the Spiderman one. It had plenty of action but it was still pretty straight forward.

I love walking around the South Side. There are such great buildings. Also, there’s a sweet Salvation Army Thrift Store. I bought a suit for New Year’s Eve for $6.50.

I went back to the Church Brewworks for the first time since 2000ish. It was still good and, hey, possibly even better now that I can/ like to drink beer.

I went to Gooski’s for the first time. We didn’t spend a lot of time there, but I can imagine spending a lot of time at a place that’s halfway between its hard scrabble Polish neighborhood and the hip and alternative side of the clientele. Next time I’ll have to have the pierogies.

Primantis is as good as I remember it, but I’m glad I have Giordano Brothers the rest of the year for my Pittsburgh-style sandwich cravings.

I rode the incline, had cheap draft beer at a dive bar, and watched a football game.

Oh and did I mention I got to have buckeyes for the first time in a while? They’re a Christmas tradition for me and the region for whatever reason.

Pittsburgh always seems to tease me when I’m leaving, as if to say, look, Pittsburgh can have enticing weather sometimes.

Finally, all my friends now seem to have GPSs in their car. These are pretty funny in Pittsburgh, with its convoluted roads, one way streets and difficult geography because the driver inevitably says/ yells: “Why does it want me to go that way?? No, no, no, this other way is much faster.”

Tied 0-0.

Update: Final 31-0.

That’s the NFL distribution match for this Sunday’s late (4:15pm EST) FOX game (courtesy of the506.com). Blue is Seattle @ San Francisco and red is NY Giants @ Pittsburgh.

Regardless of other affiliations, I think we can all safely say that we all want to be in red states for this one.

from maps.google.com

A couple weeks ago Saturday my dad and I did the Alcatraz swim. It was the second time for me.

the swimmers at the orientation

My elbow’s been hurting for weeks so besides some kicking in the pool I hadn’t swam since the end of August. My elbow hurts a bit more now. Otherwise, the swim went decently. I sighted better and picked a better route (important because of the currents) than last time. I came in 2 minutes faster than last time.

Yeah, my pop beat me by 13.something minutes. 55:01 for me and 41:15 for him. He’s still speedy.

It was really cold, but you only notice for the first few minutes. Last time I swam Alcatraz I had quite a bit more–let’s say–insulation. But it was warmer (63 vs varied reports of 57 to 60). The currents were present but not too hard to handle. I swam a conservative route so I ended up west of the opening of aquatic park, despite a west-to-east current, but only maybe 200 yards upstream, which is far better than ending up 100yards down current, for instance (which I did last time).

my pop, wet-suit clad

swimmers walking toward the boat

mom and dad enroute the boat

mom and dad passing fisherman’s wharf

Here’s some stuff I found interesting in the last while or thoughts I’ve had, largely without comment.

NY Times spends 36 hours in my neighborhood (photos)–here’s the article. Not entirely unrepresentative.

I think there’s some reasons to be hopeful about what’s going on in Zimbabwe, but like pretty much everyone, I’m going to see what actually comes of it.

Here’s another NY Times piece about Palin as a stepping point to different ideas of the American West (NYtimes login required; bugmenot helps).

I’ve stopped buying Cavendish bananas, for now at least. There are other cultivars available around here.

NY Times Magazine had a piece on Bush’s last stretch and his sometimes contentious relationship with McCain.

There’s an project to find the first black African cyclists that will compete in the Tour de France.

I watched a video of two suited guys longboarding down Berkeley Hills. It’s about twice as long as it needs to be, but it’s pretty spectacular. Make sure you see the turn around 3:26-3:30.

Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo.

72% of Americans apparently feel that it is important for the president to have strong religious beliefs.

Biden and other Catholic politicians have been refused communion (or its been strongly suggested they don’t present themselves for communion) regarding their abortion stance. Have their been similar suggestions or outcries for Biden (or other politicians) because of their disagreement with Catholic Church’s stance death penalty? I haven’t heard any. Maybe it’s just that evangelicals make up a louder voting block and there’s no unified position there on the death penalty.

I find adultery appalling–once I very nearly threw up when I saw a friend kiss a girl that wasn’t his girlfriend–but it’s legal and don’t think it should be illegal. I’d never thought of it (and moreso its implications) that way before.

Pittsburgh-style sandwiches, #1: It was approximately birthday lunch time at work, so for Friday I chose one of my favorites: Giordano Brothers in North Beach (previously; previously). Their Primanti’s-style sandwiches always warm my heart [1] and grow my belly. Very delicious stuff and hits the line of nostalgia and delicious food just right. Outcome: I was a winner, 1-0.

Pirates at Giants: the Pirates were in town so I saw them at AT&T park. Zack Duke who has been good in the past but was 5-13, ~5.1 ERA before the game. He seemed to regain some of his past skill for this game, pitching a complete game shut out and getting out of a couple really tricky jams (like basses loaded, no outs). Outcome Pirates 7-0.

Texans at Steelers: For the season opener, Dug and I went to Shanghai Kelly’s again. It’s my favorite Steelers bar. What a bunch of crazy people, cheering, yelling and drinking as early as 9:30am on a Sunday. And coming back, there were some of the same people as last year and the year before, so I recognized them. I’ll acknowledge that my Steelers fandom is among the most ridiculous things I regularly participate in and I’m fine with that. Outcome: Steelers 38-17.

Pittsburgh-style sandwiches, #2 Near the end of the game Dug was lobbying for a Giordano Bros sandwich–he hadn’t been on Friday–and I acquiesced. After all, who’s to stop a man from having a sandwich with slaw and fries on it? It was delicious again.

[1] Well, by “warm”, I mean clog.

One month from today, my dad and I will swim from Alcatraz to Aquatic Park, San Francisco. I’m not quite as ready as I want to be, but I’m feeling pretty okay about it.

Because I’m a dreamer and after writing this (most of it accomplished in one day, without pain) I’m a little inspired to try the San Francisco Triathlon at Treasure Island in the sprint distance. As Saturday proved, I could probably do the cycling and swimming now. The running I may never be able to do, however, due to lingering knee-bone injuries. Maybe I should just plan on walking it. Or maybe I should just not do it.

0.75 mile swimming, 13 miles biking, 4.5 miles walking.

Football: A friend got tickets to the 49ers v Packers preseason game last night. I’ve never been to an NFL game (and I rarely even watch NFL games on TV) that didn’t involve the Steelers, but this was still pretty fun.

Candlestick is an old relic of a stadium, but it’s got some charm to it, even if the winds are pretty chilly. The new Packers guy didn’t look great. The 49ers didn’t look amazing, but they were infinitely better than the Packers and won the game easily.

Also, there was a funny guy next to us. He and one other person tried to start the wave. It failed.

track: The men’s 100m dash was last night. Usain Bolt destroyed. He was so fast that with 20m left he was already showboating, his arms out and then pounding his chest. He was decelerating before the finish line and still easily broke the world record and won gold. It sort of reminds me of that Manny home run when he just admired his own brilliance instead of running. I’d like to see what he can do when he actually runs the race through.

swimming: You know what Phelps has done by this point. I’m pretty inspired and impressed. Incidentally, during the 3rd quarter of the above game, they announced that Phelps had won his 8th gold and everyone applauded.

I also realized that no Olympians look like normal people. Marathoners are stick thin and lack body fat entirely. Sprinters have quads that are bigger than my waist. Swimmers are triangles on top of smallish legs. Pistol or archery are probably the closest to normal people.

I’ve been watching a lot of the Olympics swimming. I like swimming and there are a number of compelling stories in there, including Phelps but also just the fact that world records are being smashed by everyone.

(Incidentally, if you haven’t watch the whole men’s 4×100 video it’s much better than just the highlights.)

One would think that the most efficient stroke would be the most symmetric, but particularly in the short distance freestyle these people (who obviously know what they’re doing) have very asymmetric strokes. They are much slower on their breathing side. I find that interesting.

I don’t know how to do this at all in one post. I spent the last 12 days in Boston, NYC and DC.

The best part was seeing people I don’t get to see very much. Everything else places after that.

Tourism and whatnot:

• New York Transportation Museum is awesome. It’s in a 1930s subway station. On the tracks are 20 or so vintage subway cars from across the history of the New York subway. It’s pretty great.
• Brooklyn Museum is pretty good. A decent collection but definitely a second tier museum
• Coney Island is a lot of fun. The Cyclone’s first drop is heart-stopping and the sliding cars on the Wonder Wheel are pretty amazing.
• Baltimore Orioles vs. Texas Rangers. We had good tickets (3rd row of the bleachers). It was a good game and Camden Yards is a pretty great ballpark.

Music and Film:

• My friend played backup as part of My Brother the Welder’s first show ever. It was a good time. Good tunes and impressively precise for a first show ever.
• Lars and the Real Girl is an amazing movie. Touching and hilarious and awkward all at once. I really liked it.
• American Teen is a documentary following 5 people (and a handful of their friends) over a year at a midwestern high school. I found this very compelling and I was totally engrossed in each person’s stories. It also serves as a lesson in parenting–many of the parents in the movie just say horrible things.
• Shaun of the Dead. I managed to see this as part of an afternoon of TV. It was good, but I think I liked Hot Fuzz better.
• At my friend’s mostly-traditional Indian wedding, there was a really good dhol drummer providing a beat for dancing and the procession. It makes me want to learn yet another Indian double barrel drum.
• Other Music is a good small record store. I liked their selection and the people working there seemed pretty knowledgeable.

Food:
I ate so much food. Where to start:

• Hallo Berlin is still really good for sausage and fine beer.
• Patsy’s Pizza might have drugs in the slices they’re so good.
• Horace and Dickie’s is a fish and chips/ chicken shack that serves ridiculous portions for next to nothing around the corner from the Red and the Black (see below). I liked my crab cake sandwich ($4.80!) and their sweet potato pie was delicious.
• Three brunches in two days: because vacation is for overeating.

Pure ridiculousness:

• At a sports bar in DC on Sunday night, two guys were watching the PGA Chamionship. They were more into the sport than anyone I’ve ever seen. Our dinner was oft-interrupted by cheers or jeers. One of my favorite moments was near the end of the event: “FUCK! FUCK YOU, SERGIO!”
• On the 6 line in NYC, a 30-something black woman got on at one stop and proceeded to preach Jesus (in a pretty compelling and rousing style) for one stop. Then she sat down and read a book.
• While my friend and his girlfriend were disagreeing about something, I asked them if they were fighting. They responded that if they were fighting they would be yelling into each other’s mouths. They then proceeded to demonstrate: they opened their mouths wide, locked them together and proceeded to scream. I fell off my chair laughing.

Okay. That was the trip. Or some of it, at least.

If you haven’t seen the result, it’s pretty spectacular.

You can watch the video highlights here.

I only got a few things (out of many) done on my todo list today, but it did end up being a pretty good day:

• Swam in Aquatic Park
• Bought some walking-around bike shoes
• Went to a studio and hung out while a local band recorded
• grill a tuna steak and fried a plantain for dinner

I also just put away my laundry, so I only have about ten things to do tomorrow.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Steelers may change or restructure their management. The Steelers website confirms some talk of restructuring, but nothing about an outside buyer.

Steelers Chairman Dan Rooney, the eldest of the brothers, wants to consolidate his control through a 10-year plan to buy out most of their shares, but a well-funded prospective buyer has emerged after some of Mr. Rooney’s brothers and their children raised questions about his offer.

Stanley Druckenmiller, billionaire chairman of Pittsburgh’s Duquesne Capital Management, has expressed interest in acquiring the Steelers, people briefed on the negotiations said.

This isn’t something I ever thought I’d see. Hopefully it’ll work out for the best.

I’m going to my first (regular season Steelers game in Pittsburgh) on December 28. Woooo.

I’ve been following the hockey playoffs and I’ve been pretty happy with how the Pens were doing, but I haven’t be particularly engaged by the proceedings. Well, until tonight. Tonight I got a lot of cardiovascular exercise just sitting around and it was an exciting one.

The Pens were ahead two goals only to fall behind one well into the third period. They pulled their goalie and tied it up with 34 seconds left!

Then it’s sudden death overtime. They played pretty poorly but the 23 year old goalie for the Pens was playing immaculately. It was amazing what this guy was stopping. He’s a Jedi.

Second overtime and the pens played better but it still ended tied. Everyone’s exhausted at this point. Players were being knocked over and then having a hard time just standing up again.

The game went into the third overtime and both teams are just playing all out with anything they have left. The game started almost five hours before. Finally there’s a power play for the Pens and the guy who’s injured and hasn’t played since the third period comes back out. A guy who called it–who pointed at himself and said he’d get a goal earlier in overtime–scores the goal to end the game.

Oh benny what an exciting game. Unbelievable.

It’s Bike to Work Day and it’s going to be a hot one. I’m drenched.

Also, I think they forgot a very important aspect of this day: biking from work.

Here’s an interesting article in the NY Times about the juxtaposition of ridiculous way the Red Sox take money from their fans and the pureness of Fenway. Pretty interesting.

Here is a list of the top 50 sketches ever. There are some funny ones on there.

Merlin Mann has a new weblog to add to the 50 other web presences he has. There’s some funny stuff on there.

The A’s are offering All You Can Eat Seating. $35 for a game and you get all the hot dogs, ice cream, nachos, popcorn, peanuts and soda you want (though only 2 items + soda per trip through the line).

Jesse, do you see this??

It’s a sad day. Every Pittsburgher knows exactly what Myron Cope meant to the city and to the Steelers.

Number of days: 112

Number of days or parts thereof spent traveling: 47 (3 to/ from, 7 intra-Taiwan (3 Kaohsiung, 2 Taroko, 2 Kinmen), 37 intra-Asia (7 Indonesia, 5 Thailand; 15 Hong Kong, Macau, China; 10 Japan)

Number of countries visited (since moving): 6 (Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Japan, U.S.) + 2 special administrative regions with separate border controls (Hong Kong, Macau)

Number of countries visited (year to date): 8 (above + South Africa, Swaziland) + 2 S.A.R.s

Number of flights (since moving): 14 (SFO-> TPE-> CKG-> DPS-> CKG-> TPE-> BKK-> TPE-> HKG-> TPE-> NRT-> TPE, TSA-> KNH-> TSA, TPE-> SFO)

Number of flights (2007): 31 (SFO-> CVG-> IAD-> JNB, DUR-> CPT-> JNB-> JFK, BOS-> JFK-> SFO-> BOS-> DFW-> SFO-> HNL-> LIH-> HNL-> SFO + above + SFO-> CLT-> DCA)

Miles flown (since moving): 27,406 miles (44,106 km)

Miles flown (2007): 63,569 miles (102,304 km)

Number of high speed train journeys: 4 (Taipei->Kaohsiung->Taipei, Tokyo->Kyoto->Tokyo)

Number of train journeys: 6 (above + Taipei->Hualien->Taipei)

Approximate number of km ridden on scooters: 225

Best hotel (overall): Kamandalu Resort, Ubud, Bali. A connection to the cousin of the owner opened the door for staying in this swanky place. Gorgeous surroundings and really nice rooms. Private verandas looking over rice paddies. The service was also excellent. We went out riding bikes around the rice paddies one day and came back sweating. Pretty soon after we entered the lobby we had cool moist towels to wipe our faces with. Perhaps the only nicer place I’ve stayed is the ridiculous Schlosshotel Veir Jahrezeiten (Four Seasons Palace Hotel) in Berlin. (They had a Ferrari convention while we were there and it didn’t seem out of place.)

Best hotel (value): Hirano Guesthouse, Kyoto. 3500 yen a night in Kyoto is very cheap and besides a nice place to stay, the owner was very friendly, helpful and accommodating, making us tea when we came home for a break in the afternoons. She also made us breakfast every morning, let us use her bicycles and computer/ internet. Oh and there was a candy bowl and after we ate an unreasonable amount of it, she didn’t complain, she just refilled it.

Number of American chain stores patronized (not counting convenience stores, exact): 3 (2 Subways-Taipei, 1 Denny’s-Kyoto)

Number of American chain stores patronized (counting convenience stores[1], approximate): 22.2 (the above + Circle K’s in Taiwan, Bali, Thailand, ampm’s in Japan, plus 0.2 for a Mister Donut in Japan[2])

Oddest food obsession: Harbo’s Happy Cola gummy candies

Most common food eaten: rice (~ >1.5 servings a day)

Most common food product eaten: Kinder Chocolate (~ 0.6 a day)

Most “exotic” foods eaten: crickets, silk worms, frog

Number of Dr. Peppers consumed: 2 (one in Japan, one in Thailand)

Foods most missed: good bread, good cheese, Dr. Pepper, good beef, shelled shrimp, deboned fish.

Number of Hello Kitty products seen: in the thousands

Number of Hello Kitty products purchased: 1 (alarm clock, convenience store, Japan)

America: so quiet, so dark, so many English speakers, so many whites/ latinos/as, blacks. big supermarkets. low population density.

Least useful piece of clothing: dress shirt (the greenish one, never worn, given away at the end)

Most useful piece of clothing: shoes (the brown Adidas, nearly daily)

Most useful piece of clothing out of its original purpose (and new use): board shorts-style swimsuit (exercise shorts)

Piece of clothing I most immediately realized I’d forgotten: navy blue cotton boxers (that I use as warm weather pajama bottoms)

Number of books read: 5.75 (2nd 0.5 of Slow Man by Coeztee, Love is a Mixtape by Sheffield, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: a Story of the Hip Hop Generation by Chang, Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Klosterman, Born on a Blue Day By Tammet, You Don’t Love Me Yet by Lethem, first 0.25 of About a Boy by Hornsby)

Number of concerts attended: 3 (Emily the Band @ Underworld, Apples in Stereo @ the Wall, Sugar Plum Ferry @ the Wall)

Number of CDs purchased: 19 (5 in Hong Kong (Monitor), 5 @ WWR (1st trip), 5 @ WWR (2nd trip), 2 @ IMPO, 1 @ FINAC, 1 @ Roses(?))

Number of pieces of mail received: 6 (3 packages of promo CD(s); 1 each from Ian, Lauren, Gumbeaux)

[1] This is tricky because things are confusing. 7-11 is Japanese for instance.

[2] Mr. Donut is an American brand but the Asian stores are run by Duskin Co out of Japan under a licensing agreement.

the Polamalu throwback jersey

or

the Hines Ward throwback jersey?

Polamalu is probably the player I’m most impressed with in terms of playing ability–he plays like a wild man–but I like the longevity and single-teamedness (10 years on the Steelers, stopped a contract stand-still by telling his agent that he wanted to retire with the Steelers) and constant smile of Ward.

life is so hard!

I will talk about things that are Japan-related and things that are not Japan related. I had dreams of more well organized posts with photos and everything, but I’ll post now with possibly expanding on some of these topics later.

My ear is feeling (ie hearing) a bit better. I’ve started listening to ear buds again in limited (very quiet) contexts. First song back: “King of Pain”.

The rest of the Japan trip was pretty good.

I mean, it was great. It’s a crazy place. One coworker said something like it’s a very odd combination of a repressed/ conservative culture and a wild/ unashamed culture. Very strange.

Some of the stranger places included the hot bath that had a mildly electrified pool, the sushi place that required you to eat at least 7 dishes (of 2 pieces a piece) of mostly sushimi in less than 20 minutes, the Diago-ji temple that had a painting that I thought was a garden; either that, or it had a garden that was completely unreal in how beautiful and archetypal it was. They were also chanting in the part of the temple that’s at the top of the hill when we got there and I could hear it from maybe half a mile off. A strange beacon.

I’m not missing Thanksgiving. I mean, I’m not attending Thanksgiving and thus am missing it but Thanksgiving is such a non-event here that the only time I even think about it is when I talk to people in America. Also, I knew from May that I wouldn’t be doing Thanksgiving this year. I love Thanksgiving, but I’m prepared.

(Did you miss the Moon Festival this year? I didn’t; I participated.)

On the other hand, the prevalence of Christmas decorations, music and colder weather in Japan made it feel like mid-December, much close to when I would be leaving for the U.S. That caused many more pangs of homesickness.

During bouts of longing for America, it seems that any culture representing that will do, possibly with even the less sophisticated being better. No, I’m not talking about fast food; I’m talking about movies. Last night, I watched Must Love Dogs without shame; tonight may be 40 Days and 40 Nights. In Germany, I remember watching (possibly multiple) Freddie Prinze Jr movies. It’s crap.

I finished Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: a Story of the Hip Hop Generation last week. I’m not sure, but I think it’s racist. The book draws some distinction in various situations between pro-black and anti-white, but I think this book was possibly anti-white. For instance, the nomenclature was: Black, Latino, Asian, Korean (etc etc) and white.

Now I’m on to Chuck Klosterman’s Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, which is a book of Klosterman’s ridiculous pronouncements about culture, on everything from internet pornography to NBA basketball to Billy Joel. It’s entertaining, but I think I prefer his travel narrative, Killing Yourself to Live.

Sufjan’s having a contest in which you can win rights to one if his songs if you write the best original christmas song (which he then gets the rights to). I am thinking of something along the lines of a response song to a classic 1963 Christmas song. We’ll see if I can churn something out–I need to figure out how to do the instrumentation on this–maybe FruityLoops or something. My guitar through a built-in mic isn’t going to cut it.

The Steelers loss today was almost funny. It’s almost expected, the way the Steelers manage to botch the “easy” games. None of their three losses is even marginally excusable and if some columnist says otherwise, question his ability to analyze their games. On the other hand, they’ve been great in pretty much the rest of their games.

There is a baby crying down the hall. I hope this doesn’t continue. I don’t like crying babies.

On strange candies and confectionaries. Good: the two different Chocolate Pocky’s and Men’s Pocky, those weird mushroom-shaped chocolates that are sort of like Pocky, some Mentos (Fuji Apple, particularly and the Berry Blast and Sour mixes), mint Kit Kats, all Kinder chocolates. Interesting, but not great: Green Tea Meltykiss, those white + green tea chocolates, that incompressible Mentos that might have been cherry and also the strawberry and green apple ones, the mini-hamburger chocolates. Bad: apple Kit Kats.

I was going to go to the “Chinese Taipei” vs Italy game in the Baseball World Cup today with a coworker but heavy rains all day forced the delay until November 12, which is when I’ll be in Japan. Doh!

I was looking forward to it because my coworkers had been telling be some stories about how baseball games in Taiwan are. Oh well.

Steelers beat the Ravens 38-7.

Roethlisberg had 5 touch downs…in the first half and ended up 13/16 for 209 yards, 5 TDs and no interceptions. That’s gotta do a lot for your quarterback rating…

Harrison seemed perhaps more impressive: 3.5 sacks, 2 force fumbles and 1 interception. Basically the defense was awesome overall–104 net yards was all they allowed. That’s pretty much amazing.

The running game had a hard time, it seems. Willie had a hard time (23 carries for 42 yards–this must be the first time in a long time that the team’s won without Willie getting a 100 yard game, right?), so they put in the bigger Najeh (11 caries for 34 yards) and also big Carey Davis (3 for 14 yards). Almost 100 yards in total.

Also not great was Ben getting injured. I don’t quite know what the deal is other than he came back and then left the game again, but hopefully he’s not injured longer-term.

Go Stillers. Hopefully they can figure out how to run against hard defenses and Ben’s okay.

They are showing two people playing go on TV. The lighting is dramatic, as is the intro music. It is…not exciting.

There are bars here in Kaohsiung that are all you can drink for a fixed price on weekends. I have not tried this.

The new least safest thing: a guy riding on a scooter. He’s using two hand and one foot. With the other foot he’s…pushing his girlfriend’s bicycle using the back peg. They’re both going about 30 mph. She’s not wearing a helmet.

Wulai. (”ooh-lai”) I spent yesterday in Wulai, which is known for their hot springs and one of the highest water falls in Taiwan. The hot springs were excruciatingly hot. If I hadn’t seen other people in there, I would have doubted that a human could sit in there. I got in and it was nice. But the advice of a fellow bather provied useful: “don’t move”. I think it worked similar to the recommended advice for falling into cold water: if you don’t move the water directly around the body get closer to the temperature of the body and acts as a protective barrier.

I walked to the waterfalls, about 1.5km. There’s a miniature railroad along this route. The cars are about 10 feet long and the tracks are maybe 2 feet apart. It’s really cute and I wanted to ride it but I decided that I’d do so on the way back, only to find I’m misread the hours and I’d missed it! Disaster. I really like riding odd rail and cable transportation[1], especially funiculars (being a son of Pittsburgh [2]) but others as well.

The falls were nice. Nothing like Victoria Falls or Niagara, but something nice to look at for a few minutes. From there I started walking toward Doll Valley, which the guidebook listed as about an hour away. As I walked away from Wulai, the scenery became lusher in the valley I was walking in and the cars and whatnot became sparser. Eventually I turned onto a foot path and saw a few people and a number of smaller waterfalls. I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to get back by sunset if I went to Doll Valley which I deemed a Bad Thing (TM) so I turned back but the hike was nice.

Sometimes it’s good for the head as well as the body, you know?

Wedding. Today I went to a wedding. Correction, I didn’t go to the wedding, which was held in the family’s home and wasn’t attended by many; I went to the wedding “party” (as they called it) or “reception” (as the Americans might call it). It was pretty interesting. For instance, the couple entered along with lasers and fog machines. The bride changed dresses twice (three dresses total) and the couple would reenter to much fanfare each time. As I understand is the case with many Asian cultures, the wedding presents were actually envelopes of cash. The food was largely really good: about 20 dishes (in 7 or so courses). It was way too much food, but I gave it my best effort.

This is a wedding, not a night club?

No one was drinking the bottle of scotch set aside for my table so I was given it to take home. Now it’s just time to see if I still don’t like scotch and if so see if I can change that.

Lugo’s catch (available here). Perfect. Perfectly timed in both execution and in shutting down a rally by the Rockies.

The Red Sox are highly paid but I’d like to note that they’re getting a lot out of players that aren’t very highly paid at all: Papelbon, Pedroia, Ellsbury, and Youkilis are all low paid players.

It made me really happy that Dice-K that got a two run single.

Couch. After two months, I may have found the only marginally comfortable position on my couch. That is a remarkably uncomfortable couch for sitting, lounging or anything else. Despite being aware of the recommendations I am using my bed to sit and lounge with my laptop or book when I get tired of the chair.

Arnold. They seriously show my governor’s movies all the time here. All…the…time. By the way, TV programmers: they’re mostly not very good, those movies.

[1] The best yet is Wuppertal’s Schwebebahn. If you’re anywhere near Wuppertal, it’s worth a trip just to ride that.

[2] at one point I dated a daugther of the American Revolution. she was really into that.

Springboks win. World champions! Vrystaat!

Update: This is likely better news for Southern Africa, though Zim is still screwed as far as anyone can tell.

Their first lost of the post-season was the first game of the post-season I was able to watch in its entirety. They lost in 11 innings. It was a good game for most of it. Hopefully they’ll pick it up next game.

I left my Boston Red Sox “authentic” cap in Hong Kong somewhere. I looked but couldn’t find it. I bought that when the Sox were 4 outs from being out of the post-season in 2004. I’m a little sad because:
a) they don’t make those hats like that any more:
i) they’re not wool (I believe)
ii) they have a black, rather than grey, underbill.
b) BoSox hats in particular are really hard to break in. It’s very obvious who has a new hat and whose has been worn for a while by how bright the blue is.

If anyone has a line on the last year’s version of the fitted cap in 7 1/4 or 7 3/8 (probably the former, that’s what this hat was, though it was tight till I broke it in), I’m good for it. Remember: wool, grey underbill, “authentic”.

It’s ridiculous to be sad about losing a hat. I acknowledge that.

I’m back in Hong Kong. I was here for a day a week ago and a week 10 years ago. I’ve seen a lot of the “sights”, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t rush around and try to see them all again. The thing is, I’m pretty tired. Physically, because I haven’t quite been sleeping enough and because I’m a bit under the whether, but also socially and mentally. The work I was doing in China was a lot of hours and mentally and socially draining. So I may not do all the sights here. I think I’ll walk around a carless island off the west side of the main island. I may spend half a day at a beach. I may even go to a movie or Hong Kong Disneyland.

I spent half a day rushing around Macau today. Wikipedia will tell you more about it, I’m sure, but it’s somewhat accurate to describe it as a Portugese (rather than British) Hong Kong + the Las Vegas of South East Asia. I went to, I believe, the world’s largest casino (the Venetian Macau). I walked around and saw a bunch of cathedrals and churches and ruins and whatnot. Along the way, I saw a lot of beautiful mediteranean-style architecture.

It’s a pretty cool city. Very charming. I have a thing for Catholic cities, though (Boston, Pittsburgh). The signs were great. Things like Supermercado de Hong Koi and then a bunch of Chinese characters.

The place I’m staying in Hong Kong is very sparse. The room is small and the bathroom is just silly. Imagine a small toilet-only bathroom. Then somehow add in a sink and a shower. I’m not sure how that’s going to work. But it does have a private shower and A/C and sheets and towels. And by Hong Kong standards, it’s cheap–let’s just say that for five nights it’ll be about the price one could easily pay for one night many places in HK.

The Steelers are doing well. That makes me happy. I’m a little confused, though. Cowher was a good coach. We didn’t pick up many players in the off season and yet we seemed pretty horrible last year and good this year. Maybe it’s the energy from the new coach or maybe Roethlisberg’s just feeling more confident.

The Red Sox swept the Angels. That was cool. I was hoping for a sweep in all 4 division series, but the Yankees foiled that, but only put it off a game. The Red Sox-Indians series should be interesting.

Pork chop and rice for dinner tonight at this diner. I figured it’d probably be good because it was packed with locals and there wasn’t anyone out front shilling for customers (as is fairly common here). Initially it was so full they sat me at a small 2 person table with an old woman who continued to talk on her cell phone. That was pretty awkward for me. The pork and rice seemed very familiar to me, something I saw as a revelation. It was nice and hopefully it’ll sit well with my stomach/ body.

None of us have booked tickets but it looks like a group of 2-4 teps, including myself, are going to japan the second week of November. I’m very excited. Should be legendary.

Okay, that’s enough for now. I’ll blog more if I can find a wireless network–currently I’m in the reception area and they’re staring at me.

Brace yourself, lest its sweetness blind you.

Sure it’s rusted, the kickstand won’t stay up when I’m riding, the seat doesn’t go high enough and the seat actually leaves part of itself on my pants when I get off of it, but it’s a pretty smooth ride and cost me a total of about $22.

Why didn’t anyone tell me that a young Red Sox pitcher pitched a no-hitter in his second major league game. Pretty cool.

The Time 100 (influential people list) is pretty interesting. I spent a lot more time with the Alt Time 100, a list compiled by a panel of “Xzibit, rapper and host of MTV’s Pimp My Ride; Bridget Marquardt, 1/3 of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriend and star of E!’s Girls Next Door; Eddie Sanchez, UFC fighter; Tommy the Clown, krump dancer; Dr. Boogie, hairstylist and contestant on Bravo’s Shear Genius; Jimmy Jimmy Coco, spray tanner; Glenda Borden, party planner”. Here are some excerpts:

10. Hugh Hefner, editor
Everyone thought Hef should make the list. Then I explained that Bridget was one-third going out with him which made the panel very excited. If Bridget was two-thirds going out with Hef, I don’t think the panel could have taken it.

27. Mike Lazrdis, Blackberry founder
Tommy The Clown called him “a real life saver.” You can’t afford to be out of touch for a moment when you’re a krump dancer. That stuff breaks out anywhere, anytime.

45. Bono, singer
All that Africa stuff.

54. Monique, comedian
More good body image stuff. While not at all fat, the panel loves fat people. Though not enough to date them.

56. George Clooney, actor
The panel felt strongly about Darfur. The panel also felt strongly that the most important player in the Darfur crisis is George Clooney. The panel does not equate feeling strongly about something with reading about that something.

60. Magic Johnson, businessman
Xzibit thought that Magic has some secret cure for AIDS he wasn’t sharing and should be left off the list until he divulges his secret. Xzibit has strange thoughts about both medicine and the power of this list.

79. Howie Mandel, TV host
Without him, you’d just be looking at models holding suitcases. You need the Howie visuals to make you long for the suitcase models. It’s the yin-yang concept.

I’m a tree! Bischofia javanica. We’ll forgive the namer for forgetting an ‘f’. From now on you can call me Bishop Wood or Autumn Maple.

The Weekly World News is done and some respectable publications are doing favorable obits.

The toilet in my hotel apartment is crazy. Not as-seen-on-TV-japanese-super-crazy but much crazier than American toilets. It has buttons. Toilets shouldn’t have electronics…

I took the bus to work today. #902. That was an adventure, but it was dirty cheap (50 cents) and was probably as fast as a taxi given that traffic was the limiting factor. Next time I’ll be able to cut out the half an hour of trying to find the right stop/ bus route beforehand.

The buses have signs on them clearly instructing you that no birds are allowed.

ESPN is in Chinese here but there was still a good amount of coverage of the baseball. That’s comforting.

The glasses in the apartment are small. That’s probably good as I’m used to drinking coke out of super quick slurp-sized glasses rather than 8 oz tumblers. Might be good for my figure.

Days of lifting heavy things while moving has left my back in a sore/rry state. Ibuprofen to the rescue.

I’m in Taipei. I live here now. Yeah, that’s weird.

Handy converter for you east coast people: flip the time am/pm and you’ll get my time (later the same day or the next day). West coast is a trickier conversion.

Shoegaze/ slowcore musics are not the ones to listen to while trying to stay awake. gah.

I sort of wanted to go to a taiwanese baseball game but one of my coworkers is telling me no one watches it anymore because of some gambling issues. they watch the yankees now because there’s some taiwanese pitcher on the team. frickin yankees.

went out to lunch with some coworkers today, to the mall food court. such a crazy amount of food there and each place had a display of what each prepared dish would look like. I could have spent two hours at least just taking photos of these dishes.

going to the ATM to get foreign currency out is pretty funny when you don’t know what the exchange rate is. “Hmm, how much is a lot of money? 100? 10,000?” Luckily I guessed about right.

I’m still awake, but barely.

I’m feeling some excitement for the first time since May when the anxiety started.

There aren’t many bar bars around here. Many tea bars. “Taiwan Beer” (the market leader) is okay. I look forward to many more.

Shabu Shabu is an experience. And in the version we got, a lot of food. “What kind of restaurant makes you cook your own food?”

There is this awesome Jackie Chan/ Yow Ming visa commerical on right now. Jackie tries all these sports but gets disqualified in each for his crazy stunts.

A few nights ago: Texas Rangers 30, Baltimore Orioles 3.

Rick Ankiel: phenom pitcher. Great rookie season, but no control and wild pitches in the post-season. Struggles with control and injuries over the next few years. One day up and decides to become an outfielder instead. A few more years and he makes his major league debut in the outfield, hitting a home run in his first game (and a few more in subsequent games).

On Sunday I saw the Pirates and Giants play at ATT Park with dug.

The pitching match up was $126 million Barry Zito (the highest paid pitcher, 2007’s stake is $10 million) vs. $380,000 Tom Gorzelanny. Zito walk the first three batters, gave up a two-run home run and a two-run triple (both to Josh Phelps). Meanwhile, Gorzelanny had his first complete game shut out, helping him earn the National League co-player of the week honors.

It was a fun game to watch and it was the first time I’d sat in the left field bleachers (5th row–nice grab, dug!). All in all a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Both teams then flew to Pittsburgh for a make-up double header on Monday. I’m only mentioning it because there was some craziness with the line-up on the Pirates behalf. Between the two games, here’s some of the odd positions:

• Doumit, normally a backup catcher, playing right field (until he sprained his wrist)
• Castillo, normally a 3rd baseman (or utility infielder), playing right field (once Doumit went out, first game)
• Bautista, normally a 2nd baseman (or utility infielder), playing left field (second game)
• Phelps, normally a 1st baseman, catching

Wow!

I’ve been a bit slow on the updates here. I’m catching up!

Libs and I managed to wait possibly four hours between the two of us on the day the tickets were released (back in February), but we managed to get six tickets for the Red Sox while I was in Boston last week. The final groups was Jesse, Colin, Heather, Lauren (no blog!), Libs and I. Good group.

The game was hilariously lopsided (another recap here). By the end of the 3rd inning the Devil Rays were down 13-2, they were on their 3rd pitcher and the Red Sox had hit a grand slam (Coco Crisp) and a 3 run HR (Lowell).

We could have left at that point, but that would have been no fun. Plus we would have missed Sweet Caroline (you should have heard me singing!).

Afterwards, in what’s becoming a bit of a tradition, we hit up Ankara (”For the Gen X-ers”) for froyo. Brownie and reese’s pieces could possibly be the best combination of add-ins ever.

ESPN does a story (/video) entitled “Death Race” and I sort of want to do it. It’s about the annual tough guy race in the UK. Parts of the race include running through icy water and mud, running through hanging strips of wire, some of which are electrified and bounding over hay bales on fire into icy water.

At long last, we come to the final obstacle, the newly added Viagra Falls. To get there, we wade 30 yards in neck-deep water before climbing up the muddy hill and sliding down a slick tarp into icy water as course marshals use fire hoses to spray us. The hoses and subsequent dunking aren’t the worst part, though. No. After all we’d been through, the added wading to reach the slide just seems cruel.

Cruel and, well, unnecessary.

It’s a pretty well-written story and the video’s good too.

I went for a short bike ride today. It was strange, riding around, hair-in-need-of-a-cut in a wind [1], with tension in my shoulders and a bit of discomfort in the seat. The discomfort was in a way comfortable, familiar. It was good being back on the bike. In the end, my knee only wanted to do a few miles, but I’m hoping it won’t show any ill effects of this exercise later today or tomorrow and that I can ride more in the near future.

[1] I’m a big fan of wearing a helmet, but on this gorgeous Sunday afternoon on a slow ride of a short route of all no-risk right turns on small suburban streets, I didn’t wear one.

I went to quite a game between the A’s and the Red Sox last night. Mark Ellis hit for the cycle. The Red Sox made a comeback in the 9th to tie it and send it to extra innings. David Ortiz almost homered in the 10th and then Chavez hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 11th. Haren pitched really well (whereas Tavarez did not).

Pretty exciting stuff.

Update: Photos here.

I have been swimming a mile at a time these days, approximately 1600m, or for ease, 1600 yards (yes, I know they’re not the same). I count in 50 m/ yard increments, 1 length if the pool is set up in the 50m direction, 1 lap if it’s set up in the 25 yard direction, so that ends up being 32 increments.

I often get distracted by the thoughts of the day—one of the best parts of swimming is the time to think—and some days, the hardest part of the swim is keeping track where I am. (Other days, it’s pacing, speed or endurance.)

The three points (or ranges) where I often lose track of where I am:

• 3-6
• 10-13
• 18-21

I lived in Germany during the summer of 2002 and I traveled nearly every weekend. I arrived in Germany May 28 and left August 23. Sometimes I use this blog to put things down that are at the edge of my reach memory-wise, so I can make a record of them. I actually have all of this written down in a notebook, but I can’t find it.

• May 31- June2: Bremen, to visit Colin[1]
• June 7-9: Düsseldorf to visit my Oma[2], Frankfurt to visit Sam Breuning[3]
• June 14-16: nothing
• June 21-23: Solingen, Köln to visit the cousins Füser[4]
• June 28-30: München[5, 7], Bayrischer Alpen[6] for MIT-Germany/ MIT Club of Germany meet up
• July 5-7: Vienne, Strasbourg France for the Vienne Jazz Festival[8]
• July 12-14: Berlin, for LoveParade 2002 and visit with Justus[9]
• July 20-22: Hamburg[10], Lübeck[11] w/ Christian
• July 26-28: Karlsruhe for the “Savage Seven” ultimate frisbee tournament as a part of die Sieben Schwaben[12]
• August 2-4: Romantic/ Clock Road, Rottweil; Stein am Rhein, Switzerland; Rottenburg ob der Tauber w/ Meredith Gerber[13]
• August 9-12: Pittsburgh, USA for Colin and Heather’s wedding. Surprise![14]
• August 16-18: Köln (to see Bugge Wesseltof) and Frankfurt, w/ Sam Breuning[15]

Footnotes:

1. Bremen smells like hops when the wind is the right direction because of Becks. The Schnoor area was neat, with its small and odd houses.
2. My Oma didn’t realize I was related to her for the first hour of my visit; the Alzheimers had started to take its toll. This ended up being the last time I saw her. I regret not having stayed with her for the whole weekend, but at that point I thought I was going to visit again that summer.
3. Sam was a cool British kid also with a German father; he’d been on the Cambridge-MIT exchange. We ended up hanging out a number of weekends that summer. I’ve since lost touch with him.
4. My dad’s cousin (my “Tante”/ “aunt”), her husband and kids (my “cousins”) were all gathered at their palatial family estate in Solingen for a sculpture showing of a local artist set up in their gardens. At one point we all, including the artist, were sitting under some trees eating a snack and they asked me if I liked one of the statues near us. I said, in stilted German, that I did (it was actually one of the few I did). It came out wrong and they made fun. I said “echt!” in vain. At another point this weekend, another cousin-by-marriage of my dad’s who was also visiting announced, after having talked to me for five minutes that I spoke “perfekt Deutsch.” Right…
5. We all met at a Biergarten, all the current students and the MIT Club of Germany members. I was stuck at the Club table for most of the night, which was extremely awkward. At some point I excused myself and snuck over the student table. Seeings as it was social interaction with people I didn’t know well, it was still awkward, but not nearly as much.
6. We went hiking in the Alps and stayed in a rustic ski cabin that one MIT Club member had access to. Sam and I got a ride down with a guy who spoke with a typical German accent except, because he’d spent multiple years as a ski bum in the US, mixed it with ski bum slang and inflection all the time. At the cabin, I learned I was ace at splitting logs with an ax, usually splitting decent sized logs in one swing. During one of our day hikes we stopped at an inn, where a 10 year old kid was drinking a 1 litre “maß” glass of beer.
7. It was the day of the final when we got back to Munich and I had the surreal experience of watching Germany play (and lose) in a World Cup final with 10,000 Germans in a public square where they’d set up screens. Turkey won the consolation match so there was some celebrating. (Note: Turkish is the largest minority in Germany by a factor of 4, at least at the time.)
8. Vienne has a Roman amphitheatre with gorgeous acoustics. Sam knew the mayor of Vienne so we got VIP passes into the events, including into a VIP area the first night where we passed the London Times jazz critic. Vienne was about 450 miles from Stuttgart, a good 7 hours, which we drove non-stop on Friday afternoon, on half a tank of diesel in a pretty amazing VW Passat TDI. We still missed most of the first act. Also, French radio sucks. I bought a CD-tape adapter after this road trip.
9. The LoveParade is a parade along a mile-long route on which 40 heavy duty trucks with world-class DJs and sound systems drive for an entire afternoon. Estimates for my year were 500,000 in attendance. Oh and there were a lot of topless girls there.
10. My (second) cousin Christian lived in Hamburg at the time. He’d stayed with us in America in the early 90s and he was out to repay the favor by showing me a good time. We went out with some friends. On the way there, he’d talked to them and said he was bringing his cousin (”eine Cousine from mir”) with him. We got there and the friend said “this is your hair dresser (Friseur)??” See, they might sound alike on the phone; yes that doesn’t work in English and I don’t care. This was the first night that I drank more than one beer in a night, in fact, probably quadrupling my total beer consumption ever in just that night. The goal was to stay up all night and go to the Fischmarkt when it opened at 6am, but it ended with me falling asleep in a bar at 4:30am, having had multiple beers (mostly Heinikens while watching a crappy, but, let’s be honest, fun American cover band) and a good quantity of vodka. Incidentally, trying to explain complicated concepts in German wasn’t easy, let alone to a group of strangers in a loud bar while intoxicated. And, Malta, I can’t say your name correctly sober either; but you can’t say “squirrel” to save your life, so there.
11. The bells of the main church had fallen and melted from the bombings in WWII. They’d be left as a beautiful and poignant reminder. Lübeck in general is a wonderful small town.
12. “Savage seven” means no subs (the seven you have to start is all you have). Having gotten roped into this at the last minute, I played seven games of no-subs ultimate frisbee in two days. I can still remember the intense pain, mostly in my calves that I felt for the rest of the week. Walking on flat ground and up stairs, my right calf hurt intensely; my left calf hurt similarly walking down stairs. I couldn’t, and didn’t, win. Of course there were 6 flights of stairs between my office and the cafeteria/ train level at work.
13. This was a fun little road trip with another MIT-Germany person; Meredith was in Munich for the summer. We went to some classic historic German places. I also made my only trip to a Switzerland, to the town of Stein am Rhein, which was noted by the “strict” border crossing. “Passports? No, we don’t need to see those. In fact, you don’t even have to come to a full stop. Just roll on through!”
14. After the rehearsal dinner, I had some friends over, got tipsy on Mike’s Hard Lemonades and had to search for the right words to use in English. That I was thinking partly in German was a big step for me and I noted my progress.
15. Bugge Wesseltof had impressed Sam and I with his electro jazz stylings in Vienne. Plus we liked his awesome name, so we drove like maniacs (once again) to get to Köln by show time, only to be disappointed by his collaborative work with a female jazz singer.

I’ve more or less halted training for the triathlon and haven’t done anything serious for the last week and a half. My knee is injured, so I’ve been taking it easy, taking naproxen or ibuprofen, icing it, heating it, etc.

Things I have done in that time: swam twice (1.0 miles, 0.75 miles), aqua-jogged* twice (10 minutes, 20 minutes), bike a small amount (3.3 miles, 4.7 miles, plus practicing track stands for 20 minutes) and walked quite a bit.

It’s starting to feel better, so I’m going to be slowly testing it out: a flat and easy 10-15 mile bike ride tomorrow and if that works, ~1-2 miles on the track (soft surface) on Thursday. Both will be with my new knee brace.

I’m a classic over-doer, but I’ve learned my lesson for this month at least, so, don’t worry, I’m not going to do too much.

*Aqua-jogging is possibly even more boring and stupid than regular jogging. But it’s low-impact.

This week’s triathlon training:

• Running: 6.7 miles
• Cycling: 18 miles
• Swimming: 2 miles
• Bricks: none

I had some knee pain this week. I think I’m going to take it easy, especially on the running for the the first half of the next week. If I try any, it’ll probably be on a softer surface like the track.

Hi. I don’t know if we’ve met. I’m Adrian and I’m crazy.

Last week’s triathlon training.

Saturday: 2.0 miles bicycling -> 0.9 miles swimming -> 17 miles bicycling -> 3.2 miles running

Sunday: 22 miles bicycling (Old la Honda, 2000 ft elevation gain)

Monday: 3.5 miles running

Wednesday: 1.0 miles swimming

Thursday: 3.5 miles running

Totals (and the goals in parenthesis):

• swimming: 1.9 miles (2.0)
• running: 10.2 miles (10-11)
• bicycling: 41 miles (15-22)
• brick: one triathlon (at least one brick)

I don’t know if I can keep this up. The running is starting to become a real problem, like a joint pain problem. I think I’ll try to just keep up this week.
Goals:

• swimming: 1.9 miles
• running: 10.0 miles
• bicycling: 15 miles
• brick: at least one

Off the news wire:

April 21, 2007

Menlo Park, CA – Adrian took the prize by a narrow lead in the first annual Adrian Classic sprint-distance triathlon. Adrian held off competitors to take first place in the first running of this tough race.

The course started at the scenic Stanford pool with a 1600 yard (0.909 miles) swim. Then competitors cycled 17.5 miles around hilly Portola Valley, ending in Menlo Park. They then ran 3.2 miles around Menlo Park.

Adrian took the lead at the beginning and never let up. “I’m just glad I could hold them off,” Adrian said. “I think I had a strong swim leg and I really just held on after that.”

“I have to say, the hardest part was the Gauntlet.” What’s come to be known as the ‘Gauntlet’ is part of the run leg where the competitors have to dodge gypsy-moth caterpillars hanging over the route from trees overhead. “After the Gauntlet, though, I was home free.”

A spectator at the finish line who asked not to be named said about Adrian “He looked like shit.”

I’m training for one of the Alcatraz triathlons. Today and last Thursdays I’ve done biking and running in a row and it has hurt. Today was slightly better than the last, I think.

What I did:

• swimming:
  • goal: 1.5-2.0 miles
  • actual: 2x 1.0 miles = 2.0 miles
• running:
  • goal: 9-10.5 miles
  • actual: 2x 3.5 miles + 1 X 3.0 miles = 10 miles
• biking:
  • goal: at least 15 miles
  • actual: 1x 16.0 miles (+5x 1.65 miles to/ from work) = 16.0 or 23.2 miles, depending what you count
• brick (bike then run):
  • goal: at least one
  • actual: today 16 miles biking then 3 miles running w/ ~ 3 minutes transition time

I bought one of these this week. It was nice to have water on the longer runs, especially when I’m in the sun. It think it’ll also be nice to have if I decide to do something like run to the pool, swim, and then run back. It has a little pocket where I can keep my keys and maybe one of those gel/ goo/ power shot sort of things.

Next week, I should do something like:

• swimming: 2.0 miles
• running: 10-11 miles
• bicycling: 15.0-22.0 miles
• brick: at least one

I don’t want to over do it. I have been starting to ache quite a bit, both muscularly and in joints and tendons and whatnot, so I’m not going to push it much this week.

Apparently, the Nike Airs that Marty wore in Back to the Future II might be release. Honestly, the thought makes me grin.

ESPN Page 2 has a great and extensive story about rabbit chasing/ catching in rural Florida and about how it makes the football players there fearless and fast. When I was young, maybe 7, my parents told me that if I could put salt on a rabbit’s tail, I could catch it. (They figured that if I could get close enough to put salt on a rabbit’s tale, I was close enough to catch it, my mom later told me when I confronted her with this.) So, of course, I spent days chasing rabbits around our yard with a salt shaker. Those things are really fast. I can imagine this would make you fast, especially if you do it in mud.

Both from Mefi.

Last week I sent out my goals for triathlon training for this week (my training weeks go Saturday-Friday for this, for whatever reason).

They were and how I did:

• swimming:
  • goal: 1-1.5 miles
  • actual: 2x 0.75 miles = 1.5 miles
• running:
  • goal: 8.5 miles
  • actual: 2x 3.0 miles + 1 X 2.5-2.6 miles = 8.5 miles
• biking:
  • goal: at least 15 miles
  • actual: 1x 15.0 miles (+4x 1.65 miles to/ from work) = 15.0 or 21.6 miles, depending what you count
• brick (bike then run):
  • goal: at least one
  • actual: today 15 miles biking then 2.5 miles running w/ ~ 3 minutes transition time

The brick was a whole new experience for me. I’d only biked and run in the same day once before and those were hours apart. It feels very strange to do that to your legs. They’re already tired and then you ask them to do a different and (for me) more painful movement. The feeling was assaulting. It wasn’t pain necessarily, not acute pain at least, but just a general feeling of wanting to not be running at that moment and tiredness in my legs.

I know it’s no great physical feat and wasn’t about to collapse, but I’m not quite sure how I did it. I certainly wanted to give up. I think it was very mental: if I couldn’t do that today, then I certainly couldn’t ready and do a triathlon. I had to prove it to myself.

Really one of the things that got me through the run part of the brick was the great album from Beatbeat Whisper which I just posted about on my music blog.

Next week, I should do something like:

• swimming: 1.5-2.0 miles
• running: 9.5-10.5 miles
• bicycling: 15.0-22.0 miles
• brick: at least one

I signed up for the Alcatraz triathlon a while ago. Running’s not quite working right yet and it’s got me a little worried. I was having second thoughts at the beginning of the week about whether it’d be possible at all to do this (1.5 miles swimming, 13 miles biking, 8.5 miles running) at all, but now I am think it might be possible. This past week consisted of:

• running: 5.2 miles
• swimming: 0.5 miles
• cycling: 43.3 miles

I think this coming week I’d better do something more like this:

• running: 8.5 miles
• swimming: 1-1.5 miles
• cycling: at least 15 miles
• at least one brick (cycle and then run, or run, cycle, run)

Apparently the Steelers will name Mike Tomlin their new head coach. Who’s this Tomlin guy?

Is this a good or bad choice over Grimm? (The Whiz is going to Arizona).

Also, go Bears?

Everyone knows that Cowher retired (or stepped down or whatever), but no one seems to have noticed that Dick Hoak retired a few days earlier.

Dick Hoak was the Steelers’ running backs coach for 45 35 years, going back to 1972. Pittsburgh has been a running team all of those years and Dick Hoak was the reason that usually worked. Franco Harris was coached by Hoak. Barry Foster had 12 100 yard games in a season under Hoak. Jerome Bettis was transformed from a good, but faltering running back to a Hall-of-Fame runner under Hoak. Willie Parker had two 200 yard games this season (the record for a career is six) under Hoak. I wonder how Parker will continue to develop without him.

Here’s a bio and nice article about him from 2004.

I managed to see the three Pittsburgh sports teams a total of five times this year.

Due to some fortuitous scheduling, I saw all of them in the Bay Area (in three different cities):

• June 11 Pirates @ Giants. 7-5 Pirates
• October 29 Steelers @ Raiders 20-13 Raiders
• November 4 Penguins @ Sharks 3-2 Sharks

I saw two of the three in Pittsburgh:

• August 5 Braves @ Pirates 3-2 Pirates
• December 27 Thrashers @ Penguins 4-2 Thrashers

Here’s the aforementioned trophy:

BoSox tickets for April and May games go on sale tomorrow morning at 10am PST.

I’ve been considering, trying to decide whether to do the Alcatraz swim again. It’s early next June.

There’s also this event two weeks later. It’s a swim-heavy triathlon, so that plays to my strengths that and 13 miles of biking (even hilly) I could do today, but the running would take a lot of preparation.

There are a couple entertaining videos that I found or ran across in the recent times:

Aries Spears impressions while freestyling. This is a guy doing impressions of LL Cool J, Snoop Dog, DMX and Jay Z while freestyling. It’s pretty dang impressive, though I’m not familiar with DMX at all and only somewhat familiar with the other three. I’m still very impressed. (A couple things of note: a) that’s Live 105, in SF and that’s the same studio where I did the college dj of the week thing and 2) it appears Woody, one of the hosts, is a Steelers fan as he’s sporting a hat and a Willy Parker jersey). (via stereogum)

Peyton Manning Mastercard Priceless Ad. I can see how you might not like Peyton Manning, but man, I love this commercial which started running last year. They have a second, similar one this season but it’s not as good. I laugh every time I see this one.

[Update:] Oh man, I found another Peyton priceless commercial and it’s hilarious too. Also, there’s a blooper commercial from the first Peyton video and the making of (including the actual commercial at the end) a third in the series.

Amazingly the Steelers pulled off another win. Roethlisberger threw for 224 yards in the fourth quarter (out of 272 yards total); he was intercepted 3 times in the first half. I have an idea, Ben: throw well the whole game! I know it’s crazy; just crazy enough that it might work.

You can check out the video highlights (check out the end to see the crappy-but-somehow-it-worked go-ahead shovel pass), the post game quotes, or the rather pathetic game stats.

Members of the Columbus Blue Jackets (NHL) are recording a Christmas album.

The article’s interesting, but the best quotes are from the studio owner/ engineer:

In the engineer’s booth, as the players took a break and wiped their brows, DiCenzo commented: “I am shocked. It was not terrible.”

and then later:

“But all of them did way better than I expected. When the key would change, most of the time most of them hit it. I really thought I’d be hitting the Excedrin pretty hard by now”

(via largehearted boy)

Last night I saw the Penguins play the Sharks. They lost in a close and well-played game. It was a fun game to watch. The new young players (by which I mean Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Jordan Staal, and Marc-Andre Fleury) are really good, by the way. And if you haven’t seen, the Penguins are actually doing well so far this season.

The Steelers lost again today. They actually seemed to make a game of it until the end there. But in the end, the result is the same: disappointment. The culprit was turnovers again. Blah. Also: post game quotes.

wow. that was just embarrassing. 4 interceptions! Two for TDs? Come on, Ben~

good thing I paid way too much for tickets to be there!

(Out of ~63K people there, I’d say 5-10K were baseball fans though.)

After a few weeks of disappointments, I’m happy the Steelers can still beat a crappy team. Their domination of the game encourages me that this might not just be a one-week-against-a-crappy-team spurt. As always, the post game quotes are somewhat interesting.

My team won the Mixed Draw Pairs Palo Alto Lawn Bowls Club tournament on Saturday and I was playing vice rather than my normal role of lead. I’ll be getting a trophy.

Yes, you may be very impressed.

So starting Friday, totally crazy 8 days:

• Friday: Oakland A’s ALDS game 3. Jose Gonzalez at EBF, Stanford (to be blogged)
• Saturday: Earl Scruggs, Gillian Welch and Jerry Douglas at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2006 (Day 2), SF
• Sunday: day of rest. (And watching the Steelers)
• Monday: nothing
• Tuesday: ALCS game 1 @ Oakland. Go team!
• Wednesday: Sufjan Stevens @ Zellerbach, Berkeley
• Thursday: dinner w/ Vanderslice, concert at 750 Pub, Stanford
• Friday: Long Winters at Cafe du Nord, SF

In 8 days, 5 concerts and 2 baseball games. Goodness.

So I’ll have plenty to blog about but probably won’t be blogging a lot, probably.

I’m going the A’s-Twins game in a couple hours and I’m going to try to liveblog it from my sidekick. I’ll do it between innings and stuff. Check back for updates!

11:40am. we’re in the car in palo alto. there is traffic on university ave.

12:49pm. we’re in traffic around the stadium. total mess.

1:54pm. we got to the game late after having to park a while away. chavez hit a home run and a pair of doubles made it 2-0. sweet. I picked up a total fratboy a’s hat on the way in.

1:58 1-2-3 inning with a’s on d. there’s a guy dressed as a banana in the next section. I don’t know his deal. he’s yelling a lot.

2:12pm. milton bradley hits a 2 run homer. pass go and collect $200!

2:19pm. twins hit a home run and the fans yelled at the guy who caught the ball until he threw it back

2:43pm. a bit of a hiccup with 2 outs on D but no damage in the end

3:17pm. twins scored one last inning though they had three on base. a’s side went down pretty quick. this inning they took haran out.

3:21pm. twins went down quick. 6 outs left. 7th inning stretch now. singing ‘god bless america’. I’d like to point out that though it’s a patriotic song, it’s not the national anthem so no need to take off your hat and face the flag.

3:32pm. chavez came very close to hitting a 2 run homer on a 3 2 pitch with 2 outs. ended up being foul. next pitch was at his head. now the bases are loaded on an error

3:44pm. a walk with the bases loaded and then a bases clearing double!!@! mark scutero!

4:07pm. they win the series!!@!!

post game notes: this was a fun experience, a fun game to go to. The crowd was really into it. The guys with flags were there; the guys with the whistles and drums were there. As were the flags and banners. People cheering at every instant. It was cool to see a team win a series in person. I’ve been to 3 game 7’s (2 Pirates and 1 Penguins) where the team didn’t win and that’s always disappointing.

I seriously love high fiving people I don’t know. It’s great.

As Moneyball make the point, salary doesn’t necessarily determine the final standing in the league, but I wanted to see who and at what team salary made it to the playoffs.

Playoff Teams:

Pretty interesting.

Out of the top 10 team (Yankees, Mets, Twins, Tigers, Athletics, White Sox, Angels, Dodgers, Paders, Blue Jays), four were in the bottom half of team salaries (Twins @ 19, Athletics @ 21, Padres @ 17, Blue Jays @ 16) and one was close (Tigers @ 14). While low pay doesn’t preclude one from being in the top of the majors, a high salary does appear to help keep you from the bottoms. 7 of the 10 highest paid teams were in the top 11 and all but 1 of the top top highest paid teams were in the 17.

The total unexpecteds are teams that are either at in the top ten rank and bottom ten in salary or visa versa. Turns out they’re not entirely unexpected: the Athletics were 21st in payroll but 5th in the majors. On the other side of things, the Cubs were 7th in payrol but 28th in the majors.

The most impressive performance, I must say is the Marlins who fielded a team on under $15 million and came in 20th overall. You can field a team on $15 million? That’s well less than half of the second to lowest paying team (the Devil Rays at $35 million).

The A’s clinched the division last night after a few days of sitting at a magic number of 2, so my tickets will now be useful.

The four AL teams that are in the playoffs are the Yankees (booh!), Tigers, Twins and A’s. As I believe is the case, the A’s will have to play a Central team because they can’t play each other, so that gives us either the Tigers or the Twins. The Yankees and Tigers are tied for the best record, but we know that the Tigers can’t play the Twins, so unless something dramatically changes, I think it’s going to be Yankees-Twins, Tigers-A’s for the ALDS’s. Oakland is 4-5 for the year versus the Tigers and 4-6 against the Twins for the year, so it might actually be slightly better to get the Tigers.

The other day, I was thinking it’d be cool to have sms alerts sent to my phone whenever the score changes in the Steelers game. I noticed that the NFL scores page has some peculiarities in their structure that would make it somewhat easy to pick out the scores.

There are people who you can pay to do this. (Or, I discovered today, there are sort of sketchy places that will do it for “free.”) But let’s say you don’t want to pay. And let’s say that you, like me:

• have unlimited (or plenty of) sms’s
• have a server or access to a server
• are slightly obessive your team
• love being a geek

So I wrote a perl script to do it (with some help from jesse and a lot of help from andyl). I’ve put it online here. Grab it if you want it. I ran it with a cron job which checked the score every two minutes during today’s Atlanta-New Orleans game:

[insert crappy picture of sms]

What you’ll need to do to make it work:

1. download the file
2. get WWW:Mechanize and HTML::Tree::Builder perl modules. if you’re running debian, you can type ‘apt-get install libwww-mechanize-perl’ and ‘apt-get install libhtml-tree-perl’ respectively.
3. open Score:
   1. find ‘mail 0123456789\@yoursmsgateway.net’ and replace it with your phone number and email gateway. (here are two lists of email gateways. So if you have sprint and your phone number is 987-654-3210 then your put ‘mail 9876543210\@messaging.sprintpcs.com’. It’s important you \@ your @ sign or it won’t work.
   2. if you want the scores of a different team than the Steelers, find the two instances of ‘Pittsburgh’ in the file and replace them with your town’s name. (Check nfl.com/scores to check how they write it).
4. save the file
5. open your crontab file (in /etc/crontab) and add the following line:
   */2 9-21 * * 00 root perl /home/directorypath/Score >& /dev/null
   where /home/directorypath is whereever you’ve put the Score file. This will check the score every 2 minutes (*/2) between 9am and 9pm (9-21) on sundays (00). You can adjust these parameters if you’re on the east coast (adjust the times) or if your team is playing on a non-Sunday. 1 would be a Monday, etc.

It emails you the team names, their scores and the time (2nd Qtr, 2:54, for example).

It worked very nearly flawless during tonight’s game. I made one change so that when the game ends it’ll sms you the score and say it’s “Final” as well as smsing all the score changes. It does send one unnecessary sms when things are resetting the first time the cron job runs. You could probably figure out how to make it not do that.

I’m just putting this code out there. Use it if you like. I’m not really in a position to offer any warranties or support on it. I’m putting this out there under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License.

Pittsburgh friends, I can add you to my script if you want to get Steelers alerts too. Just let me know.

I did Page Mill Rd, one of the hardest hills around here, for the first time on Saturday (coincidentally so did Palo Alto Cyclist). The sort of triumvarite of hills around here are Page Mill, Old la Honda and King’s Mountain.

The hill part of Page Mill is 7.2 miles long and 2400 feet of elevation. It starts out fairly shallow, like the lower part of King’s Mountain (for about three miles). Then it hits some steep sections:
Page Mill Road (at Los Trancos parking lot 19.25%
Page Mill Road (at Moody Road) 14%
Page Mill Road (lower view area) 15.50%
Page Mill Road (long, steep section) 15.5 – 17

The long, steep section they’re talking about hits right around Gate 3 of the Foothill Park and is about half a mile of steep. It hurts a lot. Then it levels out and even goes down a little bit before the 100 or 200 yard section right before the Los Trancos parking lot. By this point my legs were pretty tired so even though it leveled out a bunch, it was still fairly strenuous.

I’ve had a pretty good riding season. I started out never having gone up Old la Honda or King’s Mountain non-stop. I set some cycling goals through the summer and I did pretty well:

• Old la Honda non-stop
• King’s Mountain non-stop
• Old la Honda in under 30 minutes (and under 29 minutes)
• Old la Honda and King’s Mountain back to back
• Tahoe Century
• biking to SF
• coast ride
• Page Mill

My total mileage for this year (from January through now) is something like 1400 miles.

Oakland’s ALDS tickets go on sale at 9am PST on Monday (later today). I’m going to grab a few bleacher tickets for an early game and a couple nice tickets for a late series game.

They failed to clinch the division with opportunities on both Saturday and Sunday. I think they’ll pull it out in the next couple days.

[Update:] I ended up getting 4 bleacher seats in 136 for Game 1 or 3 and 2 Field Levels in section 106 for Game 5 (if necessary. Yeah, the links suck.

The steelers alternated being dominant and sucking badly in today’s 28-20 loss against the Bengals. When dug came over at the end of the first quarter, I told him the Steelers were dominating, at which point they started sucking. In the 3rd quarter they were dominating again, and then sucking in the 4th until it was do or die and they almost did.

The AP write up and the post-game quotes.

There was some stat that all x points were scored with the wind. Heinz Field is basically a nasty wind funnel on some days. I don’t know if the stat held all the way through the game, but at least the first 34 points were scored with the wind.

Willie Parker and the offensive line played really well all day and that made me pretty happy because they didn’t play great in either previous game.

I was walking to work yesterday and passed the North Face and saw a sign up for the North Face 50 in which San Francisco resident Dean Karnazes will run 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states. He’s an amazing athlete who has won the Badwater Ultramarathon (let’s run 135 miles out of a giant valley in 120 heat—yeah that’s a good idea!), but I think this is a pretty ambitious project. It starts tomorrow.

He also has a blog about the challenge. I’ll be interested to see his progress.

Yeah, I’m a few days late on this, but on Thursday I watched the Steelers win at Zack’s in Millbrae with Mike and Dug.

Charlie Batch did pretty well. Willie Parker looked great on a few runs and the handful of screen play passes he caught.

Polamalu continues to look better and better each game he plays. This guy is incredible. His interception was really skillful, as was Porter’s. Porter kissed Cowher after that and Cowher was fine with it.

Heath Miller’s 87 yard TD reception interception was sort of funny. There was this guy at the bar that had high-fived everyone before Heath had passed the 50. Cowher thought he was fast, but it took pretty long for him to get anywhere. I mean, he had time check the jumbotron to see if the defense was gaining on him.

If I were a Dolphins fan, I might be pissed about the missed challenge on the Heath Miller touchdown, but it’s sort of laughable that the coach waited that long (~1 minute) when he was obviously out and then did a dainty underhand toss right before the snap and then just sort of pointed to it when no one saw it.

Here’s a slide show from the Post Gazette and their write up.

I went to see the Red Sox play @ Oakland tonight.

Beckett pitched well, but the Papi-less, Manny-less offense just couldn’t score enough runs, losing 2-1.

Oakland moves to 7.5 ahead of the Angels in the AL West. Boston moves to 7.5 games behind the Yankees in the AL East. (The BoSox are 6.5 back in the wild card race.) Doesn’t look good for the Sox.

I don’t like Oakland when they’re playing the Sox, but I must admit, they’re growing on me otherwise.

Yesterday I did the coast loop ride out to San Gregorio (stopping at the San Gregorio General Store for lunch) via Old la Honda and Tunitas Creek Road. The full map is here. I went with Dostal and a few of his friends, including a couple guys from the Campus Bike Shop. The total ride is about 45 miles and 4200 feet of climbing.

Thoughts on the ride:

• You shouldn’t rush up the first climb, Old la Honda. Pace yourself, unlike me. I went up 3.5% slower than my best time. Oops
• W. Old la Honda’s a fun descent
• 84 has a couple construction zones with severe bumped. I was sure I broke a spoke when I accidentally went over one of them. They are avoidable if you pay attention.
• Stage Rd. is sort of steep but fairly short
• The part down the PCH by Tunitas Beach is incredible. You’re going 40mph and it’s a gorgeous view.
• Tunitas Creek Rd. hurt a lot. It’s about 6.2 miles of climb. Shallow for 1 mile, then pretty steep for 2 (that’s the hurting part; and I didn’t realize I could go that slow on a bicycle without falling off) and then quite shallow for another 3.
• Having a bunch of professional bike mechanics on a ride with you is great when you get a flat 30-some miles into a ride. Thanks Parker!
• Then it’s a quick descent down King’s Mt, through Woodside and up Sand Hill. The bit up Sand Hill hurt because I was pretty fatigued.
• having a happy birthday balloon tied to your bike for 45 miles sort of sucks but people will wish you happy birthday when passing
• the Dutch Goose is a good of a place as any for post-ride drinks, burgers and chatting in there outside patio area

On Sunday, I bowled what was quite possibly the best bowl of as-of-yet short bowling career (at the PALBC of course). It will undoubtedly soon be called “the bowl”.

We were playing triples, so 3 per team, 3 bowls per person. I was playing vice with a very experienced bowler as my skip and a person of about my level playing playing lead. After the two leads had gone, they had 2-3 bowls clustered around the jack. My first two bowls were too wide (I “took too much grass”) and were short (”not enough weight”). Meanwhile, my opposing vice had added to the head, so there were now 4 shots closely clustered around the jack, probably within 1.5 feet of the jack with two very close in. (I’ve made an illustration below.) They were close enough that without something drastic happening, they would have ended the end with 4 points. .

It was my third and last bowl. Gordon, the skip, said “add some weight and bring it in a bit tighter” and pointed to the inside of the front left bowl indicating the path my bowl should take. I switched over to backhand and started my bowl.

Here’s what happened:

[click on the picture to get a full sized image]

Not only did I move the jack out of the head, but my bowl followed it another 8 or 10 feet out! Gordon and the other skip bowled their bowls and in the end we had 3 points instead of them having a sure 4 points. A swing of 7 points.

Currently two different network stations (the Fox-affliliate and the CBS-affiliate) are showing two entirely different versions (different shots, different commentators) of the SF Giants v Oakland Raiders game, in which two dreadful teams try not to embarrass themselves.

[Update:] Of course I mean the 49ers v Raiders. Also, they’re replaying the entire game on a third distinct station.

[Another Update:] Seriously, what’s the deal with this game? It’s being replayed on a fourth station.

I rode my bike to the Golden Gate Park in the City today. It was a pretty good ride.

Here’s the route I took:
CaÑada road to 92.
92 briefly to Skyline
after the bridge over the San Mateo creek, I went onto the Sawyer Camp Trail
Sawyer Camp ends and pushes you under the 280. Left on the next road and then left under 280 at the first opportunity.
Back onto the trail until it ends, spitting you out on skyline/ 35.
35 [1] to the Great American Highway[2].
the Great American Highway takes you to the left (west) edge of Golden Gate Park.

[1] The part on 35 was the scariest. It’s a freeway for a short period with a medium-sized shoulder and a speed limit of 50 so lots of fast moving cars. This also has the steepest sections of the ride.
[2] There’s a path on the side of the Great American Highway that I’d recommennd. The road’s rough there.

It totaled 37.44 miles according to my bike computer.

• 15 mile ride (800ft elevation)
• 1/2 mile swim
• 20 mile ride (2000ft. elevation)
• 38 mile ride (?/ ~ 2000ft. evelation)

So I saw George Lucas before, but this really takes the cake for celebrity sightings.

I was just finishing up my Wednesday night bowls at the Palo Alto Lawn Bowls Club and who walks in but Steve Jobs. He sat and talked with another guy while watching the bowl for about 25 minutes and then got up and left. He pretty much kept to himself but talked to a couple members when they approached him.

The crappiest picture ever of him leaving (he’s the one in black):

Part of Jeff’s bachelor party was going to the Pirates game on Thursday. It was a close game and a good one, with the Pirates winning in the end.

Here’s a a good recap of the game.

Also PNC Park is awesome. They even have Primanti’s and a pierogi race. It’d be a truly sad moment if the team moved.

Claude Debussey?

Isn’t that some relation to Jerome Bettis?

harharharharharharharharharharh

Man, who invented open cell polyurethane foam? All the best souvenirs are made of it.

For instance: I got a foam Statue of Liberty crown after I went there on Monday:

And I got a sweet foam finger at the Pirates game the other day:

These are all the souvenirs I got for a three city east coast tour:

Patbird and I saw the Rex Stockings beat the A’s last night, 7-3. It was a good game and a nice time.

There were three home runs by some big guys: Ortiz, Manny and a bomb from Nick Swisher. As always with BoSox v A’s games out here, there were a ton of Sox fans there; to the point where one could hear chants for both teams at the same time.

I also learned yesterday that Oakland has closed the upper deck for the season, reducing the seating capacity to 35,077, which was almost reached by the 33,370 in attendence last night.

nice!

I was thinking of ordering a bunch of black hoodies and hand silk-screen YINZER in block letters across the front, probably in a collegiate sort of font, in gold.

I was thinking of making these so they’d be ready in time for the start of the Steeler’s season. Good idea? Would you buy one? They’d probably be ~$20 each and I’d want a few people to commit before I ordered any sweat shirts and make the silk screen.

one way over the wall and one jumping diving

6:58am: roll out of bed. crickeys, it’s early. some days I really think I’m crazy.

7:00am: game starts

7:01am: I don’t understand just about anything these announcers are saying. Oh they just said “Estados Unidos.” That’s “United States.”

7:02am: The TV/Cable signal is choppy. I hope this doesn’t continue. A header gets the ball in the air right in front of the Ghana goal but nothing happens.

7:05am: One of the Ghana guys just got a yellow card for a tackle-from-behind of Reyna.

7:07am: Lewis on the Estados Unidos team just got a yellow card for what appears to be an unintentional handball. Man, I wish I understood what they’re saying.

7:09am: Oh man, they’re giving this Ghana guy a free kick after he totally took a dive. The replay is of him running flat into a US player and then falling over. Kasey Keller’s looks like a champ in goal. Luckily the ball goes wide and he doesn’t need to be a champ.

7:11am: Ghana drives toward the goal but get called for an offsides. I think I finally understand the offsides rule in football.

7:14am: During a free kick stoppage they show the crowd and there’s a guy wearing a fez and playing a lute.

7:16am: Lewis is bleeding. I’m not sure what from because it sure looked like he was faking whatever grievous penalty just happened to him.

7:17am: USA corner kick! header!…right to the goalie.

7:19am: Onyewu just got a yellow card for some friendly pushing.(Both players were pushing, but the Ghanan took the dive first).

7:20am: USA guy has a nice header to block a Ghanan goal. Now there’s a corner kick. Ghana fouls; USA free kick.

7:22am: some sloppy play on the US side results in a breakaway and a Ghana goal. crap. Now the announcer’s going “gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!”

7:24am: It appears that Reyna got hurt on that last play. He’s getting carried off the field.

7:25am: USA corner kick….goalie makes a nice stop.

7:26am: The Ghana goalie’s writhing around on the ground. I guess on that stop he dove into a US player.

7:28am: They switched over to the Italia v Republica Checha game to show that Italian goal. They’re up, which is what we need.

7:29am: Ghanan breakaway. No goal, but we seriously need to pick it up here.

7:30am: I seriously don’t understand how these goalies can kick the ball this far. The Ghana goalie just kicked it almost to the other 18 yard line.

7:33am: This Ghana player just put his forearm into an American player’s neck. Yellow card.

7:35am: The USA just set up Landon Donovan pretty nicely but he put it high and wide.

7:36am: A tackle-from-behind results in a free kick fo the USA just outside of the 18 yard box. I wish Kingson wasn’t so good. Another good stop.

7:37am: Donovan on a corner kick…nothing.

7:39am: USA driving down the side. He centers it! to no one!

7:42am: Free kick on a dumb dumb foul. The US player barely touched him! Luckily it goes wide.

7:43am: BEAUTIFUL! Beasly centers it and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. Demsey! I love this guy right now.

7:47am: Two guys jockeying for position and the Ghana guy takes a dive. Penalty kick for Ghana. Come on Kasey…Goal. I seriously think these announces are judged by their ability to hold out “gooooool” for the longest.

7:50am: Alright, that’s half. I’m going to shower and grab some cereal.

8:06am: Showered, lunch made and cereal and milk poured. I’m ready for the second half. The players are just coming onto the field now.

8:14am: Alright, done with my cereal. Dangerous kick by a Ghanan, so we’re looking at a free kick from just outside of the 18 yard box. No Americans got to the ball when it was in front of the goal. It’ll be a corner kick.

8:16am: Corner kick…come on, guys.

8:19am: Italy’s still winning 1-0. 12 minutes into the second half, so there’s plenty of time, left, but I’m not feeling good about this. Oh! good stop by the Ghana goalie.

8:23am: These guys are pretty good at this.

8:24am: I’m glad there’s instant reply. It makes it easy to tell who’s totally taking a dive and who’s not. One of the Ghana players just took the funniest dive. He just jumped up, bumped into a US player in the air and then fell down, holding his foot.

8:25am: I have to go! someone tell me what happens. It’ll be a pretty exciting game if the US can pull it off.

[post-blogged]
8:36am: I found the game on the radio in my car. At least I think it was that game. It was in Spanish. It was on 1170AM.

yeah, so they lost. that’s sad. there’s always 2010, America!

I’m keeping track of the World Cup scores on my handy pull out sheet from a Spanish-language newspaper out here:

I was somewhat ambivalent towards it until this weekend’s USA-Italy game, now I want to watch Thursday’s USA-Ghana game to see if the boys can get into the second round. (Italy also needs to beat the Czechs.) I was pretty sad to discover the game would be on ESPN, not ABC, like Saturday’s game, and I didn’t really want to go out at 6:30am looking for a bar or something that was showing the game. Well I was looking through the TV listings today and saw that one of the Spanish-language chanels was showing one of today’s Copa Mundial games. I investigated further and—what do you know!—I can watch Ghana vs. Estados Unidos on Thursday morning on broadcast TV!

Shove off ESPN! Viva Copa Mundial!

Dave Eggers writes about the World Cup. Very entertaining as alwasy.

The Baseball Card Blog for those of us who spent too much time and money on baseball cards as a kid. They’re currently on #5 on their best baseball card sets ever. I have a few packs of #5: 1989 Upper Deck. It was the year my family went on a New England road trip and we went through Cooperstown and saw the Baseball Hall of Fame. I picked up some of the new Upper Deck cards there. I hope #1 is 1987 Topps, the one with the wood grain. I loved those cards.

I went to the Pirates at Giants game this afternoon with dug.

We got tickets in the Arcade section (147 to be specific) which is an odd section in front of the pathway out in right field that’s only a few rows (4-7) rows deep. We were in row four which put us pretty close to the field. It was Moises Alou Bobblehead Night and I was looking forward to having a bobblehead to put in my space at work.

The Pirates squeezed out a couple of runs and were ahead 2-1 until the Giants took the lead in the 6th. In the top of the 8th when they loaded the bases. A hit to the 2nd baseman followed by a where-do-I-throw-this bit of confusion lead to the bases still being loaded and another run in. Then Bautista, who had doubled earlier in the game, came up and hit a grandslam on a 1-1 pitch. Final score: 7-5.

Here’s a decent recap.

So, I’ve talked a few times about doing the Tahoe Century and now I’m done, so here it is.

On Saturday morning, my friend Dave (not Franusich) and piled our bikes and our gear into the back of my car (gotta love hatchbacks) and we headed up to the Lake Tahoe area, just outside of Stateline*. The other people in our group included my coworker Dan and a former coworker of his, Scott. Scott had gotten us this pretty nice house for the weekend about six miles from Stateline, just off of the route.

Saturday afternoon we registered for the race; ate some no-guilt burgers, steaks and pasta (when you’re riding 100 miles the next day, there’s no guilt in pounding some serious calories); and going to bed fairly early.

Sunday started early with the alarm going off at about 5:30am. The bed gravity seemed awfully strong. We all had some breakfast, got in our embarrassingly tight-fitting clothes, did some last minute tune-ups to our bikes and headed out at about 6:30am. Because we were staying along the bike route, about 6 miles from the beginning, we just started on the route and after we hit the finish line, we’d have 6 miles more to go at the end.

It was pretty cool to start with, probably around 40 degrees. Once we started going, I wasn’t too cold, though I actually kept my arm and knee warmers on until lunch. The first of the two major climbs is pretty early in the ride—even earlier for us because we were starting 6 miles in—and all of us just seemed to gun up the hill. I think it was mostly adrenaline.

At the top of the hill, there was the first of the rest stops. They were spaced out about every 13-23 miles along the route and had water, fruit and protein bars and the like (and bathrooms). They were definitely nice places to refuel, rehydrate and just take a couple minutes off of the bike.

After that there was a nice fast descent with some sweeping curves where I got to about 45mph before we hit the flats and some rolling hills. Up until about mile 40 I was keeping up a pretty fast pace. Once we got to Truckee, CA, I realized I should probably hold back a bit so as to not blow my legs out. Truckee isn’t on the loop around Lake Tahoe, but they add a loop out and back from Truckee in order to make it 100 miles in total. Coming back from Truckee there was a pretty good head-wind and a slight ascent that required some work (though drafting off of the stronger riders in our group certainly helped). After that was just a few miles and a couple minor hills to the lunch stop.

It was around this point why I realized they call this “America’s Most Beautiful Ride.” Lake Tahoe is really gorgeous and I hadn’t been up there before.

After lunch we had about 20 miles to the next rest stop at Spooner Junction, the second half of which was up the longest, and biggest of the climbs of the day. It’s actually a pretty gentle grade for most of it and probably wouldn’t have been a big deal at all, but after 75 miles, it was something. I just put the bike in the lowest gear and kept my legs moving fast and got up to the top.

After that it was just 12 miles to the finish. The first part was a descent that should have been a lot of fun, but there was a strong head/ cross-wind (but it was still pretty good) and then some rolling hills to the end. We hit the finish and then the 6 bonus miles (from the finish back our place) were rough, mostly because of a head-wind.

Overall, I think I prepared pretty well and besides the climbs, I didn’t hurt too much; I definitely hurt more during some of my rides to get prepared for the century than during the century. Today my muscles were tired but they didn’t hurt. Timing-wise, I think the overall time was about 8.5 hours with 6-6.25 hours of actual ride time.

*My friend Andy wrote this great song with the first line “crossing the state line/ the bridge across the bay.” Because of the start line of the race being in Stateline, NV, I had this song in my head for most of the race. Unfortunately, I only remembered little bits of the lyrics. After the race the group talked about it and it seems that all of us had songs that were in our heads for large portions of the race.

I’m going to one or two Pirates games a year so I figured I should be able to outfit myself for the event. I was looking at getting the old 70s Pirates high top hat (below) but found a bunch of great throwback caps. I particularly like 1901-06, 1915-19, 1940-41, 1947, and the 70s high top. I think the winner may be the 1940-41. It’s just so classy.

Update: 1940-41 Road Cap ordered. I’ll consider picking up the 70s high top cap in Pittsburgh on the cheap.

So I’ve been trying to get ready for my 100-mile Lake Tahoe century bike ride which is in just over a week now. This week so far:

• Monday: Portola Valley loop (~15 miles, ~700 feet elevation gain) with my 20 lb. shoulder bag
• Wednesday: Old La Honda (3 miles, 1200 feet elevation gain) + Portola Valley (total ~22 miles + 2000 ft elevation gain)
• Thursday: Portola Valley loop

The rest of my rides before the century will probably be:

• Saturday: King’s Mountain + Canada (36 miles, 2800 ft) Update: I ended up doing Old La Honda, circling back down and then doing King’s Mountain + Canada. Total was something like 43 miles, 4000ft elevation gain
• Monday: Canada + Crystal Spring + (perhaps) Portola Valley (~32 or ~46 miles, mostly rolling hills)
• Wednesday: (double) Portola Valley loop
• Thursday: something hard, maybe Old La Honda plus double Portola Valley loop, or Kings Mountain + Canada
• Saturday: light spin up in Tahoe
• Sunday: ride around Lake Tahoe!

I hurt; I’m starting to regret signing up for this thing.

While on the subject of sports, my friend’s ipod excercise idea got patented (by him/ Apple).

It’s bike to work day out here in the Bay Area.

I think they’re overlooking an important aspect, here, though: biking from work! I mean all those people have to get home somehow. Perhaps it should be called Bike to and from Work Day.

Am I right or am I right?

I’m getting ready to ride around Lake Tahoe and I’m woefully underprepared, I’m finding. I’m also coming out of a period of 7 flats in three weeks, which I thought was resolved on Thursday with my tune-up/ inspection but should definitely be resolved now with my new tires.

So anyway, from Friday through Sunday, I pushed it a bit (not as much as pat, but still), doing 80 miles and about 5000 feet of gross elevation gain. The breakdown was one of these which has some rediculously beautiful parts going down 35 there, and three Portola Valley loops. I ate at In n Out without shame last night. I’m going to take a break until Wednesday.

My crazy Saturday actually started Friday when a pair of pretty decent tickets to the next day’s ball game were up for grabs, and grab I did. After some calls dug and I were going to see the Giants vs. the Diamondbacks.

We started at the 21st Amendment a brewpub a few blocks from the ballpark. The burgers were decent and their watermelon wheat was suprisingly subtle and good.

Then we headed over to the ballgame. We were situated at the end of the right foul line, still in the lower boxes. For a game where I wasn’t rooting for either team, it ended up being pretty entertaining. It ended with a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth, which is pretty sweet. This was immediately preceeded in the top of the ninth by some tremendous play in left field by not-Barry Bonds, including a game-saving catch of an otherwise-sure-to-be home run. Bonds wasn’t playing because, as far as I can tell, he’s weak and has had too many steroids. Honestly, I didn’t miss him too much.

I also took the opportunity, since I got my new new lens on Thursday to try my hand at baseball photography. Not surprisingly, even a 200mm lens from decent seats doesn’t get you close-up shots of much stuff, but it was definitely a new viewpoint on things. I definitely missed a couple great shots, including a tremendous Moises Alou diving catch basically right in front of us. It’s yet to be seen whether I did get any good shots.

After the game, I headed up to Aquatic Park to swim there for the first time since last July. Man, it was cold, probably close to 55. I’d forgotten how cold that is. A quick primer on cold water swimming (try this at your own risk): get yourself some silicone ear plugs and a Barracuda Hot Head. When you get in the water, you’ll probably go into panic breathing. This is normal. The best way to overcome it is to just start swimming. Put your fast in the water and swim, even though this the opposite of what your body wants to do; your lungs want to expel all air from them.

After that, I headed to gumbeaux’s place, only to walk back to Fort Mason (right next to Aquatic Park) for the SF International Beer Festival, which, get this!, is a fundraiser for a nursery school. Gums and I had a nice walk all the way down Fillmore, catching some awesome views of the city and the bay on the way. The beer fest was, well interesting. There was a lot of beer there, all of it measured out in 2-3oz tasting cups. Good news: there was a lot of good beer there. Bad news: most of the beers I liked, I knew already. It was still a good time. I don’t know why I thought differently, but it ended up that a lot of the patrons of this event were slightly grown-up fratboyz and sorority girlz. Given this, it wasn’t too surprising that I got about ten “go bosox!”s on my sox hat.

Definitely note-worthy was our experience on our way back from the beer fest. Gums and I didn’t want to walk the three-ish miles back to his place, so we decided to take the bus, the number 22 Fillmore, to be specific. We saw it circle around at the end of its route but we could figure out where it would actually stop given that there weren’t any bus stop signs nearby. We started to walk quickly and gums stuck out his arm to flag down the bus and it actually stopped for us. Then, realizing that it was $1.50, I said aloud to gumbeaux ‘I don’t think we have enough change’ (we thought it’d be $1.25) to which the bus driver responded ‘$1 is fine! Just $1.’ That’s right, we flagged down a bus and then managed to knock the price down 50%. The bus ride had its interesting characters as they always do, the least of which was the absolutely amazonian woman in the short skirt who showed no evidence of wearing underwear.

Wooo. Good times.

If you haven’t seen it yet, there’s a pretty sweet video that a guy made recreating the bottom of the 10th of Game 6 of the World Series using Nintendo’s classic RBI Baseball. He even uses the real play-by-play. Apparently getting certain hits right took him up to 200 tries. My goodness! Also, apparently the maker of this managed to get a job out of it. The resume for the New Era.

Speaking of Game 6, has anyone seen the movie? Apparently it’s good.

I got a new bike. It doesn’t have multiple gears or a free wheel.

more pictures beyond the break
(more…)

I learned today that the bocce courts I thought I saw in Palo Alto were actually lawn bowling greens. There’s a Lawn Bowls club! My grandma in South Africa used to go lawn bowling (or as she called it, bowling) every week until she must have been 85. I know the basic rules—it’s very similar to bocce except the balls are weighted so they curve as you bowl them. My brother and I even got a carpet bowls set one time in South Africa.

It turns out that there’s also bocce in the area.

Palo Alto Weekly even did an article on the club.

I think I might investigate this place. They give free lessons.

[Update: Apparently my great aunt was the national lawn bowls champion of South Africa for her age group.]

I just got back from my company’s trip to near Playa del Carmen, Mexico. I got to hang out with Mr. Jon “j-dawg” Werberg.

Recap:

• highlights: Chichen Itza, cenotes, a bar with swings instead of stools, hanging out with coworkers, and hanging out with Jon
• donations: giant backgammon board, to jon; glasses, to the Caribbean, initiating the longest (non-sleeping) period without vision correction since probabaly 1993. This reminded me of a thing Caglar used to say while walking around without his glasses on: why see reality clearly when reality is blurred? I thought it was crap at the time. Maybe it’s not. It was an interesting twelve hours, through airports and customs and whatnot. Once I reached our office, I had to use my perscription swim goggles to drive home, leading to a situation frighteningly similar to Hugh Grant in Notting Hill:
  
• new items: steelers super bowl champions glass mug, old steelers tape with fight song, steelers key blank, “4 D” triceritops puzzle, all from jon
• my spanish: it still sucks, but I understand more
• injuries: cut on my knee, from a questionably useful wind surfing training tool; nicks on my knuckles, from sharp rocks in a cenote
• read: How We are Hungry by Dave Eggers. A pretty fantastic book of short stories, many of them about, seemingly appropriately, traveling to 3rd world countries.
• first world countries: can I learn anything from being a tourist in first world countries?
• weight: no better way to gain five pounds than a few days in an all-inclusive resort

A NY Times op-ed piece about Pittsburgh, its relationship to the Steelers, and its low opinion of itself.

Sports Illustrated has some Super Bowl photo galleries up.

What are people getting as far as Super Bowl champions gear? hats? shirts?

Chicago Tribune has an interesting article about people listening to their ipods at work. I listen to mine (or my laptop) constantly. I assume everyone does. Do you?

It was a quiet sort of celebration. I gave a quick hug to my fellow former Pittsburgh resident, dug, leaned against the wall for a minute, did a quick run up and down the street shouting a little bit. And that was that.

A call to pat confirmed what I expected. Pittsburgh is going nuts. I’m happy it is.

After the AFC championship game, I figured the Steelers would win today. Not because if they can beat the Bronco’s, surely they can beat the Seahawks. My reasoning was actually completely different. It was the same as my assumption that the RedSox would crush Cardinals in the World Series after that amazing ALCS against the Yankees back in ‘04. After having to win each game for seven straight games to get to the Super Bowl, while making history (like the BoSox did to get to the World Series), to get to Bettis to the Big Game in his hometown, after coming so close last year with what seemed like the perfect team, they had to win the Super Bowl this year because it’s a good story. That’s how the story’s supposed to end. Funny enough, it did.

It wasn’t the prettiest of games. Honestly Ben was all nerves for the first bit and a lot of parts of the game didn’t seem to click like they did in the past two to three games.

I’m happy that we won by 11 points because after the “questionable” calls of Ben’s rushing touchdown and the Seattle touchdown taken back on offensive pass interference, I didn’t want the game to be won by three points.

The two main offensive plays of the game were both absolute beauties. Willy Parker. Fast Willy Parker. One of Seattles corners has an obvious chance to catch him, but doesn’t because this undrafted back is just really, really fast. Fantastic play by the offensive line to open up that hole, but congrats and most of the credit goes to Willy on setting the record on that one.

And the gadget play. We all knew it’d happen, right? I sometimes think Cowher is a bit silly with his gadget plays, but he (and Whisenhurst) have been really smart with them this post season. So let’s see: a hand-off to Parker. Okay. Oh wait, it’s a reverse to Randel El. Sweet. He’ll get a few yards. And then what has to be the most beautiful pass thrown in the Super Bowl by a non-quarterback ever. Perfect arc, right smack-dab on target. Absolutely gorgeous. And he didn’t even set his feet, just sort of threw it off of his right foot. It made me just jump out of my seat.

The MVP pick was a hard one. There weren’t any stand-out players besides Hasselback, who played really solid ball until the last couple drives. To give it to Bettis would have been nice, but wrong. Randel El or Parker were both somewhat reasonable picks, Randel El more than Parker. Hines Ward is one of my favorites. I like his attitude and his loyalty to the team, to Pittsburgh and to Bettis. That doesn’t warrent an MVP trophy, but those things make me happy that he got it. He’s also underrecognized around the league and it gave him some good exposure.

Author Chuck Klosterman is writing a Super Bowl Week blog for EPSN: Page 2. It’s pretty interesting. It’s not about the specific game, coming up, but rather about the athletes and the general view of these athletes as we approach the game. It’s pretty amusing at times. I’d start with Tuesday’s entries.

Regret the Error is a blog that collects errata and corrections from newspapers around the world. They are often funny.

Example:

In an interview with Jodie Marsh (I could’ve been a lawyer, page 12, G2, January 25) we referred to the silicon-enhanced charms of her rival, Jordan. Silicon is a non-metallic element, as in silicon chip. Silicone is the polymer used in breast implants. This has been corrected on five previous occasions: February 29 2000; June 20 2000; May 31 2001; November 10 2004; October 21 2005

Also, on a completely unrelated note, a one-liner in an email from my mom that I thought was pretty great:

The frenzy builds in Pittsburgh. Can anyone survive?

As a bearded man, I appreciate this analysis of the beards of Roethlisberger and Plummer and their effect on the outcome of the AFC championship game.

Steelers won another one on the road, this time to get to the Superbowl.

I watched the game at Shanghai Kelly’s again. By game time they were turning people away—dug almost couldn’t get in until I said he was with me (and I was inside already). I’d guess somewhere between eighty and a hundred people in there.

After last game, it was nice to see a game more in control this week. The Steelers looked really good out there. I’m pretty happy with our* chances out there against either of the teams that may be representing the NFC (it looks like it’ll be Seatle at this stage).

*I acknowledge that it’s a bit stupid to use the first person possessive when talking about teams that one supports, but I like it anyway.

A post script of sorts: Two funny stories from half-time. I went out to a store to grab a sandwhich because Shanghai Kelly’s doesn’t serve food. 1) a Bronco’s fan was in the store. I didn’t say anything (though it was 24-3 by that stage) because I thought I’d be nice. To my Bettis jersey, he said “I hope Bettis dies.” Wow. 2) The bagger was talking to the cashier while I was in line. “It’s possible to be a sports fan and not be a total douche. I don’t think people realize that,” to which I said “I try [not to be a total douche].”

Wow, what an game.

Dug and I went down to watch it at Shanghai Kelly’s, which must be one of the most crazy Steeler bars outside of Pittsburgh. It’s a relatively small neighborhood bar in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. Pretty unsassuming really, but when I arrive half an hour before game time, all the seats were filled with people donning Steelers gear and there were a number of people standing already. Beers were being consumed (keep in mind, this was 9:30am PST). By the start of the game, it seemed like everyone had one under their belt already and the place was packed—maybe 60 people there. Some were old timers, undoubtedly fans from the 70s dynasty era and others were younger, raised on Jerome Bettis and Cowher football.

It was really funny, I met people from Peters Township, Mt. Lebanon (the neighboring towns) and Upper St. Clair (my alma mater) there. It was a boisterous and fun place to watch a game. People were cheering at every chance they got and on the big plays, I was high-fiving and hugging people I didn’t know.

I sort of poke fun at people in Pittsburgh for living and dying with this team, but I have to admit I was bouyed by this game and experience.

Something I’ve noticed about football, or people talking about football recently is that games are often talked about as, for instance, “Pittsburgh vs. Cincinatti.” In reality, of course, Pittsburgh is not playing Cincinatti; it is simply the team in that city versus the team that resides in the other city. This is a very common occurance in football (except for two team cities like New York, with the Giants and Jets), more so than other sports. I don’t remember people talking much about “Toronto playing Boston”—it was usually “the Blue Jays vs. the [Red]Sox.” People don’t call the Pirates “Pittsburgh.”

In poetry or literature they call a part representing a whole a synecdoche.

I’m wondering if this ties in to the attachment and involvement cities feel for their teams and visa versa. Pittsburgh may be a fringe example, but I know the city lives and dies with the Steelers and the team is exceptionally devoted to the fans and the city, in a way they’re not devoted to the Pirates or the Penguins. It could be that Pittsburgh is a “football” town and similar devote occurs elsewhere for other sports (Boston to the Red Sox comes to mind).

The steelers pulled it off and will be in the playoffs. Way to go, boys.

I’m happy the Bus got 3 TDs in what will likely be his final game in Pittsburgh. Let’s hope they can get to the Superbowl for him and for all of Pittsburgh.

Meanwhile, I haven’t been posting a ton and I probably won’t be posting much as mmt and mim are in town for the rest of the week.

Watching the Penguins the other night, Mike pointed out that Ryan Malone (USC HS, class of ‘98) plays for them now.

It got me thinking. Ryan was on my school bus for many years. Coming back from elementary school, we (the boys, at least) would sing on the bus every afternoon. We only sang two songs: “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” (Righteous Brothers) and “Barbara Ann” (Beach Boys).

I know it’s inevitable that a lot of the members of the 2004 Miracle Red Sox will sign to other teams, even the yankees, but this just sent chills down my spine.

Pat’s post about the Canon 20D and the following discussion got me thinking about shooting digital photographs as both RAW+JPEG at the same time, which is something I’d read about professional photographers doing.

For a day I couldn’t figure out where it was, then I remembered it was in an article about the Sports Illustrated Super Bowl photography and the tremendous amount of resources they pour into it.

It was tricky searching for it, but I eventually found it. I find this article amazing because no only does it have a human story to it, but it takes you through absolutely every step of getting a photograph from the field to the printing press and exactly what equipment was used at each step. You could recreate a Sports Illustrated Super Bowl photoshoot with the information given; it’s very scientific in that way.

A desperate Steelers team got back to basics and won against the Bears, who were on an 8 game winning streak. Some strange stuff, like Jerome Bettis, who’s ancient by this point, having a 100 yard running and the Steelers had 190 yards rushing against the best ranked defense in the league.

That was all pretty exciting, but a couple almost freakish outcomes created a nice situation. The Dolphins stopping a last minute Chargers touchdown and the Cowboys getting a last minute touchdown puts the Steelers back in the last playoff birth. I think my understanding of the tie-break procedures is correct and this means the Steelers are back in control of their destiny; that is to say, if the Steelers win their last three games of the season they will in playoffs no matter what the other teams do.

38-31 against the Bungles of all teams. That was disappointing. Upside, Ben can throw for Manning-like yards with a hurt thumb. Downside: he can throw for Maddox-like interceptions.

I’m nervous for the rest of the season.

Since swimming on Friday, my right ear has made an occasional, sometimes frequent clicking sound as if theres’ still water in there (though there doesn’t feel like there is and I’ve done the water-in-the-ear jump-dance and felt no water moving around). It’s as if it’s pressurizing and depressurizing like on a plane, but repeatedly.

Steelers lost to the 2-7 Ravens to drop to 7-3 (which is still tied for lead in their division).

Interestingly, all of their losses have come in overtime.

Maddox, their 3rd string QB, actually did okay—for a while there he seemed to missing every receiver he threw to, but he and the team seemed to refocus in the 4th quarter to tie the game.

I have a little bit of a pit in my stomach when I think about the Colts (10-0) game next week on Monday Night Football. The Steelers haven’t really come up big in the tough games since last year’s regular season victory over the Patriots.

sunday to saturday:

• 1x 2.6 mile run
• 2x 2.1 mile run
• 2x 1.9 mile walks (to, from work)
• 2x 0.5 mile swim

also: lots of heavy lifting and moving at work.

From Saturday to Saturday here is how I accelerated my heartbeat:

• 3x 2.6 mile runs
• 2x 2.0 mile runs
• 1x 0.5 mile swim (freestyle)
• 2x 2.0 mile walks (to, from walk)
• 1x 15 mile bike (with ~1500ft elevation gain)

I really hate running.

I also got stung by a bee on my finger on Thursday. It is still swollen.

Charlie Batch, the Steeler’s 3rd string quarterback, was 9/16 for 65 yards. Brett Favre was 20/35 for 214 yards. The Steelers won.

Oh snap, Brett Favre!

I was in the City yesterday hanging with Gumbeaux near the Haight so I went to Amoeba and got a few CDs:

• Iron & Wine and Calexico In the Reins
• Stubbs the Zombie [Soundtrack] bunch of indie and mainstream bands doing covers of 50s songs for a video game soundtrack
• Low and the Dirty Three In the Fishtank
• Sigur Ros Takk
• Matt Pond PA Several Arrows Later

I should probably not buy any more CDs for a while…

I’m a bit sick. Both of my roommates were sick last week and now I am. I thought I could squeeze by without getting what they had but the late night/ early morning today was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m going to go to sleep in a minute here.

The Steelers just squeeked out a win over the Ravens. They really need to stop taking these games to the final minute/ seconds like that. It’s not good for my heart.

I went to two concerts this weekend: Jens Lekman at the Rickshaw Stop on Saturday and the American Analog Set at Bottom of the Hill. Both really quite good shows. I’m going to write a post about them when I don’t really need to get some sleep and get not-sick.

You may leave your comments proclaiming your undying love for me. Also (if you’re female) you may leave your email address or other contact information. (If you’re male) you may leave contact information of available female friends.

I’ve been swimming pretty regularly for a couple years now and never quite saw what I saw tonight.

A number of factors played into this. I was swimming outdoors; they had one half of the pool open without any lane dividers; it was dark out; I recently got prescription goggles.

Looking up at the surface of the water was just surreal. It looked somewhere between molten metal or molten glass. The lights in the pool reflected off of the surface of the water so it looked like these artificial suns setting on a molten metal lake.

I was so distracted I didn’t really count my laps.

Red Sox are out of the playoffs in a sweep. I mean, come on guys. At least go down 3-2 in the ALDS!

Yankees are tied up in their series. I’m hoping the Angels will win tonight at 8pm, in the only major league game today.

A punter, Michael Koenen kicked a 58 yard field goal (after a “practice try” of sorts, caused by the opposing team calling time-out). Who would think of putting in a punter to try for a really long field goal? I guess he did kick field goals in college. What’s the league record longest field goal? Something like 63 yards, right?

Steelers play the Chargers tonight on Monday Night Football. I’ll be watching. Chargers beat the Patriots last week and the Patriots beat the Steelers the week before so if the Steelers win tonight, they’re—what?—better than themselves?

Most question marks in one of my posts ever. I don’t know if that’s actually true.

NPR did an interesting piece on the singing/ playing of “Sweet Caroline” (by Neil Diamond) in the 8th inning at Fenway Park.

Andy’s made a handy chart of all 9 possible outcomes of Yankees, Red Sox and Indians outcomes of the next two days. Each game will eliminate a row or a column.

Steelers lost again those guys on Sunday. It was a close game. Well that’s not really true. Steelers were better for the first half and the other dudes were basically dominant for the second half. They have a bye week so it’ll be a week and a half until I get to see them win again.

The BoSox are a game back in the AL East and tied for the wild card spot. In the last two days the A’s and the Giants got elimanted from the pennant race in their respective divisions. The Pirates got eliminated approximately four months ago.

And by films I mean that in the literal sense, of captured, originally, on film.

And by documentary, I mean documenting real events.

I saw three recently:

1. NFL Film’s History of the Steelers NFL Films used to have a weekly show called “This is the NFL” and I would watch it many weeks, even before I was much of a football fan, just because they had beautiful footage and the sound, especially of the impacts, was incredible. There’s something about watching football on film that’s great. I liked this DVD a lot. I learned a bunch about the pre-70s Steelers and there were many interesting interviews with former players and coaches and whatnot. I also saw that there is quite a symbiotic relationship and feelings of duty and mutual respect between the Rooneys (the family that owns the Steelers) and the Team, the Team and the Fans, the Fans and the Rooneys. My one sort of complaint about the film was that it glossed over the big losses. An intricate part of the story of the Steelers, at least over the last decade, has been some big losses, I feel. Definitely worth watching if you’re a Steelers fan or a fan of football in general.
2. Low in Europe Dave gave this to me for my birthday. This shows some great footage and interviews of the band on a tour of Europe following the release of Trust. Maybe I just haven’t looked for many interviews of Low, but it seems that they haven’t been interviewed much, so it’s nice to see some more in depth coverage of their lives in this movie. There’s also some great footage of the band playing live; one of my favorites is a couple acoustic songs at a radio station in Frankfurt. The film ends with them playing at the Union Chapel in London, which no longer hosts shows, but while it did was a fantastic place to see a band like Low, as Andy or I can attest to. Worth watching for fans of Low or if you’re interested in becoming one.
3. Drive Well, Sleep Carefully The Death Cab for Cutie tour documentary. This close to 90 minutes of interviews and performances from a tour last year. The interviews seemed a bit lacking and single-tracked, but there’s pretty good pacing and editting between the interview portions and the song portions. The individual performances of the songs vary in how good they are. It’s worth watching if you’re a fan or are just an OC watching hipster.

Dug and I went to see the Giants at SBC Park today. I’d managed to get some basically field-level seats (section 104, row 24, if you want to look it up) off of craigslist for below face value.

It ended up being a pretty exciting game even though neither of us were really rooting for either team. Something like five home runs were hit, the last being No. 705 by Barry Bonds, his second of the season after being out recovering from knee surgery for most of the season. I’d seen Bonds play in his Pirates years and probably saw many home runs by him. Someone’s career home runs 134 and 162 are not noteworthy. One thing you don’t notice from the highlight reels of someone who’s always swinging for the fences like Bonds [note: he's not always swinging for the fences—he hit a on-the-ground single earlier in the game] is what he looks like when he misses. He missed (or foul-tipped) two times in the at bat where he finally hit a home run and it looked like his arms were going to rip out he was swinging so hard. When he finally did connect solidly, the ball had no chance of staying in the park; a quick kayaker in China Basin is now the proud owner of the Bonds Home Run Ball No. 705.

(Wow, I just realized that I’ve seen 8 (Red Sox, A’s, Giants, Pirates, Blue Jays, Nationals, Phillies, Dodgers) teams play at four stadiums (Coliseum, Fenway, RFK, SBC) this year.)

In other sporting news, the Steelers won pretty handily (again) and I happened to notice another team lost today. It’ll be interesting when they face off next week.

Oakland A’s American League Division Series (ALDS) playoff tickets went on sale at 9am today. I bought 6 bleachers seats for either Game 1 or Game 3, October 4 or 7.

The hope, of course, is that it’ll be the A’s vs. Red Sox. There’s a lot that needs to happen first, though.

If it’s not the Sox, I can go anyway or sell the tickets.

Anyone know how the playoff match-ups are decided? Say if the season ended today, who would play whom?

Of the four major sports (baseball, basketball, football. and hockey), there are 15 cities with exactly one major sports franchise. They are as follows:

• Columbus (Blue Jackets, NHL)
• Ottawa (Senators, NHL)
• Edmonton (Oilers, NHL)
• Raliegh (Carolina Hurricanes, NHL)
• Calgary (Flames, NHL)
• Vancouver (Canucks, NHL)
• Montreal (Canadiens, NHL)
• Greenbay (Packers, NFL)
• Jacksonville (Jaguars, NFL)
• Orlando (Magic, NBA)
• Sacramento (Kings, NBA)
• Portland (Trailblaizers, NBA)
• Salt Lake City (Utah Jazz, NBA)
• Memphis (Grizzlies, NBA)
• San Antonio (Spurs, NBA)

the following are what I call “sort of”s because they are in the metropolitan area with major sports franchises:

• San Jose, CA (Sharks, NHL, in the Bay Area with San Francisco and Oakland teams)
• Arlington, TX (Texas Rangers, MLB, in Dallas/ Ft. Worth area)
• Foxboro, MA (New England Patriots, NFL, in Boston area)
• Tempe, AZ (Arizona Cardinals, NFL, in Pheonix area)
• St. Paul, MN (Minnesota Wild, NHL, in Minneapolis area)

four sports or activities in which I can beat the layman but I am no match for the skilled or professional:

• swimming
• cycling
• table tennis (or “pong” as I call it)
• foosball

it’s really just a side note that there’s going to be a hockey season later this year.

meanwhile, we’ve got from four major sports to three and a couple fringe sports like hockey, soccer, arena football, etc.

I did the Alcatraz Sharkest swim yesterday. It’s a 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz to Aqautic Park, San Francisco. Water temperature yesterday was reported as various numbers between 57 and 62 degrees Fahrenheit.

I made another hastily draw map with annotations (you’re welcome!) of the race route for you to follow along with.

I got there and registered. I went and sat down for a while in the grandstands, waiting for the pre-race announcements. I was pretty anxious at this point.

The race director came out and said a few things, including how there was a 9 year old and a 70 year old both participating in the race. He asked if there were any questions and someone asked where we should sight. He sort of offhandedly (foreshadowing!) responded that the three-masted ship to the east of Aquatic Park and also there’d be a guide boat with orange bouys to the front of the race.

See, sighting is important for this swim because there is a current that goes out of the bay (east to west) right near the shore/ breakwater so if you aim for the entrance of Aquatic Park you will end up far to the west of the entrance and you won’t be able to make it back.

After the prerace announcments we all walked down to Pier 41 to board the ferries to go out to the Island. Some people on the boats were pretty talkative and jovial and others were concentrating and getting prepared. I was in the latter pack. As I was sitting there and preparing and stretching, I felt the muscle between my right shoulder and neck sort of tighten up. I don’t know if anyone else gets these but I get cricks in my neck and shoulders sometimes. Usually I wake up with them but sometimes they just happen and I can’t stop them. I don’t think this one had anything to do with the stretching or the race but once it was a crick it wasn’t going away. I decided I’d prepared for this for months and that I wasn’t going to give up at this point. (I’d decided earlier in the day that I wasn’t going to give up before 200 yards after the beginning of the race, knowing that the shock of jumping out of the boat and that distance would be the hardest points of the race and the time when I’d be most likely to want to give up if I wanted to/ had to.)

The jump from the boat was a shock to the system, as I expected, but, by the time I got to where the kayaks were lined up to denote the starting line, the shock/ panic breathing was out of my system and I was feeling okay.

The swim started and was going pretty smoothly. There were two sections where they were pretty sizable swells—or they felt sizable at least—and that was a new experience for me. Between those two sections was pretty calm and warm, actually. I kept up a pretty decent pace and I knew I was swimming pretty hard but I didn’t feel like I was getting tired so I thought I’d just keep it up and if I needed to slow down a bit later I would.

As I mentioned earlier, the way the course is supposed to work, you swim to the east of the entrance to Aquatic Park and the current basically sweeps you west so you swim directly into the entrance. Now what happened was that I was swimming along toward the three-masted ship or even farther left/ east and then quite suddenly I was too far right/ west. The current was stronger than someone thought, apparenlty. Now I had to swim against the current to get back to the entrance. I swam hard and the pier to my right (at that point) didn’t look like it was moving relative to me. I kept swimming hard and saw that the pier was moving slowly relatively to me. All this swimming hard was getting me tired and I was worried I’d not be able to make it and have to get picked up by one of the kayaks. After probably five minutes of this I was getting pretty tired but I made it into the entrance and the finish area was in sight.

Everyone I talked to after the race also ended up too far west and had to swim against the current.

I swam somewhat slower for a bit to recover and then I picked up the pace again and sprinted to the finish. Ann, a coworker of mine, was at the finish area to cheer me in.

Overall, it was not as bad as I expected. My neck/ shoulder crick hurt most of yesterday and I took a bit to warm up but my body didn’t feel the effects of it too much.

Updates to come: photos of me finishing and my time once they post the times.

[Update 1:] My official finishing time was 57:01.0. Subtract a few minutes for those shenanigans with the current and that’s a decent time. I came in 68 out of 96 non-wetsuiters and 4th in the 20-24 age division.

[Update 2:] A picture of me finishing the race:

This 18 year old South Africa kid, Oscar Pistorius, is smashing world records left and right for the 100m, 200m and 400m distances. He’s a double amputee (missing both legs below the knees) and he also holds the world record for single amputees (I think I’m remembering details here).

And he plans to compete in the 2008 Beijing able-bodies Olympics. He recently came 6th in the South African Championships against able bodies competitors and he’s only been running for about a year.

I haven’t posted anything for a while so I thought I’d put in a couple updates.

I saw Crash last night, which was directed and written by the screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby (and creator of Walker, Texas Ranger), Paul Haggis, and stars just about a bazillion people. It’s a Magnolia-like many-stories-happening-simultaneously-and-somewhat-related sort of story. It’s largely about race and things like that. Besides being intense, it’s also uncomfortable—”good” characters do bad things and “bad” characters; a nice muddle moral pool to make one uncomfortable. But it’s good. It’s a thinking movie.

At Wally’s recommendation, I got Freestyle: the Art of Rhyme, which is a documentary about, amazingly, freestyling. Freestyling is often exhibitted in battles, like those in the movie 8 Mile, if you’ve seen that, but just as often, or more often, in parks and on street corners. For those not as entrenched in the hip hop arts as I am, freestyling is rapping off the top of your head. There were two characters that were focused upon a bit more than others in the movie, Supernatural and Juice, both of whom are absolutely amazing in their ability to rhyme just about anything without any forethought. There were clips where both of them were just going about their normal business rapping about their surroundings and things as they came along. It’s an interesting movie. I’d recommend it.

On Saturday, I swam for the fourth time in Aquatic Park, in San Francisco. After all this time, I’ve decided to show what it actually looks like. I decided to do a “perimeter” swim on Saturday. I started between those two short docks on the right centerish, went left and a little down across towards that boat house looking thing on the left side, then headed up and a little left for a while, then went almost directly right toward that boat—aww, I suck at describing this. I’m just going to draw you a hastily drawn map. Two points of interest are marked by the dots. Around the one at the top, there it was quite choppy because it was basically open to the Bay at that point. At the one on the right side there was a wicked current toward the right that almost carried me into one of those large boats on the right side. The X at the bottom left is where the last swim bouy is; most people swim back an forth between that swim buoy and one located near the two docks on the right side.

The big swim is this coming Saturday. Wish me luck.

I swam at the Palo Alto Riconada Pool last night because the Stanford pool didn’t have evening hours.

It was my first timed mile in a long time. 36 minutes. Take that Roger Bannister! That puts me on pace for a 54 minute Alcatraz swim

It’s weird swimming in a 25 yard pool again. It feels too short and I could really get into my stroke before I had to turn.

Myron Cope has retired. What will a Sunday game be without him?

Yesterday was the second time I swam in Aquatic Park in San Francisco. Aquatic Park is an area of the Bay that is protected by two piers, so you get all the coldness without any of the ship traffic or crazy currents.

I’m getting ready for a swim from Alcatraz in just under a month. The best preparation for swimming in that cold water is to swim in similarly cold water. Aquatic Park was probably about 58 or 60 degrees.

I knew what to expect this time and I still went into panic breathing when I went underwater. Once I forced myself to put my head in the water again and start swimming, I relaxed.

I did probably a mile and it didn’t feel too bad. I mean, it was cold, that’s for certain, but it wasn’t painfully cold after about the first five minutes. My injured elbow did nag a bit and I’m a bit worried about it, but I think it’ll be okay.

I was wearing a Barracude Hot Head neoprene hood and I had in silicone ear plug, which did help with the coldness. I figure I should be okay to swim without a wetsuit.

At this point, I’m going to start swimming a mile twice a week, one in Aquatic Park and one in the pool down here and probably two shorter work outs a week of kicking and whatnot to still get in the water but to not overwork my elbow. My previous regiment was 3 half-mile swims a week.

Yesterday morning I went swimming in Aquatic Park, in San Francisco. Aquatic Park is protected from the nasty tides and choppiness of the Bay, but’s just as cold. Estimates yesterday were in the high 50’s in degrees F.

I went without a wetsuit or even a swim cap. I waded in and it was cold but manageable when I was standing in there waist-deep. When I dove in and started swimming, I immediately came up and treaded water for a couple minutes; I had gone into panic-breathing; I couldn’t control my breathing. I settled down and started swimming and I felt I did alright. I wasn’t swimming all that fast and my natural stroke (without lines on the bottom to guide me) apparently veers a lot to the right. But the cold wasn’t unbearable and I actuallly got used to it after a bit.

I might go up again next weekend.

Andyl and I saw Fever Pitch on Sunday Night. I liked it.

It’s a movie about a fanatical Red Sox fan (Jimmy Fallon) and his priorities with new non-Red Sox fan girlfriend (Drew Barrymore) based on a book about a fanatical soccer fan.

It’s by the Farrelly brothers (Something About Mary, Dumb and Dumber), so there is some gratuitous (and funny) bathroom humor, but mostly it’s a love song to the Red Sox and their 2004 season. And something of a love story between Fallon and Barrymore too.

Both Andyl and I came out of the movie, somewhat strangely for a movie about a team and a girl, very nostalgic for Boston. I knew where Drew Barrymore’s character lived (based on the First Baptist Church, at the corner of Comm Ave and Clarendon, you see as Jimmy Fallon leaves her apartment); it’s probably around 93 Marlborough. That was about a five minute walk from tEp; fenway was about a fifteen minute walk. It’s all very familiar.

Caveats to my liking this movie:

• I like the Red Sox.
• I like Boston.
• I like Jimmy Fallon (but even that couldn’t get me to watch Taxi)
• I like Drew Barrymore.

I went to the BoSox vs. Oakland A’s game tonight at the Coliseum. It was a really exciting game!

Sox out to an early lead. Oakland scored a few runs to a 5-3 lead and then the Sox scored 4 in the eighth to take the lead, which they held onto to win. Very exciting.

The Coliseum is an old concrete cookie cutter stadium, but it’s actually sort of charming in that way. Lots of bathrooms, quick to get out at the end of the game without much battling the crowd. The bleacher seats are cheap and the view isn’t bad at all. And the Oakland fans are quite devoted. I like that. Even though in the end they will LOSE to the Sox. HA!

Useful background:

• I used to only swim breaststroke. I was good at it.
• I hurt my knee in August 2003 and can’t swim breaststroke anymore.
• I hurt my elbow last April and didn’t swim from then till January.
• Now I swim freestyle with an elbow brace and some pain.

I don’t really time myself swimming anymore, but yesterday I was curious as to how slow I am so I did so. Slightly pushing it (but mostly just gliding along), I did 800m in 15:40. That’s not bad! I used to swim the same distance breaststroke in about 16:00—well technically I was doing 800 yards in ~14:30—if I was going at a pretty good clip. Now freestyle is a faster stroke (1/3 faster usually), so almost the same times for the two of them isn’t that great on an absolute scale, but considering I’m swimming injured and I’m definitely not swimming my fastest, I’m pretty pleased that I’m not coming in at like 18 or 20 minutes for that distance. Go me!

I’m swimming the 1.5 mile alcatraz swim in July. I think coming in <1 hour would be a good goal and <55 minutes might be nice.

I went to the Pirates @ Giants game last night with Quincy and, what do you know, they won 5-2.

I have to admit, I’m not a great fan, in the classic sense. My teams are not infallible and in the case of the current Pirates, I didn’t go to the game expecting them to win.

They got off to a slow start and were down 2-0 when Jason Bay smashed a ball into left center for a 3 run home run. Things looked up from then on out. There was a ton of good fielding (on both, teams, actually) and a couple more solo homers from the Pirates. Let’s go Bucs!

Quincy bought the tickets Monday afternoon and we got seats in the front row on the first base line. The (non-enclosed) Pirates bullpen was about 10 feet away. Apparently I got on TV too! Mike Bokoch, fellow Pittsburgh-Peninsula transplant, watched the game and saw me. I was right in front of a kid that got a ball from a ball boy. According to Mike, the shot stayed on us for about 30 seconds! I’m famous!

In other strange news, I ran into Balaji Sarpeshkar, someone I knew from high school (USC Class of ‘99 rules!) at the Caltrain station after the game. I don’t think he recognized me and I didn’t give him much chance to figure it out; I shook his hand and told him my name (because it seemed he didn’t recognize me) then bumbled for a couple seconds about how it was weird to run into him and then said I had to make sure I caught the next train and then did so. Maybe he’ll google for his name (everyone does it. it’s natural) and figure out who I am and whatnot.

I saw a talk by the founder and artistic director of Project Bandaloop on Thursday. It’s a “dance troupe” but they “dance” on the sides of buildings and cliffs and such. It’s a combination of rock climbing, gymnastic and dance. I was, to be honest, a little skeptical when I went in but I was astounded when I came out.

Depending on the situation there is different amounts of free rope and therefore different microgravities that they’re seeing in their orthoganol world. On the side of a building in Houston, they had something like 300 feet of free road and were doing something like 11 second jumps. That’s rediculous!

Because of the micro-gravity effect they can also do absolutely gorgeous poses like these hand stands (I actually saw a photo at the presentation of a similar thing but on the corners of the Space Needle.)

I highly recommend checking out the video gallery and the photo gallery.

I know I’ve been swimming enough when my lower back and back of my thighs are tanned. I checked out my backside in the mirror at the pool yesterday and sure enough: a light tan, but there’s a distinguishable lighter area where my swim suit sits.

I’ve been keeping up three times a week since early January. My old standard used to be five times a week but I hurt my elbow last year and decided in order to recover, I ought not to swim two days in a row. I’ve been swimming with a brace on that elbow.

It’s aching at the end of swims. This isn’t something new. That’s part of the reason I don’t swim on consecutive days. The other day I got some muscle aching in my right arm. That’s encouraging; I take it to mean that the muscle is the weakest link, not the ligament at the elbow.

Some people can run for days or bike up all the hills in the world. I can swim. I was never the fastest, but I could swim farther than you in four hours, especially if you’re Maggie. (ha!)

But, yeah, I’m swimming again. It’s nice. The water is so comfortable for me.

[note one: all of Stanford's pools are outside and heated. Yes, we swim in them even during the "winter."]

[note two: I mention maggie because she challenged me to a four hour swim-off a couple years ago. It never happened but she basically conceded after I swam 3.5 miles in two hours to see what I could do.]

Judit, Dave, Andy(L) and I (and some of Judit’s coworkers/ friends) went to Palo Alto Bowl (or PAB as I call it) for kareoke night. The kareoke is for the most part painful, but check this: $13 gets you shoes and as many games as you can bowl between 9 and midnight. We ended up bowling five games, I think.

99, 115, 122, 126 and 139 were my scores. Not 194 but not bad either.

I just signed up for the Alcatraz Sharkfest Swim, which is a mile and a half swim from Alcatraz to Aquatic Park in San Francisco. The Bay is about 60-62 degrees at that time of the year.

I was signed up last year but an injury kept me from swimming.

I swam yesterday, starting either my third or fourth week back swimming since I hurt my elbow last April. I’ve swum since April, but not much; I’ve probably swum as much since the beginning of the year, about three times a week, as I did in all the other time combined. My elbow is a bit tender, but it seems to be holding up alright. I won’t swim on consecutive days (yet) to try to rest it between swims. I’ve been swimming with an elbow brace as well.

Overall I’ve been feeling pretty good in the water. I’ve been swimming fairly conservatively and trying to glide a lot. I feel like I’m swimming pretty slowly, but I pass people who are trashing around (and look like they must be zipping through the water) so I can’t be going too slow. Could I swim the race tomorrow? I’m pretty sure I could swim 1.5 miles in the pool if I had to, but in the cold water with waves and without the benefit of turns (which save energy and time)? I wouldn’t like to try.

Every time I seem to be doing alright swimming, I hurt myself. I hurt my knee in August of 2003 at the end of a 2 hours, 3.5 mile swim in the MIT pool (I was seeing how much I could swim in two hours). That put an end to my breakstroke, which I loved and was so comfortable swimming (and I was pretty fast for a breastroker—I’d regularly pass free-stylers). Last April, I hurt my elbow playing tennis and frisbee golf and swimming. Let’s hope my joints can hold up till July.

Things I may have to get:

• triathlon wetsuit. the water is 60-62. that’s really cold. most people wear wetsuits.
• prescription goggles. they tell you a SF landmark to swim towards and I’m afraid that I won’t be able to see it without

Jon Werberg put it nicely on Sunday. Some teams just stick with you. The BoSox, the Steelers. It’s the history, it’s what the team represents and it’s to a large extent, the fans. What the team means to the fans. It became national news this fall what the Red Sox means to Boston and the Red Sox Nation.

Pittsburgh is more insular though. The flux of people in Boston, adding to the Red Sox Nation, is not common place in Pittsburgh. But that doesn’t stop every home game to be sold out. That doesn’t stop the largest crowd to ever watch a Steelers home game from showing up in sub-10 degree weather to see their dream team fall.

I haven’t been to Green Bay or Chicago (and I was in Boston when the Patriots won their first Super Bowl), but it’s hard to imagine a city more devoted to its team. Or a city more crushed by their team’s loss. Pittsburgh doesn’t get a lot of good news. The city is bankrupt; the county will be too soon. People and jobs move away. My team—my boys as I call them sometimes—lost and I’m sad. But almost moreso I’m sad for my home town. I don’t think anyone that isn’t a Pittsburgher can understand how much joy this team gave them; the bouyancy that Pittsburghers had during the seasons; and the hopes that were rested on the team.

In the words of fans of the losers that always get so close “next year will be our year.” And I think it may be. Plaxico is leaving but it seems most of the rest of the team will stick around. Roethlisberger may come back from his only loss in the NFL and be better for it; he may have a sophomore slump. Time will tell.

Was I glad I went? definitely. I’d probably even do it again knowing everything I know now.

Mean time, I think it’s about time to put my name on the season ticket waiting list. In 10 or 15 years I may actually be back in Pittsburgh by the time I get them.

Alright, so I’m crazy.

I bought tickets for $$$ on ebay to the AFC championship game. I bought a ticket to Pittsburgh for $$ as well. Looks like I’m going. Let’s home this guy on ebay is for real and I don’t get utterly screwed.

Pretty much as soon as I bought the ticket I had a bad feeling. I’m not too superstitious, but up until that point I was 100% sure that the Steelers would go to the Superbowl (and win). Now, I’m not as sure. Like me going is going to make the Steelers lose.

Don’t tell the Steelers I’m coming! Then they will still win.

I’m getting in Saturday night and leaving Monday morning. I’ll be in Pittsburgh for less than 36 hours. Pittsburghers, if you want to hang out Saturday night after I get in, after the game Sunday night or have lunch on Sunday, let me know.

Part of me really enjoys being young and dumb and reckless with my money. Another part of me wants to check my bank acounts and formulate a good plan for saving after this.

Here we go, Steelers!

[Update: my dad has the tickets in his hand, so the somewhat sketchy guy came through. I forgot to mention Jon Werberg is driving down from New York to go to the game with me. He lived in Pittsburgh for a bit over a year so he's got the Steeler's bug and a few friends in town.]

I’m bidding (and getting outbid) on ebay for tickets to the AFC Championship game in Pittsburgh. It’s scary. I feel I could get screwed in so many ways. It’s also exciting.

Between this and my adventures on shopgoodwill.com, I’m starting to remember why I used to be hopelessly addicted to ebay.

And end the season at 15-1. Pretty spectacular.

People in Pittsburgh, if you have a line on a pair of tickets for the AFC championship game, let me know.

We were talking about football at the dinner table tonight. I am going to watch the Steelers game tomorrow with my mom and explain how it works (and I suggested she drink beer and smash the can on her forhead as well, but she didn’t like this suggestion) and as to illustrate why, I’m going to excerpt some of our conversation from dinner.

Mom: Why is the quarterback so important?
Dad: Because he directs the play on the field. He throws the ball.
Mom: He always throws the ball? They always give it to him?
Dad: I thought I didn’t know anything about the game. I’m an expert compared to you!

Yeah, that’s how it is in the Bischoff household. I think my mom finally figured out the rules of baseball though.

The Steelers do it again. It looks like this year might be the year for the one for the thumb.

After the BoSox (who, incidentally, were just named the Sports Illustrated Sportsmen of the Year), the Steelers doing well, I’m happy.