Happy Ho Ho Ho!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone! :-)

Free affection

I am amazed at how popular this video became since it was launched on YouTube.com this past September. After all, it promotes such a feel-good atmosphere, how could it not be endorsed? My props to its producer, editor and sickpuppies soundtrack.

So in the spirit of goodness for the holidays, I'd like to add to the film's popularity and advocate its message of selfless affection.

Now come here, you big lug.
Let me get my arms around ya
and give you a great big hug.

Free hugs for everyone!

Peace.

Energize me!

Geez, talk about obsessed! I can't believe how giddy I was about getting a great deal on batteries today!

Let's see now:
$18.80 for twenty AA NiMH rechargeable batteries
$12.53 for ten AAA NiMH rechargeable batteries
$7.23 for shipping
-$10.00 credit for using 'Google Checkout'

(whirr whirr, kah-ching kah-ching, beep beep)

Equals a whopping $28.56 TOTAL.

Did ya hear that, ma? That's $28.56 for 30 rechargeable batteries! I say, I say that's 95 cents per NiMH battery. An unbelievable price if you ask me thank you very much. Beat that, Wal-effin-mart! Oh good lordy lordy, I must be in heaven! Help me, jeezus!

Ain't no friggin' toy gonna go dead this holiday! Can I get an Amen?! AMEN!

Hallelujah!

12 Days BEFORE Christmas

Today is Day 3 of our little Twelve Days BEFORE Christmas event for the kids. This is the two weeks before the 25th when Santa puts out daily little gifts for the wee ones at the front door or in their stockings. The gifts come with a little snippet of the Twelve Days Of Christmas poem and an addendum. Here was yesterday's:

On the second day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
two turtle doves.

Unfortunately, those little birds flew away.
So here's some Play-Doh, of which I know you're aware.
Just a couple things to note:
Always be kind to each other and remember to share.

Love,
Santa Claus

The kids are certainly ecstatic over this, which occurred last year as well. It's amazing how something like a simple box of cereal and a gallon of milk could put an all day smile on them when they know it's from the big jolly himself.

Here's to the goodness of magic. Glad they still believe in it.

James Kim (1971-2006)

I was hoping for the least likely of good news, but unfortunately authorities found James' body at about noon PST. (Geez, he was still young! born a few years after me.)

The swiftest of comfort to all his family and friends.

Rest in peace, James. :-(

Update: 12/9/06
1. This is the best timeline article of the event that I've come across.
2. This is a nice Google mapping where the Kim's were stranded.

James Kim

I'm just hooked onto this story. Are they going to find James Kim or not?! Just a pair of pants as of the latest news. It's now day 4 that he took off from his car and family to find help.

Where is he?! (Refresh, refresh, refresh.)

Leonid Meteor Shower

"Keep looking up!" -- Jack Horkheimer

Tonight's the night—Nov 18th. This is the peak time at which to view the annual Leonids. Here on the U.S. east coast, a bustling 30 minute window of activity is predicted to occur starting at 11:30 pm, with diminishing sitings before and after. The streaks should be coming from the east, emanating from the constellation Leo and the planet Saturn, which unfortunately will be close to the horizon. Jack Horkheimer has a really nice video (.rm) about it, although he states Nov. 19 @ 3 am as the best viewing time; perhaps he's from Europe. The great thing about the shower is that it's a new moon or that is, no moon, so the skies will be dark and won't be polluted with moonlight.

Check it out. Remember, it's a free show and you don't even have to pay for parking. Plus, y'know, it sets the stage for a nice romantic makeout session.

XXXOOO

Yay, I swam today!

"Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow."

I managed a solid 25 minutes of lap swimming at the Y while Miguel was doing his weekly lesson in the open lane next to mine. I focused on technique and efficiency, trying to maintain my streamline position by looking more downward than ahead. Currently, I'd say I'm an awful freestyler; I can't figure for the life of me what other inconsistencies cause me to take 21 strokes per length while I've seen countless others do close to 12. Perhaps my fat ass has something to do with it.

As for Miguel, he finally broke the floatie barrier four weeks ago and can finally swim on his own without flotations—about 8 feet to 1/4 pool length with me alongside him for visual support. Yeah boyeeee! Little steps sure go a long way. Nice going, Mig.

The last tidbit: It bothers me that I often fail to recognize people with whom I've had casual conversations. Like today as we were leaving the Y, one fellow had a table set up in the foyer to offer some free chiropractic advise/plug. And then he just goes to me and shakes hands, "Hey, long time no see, buddy! Still doing your morning laps? I've been 3 times in the pool this week." And I go, "Ummm, yeah. I'm still doing it. Ummm, how's it going?" And then my brain fires up its neurons for some recollection. Searching. Searching. But nooooo, the pink squishy thing responds: "Cannot compute. Target unidentifiable. Who the hell is he?! There is no goddamn sanctuary!!" Boooom!!!

Anyway, the funny of it was my end thought: People sure look different when suited up than when in the buff in the locker rooms. Best that I continue the conversation when we're all in our shirts and shoes to keep the recognizable factor intact. Ummm, that is, focus.

Have I said too much? :-)

Planning with peers

"Chief! Pull it together!"-- Colonel Tigh, Battlestar Galactica (Exodus, Part 1)

I did no triathlon this 2006 season. I'm quite disappointed. I was hoping that I'd make it a personal tradition to compete in at least one tri-race per year since my 2005 comeback. In hindsight, I ended up spending most of my training on the bike; I guess I just didn't have my heart in it to spend more time swimming and running. So much for dedication.

And then I got that plantar fasciitis thing in June and went on holiday overseas for 3 weeks in July. Blah blah blah. Certainly that offset my momentum; that is, if I had any at all.

But then I read of another blogger sort of in similar design: a man without a plan. Made me want to adopt him as my virtual training peer. [pause, peering up into space, eyes squinting] Hold the phone, what's that I said--a virtual training peer? [sitting up, eyes wide, eureka moment of expression] Hmmmm. By joe, that's it! I think I'll do just that and take a peek every once in a while at his posts to see how his plan is going; perhaps to give me a little perk for my own workouts.

Alright then, my 2007 season training has begun! Yeeeeehaw! Break out the 7-layer cheesecake, tiramisu leftovers, Ben&Jerry's triple fudge and my 2-liter Diet Coke. I've got a reason to celebrate and her name is Kona!

[burp] Excuse me.

Cheesecake & a workout

Diets don't apply at the Cheesecake Factory, not even with the greens.

I ordered a Riviera Salad yesterday night in celebrating my nephew's birthday just so I could make room for dessert. But holy smokin' moly! that entry was sooooo big. I swear they jammed an entire head of romaine lettuce, two huge tomatoes, three whole hardboiled eggs, ten thousand potatoes and the rest of the farm into my crater sized bowl. WTF!

With that said, I must say it was good. Deeeelicious! Throw in a big diet Coke with 2 refills and I was good to go. I had no choice but to pack the dessert for take-home.

***

Three hours prior: my workout.

Time: 45 minutes
Method: CycleOps indoor trainer
Gear Ratio: 42/16
Cadence: about 80-85 rpm (no cyclometer)
Distance: ??? (no cyclometer)
Perceived Exertion Scale: 13 (somewhat hard; quite an effort but can maintain)
Trigger Songs: Dive (Steven Curtis Chapman), Here and Now (ZoeGirl) and misc.

Comments: 1st workout in about 2 weeks, I think. Felt great. Could endure and maintain the strain in my quads. My plantar fasciitis not a bother. Easy visualizations with trigger songs. A+++.

I really should be logging my workouts more consistently. At least this is a start.

Strumming again

Hey, I picked up the guitar and restarted my umpty-umph attempt at learning it yet again. I went about it for just over 30 minutes until my fingertips got achy. So far I know the open C-A-G-E-D chords and with quite bad form--slow finger placement, muted strings, y'know what i mean.

I blame two youtube.com videos here and here (1st song only) for today's inspiration. Thanks, Ortopilot. Also, I stumbled across a video of one of my highschool jazz bandmates, Bruce Gatewood, who was an amazing player then but has turned out to wickedly burn fire on the strings now. A totally cool guy. Go, Bruce!

Say cheese! I mean, acorn!

Awwww, just wook at this weally cute wittle girl. Took a 12x zoom snap of her crawling just twelve feet outside the kitchen window with a new camera we rec'd from my sister-in-law. An advance xmas present and an extremely generous one at that. A super rrrrreally big thanks, sis.

Our previous digital camera was a Canon G1 (a gift as well; thanks, Dad) and although now dated (they're currently up to G7), I had yet to tap its amazing potential as another user had done.

I love photography, so I certainly don't take these latest gadget gifts for granted.

Stay tuned for some future visual awesomeness. Maybe porn, perhaps :-). Oooh, la la!

A foot problem

Plantar fasciitis sucks.

I've had it since June and I've failed to pay it some serious attention to successfully treat it. Just thought it would go away after a few calf stretches, I guess. Well, four months later with some inconsistent stretching, an occasional night splint and no curbing of any foot loading activities like walking or standing, the pain is still there. Go figure.

I haven't seen an orthopedist yet but will likely schedule an appointment in the next few days. Time to get my act together, discipline my treatment and finally nip this thing in the bud.

The Devil Wears Prada

Last night I finished reading The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. I began it in mid-July through page 327 and let three months pass before resuming the last 105 pages. A typical me as I figured. (Don't even ask about my still hiatus from Stephen King's Bag of Bones.) And then I read about this guy's pace of a book a week! My hat's off to him.

Anyway, The Devil read exactly like a movie to me, although I haven't yet seen the film version. I even auto-filled the last page with my own ending soundtrack--John Mayer's Bigger Than My Body:

Someday I'll fly
Someday I'll soar
Someday I'll be so damn much more
Cause I'm bigger than my body
I'm bigger than my body
I'm bigger than my body now.

Dolby Digital Digital DTS SDDS
All material is protected by Copyright laws of the United States...

[Fade to black]

An alien insect!

Holy sh*t!!! Google maps has just discovered a 50 meter arthropod in Germany! Run for your lives!

Dance Dance Revolution / PIU

Watching people dance can be just as motivating and inspiring for me as watching athletes give their all in their sport. I've only tried playing DDR at an arcade once just this past summer and had quite a delight with it. If only I were two decades younger, I'd be aspiring to jive like that guy in the video above. (I watched it closely and I do believe he lands on most if not all of the correct lights dead on!)

He's definitely got the moves and is the coolest DDR Pump-It-Up (PIU) dancer I've seen yet.

Groove on!

Update: 9/30/06
It's not a DDR but rather a Pump It Up (PIU) machine in the video--both of which are arcade competitors with different dance pad layouts. Also, I've found out that the guy is James "Smidget" Devito, arguably the top U.S. competitor in PIU. I believe he's sponsored and involved in promoting the home console for Andamiro (see interview). Below are youtube links to his other performances:
1. WPF 2005 in Korea (I think James placed 2nd in the freestyle category.)
2. USPF 2005 (?) in Greenhorn, US.
3. Misc (unknown info)

Our 2006 MS Bike Tour

September 16th & 17th: 150 miles in two days.

It's the 2006 NJ "City-To-Shore" MS Bike Tour that three of my friends and I just did. Actually, they did the round trip 150; I only rode Saturday's 75 miles and took a long bus ride back to my car, which is how I signed up to do the Tour. Just can't stand to leave Melinda and the kids for too long, y'know. :-)

My lesson learned: sleep, sleep, sleep and drink, drink, drink. I barely slept 1.5 hours the night before due to a lot of irresponsible last minute preparation; and then on the ride, didn't grab any of my water bottles until the first rest stop. (Good lordie, why the halibut was I not thinking!?) So as you probably guessed, the inevitable occurred: severe fatigue and cramp city in both my calves. Ouch.

But yeah, I made it through thanks to my pals and the miracle of drafting. But I certainly was mad at myself the whole ride home as well as the next day for having such inept hindsight.

Our next tour is October 1st: The Pumpkin Patch Pedal @ 100 miles. So last night, I did an exact two hours on my trainer: hill intervals. A lot of huffing and puffing. It was my penance.

Ride on.

2 blogs become 1

I maintain a separate 'workout' blog that I may soon merge into this one. I'm getting tired of having to bounce among entries. After all, life is the whole enchilada, n'est pas? Might as well dish it all here to convey the bigger picture.

For now, I'm just changing the colors. How pretty.

A time travel flick

I saw Primer today on cable. Holy smokes, this movie was good. And it cost only $7000 to produce!! A personal favorite now. I'm watching it again this weekend and currently trying to find out more* about the film. I give Primer four super shiny stars: ****

* Shane Carruth is the writer, director, editor and composer of the movie. He also plays one of the two main characters. Talk about a really small budget! I found his change in career from engineer to filmmaking inspiring.

Bike like Ned

I'm inspired to climb.

Being a bit of a fan of cycling great Tyler Hamilton,--drug related drama & two-year suspension all aside--I read last week he had won the Mt. Washington Hillclimb in New Hampshire. It's a 7.6 mile all uphill race with an average 12% grade. And that's only the average. I think the steepness goes up to 22% in the last hundred yards. Lynne Tolman writes an engulfing description of the climb that makes me want to sign up.

As for the inspiration, it comes from another rider in the race results: 2nd place finisher Ned Overend, age 51. Excuse me, come again? Yes friggin frodo, he's fifty-one! He finished just two minutes behind Tyler. What a dude!

Reminds me of triathlete legend Dave Scott who did an amazing comeback at age 40 to finish 2nd in the 1994 Hawai Ironman Triathlon, and then 5th in '96 at age 42!

Can't wait to be 51 now. Greatness awaits! :-)

Our New Solar System

I'm a little sad that Pluto is officially no longer a planet. Neither is UB313--nicknamed "Xena", which is actually larger than Pluto. However, it does up the status of Ceres--formerly an asteroid--that lies between Mars and Jupiter. These heavenly bodies are now officially "dwarf planets."

Whether or not this decision holds up as well as the "planet" definition, I'm not sure. The vote was done at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Prague. And although 424 astronomers voted, that's only less than 5% of the world's astronomers.

So now you can be the know-it-all of your nephews and nieces. Go ahead and ask 'em: What are the EIGHT planets of our Solar System? Oh, and the THREE dwarf planets?

SNAP!

I got 'em! I got 'em! I got dat wascally wittle wodent! :-)

A wascally wittle wodent

I have a little mouse to catch tonight. Saw a few of its little doo-doo droppings in the kitchen floor cabinets yesterday. Grosses me out that he/she was crawling around the canned foods taking a dump here and there.

I set two traps by the stove. Mwuuu-hahhh-hahhh!!

Here, little mousy mousy...

The Perseids are here!

I saw two shooting stars tonight!

It's the annual Perseid Meteor Shower every August. The peak of the shower is actually occurring right now as I type this. (Sorry that I forgot to mention this news earlier.) And so at 2:15 am this morning (jetlag still?), I walked out onto our backyard deck and looked up for only a few minutes. And lo and behold, in the first two minutes, I saw two bright streaks.

Quite unfortunately for this year, the moon is close to full and is polluting the skies with excess light and limiting the number of shooting stars to be seen. Nevertheless, the brightest of the Perseids are still visible and shouldn't disappoint with their long streaks. Technically, you should be able to see about one every minute, more or less. (Note, stay very well tuned for next year: it's a new moon (i.e., no moon) and the skies will be dark dark dark for a great show!)

So go on. Tomorrow night, get out there. Bring a blanket, bring a beer, lay back and be very patient.

Space is soooo beautiful.

***

More info:
http://www.jackstargazer.com/scripts0SG0632.html
http://www.jupiterscientific.org/sciinfo/perseid.html

Floyd Landis

I feel backlogged from my vacation. I have tons of stuff to catch up on and many blog thoughts that need to be expressed.

Right now I'm trying to get caught up on the Tour de France. Thankfully, I have recordings of the stages, which I'll try to watch this weekend.

The Floyd Landis drama (I just saw him on Leno on YouTube.com) made me rethink about having real life heros to look up to. Certainly it seems natural to want to put someone up on a pedestal as a reference for success. But then they'd be susceptible to fallout from scandals and other vices the media would turn up. What then happens to their hero status?

So for now, I'm going the "Batman Begins" route:

"But if you make yourself more than just a man...
If you devote yourself to an ideal...
and if they can't stop you,
then you become something else entirely."

I'll be putting up my Buffy The Vampire Slayer posters all over my workout area now. Beware, all you forces of evil!

Back from the Philippines

It's been a week now that the family and I are back from our overseas trip. And yet still we're very well jetlagged. Yesterday, we all slept at 3 pm and awoke at 2 am! We've been awake since, and now it's noon and I feel my brain is starting to turn off.

Anyway, this blog deserves a long awaited entry. So just off the top of my head:

1. Still jet lagged. It's a 12 hr difference between New Jersey and Manila.
2. It's taken me almost 7 days now to sort and retouch our digital pics for posting.
3. I've already posted most of the pics on my flickr.com account, although I'd recommend you wait just a few more days for me to get them reordered, labeled and more cohesively presented.
4. I have an awakened view of life, as a visit to the Phil. Islands never ceases to culture shock me.
5. What the hell happened in The Tour de France!??? Pre-race drug accusations? Amazing stage comebacks? Post-victory scandals? WTF?!
6. I think I've lost my addiction to my bike workouts. Yesterday, I did my 1st workout in almost a month on the trainer. Didn't workout a bit on vacation and ate like a pig. Well actually, I ate pig. Lots of it! Yummy, yummy. But what a belly I've acquired.

On vacation

I'M IN THE PHILIPPINES! Yes, at this moment! Now! Ngayun!

All the pre-days planning and the trip are what have caused my lagging entries. Sorry. Anyway, so here I am with my family. We're staying in one of the big cities called Makati. And we're lucky with our location, staying in a hotel/condo building just across from the Greenbelt, which is a shopping/restaraunt/cafe/fast food but naturesque area -- I think the heart of Makati really. It's like staying at a hotel right smack in the middle of Times Square with a fraction of Central Park tucked in. Convenient, trendy and hip.

So I found this 24 hr internet cafe about 100 feet from our building at some basement location. Melinda says to use it at only 'safe' hours of the day, although I think this area seems really safe most of the time if not all.

We've been in the Philippines for a week already but today is really the only time I was able to find to get on the net. I'd taken it for grossly granted that 'hotspots' would be all over the place and that I'd be able to connect easily with my laptop or at least 'tap' into someone's unsecure network. Well as I've discovered, there are no wireless networks to be found and that 56k is still a hot item. Don't even think about hi-speed broadband here! Oh, and we don't have a cell phone. Talk about communication withdrawal. Boy, do I feel like a princess trapped in a wet market. Ummm yeah, whatever that means.

So hopefully, local pics of the area are to come in future entries now that they guy behind the desk says that I could upload stuff into their computers via usb.

Sigi na, as they'd say here.

Le Tour. Le Drugs?!

Geezus friggin' christopher!

This just in: Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso are barred from the 2006 Tour de France by involvement in a doping investigation!

Looks like the yellow jersey (and the win) may arguably lie in the hands of George Hincapie or Alex Vinokourov.

And so now my anticipation for watching The Tour has diminished a bit, knowing that the favorites have been scratched out.

Sucks.

PS: In other news elsewhere somewhere remote, I hear that Greg Lemond, Miguel Indurain, Eddie Merckx and Lance Armstrong are coming into The Tour as replacements. Something about Old Timer's Day or that it would bring about some comic relief. Hooray!

It's alive! Mwaahhh-ah-ah!

No, I haven't been an idle triathlete. Well, maybe just a whole friggin' lot a tad. That is, been only on the bike side of things really. So much for a diligent attitude. Still, I've had my moments of obsession, whether in my spur of the moment workouts (unlogged, sorry) or in building up of an old friend—my 91' Cannondale. The frame is bent below the right seat stay after a pile on accident years ago (i.e., they and their bikes piled on top of me and my bike). Nevertheless, it's still strong and rideable. And I'm convinced she'll hold up, Captain. Thus, the rebuild from total naked frame ground up.

This is my 'spare' bike built from spare and new parts. It's for use on my indoor trainer and some outdoor rides. Also, I'm continuously experimenting with the setup as my sweet little 'Dale will hopefully evolve into a fixed gear bike. The bullhorn handlebars are already in the mail :-); I've installed a new cassette: 8 speed 11-28 (11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21, 24, 28); and a threadless stem system is soon coming. Other future enhancements include Turbonium, force field and death ray, as usual. Oh, and windshield wipers and a cup holder.

Bike building sure is turning out to be fun.

Picasa Photos

Yay! I've been invited by Picasa to start using the beta version of their web based photo albums! And wouldn't ya know it, just a few weeks after I became a Flickr Pro member. Anyways, just an FYI since I felt like I won the lottery or something.

Water water everywhere!

As I type this, we're relaxing our butts off at the Great Wolf Lodge in PA. It's a log cabin style resort with a HUGE indoor waterpark--water chutes, a wave pool, swimming pools and tons of comfortable fun for the family. I really really like it.

We're only staying for one night this time since it's a bit pricey, but maybe next year we'll try for two.

Cluttered footwear

It's a nonresolving issue (Get it? Iss-shoe? :-)) day after day. I organize and clean it all up, yet still chaos manages to rule the shoe shelves. And so I'm currently brainstorming a way to make it is easy to neatly don out of our sneakers, flip-flops and feet what nots without making such a mess. And all without bending over. Is it possible? (Hell no!) Well I'll try anyway. Here's to hope. Stay tuned for a future snapshot of a better catalogued collection.

Another jerkoff statement from the big guy

"Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and a wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society," Bush said in his Saturday radio address. "Marriage cannot be cut off from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening this good influence on society." -- George Bush (radio address, June 3, 2006)

Ahhh, ahhh, ahhh-choooo-bullshit!

Sorry, I have a cold.

To Do List: post family pics

Okay, I'm on the very verge of finally posting our family pics online. I just need to weigh the pros and cons of using our domain name webspace versus flickr.com's service, yahoo photos and the like (e.g., privacy/anonymity, spiders, hackers, user interfaces, fees, etc). Any advice would be appreciated.

Biking in CT

A done deal at the Bloomin' Metric bike tour in Norwalk, CT. It was definitely a fun ride, but in a masochistic, exasperating, heart-attacking sort of way. Hills, hills and more hills. Talk about lactic acid city! At some fork early along the route was a sign that pointed in two directions: a right arrow toward the 75k ride and a left arrow toward the max 100k ride. So we stopped, thought and talked a little, and then went left. A long 100k or bust.

I loved the tour. I think it'll be an annual tradition.

Ride on!

Mom's Day plug

If it were my day, I'd want the The Mighty Bright Triple LED Telescoping Book Light. Well, it wasn't my day, but I bought it anyway, actually yesterday at Waldenbooks in the mall. I'm getting tired of spending money for ebooks when there's a plethora of free books to be had at the library. And since I do much of my reading (which in truth is very little) in the dim, this portable LED book light does the job eons better than the 'bulb' type that I have. Plus, my new light is a hit with little Miguel as a flashlight, doubles as a metal-cutting laser, does text messaging, is iPod compatible, has force field and death ray settings, serves as a portable tanning booth and runs on nuclear fusion trilithium everlasting crystalite batteries. Sshhhh!

Happy Mother's Day!
xxxooo

Bike tour

This morning, I signed up for the Bloomin' Metric Bike Ride in Norwalk, CT. I'll be doing the ride on May 21st with three of my cycling homeboyz. We haven't decided yet, but I think we'll be doing the 75k distance. Hopefully, it should be a nice scenic tour. We'll only be there for the day and hope to be back home by early afternoon.

Ride on, dudes!

I'm a big girl now.

"It's okay, Daddy. I know where to go."
"You sure, sweetie?"
"Yes."

And off running toward the school doors little Tina went. I had brought my camera thinking we'd get a little daddy & daughter self-portrait within the school just before I'd give her my hugs and goodbye-for-the-day kisses. No such luck. Just a quick peck on the cheek and a trailing "I love you too, Daddy" yell as she darted away. At least I managed to shoot a pic before she made it inside.

Here's to another growth plateau reached. (sigh)

Overachievement

"I don't mean to sound like a late-night self-help infomercial, but to stay focused you need standards--something to measure your day-to-day progress by. And in this, as in all things, happiness is my yardstick. You can use what you like, by all means, but I highly recommend happiness. If I'm happy in a comprehensive, contented way, then I'm doing things right. If something is bad for my skiing but good for my general happiness, I give more weight to the latter. I recognize that there are things I enjoy--certain people, beer, and fast cars--that are not directly beneficial to my sport. Still, they make me happy. And that's all there is to it."
--Bode Miller (Bode: Go Fast, Be Good, Have Fun)

* * *

Alright, so I'm a hopeless self-help book fan. I've gone through The One-Minute Manager, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, In Pursuit of Excellence, the Tony Robbins series, The Now Habit, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, yadda yadda yadda. And this evening, I just finished Overachievement by John Eliot. And of course, I'm all gung ho and pumped up and I highly recommend this latest installment--yeah, whatever; my fervor being the immediate result of my pep rally reading. As usual, let's see how long it lasts.

Ever since highschool, I've thought often about all the mumbo jumbo on self-improvement, the meaning of life and the search for true happiness and passion. Like who hasn't. Anyway, tonight I feel like there's something new right on the tip of my thingy nose that can propel me a bit of a ways forward in my daily attitude for the better. Makes sense? Like I'm on the verge of a eureka moment that can lift me out of bed daily feeling passionate about life. Well, at least for a week. I feel it right in front of me. Some kind of 'happy' cloud. Right there.

Nah, it's probably just the book. And a little spring fever.

Ohhhh Melinda! ;-)

Galactica, Season 2.5

I finally watched my recordings of this season's final episodes of Battlestar Galactica, Season 2.5--or rather, The Sharon Show as I'd come to know it (geez, the humans treat her soooo badly that I often root for the Cylons!).

Wow. Again.

What will happen to the human race? What is the Cylons' new plan? Will Sharon and Cally ever receive the box of heart shaped chocolates I FedExed them last month?! Ahem, I mean, will they ever find Earth?

Stay tuned until October for season three. Goodness gracious, that's seven months from now!

Icing on the cake

Just when I thought I had my last snowboarding runs in, Mountain Creek does a surprise re-opening for this past weekend. I took off like a rabbit with my brother toward the resort Saturday morning.

We did four trips down the green trails of Vernon Peak before quitting at noon. I got a little better practicing my slalom ride down the slopes. These are the 'linked turns' that I finally got the hang of on my supposed last trip.

Who knows, maybe they'll keep the resort open for April Fool's Day.

Back to business

I'm starting this year's spring workout season with a battlecry song -- Unwritten, sung by Natasha Bedingfield. It's followed closely by Good Times, sung by Tommy Lee. I didn't pick them to be the flagships; I just happen to be listening to them as part of a playlist while working out and then suddenly they made me feel that spring 'gotta-give-it-a-go' sensation.

It happens every year. There's always a song that sort of symbolizes the beginning of my renewed drive to physical self improvement. I usually end up repeating it over and over again on my mp3 player like when I'm biking or running or even shopping alone at Costco. And I'm seriously talking about hours of repeat of a single song.

So with that, I started my methodical training regimen on the 20th with an interval workout on the bike trainer for about 45 minutes. Rested on the 21st, biked on the 22nd, rested on the 23rd, and biked once more today, the 24th. Yeah, I know it's a little late in the year for starting triathlon training, but I unfortunately let other things get in the way and couldn't get anything consistent going. Live and learn.

Knowing more Bode

The day after the 2002 Olympics ended I did an interview on MSNBC with some yakker who had the temerity to ask me ... "Hey, Bode, you did a great job for America in Salt Lake City, two silver medals, but your teammates ... not a medal among them. What happened there?" ... It was like saying, "Hey, Bode, the dam broke and drowned all your neighbors, but you survived. What's up with those dopes - couldn't they swim?"
--Bode Miller (Bode: Go Fast, Be Good, Have Fun)

I unintentionally awoke at 5:43 am today, but with the first thought of finishing the last chapters of Bode: Go Fast, Be Good, Have Fun. It was a done deal 30 minutes later. A good book.

Of all the athletes from the 2006 Winter Olympics, Bode Miller retained the longest of my interest and has currently become the reference hero who continues to fuel my drive to be a better me. He may have disappointed many of his Olympic fans (although I seriously doubt the bitter ones were fans; more like one time watchers), but at least he stuck to his ideals of snobbing over the media's ever present medal count and gave us an in your face reminder of the Olympic creed of "not to win, but to take part." It figures he would stick to his guns. His 'hippie' upbringing, as I'd read, seemed to make him so.

Reiterating his viewpoints on life and competition at this year's Olympics, he said stuff that I certainly would tell to my kids as well, against the grain of what the sports announcers were saying like, "Bode finished a disappointing 5th and 6th in the men's Downhill and Giant Slalom," or "Bode gave such a lackluster performance in today's events." But hey, what's up with those negative adjectives? It turned out that he was the highest ranking American in those events; info you guys never told me that I had to dig out somewhere else. So how about a pat on the back and a "well done, Bode! you beat the shit out of your U.S. teammates" encouragement instead? But I heard none of that, and neither did my kids. So I thought it was unfortunate that they left it up to me to do the spin doctoring.

And what about that death-defying mishap in the Super-G when he clipped a gate and gracefully skiied out of disaster on only one leg! How many wrote about that instead of the more 'important' lack of a medal? The sports announcers weren't exactly bringing Bode and other athletes into the brightest of light. If I were in the negative, I suppose I'd have to say to my kids, "Hey look Tina, Bode messed up again and didn't get a medal. Let's make an L shape with our fingers and hold it up to our foreheads, just like the news guys on TV seem to be doing." Instead I preferred, "Y'know sweetie, Bode never holds back and he may have gone out so much faster than the other guys, as he loves to do, that he missed the gate and got DQF'd; but at least he gave it his all; f*ck the medal. And screw the media." Well, you get the gist.

Anyway, it's all water under the bridge now, isn't it? After all, he and Darren Rahlves just did an unprecedented respective 1st & 2nd place in the Super-G World Cup Finals in Aare, Sweden last week. It placed Bode 3rd overall in the World Cup final standings (the equivalent of the winning cumulative times in the Tour de France) as well. Again, he was the highest American finisher.

So perhaps the hate mail of the disappointed will now stop flowing. But if not, hopefully they'll read the book, cruise the sites, see the lifetime results, think beyond the media's comments, and get a bit of a bigger picture of the man Bode is. It might just bring about some positive fuel for their betterment.

The last run

The gods of snowboarding must've had me in their favor this morning. They'd blessed me with two gifts today: 1) a final trip to the slopes for the season and 2) mastery of the final stage in learning how to snowboard: Step 10 - Linked Turns.

Sweet.

After all the warm weather days this past week, I didn't think there'd be much snow left on the hills. But when I got to Mountain Creek this morning, the white stuff was still plenty enough to keep a small number of trails open, albeit with a few bare spots of ground showing here and there.

I managed three runs down the 'green' trails from the top of Vernon Peak before calling it quits by noon. And it was on the 2nd run that my 'eureka' moment arrived. That is, I finally got the hang of linking my toeside and heelside turns to create that slalom S shape path as I traversed down the course. It was a quantum leap from constantly falling to suddenly carving the mountain with control. After all the determination, it just clicked in me. A really beautiful feeling.

Winter is truly wonderful. How silly of me for ever considering moving to warmer weather.

76F degrees today!

:-(

That's F for 76 f*ckin record degrees on March 10, 2006 -- Newark Airport high temperature. How beautiful it was to bring the kids to the park today. Yet ironically, in the deep recesses of my heart (okay okay, not that deep; more like way north of my ventricles and aorta, just below my corneas and pupils, at about the epidermis layer), I was bawling like a baby.

Bawling because the snow was melting. My snowboarding mountain snow. Going, going, gone. Nuttin' but water now. At least a lot of it.

I'll need to check the local ski conditions today to see how much of the fluffy white stuff is left on the hills. Last week, Melinda said I could go boarding Sunday (tomorrow). So if there's any good god left in this universe, she will bless me with at least one more run down the slopes before the season's over.

Long live frozen precipitation!

More whoring of my cuisine

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

-- Theodore Roosevelt

Ahhh, thank you very much, Teddy. Who knew you'd be dishing out advice in the kitchen while leading a country? Thus, you've motivated me to add a bit of style to a practical morning meal. I made this Pasta & Egg breakfast dish from last night's leftover dinner pasta (you can also use potatoes) and it only took 3 minutes to prepare. 5 minutes at most. Serves 1.

Ingredients
pasta leftovers
1 egg
grated cheese
salt & pepper
chives (dried)
olive oil

Directions
Reheat pasta in a microwave on half power for 2 minutes. While reheating, coat a nonstick frying pan with Pam spray. Fry one egg over easy about 1 minute first side, flip over, then 30 secs other side.

Place pasta in center of plate and top with the fried egg. Sprinkle with cheese, salt & pepper, chives and drizzled olive oil. Microwave dish on high for 30 secs to melt cheese.

Serve. Bon appetite!

Tip: Place a small lid over the frying egg to allow the steam to help cook the top side. The egg will cook more evenly with less of that undercooked-egg-goo that we all hate.

Snowboarding frustration

In honor of the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, my brother and I went snowboarding this past Sunday--only my 2nd trip of the season and of my life. We did the night run from 7pm to 10pm at Mountain Creek. I feel very fortunate to live an hour's drive away from these slopes--close enough to make a half day adventure doable.

Unfortunately, this half day turned out to be incredibly suckie. Y'see, I had been so stoked from my snowboarding lesson on my first trip that I thought I would have little trouble on the slopes this time around. However, I'd let too much time pass between then and now, and I'd forgotten many of the skills that I'd learned. Actually, my brain didn't forget; my muscles did. I felt like I hadn't taken any lesson at all and was starting from total newbie status.

I was scared as well. The snow was too firm and icy from the past weeks' warm days. I kept thinking of the inevitable pain of falling down and so couldn't enjoy my runs. We did the green trail from the very top of Vernon Peak and I did nothing but brake (and fall) the whole way down. I don't know what got into me. I guess it just wasn't my night.

Still, I'm not discouraged. It's one of those things like ice skating (which I'm also trying to learn; the family and I went to a rink last Thursday) and triathlon that I find so physically uncomfortable in the beginner stages, but still keep at it by being so focused on the rewarding pleasure I'll feel when I finally become proficient. And I truly cannot wait for that feeling when that day comes.

Oh well. For now, I'm back to square one in boarding skool.

Shani Davis and gold

Today, I tried to figure out what the deal was with Shani Davis.

Last night, I saw him win gold at the 1000 meter speed skating event. And then I saw his immediate post race NBC interview in which he came across as rather unfriendly and bothered. Arguably, not good for his PR. At first, I thought he was just a sore winner with a chip on his shoulder. But then I figured something else was up and I needed to do the Google thing to find out.

At MSNBC.com, I found a short bio video about him and his Chicago roots. Here his personality came across as much more positive. I searched further. I read he was ridiculed by his peers, was shunned at the 2002 Olympic event by his teammates, had hate mail posted on his website, may have a control freak of a mommy, etc etc.

I spent a good hour reading as much about him as I could. And then slowly I saw the two heads of the coin and finally understood where Shani Davis was coming from and why he came to be the way he is today. Unfortunately, I also strongly felt the media fanning the flames of scalding opinion between him, his teammates, commentators, coaches and ultimately us his audience. Like the same way school kids would taunt others into a fight: "He said this, they said that about you. What're you gonna do about it?" and so forth.

I'd found numerous quotes from Davis, but for the moment, this seemed the most appropriate in response to all the latest hubbub: "It's my career. I don't care what anyone else thinks."

Interesting links:
1.Pic: American Shani Davis, left, is congratulated by the Netherlands' Erben Wennemars after winning the gold medal in the men's 1,000 speedskating final Saturday. Wennemars took the bronze.

2. Shani Davis' website.

3. Ridiculed: "Every once in a while, if it was cold out, I would wear a Bonnie Blair sweatshirt and everyone else would kind of make fun of it, because it was out of the norm," Davis, 23, says. "No one had ever seen a Bonnie Blair sweatshirt before, so they were like, 'Why are you wearing that white girl on your shirt, what's wrong with you?"

4. Bonnie Blair not allowed to comment on Davis: "I'm not allowed to talk about him," Blair said. "His mother sent me an e-mail and told me not to talk about him. So I can't talk about him."

5. Mommy's (Cherie's) tough love: In December, Cherie hurled rough words that seemed to hurt her son. USA Today located a Dutch TV documentary about Davis...that revealed tense scenes after Shani failed in a wild attempt to make the U.S. short-track team.
Cherie: "Someone's going to see what a loser you are."
Shani: "If you're going to be negative, get out of here. You think that makes me feel good, telling me I'm a loser?"
In another sequence, Cherie laughs and says, "I'm so sorry you let all those little kids beat you. Maybe you should retire." Says Shani: "I cannot wait until this season is over."

Olympic catalysts

Two weeks of human fuel: Michelle Kwan, Bode Miller, Shaun White, Apolo Ohno, Chad Hedrick and soooo very on and on. The list is huge. How could I not be motivated to lift myself up and give anything a go? And just a few weeks before, I didn't think I'd be psyched up about watching the Olympic Winter Games. Bingo bongo, boy was I wrongo.

So far, I've recorded each night's broadcast so I could watch the events as soon as I put the kiddies to sleep. I looked forward to NBC's short biography segments of the medal contenders; it helped me get more emotionally involved when I finally saw the athletes in competition.

Tonight, I watched Shaun White's gold medal comeback victory in the snowboarding half-pipe. Wow, real cool and so graceful! And even though I already knew he was going to win from the news reports (I should've closed my eyes and ears), I still watched as if I didn't know his fate. And of course, his celebration got me all choked up. All that hugging and tearing with Shaun and his family. Glad I could share in the emotion.

Can't wait for tomorrow's viewing.

Breakfast for two

It's my flagship of this morning's breakfast: Peanut Butter & Banana Stuffed French Toast. The major players include bread, peanut butter, bananas, honey, eggs, heavy cream, cognac, butter and spices, all topped off with powdered sugar. It's major calories but worth it as a blue moon feast. I enjoyed cooking this one (actually two, for Melinda and me) and boy, was it incredibly sinful to eat. It's another recipe I'll be adding to my collection of cooking favorites, thanks to Sam The Cooking Guy. All part of my cooking passion and lifetime tribute treats to Melinda.

Bon appetite!

Dick Hoyt

This article is for my personal inspiration. I've quoted it here so I know where to find it when I need it.

Today, I needed it.

*****************

Strongest Dad in the World
By Rick Reilly (Sports Illustrated - June 20, 2005)

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life,'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. "Put him in an institution.''

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way,'' Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain.''

"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that.''

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. "Dad,'' he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

"No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

"No question about it,'' Rick types. "My dad is the Father of the Century.''

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago.''

So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

"The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

*****************

Team Hoyt then.
Team Hoyt now.

My online triathlon world

I'm surrounding myself with virtual athletes. They're random triathlete bloggers that I've searched for and whose online journals I've added to my daily/weekly reads. I'm trying to add some peer pressure to my lazy winter ass to finally get up and get a movin'.

And my goodness, what interesting blogs there are! A 50 yr old cancer survivor that's training to do an Ironman; several moms and dads chatting on how they balance athletics, career and family; experienced triathletes dishing out well appreciated advice on training; general out-of-shapers trying to get into shape for their first triathlon. The list goes on. Ad interessante.

The entries are inspiring and certainly starting to get me into the groove. I've started checking out the schedule of races for this year. I should be signing up for my first 2006 event shortly. Perhaps this week.

Stargazing 2

What a beautiful night to be looking up. At 10 pm, the skies were sooooo gosh darn crystal clear, the light-polluting moon was still below the horizon, and the constellations were at the perfect rotation.

I was excited to see the Big and Little Dippers in full view for the first time since my recent interest in star gazing. I like to use these constellations as the key to finding Polaris (the North Star) when I'm away from my house. The trick is to find the two stars at the "spoon's tip" of the Big Dipper. These always point straight to Polaris. By the way, contrary to what many people think, the North Star is not a very bright star (disappointingly ordinary, really) and is often confused with Sirius (the Dog Star), which is THE brightest star in our skies next to the Sun.

My highlight of the night was being able to naked-eye spot the Orion Nebula in the cluster of three stars (Orion's Sword) just below Orion's Belt. This is a visual feast thanks to the clear skies of winter, which really is the best time of the year for star gazing. Jack Horkheimer gives an exhuberant video presentation (RealPlayer) of this nebula.

Winter surfing 2

It's my new ride (and a followup to my latest snow adventure). She came in the mail just a couple of weeks ago and I have yet to boogie down a hill with her. As for details, the board is a Morrow Clutch @ 154cm in length. I got it online together with boots and bindings as part of a package deal. Has ABS sidewalls for a smooth ride, goes from zero to 60 in 7.2 seconds, has driver and passenger side airbags, fuel cells, moon roof, Turbonium and death ray.

I just hope that it serves for much more than show and never collects dust.

Thanks, Santa.

New Year's cardio begins

I have this little growing fire burning in me to get my workouts back into swing. It arises not so much from a New Year's resolution, but from exercise withdrawal due to more time spent with holiday activities and other such stuff rather than being at the gym.

Also, I've been gluttonizing myself these winter months more so than the year's average. Like yesterday. It was a saturated fat fest. As was the day before. And the day before. Ad nauseam. All thanks to deep fryed Crisco cuisine and endless alms of cheesecake. Topped with coffee--my staple crave. Plus, I was out of protein powder. What else is a grown man to eat?

I certainly loved it, but it's conflicting with my blog profile--aiming for big things in endurance sports--and is offsetting my ying-yang thingy. The road will surely lead to nowhere but frustration.

So what shall I do? Well, for a starter, how 'bout a little request for benediction: "Oh my dear CycleOps, god of all bike trainers, deliver me from my couch potato ways and give me the strength to output at least 200 watts onto your bearings (fluid bearings, mind you) for my cardiovascular redemption. Plus, I've spent so much money on you, I have to justify the purchase somehow. Amen."

Ahhh, thank goodness for prayer. And now the fire burns more brightly.

Mission Stardust

The Stardust spacecraft is coming home.

I watched a segment about it on The Discovery Channel a few months ago and thought what a cool mission this is: launch a spacecraft to rendezvous with the Comet Wild 2 (it took 5 years!), then maneuver behind it, catch some of the particles that are flinging off, and finally return to Earth with the spacedust for analysis. (I still find it incredible that we have the know-how to do these space feats with precision!)

The launch was seven years ago. And now it's seven years later. January 15, 2006 is the touchdown date.

There'll be some submicroscopic interstellar dust to be analyzed, but first it all needs to be carefully searched for and found in the amazing aerogel that was used to catch the particles. The number and size of the particles is miniscule compared to the size of the aerogel, so researchers are actually asking online public joes like us to use our computers to help look for the stuff with 'virtual microscopes'! Anyone can sign up and so I registered to be a potential volunteer, although I'm not sure how much time I can dedicate for the search. Still, I think it's a wonderful concept.

I'm continuing to read up on it with keen interest as it's supposed to be a big deal, although I still don't quite understand how much unique information may be added to our current knowledge of the universe.

(Additional: summarized video clip)

Brokeback Mountain

I just started reading Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx. It's a series of short stories, the last one being Brokeback Mountain from which its corresponding movie has been adapted. I'm trying to read through it as quickly as possible before I hear any spoilers from reviewers and other moviegoers, although I think the damage has already been done. (Hey, did I just use 'me', 'reading' and 'quickly' all in one sentence? How incredible is that?! :-o)

I'm only through the first few pages, but I must say that Proulx's poetic but run-on sentence writing style is already causing me to do some double takes. It made me think that perhaps I need to be a bit more well-read or that I simply need to read more books period to sharpen my comprehension. Well then, I guess I'll just have to add that to one of my many goals of 2006.

Stargazing

I've been doing "naked-eye astronomy" these past three days.

Each of my nightly observations of the stars lasted about 15 minutes. I checked for clear skies, then bundled up warmly, grabbed my PDA with Planetarium 2.4 installed and headed out either to my front sidewalk or onto the backyard deck. Then I looked up, matched the PDA screens to the skies and just marvelled at the stuff I saw.

Regardless of surrounding light pollution from nearby cities and street lamps (one bright lamp unfortunately in front of my home), I can see enough objects up there to maintain my interest. I can see the moon. I can see the stars. I can see the planets! I've spotted Polaris (the North Star), Mars, Venus and Saturn with certainty. Jupiter and Mercury are also visible with the naked eye. I'll check out Jupiter tonight. However, spotting Mercury may be more tricky; because it is so close to the sun (imagine looking in the sun's direction and picture Mercury's plane of orbit), it is only visible just after sunset or before sunrise and always close to the horizon.

I think it was those "Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer" segments on PBS that added to my interest. That guy was so into it (like Mr. Ray from Pixar's Finding Nemo). Excited at everything up there and telling us what to look for. I tried looking for things then, but just couldn't because it was too general and I couldn't be sure of the objects I saw. But then the PDA came along and made it all exact and more personal for me; it made my observations more interactive as it could tell me in real time what I'd be seeing from where I was standing--I could zoom in, zoom out, pan the skies and see in elapsed time how the objects would move across my view. Looking at the screen and then looking up was like looking at a U2 concert on your TV and then turning around to find that the music event was happening live right behind you! It was just neat that things were matching up--calculations matching real time.

This is only the beginning, so I'm quite eager to find out what else I could see during the upcoming clear nights.

"Keep looking up!" is what Jack Horkheimer would always say when signing off his program.

Thanks, Jack. I will.

Reading is fundamental

I had a Sylvan moment this evening. You know, those TV commercials showing a parent suddenly and deeply moved by a quantum leap in her child's academic progress. Well, my turn came today.

Just before bedtime, I heard Tina talking and laughing in her room. I thought she was just chatting with her younger siblings and needed to be told to shush down a little. So I quietly walked to the doorway, peaked in and saw her standing alone next to the bed, her back to me, with her 'Dolphins' book propped up on the sheets. And there she was, reading to herself:

"One dolphin liked to yank
the tail feathers of a pelican.
The pelican didn't think
it was funny.
But the dolphin did!"

The stuff made her giggle. That's what got me--the giggles. She was understanding what she was reading and it made her laugh. And yup, it was then that I made that proud moment smirk and got teary eyed. Followed by hugs and kisses and "I'm very proud of you" and all that.

And then came that Sylvan commercial ending song and fade to black.