I'm down to a goatee. It's a new look for me. Jen thinks it makes me look like a yuppie scenester. I'll take a photo and upload it.
It's soon going to be reduced to The Half General. (cut out the bottom). Then I'll go to a moustache...for about 15 minutes, then it's on to clean shaven Aaron just in time for my trip to DC.
Further thrilling facial hair updates as events warrant.
Friday, April 29, 2005
Help Plan Aaron's RoadTrip
So here's the deal, I'm driving across the country (by myself) and I have a ton of things that I want to see...but no real idea of how to see them all. I'm therefore soliciting input from friends.
Basic goals/Things to See
Glacier National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Grand Tetons National Park
Badlands National Park
Mount Rushmore
Crazy Horse Monument
Minneapolis
Ground Rules:
I'm not equipped to camp in any of the places.
I'm willing to spend 300 dollars or so on lodging over the course of this trip.
I'm willing to drive 12 hours a day only on the last day of the trip (Minneapolis to Ohio)
On all other days I am willing to drive up to 10 hours.
I am eager to spend at least 4 hours in each of Montana and Wyoming Parks. I would settle for 1-3 in each of the SD parks.
=============================
So those are the basics. What should I do? What should I see? Are there shortcuts? Should I skip one of the parks to include another?
thanks,
Aaron
Basic goals/Things to See
Glacier National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Grand Tetons National Park
Badlands National Park
Mount Rushmore
Crazy Horse Monument
Minneapolis
Ground Rules:
I'm not equipped to camp in any of the places.
I'm willing to spend 300 dollars or so on lodging over the course of this trip.
I'm willing to drive 12 hours a day only on the last day of the trip (Minneapolis to Ohio)
On all other days I am willing to drive up to 10 hours.
I am eager to spend at least 4 hours in each of Montana and Wyoming Parks. I would settle for 1-3 in each of the SD parks.
=============================
So those are the basics. What should I do? What should I see? Are there shortcuts? Should I skip one of the parks to include another?
thanks,
Aaron
Monday, April 25, 2005
Striking Out
Long time readers of this blog will remember my previous unemployment bringing about a renaissance of hand eye coordination. I started filling endless Ohio hours with trips to the batting cage. It got so bad that I would conduct phone interviews from the parking lot of the cage...because having just blasted a few shots over the pitching machine seemed to relax me and make the interview seem more pleasant. Well, having watched a lot of baseball in the past few weeks and weekends I've again felt the itch to swing a bat. There is a batting cage just South of SafeCo Field (where the Mariners play), and off I went,today in hopes of further glory. Turns out getting directions to the actual location is really a good choice. I set out with a vague notion (knowing 3 of the four streets I needed to take to get there). While three out of four sounds bad, at least it was in order, meaning I knew everywhere but what street the gym was on. I was pretty sure it started with an H. There were three H streets in a row, each of which backed onto a train depot. None of which seemed to be secreting away a batting cage. Without taking a swing, I'd struck out.
Not wishing to be denied the mind numbing joy of bashing a ball meaninglessly with a stick. I went in search of a driving range. This I found with relative ease. I paid my 9 dollars for the large bucket (104 balls). Why they dispense balls in multiples of 17 I don't know, but I overestimated the durability of my delicate hands. Turns out 104 balls, was about 65 too many. By the end I was swinging the club, dutifully, with just one hand. The other hand, my left, was open and bleeding. For loyal readers and any friends I have out there, you'll recognize this as the traditional pattern for Aaron. Remarkably poor judgement w/r/t to stopping sports. Turns out I can just destroy a two iron, up until the point where the skin on my fingers and left palm begins to puff and separate from my hand. At that point, my prowess...small though it may be, diminisses rapidly. Funny that.
UPDATE: I checked the date of last year's batting cage post...almost one year ago exactly. Maybe there is something about the 4th monday in April that stirs a man's appetite for blisters and batted balls.
Not wishing to be denied the mind numbing joy of bashing a ball meaninglessly with a stick. I went in search of a driving range. This I found with relative ease. I paid my 9 dollars for the large bucket (104 balls). Why they dispense balls in multiples of 17 I don't know, but I overestimated the durability of my delicate hands. Turns out 104 balls, was about 65 too many. By the end I was swinging the club, dutifully, with just one hand. The other hand, my left, was open and bleeding. For loyal readers and any friends I have out there, you'll recognize this as the traditional pattern for Aaron. Remarkably poor judgement w/r/t to stopping sports. Turns out I can just destroy a two iron, up until the point where the skin on my fingers and left palm begins to puff and separate from my hand. At that point, my prowess...small though it may be, diminisses rapidly. Funny that.
UPDATE: I checked the date of last year's batting cage post...almost one year ago exactly. Maybe there is something about the 4th monday in April that stirs a man's appetite for blisters and batted balls.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Pope.Com
The new pope has an email address. It's: benedictxvi@vatican.va. Several strange things there, first don't you figure it could just be Pope@vatican.va, as it's not possible for there to be two popes. If I were the only Aaron at Oberlin, I'd have had my email be Aaron@oberlin.edu, but there were others so the school was more specific. Also, can you imagine that there will be a lot of emails that are to Benedict XVI that are independent of his role as Pope. I have to imagine that everyone one of the emails he receives is concerning his being the Pope. So when he dies, the email should just go to his successor, just like the popemobile and apartment.
The other thing I adore about the Pope having an email address: He's going to get spammed like no one else on earth. The only close competitor might be Bill Gates. But can you imagine how entertaining it would be to see the number of penis enlargement emails that the pontiff gets. How many times per minute will he get a great offer on refinancing his Papal apartment? Thousands. How many Nigerian dissidents will have a deal for him, and this time they'll actually know with whom they are speaking. It's just a little too "of this earth" for my outsider understanding of the Pope.
Who gets the job of reading the emails? Or do we think that the Pope is like Joe Trippi and he'll spend all night reading every email? I hope for a Papal Blog next. That'd be fantastic. I'm figuring a lot of "OMG Can U believe Cardinal Fitzgerald said that, I swear I thought I was gonna die!!!" Maybe not. Does it seem wrong that you can email God's representative on earth, especially using a form that encourages emoticons? Will there be a Saint of the smiley face? God, I hope so.
The other thing I adore about the Pope having an email address: He's going to get spammed like no one else on earth. The only close competitor might be Bill Gates. But can you imagine how entertaining it would be to see the number of penis enlargement emails that the pontiff gets. How many times per minute will he get a great offer on refinancing his Papal apartment? Thousands. How many Nigerian dissidents will have a deal for him, and this time they'll actually know with whom they are speaking. It's just a little too "of this earth" for my outsider understanding of the Pope.
Who gets the job of reading the emails? Or do we think that the Pope is like Joe Trippi and he'll spend all night reading every email? I hope for a Papal Blog next. That'd be fantastic. I'm figuring a lot of "OMG Can U believe Cardinal Fitzgerald said that, I swear I thought I was gonna die!!!" Maybe not. Does it seem wrong that you can email God's representative on earth, especially using a form that encourages emoticons? Will there be a Saint of the smiley face? God, I hope so.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Signs
As promised I'm posting some of my photos from Mount Rainier. In my last post I covered most of the highlights, but I ignored two great signs I saw. The first sign doesn't have a photo, but it was on the highway and advertised the Weyerhauser Bonsai Collection. That's right, Weyerhauser the paper company has a collection of well groomed miniature trees. Bonsai trees are regular trees that you abuse into fitting some centuries old notion of beauty. You starve and cut too short the trees, bracing and tying the limbs into interesting but unhealthy configurations. I guess I found it funny that a paper company would go to the trouble of growing these bonsai trees when a great one takes hundreds of years. My understanding of the paper industry is that it's not the most patient, and certainly not with any organism sporting bark.
The second great sign was for a Volcano Evacuation Route.
These are signs that don't make appearances in the Mid West. You don't see a lot of evacuation route signs (any kind, tsunami, volcano, etc) in Ohio. We have tornado warnings, but those don't get fancy signs. This particular sign was about 500 yards outside of the park proper. Which means it's maybe 5 miles from the middle of Mount Rainier. Here's the deal, if you're 5 miles from a giant volcano and it erupts you're dead. At five miles away the pyroclastic flow is going to get you. Moreover, if you don't know to move away from the smoking scar in the earth that used to be a 14,000 foot mountain...then you've probably already been naturally selected, and I'm guessing that the sign isn't going to be the primary trigger for fleeing. I have to imagine that somewhere in our lizard brains is something that says, when molten rock begins raining and flowing at 80KM/H...it's time to move, and with some rapidity.
For more photos visit Extra Vaganza
The second great sign was for a Volcano Evacuation Route.
These are signs that don't make appearances in the Mid West. You don't see a lot of evacuation route signs (any kind, tsunami, volcano, etc) in Ohio. We have tornado warnings, but those don't get fancy signs. This particular sign was about 500 yards outside of the park proper. Which means it's maybe 5 miles from the middle of Mount Rainier. Here's the deal, if you're 5 miles from a giant volcano and it erupts you're dead. At five miles away the pyroclastic flow is going to get you. Moreover, if you don't know to move away from the smoking scar in the earth that used to be a 14,000 foot mountain...then you've probably already been naturally selected, and I'm guessing that the sign isn't going to be the primary trigger for fleeing. I have to imagine that somewhere in our lizard brains is something that says, when molten rock begins raining and flowing at 80KM/H...it's time to move, and with some rapidity.
For more photos visit Extra Vaganza
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Paradise
When life presents me with situations that seem beyond my control, I change my facial hair. Some of it is a defense of agency, but more often it's simply a declaration of laziness. As in, the last thing I want to deal with right now is maintaining my facial hair. Thus, though I lack the photos to prove it, I am currently bearded. For many of you on the east coast, you've never seen me without a beard. But it's been a year or so since I last let the folicles run wild, and they are back to their natural dominion over my chin. We'll see if I let them stay, as I have interviews (hopefully) in DC at the beginning of May. Whenever I let the beard go I start to look grizzled, and finally start to appear like I could live in the West (not the Pacific Northwest, but the West--montana style). I wonder if when I die folks will look at photos of me in the same way that you look at tree rings. Instead of lean years marked by smaller rings, tougher situations will be marked with facial hair.
Today I arose, beard blazing, and was full of energy. A small portion of sun broke through my blinds and I promised myself that if I could see Mt. Rainier (not that common, with all the clouds) I'd go and see Mount Rainier. I dressed, and sure enough it was crystal clear and warm. So fulfilling my promise to myself, I geared up (camera, jeans, and extra pair of dry socks) and set out for Mt. Rainier National Park. The directions I used were horrible. There is something tremendously frustrating about getting lost trying to go to a mountain. Because you can constantly see it. And yet you never seem to be getting closer, and you never know which road will be the one you need, since it seems large enough that you could head in any of the cardinal directions towards it. I imagine it like getting lost while trying to send a probe to Jupiter. Maddening.
After more than a few instinctual turns off the main roads, each of which was wrong. (Turns out, I have terrible driving instincts, just awful). I stopped at a little market bought fresh apples and strawberries and got better directions. The sun was shining, I'm sure outside the car birds were singing, life was good. I arrived at the park around 11:00am. I had no planned routes, which might be a bad idea for future visits, but fit the mood of the day perfectly. I also didn't have gloves...and well, Mount Rainier is a mountain. A snow covered mountain. It looks like this.
See, snow. But I decided that I would go to Paradise. Paradise is a location, a popular trailhead quite near the Nisqually Glacier (which sounds really fucking cool, but which I never quite got to see).
I took a mess of photos, some of which I'll try to post here later. Never having hiked in the snow, I didn't realize that there aren't really trails. You just figure out where you want to go, and walk there. Fortunately some folks who seemingly knew where they were going, arrived before me. So I followed their path. That others were there first was good, that the path was matted down into a mess of pure ice, that was less good. I slipped and stumbled and fell up the hill. Oh, another note of some relevance, Mount Rainier being a mountain is at a higer elevation than say, my apartment. There was plenty of air, sadly not so much oxygen. And while I love me some nitrogen, it just doesn't quench my thirst for really breathing. So I'm out of shape, out of breath, and in shoes wholly inappropriate for the task, wandering up the face of a snow covered mountain. It was tremendous. I've become somewhat jaded, or at least habituated to the glory of the West in the last year. But I was still blown away. It made me sad, as I am giving this up for the swamps of Washington DC.
I continued up the mountain, and finally found some snow that wasn't packed into a zamboni approved sheet of ice. The sad part about that was that unpacked snow tends to allow grown men to fall down several feet. I managed to take surreal drunken steps up to a bluff. Every few steps was an adventure, the snow would hold for a couple of steps, then give way dropping me up to my waist in snow. At some point the snow just continually gave way, every step sunk me up to my waist, and I was having trouble getting out of my little holes, and I decided that that was a good indication of a stopping point. Making my way down was my own tribute to the Legolas slide down the tusk from the second LOTR movie. Sliding and gliding, and generally having a silly time of it, I finally made it back to the car. I drove home through nearly blinding sunshine, and 65 degree weather. Paradise indeed.
Today I arose, beard blazing, and was full of energy. A small portion of sun broke through my blinds and I promised myself that if I could see Mt. Rainier (not that common, with all the clouds) I'd go and see Mount Rainier. I dressed, and sure enough it was crystal clear and warm. So fulfilling my promise to myself, I geared up (camera, jeans, and extra pair of dry socks) and set out for Mt. Rainier National Park. The directions I used were horrible. There is something tremendously frustrating about getting lost trying to go to a mountain. Because you can constantly see it. And yet you never seem to be getting closer, and you never know which road will be the one you need, since it seems large enough that you could head in any of the cardinal directions towards it. I imagine it like getting lost while trying to send a probe to Jupiter. Maddening.
After more than a few instinctual turns off the main roads, each of which was wrong. (Turns out, I have terrible driving instincts, just awful). I stopped at a little market bought fresh apples and strawberries and got better directions. The sun was shining, I'm sure outside the car birds were singing, life was good. I arrived at the park around 11:00am. I had no planned routes, which might be a bad idea for future visits, but fit the mood of the day perfectly. I also didn't have gloves...and well, Mount Rainier is a mountain. A snow covered mountain. It looks like this.
See, snow. But I decided that I would go to Paradise. Paradise is a location, a popular trailhead quite near the Nisqually Glacier (which sounds really fucking cool, but which I never quite got to see).
I took a mess of photos, some of which I'll try to post here later. Never having hiked in the snow, I didn't realize that there aren't really trails. You just figure out where you want to go, and walk there. Fortunately some folks who seemingly knew where they were going, arrived before me. So I followed their path. That others were there first was good, that the path was matted down into a mess of pure ice, that was less good. I slipped and stumbled and fell up the hill. Oh, another note of some relevance, Mount Rainier being a mountain is at a higer elevation than say, my apartment. There was plenty of air, sadly not so much oxygen. And while I love me some nitrogen, it just doesn't quench my thirst for really breathing. So I'm out of shape, out of breath, and in shoes wholly inappropriate for the task, wandering up the face of a snow covered mountain. It was tremendous. I've become somewhat jaded, or at least habituated to the glory of the West in the last year. But I was still blown away. It made me sad, as I am giving this up for the swamps of Washington DC.
I continued up the mountain, and finally found some snow that wasn't packed into a zamboni approved sheet of ice. The sad part about that was that unpacked snow tends to allow grown men to fall down several feet. I managed to take surreal drunken steps up to a bluff. Every few steps was an adventure, the snow would hold for a couple of steps, then give way dropping me up to my waist in snow. At some point the snow just continually gave way, every step sunk me up to my waist, and I was having trouble getting out of my little holes, and I decided that that was a good indication of a stopping point. Making my way down was my own tribute to the Legolas slide down the tusk from the second LOTR movie. Sliding and gliding, and generally having a silly time of it, I finally made it back to the car. I drove home through nearly blinding sunshine, and 65 degree weather. Paradise indeed.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Strangers
Of late I have been in a pretty awful funk. Between losing a girlfriend, a job, the temporary use of my right knee, my lungs (chest cold), and the use of my car (thankfully now repaired at the cost of 500 dollars), it's been a shitty few days. But this post isn't to be a list of complaints.
Friday, on the way to pick up my car from the shop I took a few unfamiliar bus routes, and found myself with extra time to wait. An elderly Vietnamese gentleman shared the bench with me and we got to talking. His right eye was unusable, looking more the color of milk than anything else. He walked with a crutch, and spoke, by his own estimation (though not mine) bad English. He smiled throughout our talk. He was late for some meeting (I couldn't ever figure out what). His bus wasn't coming for another 40 minutes, and he moved with great unease. It was not a "there but for the grace of God" moment. Hardly. It was simply the fact that he was the first person to talk to me that entire day. I'd spent the day inside. Watching tv, feeling miserable, and sorry for myself. He approached me and we started talking, and it was fun. Somehow I'd forgotten how much I just enjoy meeting people, talking with them, learning from them. I never caught his name, nor gave him mine. Midway though the conversation he confided that after the end of the war, he was imprisoned for 6 years. He said this with the sorrow that I usually attach to losing my keys. It seemed, as he explained it, inevitable, and therefore not something to worry about or lament. I can't imagine that that's how he felt about it then, or now, but it was a little perspective adjustment. It's alright to go through tough times, in fact it's expected, but the real skill is moving on. Not ignoring, but continuing.
The man then out of the blue asked (as one question) how old I was and if I am married. I responded honestly to both, feeling some odd shame about the answers; a welling up of lost opportunity, missed chances, something overblown and self defeating. I was certain that he was going to be shocked by my age and lack of wife. Nope, turns out his 3 children are 30, 32, 36 and none of them are married. Each is too busy working with "the computers" and "saving to buy a home, gotta get a home, gotta buy a house." Again, it was nice to have a little perspective. My bus arrived and we parted company. One of those nice things about public transit, you get to meet people whom you don't know. Sitting anonymously in a coffee shop is a very Seattle thing to do, and it's been the bulk of my days of late, but it's nothing like talking to a stranger.
The second stranger experience was just yesterday morning. I was heading over to pick up a friend on the way to frisbee. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a woman sitting on the grass in front of some of the great houses near my apartment. She seemed out of place. I stopped the car (in the middle of the road, thankfully it wasn't busy) and ran over. She was, in fact, out of place, she'd fallen on her way to the nearby church. I helped her up, at which time she confided that without help she did think she could have gotten up. We parted company and she called over her shoulder "thanks, I'll say a prayer for you at church." It was the best start to my day in a long time. It's awfully nice to stop feeling so fucking selfish, and sorrowful just for a little. It's like the record skipping. You realize that maybe the sad sad songs you've been listening to aren't the soundtrack to your life, or at least they only are if you keep putting them on. I've felt better since. Both meetings were chance encounters, and both gave me a little distance from my frustration and self-loathing, a little space to realize that it's fine to feel crappy, but better to do something about it.
Friday, on the way to pick up my car from the shop I took a few unfamiliar bus routes, and found myself with extra time to wait. An elderly Vietnamese gentleman shared the bench with me and we got to talking. His right eye was unusable, looking more the color of milk than anything else. He walked with a crutch, and spoke, by his own estimation (though not mine) bad English. He smiled throughout our talk. He was late for some meeting (I couldn't ever figure out what). His bus wasn't coming for another 40 minutes, and he moved with great unease. It was not a "there but for the grace of God" moment. Hardly. It was simply the fact that he was the first person to talk to me that entire day. I'd spent the day inside. Watching tv, feeling miserable, and sorry for myself. He approached me and we started talking, and it was fun. Somehow I'd forgotten how much I just enjoy meeting people, talking with them, learning from them. I never caught his name, nor gave him mine. Midway though the conversation he confided that after the end of the war, he was imprisoned for 6 years. He said this with the sorrow that I usually attach to losing my keys. It seemed, as he explained it, inevitable, and therefore not something to worry about or lament. I can't imagine that that's how he felt about it then, or now, but it was a little perspective adjustment. It's alright to go through tough times, in fact it's expected, but the real skill is moving on. Not ignoring, but continuing.
The man then out of the blue asked (as one question) how old I was and if I am married. I responded honestly to both, feeling some odd shame about the answers; a welling up of lost opportunity, missed chances, something overblown and self defeating. I was certain that he was going to be shocked by my age and lack of wife. Nope, turns out his 3 children are 30, 32, 36 and none of them are married. Each is too busy working with "the computers" and "saving to buy a home, gotta get a home, gotta buy a house." Again, it was nice to have a little perspective. My bus arrived and we parted company. One of those nice things about public transit, you get to meet people whom you don't know. Sitting anonymously in a coffee shop is a very Seattle thing to do, and it's been the bulk of my days of late, but it's nothing like talking to a stranger.
The second stranger experience was just yesterday morning. I was heading over to pick up a friend on the way to frisbee. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a woman sitting on the grass in front of some of the great houses near my apartment. She seemed out of place. I stopped the car (in the middle of the road, thankfully it wasn't busy) and ran over. She was, in fact, out of place, she'd fallen on her way to the nearby church. I helped her up, at which time she confided that without help she did think she could have gotten up. We parted company and she called over her shoulder "thanks, I'll say a prayer for you at church." It was the best start to my day in a long time. It's awfully nice to stop feeling so fucking selfish, and sorrowful just for a little. It's like the record skipping. You realize that maybe the sad sad songs you've been listening to aren't the soundtrack to your life, or at least they only are if you keep putting them on. I've felt better since. Both meetings were chance encounters, and both gave me a little distance from my frustration and self-loathing, a little space to realize that it's fine to feel crappy, but better to do something about it.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Flares for the Dramatic
With unemployment offering numerous daylight hours with little structure, I've been able to watch sports and sports talk television. In addition to concerns about Terrell Owens and the Sox-Yanks, steroids and the general failure of closers to do their jobs, this week's most incredible story (one that seems to only barely be about sports) is the debacle yesterday in Milan. Yesterday AC and Inter Milan played soccer. Now for those among you who really follow soccer/futbol (Emmet, JKD) this is probably noteworthy in and of itself. I'll watch soccer if it's on and I'm bored. I like it well enough, and I bet I'll go to a DC United game while there, if only to watch Freddy Adu. That last sentence best describes the degree to which I follow soccer. I will watch famous (if not necessarily, the best) players. I'm like the Easter-Christmas Christians. I'll watch the World Cup, and I'm not offended by the sport, but it fails to serve any true religious function for me.
This is not the way that soccer is understood elsewhere. Ranger and Celtic in Glasgow make Sox-Yanks look like the East-West All Star games, hired guns, professing little concern for community or class. Celtic is the Catholic team and Rangers are the Protestant team. It's not a small distinction.
'“Walking down the Shankill Road in a Celtic shirt, you’re dead, straight-away,” the Catholic 17-year-old Roisin explained. “They’ll just brush you onto the carpet. But it’s the same in Catholic areas. If someone walked in with a Ranger shirt in a Catholic area, they’re as good as dead. … If it’s a mostly Catholic area, or a mostly Protestant area, you’re dead. You just are.”' Soccer serves as a marker for geography, class, and religion. Those aren't small things.
And yet, while sport can easily be conflated with war, it's not usually a literal comparison. Yesterday it was. After a disputed goal was taken away from Inter Milan, fans began booing (no problem with that) and hurling lit flares onto the pitch. Flares, honest to god road flares. The video from the game looks like parts of the West Bank. First off, who the fuck brings a flare to a game. What normal thought is going through your head. What kind of tailgaiting involves torches. Even after the first few fusilades of flares onto the field, one of which struck AC Milan's goalie in the shoulder (injuring him, of course), the officials were considering continuing the event. Then after a calm down period further bottles were chucked onto the field. The old line about, I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out seems apt. I went to a armed insurrection, and there were a few soccer players there.
This is not the way that soccer is understood elsewhere. Ranger and Celtic in Glasgow make Sox-Yanks look like the East-West All Star games, hired guns, professing little concern for community or class. Celtic is the Catholic team and Rangers are the Protestant team. It's not a small distinction.
'“Walking down the Shankill Road in a Celtic shirt, you’re dead, straight-away,” the Catholic 17-year-old Roisin explained. “They’ll just brush you onto the carpet. But it’s the same in Catholic areas. If someone walked in with a Ranger shirt in a Catholic area, they’re as good as dead. … If it’s a mostly Catholic area, or a mostly Protestant area, you’re dead. You just are.”' Soccer serves as a marker for geography, class, and religion. Those aren't small things.
And yet, while sport can easily be conflated with war, it's not usually a literal comparison. Yesterday it was. After a disputed goal was taken away from Inter Milan, fans began booing (no problem with that) and hurling lit flares onto the pitch. Flares, honest to god road flares. The video from the game looks like parts of the West Bank. First off, who the fuck brings a flare to a game. What normal thought is going through your head. What kind of tailgaiting involves torches. Even after the first few fusilades of flares onto the field, one of which struck AC Milan's goalie in the shoulder (injuring him, of course), the officials were considering continuing the event. Then after a calm down period further bottles were chucked onto the field. The old line about, I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out seems apt. I went to a armed insurrection, and there were a few soccer players there.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
What's Your Fantasy
Last weekend, while Mark and Stacy were here we laboriously created teams and filled out our rosters for Fantasy Baseball. If you're not familiar with Fantasy Sports, it's basically created on the premise that statistics should have some regular application towards the destruction of the joy of sports. Why not take something that verges on art and reduce it to math.
In all honesty, I found fantasy basketball really fun. So I figured I'd give this a try. I am getting hammered. Just demolished. I played baseball for a long time, I pitched and caught for about a decade, so I figured I'd have some advantage over Mark in this. I also assumed, very erroneously, that defense and pitching mattered. Nope. Growing up a National League guy (Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, Barry Larkin, Chris Sabo, and the lot) I believe in defense, pitching and small ball. Turns out fantasy is to real baseball what porn is to real sex. Oversized people, oversized numbers, no compromise and no sacrifice--oh and there is some annoying designated hitter who seems to only be there to add to the output. There's no love, no moving the runner into scoring position. It's all about the home run, the run scored. THere's no points for hitting it to the second baseman so that the runner advances to third. It's just about the money hit. Sorry this analogy is getting stranger by the second.
Long story short, I'm obsessed with this stuff. It has data, baseball...and seems to nearly justify watching a lot of baseball. Today was the first day where my time started to play well (How can Pujols go this far into the season without having a 3 RBI game?).
In all honesty, I found fantasy basketball really fun. So I figured I'd give this a try. I am getting hammered. Just demolished. I played baseball for a long time, I pitched and caught for about a decade, so I figured I'd have some advantage over Mark in this. I also assumed, very erroneously, that defense and pitching mattered. Nope. Growing up a National League guy (Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, Barry Larkin, Chris Sabo, and the lot) I believe in defense, pitching and small ball. Turns out fantasy is to real baseball what porn is to real sex. Oversized people, oversized numbers, no compromise and no sacrifice--oh and there is some annoying designated hitter who seems to only be there to add to the output. There's no love, no moving the runner into scoring position. It's all about the home run, the run scored. THere's no points for hitting it to the second baseman so that the runner advances to third. It's just about the money hit. Sorry this analogy is getting stranger by the second.
Long story short, I'm obsessed with this stuff. It has data, baseball...and seems to nearly justify watching a lot of baseball. Today was the first day where my time started to play well (How can Pujols go this far into the season without having a 3 RBI game?).
Thursday, April 07, 2005
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