This weekend Meaghan and I will be flying to Atlanta along with 12 of the best and brightest students from her high school. That's right, it's time for the High School National Championship of Quiz Bowl. We have two teams that have qualified, and our goal is to get at least one of those teams into the 2nd day of play. This would mean that they would have to finish 6-4 or better on Saturday. 14 of the 218 teams entered hail from Minnesota, so we're looking forward to seeing a lot of familiar faces around the tournament.
Folks may recall that in the past the national tournament has been held in the Chicagoland area, which means that we'd be within driving distance. Unfortunately, the experience of sharing the hotel and convention center there with a bondage convention last year has scared the organizers into seeking a new venue. Let's just say that if you wandered into the wrong place last year, you may have been exposed to material inappropriate for a high schooler.
I'm looking forward to getting to see a little bit of downtown Atlanta, as I've never spent any amount of time there. Depending on when we're eliminated we may get to see the world's largest aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola, or other cool things in the Underground Atlanta. I'll let you know what happened in an update next week.
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Djokovic Watch = 41
Djokovic ran his streak to 41 this morning with a 6-3 6-1 2-3 (ret.) victory over the Romanian Hanescu. His 3rd round match on Friday will be a true test. The opponent is #26 Juan Martin Del Potro. The dangerous Argentine was ranked as high as #4 in the world before injuring his wrist early last year. After getting it surgically repaired at a certain medical clinic in Rochester, he's been on the comeback trail. The fact that he's still ranked #26 despite missing almost an entire year speaks volumes to his skill.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
SWAT Team! aka Why My Wife is Crazy, Part 2
It was a stormy day on Saturday. Thankfully, one of the system's bands of rain lifted out of the metro area around 2:00 leaving behind a beautiful blue sky. Perfect for skydiving, one might say. And so it was that Meaghan was able to put the morning's training to good use and performed her first solo jump. Obviously, being her first such jump she wasn't completely alone. Two experienced jumpers fall near you to correct your form and pull your ripcord should you prove incapable. After that, for the controlled flight and landing portions you are truly on your own.
This is a scary proposition (for me, anyway) as we saw an experienced jumper break an ankle on landing two years ago when we were there. Meaghan came through with flying colors, however. She only missed the target landing zone by about 15 yards. Not bad, considering that some of the other first-timers there ended up over a mile away on some of the neighboring farms. Speaking of first-timers, Meaghan went to the drop zone with a couple of her co-workers who had never jumped before. Consequently, the three of them became the charter members of SWAT. I won't tell you what that stands for as it reveals too much about where she works, but it's essentially a group of adventure seeking folks. Any event involving two or more people from her workplace will become a SWAT event.
Unfortunately, I had to learn about all of this secondhand. Because of the uncertainty surrounding the weather, they were really hustling flights up when the skies cleared and Meaghan wasn't given the opportunity to call me out to the airfield before she jumped. I was able to catch up to the SWAT team at a local bar afterwards, though. Look at those proud faces.
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Djokovic Watch = 40
He was a 6-2 6-1 6-3 winner over #71 Thiemo de Bakker in the first round at the French Monday. Next up: #60 Victor Hanescu
This is a scary proposition (for me, anyway) as we saw an experienced jumper break an ankle on landing two years ago when we were there. Meaghan came through with flying colors, however. She only missed the target landing zone by about 15 yards. Not bad, considering that some of the other first-timers there ended up over a mile away on some of the neighboring farms. Speaking of first-timers, Meaghan went to the drop zone with a couple of her co-workers who had never jumped before. Consequently, the three of them became the charter members of SWAT. I won't tell you what that stands for as it reveals too much about where she works, but it's essentially a group of adventure seeking folks. Any event involving two or more people from her workplace will become a SWAT event.
Unfortunately, I had to learn about all of this secondhand. Because of the uncertainty surrounding the weather, they were really hustling flights up when the skies cleared and Meaghan wasn't given the opportunity to call me out to the airfield before she jumped. I was able to catch up to the SWAT team at a local bar afterwards, though. Look at those proud faces.
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Djokovic Watch = 40
He was a 6-2 6-1 6-3 winner over #71 Thiemo de Bakker in the first round at the French Monday. Next up: #60 Victor Hanescu
Friday, May 20, 2011
For Kim, Part 3/5
#3 in my list of favorite celebrity males is Guy Pearce. Who? Here... does this help?
Pearce is not only on this list because he's a talented actor, but because he stars in two of my favorite movies of all time. In 1997's L.A. Confidential, he plays Ed Exley, the one cop in all of L.A. who is incorruptible. Although it's an ensemble film, Pearce's journey from naive rookie cop to hardened veteran provides the backbone that supports the entire story.
After laying low for a couple of years, Pearce re-emerged in 2000 as brain-damaged Lenny in Christopher Nolan's brilliant Memento. If you haven't seen it, you absolutely must. It is the only movie I've been compelled to see three times in the theater. Pearce's performance was enough to elevate him to leading-man status for a little while, and he starred in such films as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Time Machine. When those didn't do particularly well at the box office, his star dwindled a little.
Through the years, he's continued to produce quality work albeit mostly not in mainstream projects. Most notably, he played Colin Firth's pompous twit of a brother, King Edward VIII, in The King's Speech. Looking at his IMDB page, I can see a lot of projects that are in development. A true chameleon, I look forward to what Guy Pearce will do in the future.
Pearce is not only on this list because he's a talented actor, but because he stars in two of my favorite movies of all time. In 1997's L.A. Confidential, he plays Ed Exley, the one cop in all of L.A. who is incorruptible. Although it's an ensemble film, Pearce's journey from naive rookie cop to hardened veteran provides the backbone that supports the entire story.
After laying low for a couple of years, Pearce re-emerged in 2000 as brain-damaged Lenny in Christopher Nolan's brilliant Memento. If you haven't seen it, you absolutely must. It is the only movie I've been compelled to see three times in the theater. Pearce's performance was enough to elevate him to leading-man status for a little while, and he starred in such films as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Time Machine. When those didn't do particularly well at the box office, his star dwindled a little.
Through the years, he's continued to produce quality work albeit mostly not in mainstream projects. Most notably, he played Colin Firth's pompous twit of a brother, King Edward VIII, in The King's Speech. Looking at his IMDB page, I can see a lot of projects that are in development. A true chameleon, I look forward to what Guy Pearce will do in the future.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Why My Wife is Crazy, Part 1
The gangly kid with the big hair looked at Meaghan then squinted up into the bright blue sky. "Today is a good day to die, don't you think?" Meaghan, startled out of her thoughts, looked at him and laughed. Then the kid led my wife away from me across the grassy airfield to the small airplane that they were planning on jumping out of.
Two years ago, Meaghan went skydiving. At my suggestion, she made it a dual jump, so someone experienced would be in charge of packing the parachute and pulling the cord. They tell you that nobody (who survives the experience) has ever just gone skydiving once. So, she is going back for her first solo jump this weekend. She's also bringing along some members of her newly inaugurated SWAT team, a collective of adventure-seeking teachers from her school. Unfortunately, the weather is supposed to be a little iffy on Saturday, but with luck they'll be able to get their jumps in okay.
I'm not sure why I didn't post about her first jump two summers ago, but to prepare you for this weekend's event, here are a few (mostly bad) pictures from that experience.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Small Packages
Despite the fact that my dad worked for a Big 3 auto company, I am not a car guy. This is probably best illustrated by the fact that the three cars I've owned in my life (not counting poor Roger -- alas, we hardly knew him and yes, we name our cars) are a 1994 Chrysler Concorde [Medea], a 2003 Dodge Neon [Rivers], and a 2007 Dodge Caliber [Sunny]. You won't find them near the tops of any best of class or fun to drive lists, but they've each served us well so far in their own ways. Unfortunately, Rivers is starting to show the wear and tear that 8 years and 120,000+ miles can inflict on a car, and we're nearing the point where we're going to have to make a decision of whether to get some fairly major engine work done or call it a life and move on to a new car. There's a good chance that we'll just get the repairs, but in the event that we don't the car that I want may be a surprising choice.
Despite my 6'2" frame, for awhile now I've held the staunchly un-American view that my next car should be a small one. I think this stems from my last year of college when I got my PlayStation 2. Back in the day when specific games were still bundled with your console, I got the package that included the Sony/Polyphony classic Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec. It's a racing game in which you start with $18,000 and eventually build up and tune a fleet of cars until you've won every race there is to win. With nearly 200 cars there's a lot of variety as each car looks, sounds, and drives differently. However, not being a car guy, I've never stuck with it for a lengthy career.
Despite the fact that there are so many cars in the game, your starting money is only enough to buy 11 of them. The vast majority of these are Japanese kei cars (subcompact), and being a stingy bastard I opted to start out with the cheapest car possible, the Daihatsu Mira. Thus began my love affair with the company that proudly proclaims to "do it compact".
They make cute little jellybeans of cars, most of which get upwards of 50 mpg with their tiny engines. Unfortunately, it's not feasible for a lot of reasons (importation fees, crash standards, etc.) to ever hope to drive something like this in the United States. That's why I've turned to the next best thing.
Say hello to the Fiat 500. With Fiat soon to own a majority stake in Chrysler, they're practically part of the Big 3, right? These little guys have just started being sold in America in the last couple of months, so there's a good chance that you haven't seen any of them on the road yet in your neck of the woods. With luck though, you'll start to see them become as common as some of the other small boutique cars out there like the Mini Cooper and the Smart cars. I know what you're thinking. Is a car this small really practical?
If I had to tote around car seats and their precious cargo on a regular basis, absolutely not. But as a 2nd car that just gets driven around the city and occasionally to work? I think so. It would certainly make parallel parking easier, and I'd finally get to try out those "compact car only" spots in parking garages. Add in the fact that it gets 34 mpg with the automatic during this time of $4/gallon gas, and it's a win/win situation.
Maybe someday...
Despite my 6'2" frame, for awhile now I've held the staunchly un-American view that my next car should be a small one. I think this stems from my last year of college when I got my PlayStation 2. Back in the day when specific games were still bundled with your console, I got the package that included the Sony/Polyphony classic Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec. It's a racing game in which you start with $18,000 and eventually build up and tune a fleet of cars until you've won every race there is to win. With nearly 200 cars there's a lot of variety as each car looks, sounds, and drives differently. However, not being a car guy, I've never stuck with it for a lengthy career.
Despite the fact that there are so many cars in the game, your starting money is only enough to buy 11 of them. The vast majority of these are Japanese kei cars (subcompact), and being a stingy bastard I opted to start out with the cheapest car possible, the Daihatsu Mira. Thus began my love affair with the company that proudly proclaims to "do it compact".
The modern Mira
They make cute little jellybeans of cars, most of which get upwards of 50 mpg with their tiny engines. Unfortunately, it's not feasible for a lot of reasons (importation fees, crash standards, etc.) to ever hope to drive something like this in the United States. That's why I've turned to the next best thing.
Cinquecento!
Say hello to the Fiat 500. With Fiat soon to own a majority stake in Chrysler, they're practically part of the Big 3, right? These little guys have just started being sold in America in the last couple of months, so there's a good chance that you haven't seen any of them on the road yet in your neck of the woods. With luck though, you'll start to see them become as common as some of the other small boutique cars out there like the Mini Cooper and the Smart cars. I know what you're thinking. Is a car this small really practical?
If I had to tote around car seats and their precious cargo on a regular basis, absolutely not. But as a 2nd car that just gets driven around the city and occasionally to work? I think so. It would certainly make parallel parking easier, and I'd finally get to try out those "compact car only" spots in parking garages. Add in the fact that it gets 34 mpg with the automatic during this time of $4/gallon gas, and it's a win/win situation.
Maybe someday...
Monday, May 16, 2011
And the Streak Goes On...
For those of you not inspired by my post last week to check out some tennis action, Novak Djokovic has done it again by winning the tournament in Rome. That brings his record this year to 37-0 and makes the streak 39 straight wins, moving him to 6th place on the list of longest win streaks. It wasn't an easy road by any means either. He had to play matches on 5 straight days, getting past world #14, #5, #4, and #1 Nadal in the final four rounds. The semifinal against #4 Andy Murray was an especially brilliant match featuring a lot of ups and downs and long rallies. If you have access to ESPN3 and have 3 hours of spare time, you should go check it out.
Amazingly, prior to these two back to back wins against Nadal, Djokovic was 0-9 in his career against the Spaniard on clay. This week is an off week for most of the big guns as everyone rests up for the second Grand Slam of the year, on clay at the French Open, which starts next week. Can he possibly do it again? He'll have to in order to tie the record. Even if he doesn't, he has a very good chance of becoming the first player not named Federer or Nadal to hold the #1 ranking since February of 2004.
Hailstorm!
Prompted by my mom's comment, I thought I'd do a quick follow-up to the Twins-Tigers game we went to last week.
The stomping [10-2 Tigers victory for those who weren't there.] was interrupted by a one hour five minute rain delay. But it wasn't just rain. There was a hailstorm for a good 10-15 mins and the tornado sirens were blaring.
The rain probably completely stopped after 30 mins, but it took them another 30 to clean all the hail off the field. I can't find any pictures, but you'll have to take my word for it that at least a dozen rakes, a couple buckets, a wheelbarrow, and an industrial strength leaf blower all played a part in the job. My hat's off to the grounds crew for handling a situation that they probably haven't really prepared for.
It was a fun game for us, but the crowd was really tiny by the time it wrapped up just after 11:00. Due to the delay, absolutely none of our friends save Meaghan's brother stuck it out to the end. The Wed afternoon game looks like it would have been a crazy one to go see, too. [9-7 Tigers including 3 runs off the Twins' closer on a HR, triple, and sac bunt.] I know they've had a lot of injuries, but it is truly shocking to see Minnesota with the worst record in baseball. Couldn't happen to a better team.
The stomping [10-2 Tigers victory for those who weren't there.] was interrupted by a one hour five minute rain delay. But it wasn't just rain. There was a hailstorm for a good 10-15 mins and the tornado sirens were blaring.
The rain probably completely stopped after 30 mins, but it took them another 30 to clean all the hail off the field. I can't find any pictures, but you'll have to take my word for it that at least a dozen rakes, a couple buckets, a wheelbarrow, and an industrial strength leaf blower all played a part in the job. My hat's off to the grounds crew for handling a situation that they probably haven't really prepared for.
It was a fun game for us, but the crowd was really tiny by the time it wrapped up just after 11:00. Due to the delay, absolutely none of our friends save Meaghan's brother stuck it out to the end. The Wed afternoon game looks like it would have been a crazy one to go see, too. [9-7 Tigers including 3 runs off the Twins' closer on a HR, triple, and sac bunt.] I know they've had a lot of injuries, but it is truly shocking to see Minnesota with the worst record in baseball. Couldn't happen to a better team.
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