More Weirdness

I woke up this morning with crystal clear vision. The first time I noticed it was when I glanced at the clock right after I woke up and I could see it perfectly clearly. However, I was groggy from taking NyQuil seven hours earlier, so I didn't pay much attention to it. I then proceeded to go through my entire morning routine, including a bathroom trip, making a sandwich, burshing teeth, etc. Then, as I was getting ready to leave, I suddenly realized again that I had extremely good vision. It was as if... as if I had my contacts in. So I looked at myself in the mirror and discovered that sure enough, they were there. Somehow, after I got back from a ultimate frisbee scrimmage against the college team last night, I forgot to take them out. The weird thing is that I never realized it until the next day! I slept the entire night with them in. In fact, that may be part of the reason why I had a real hard time falling asleep (and why I eventually decided to go with the NyQuil).

It was a bit fun in the morning though, when I had these visions of waking up with super powers that made my vision 20/20 and I'd never have to wear glasses again (like good ol' Peter Parker).

Graceful

My nose was acting like a leaky faucet during class today, so I was forced to get up and go to the bathroom for some paper towels. I feel like it's somewhat rude to get up in the middle of class, so I try to do it as rarely as possible. For the same reason, I'm always uncomfortable when I return to class and have to make my way back to my seat. So, I try to be as smooth and inconspicuous as possible. In this case, I demonstrated the smoothness and gracefulness of a swan... diving into a pool of concrete. I left the desk up because sometimes it creaks when you let it down or bring it up, so I had to bend my knees and curve my body around the desk. To ensure my balance, I decided to reach for the seat and push off it. Unfortunately, I neglected the "rotating" nature of the seat. It flipped up as soon as I put pressure on it and all of a sudden there was nothing supporting me. I let out a noise something along the lines of "eep!" and crumpled to the ground. It didn't hurt at all, except for the horrible embarrasment I suffered. Yikes.

Watching Barry Play

The Giants played the Diamondbacks last night, so I finally got to see old man Bonds out there on the field. He looks like he has prosthetic legs, to put it mildly. It's gotta be tough for him when the opposing team's fans boo every time he touches the ball or goes to the plate. Except that he's Barry Bonds so he's used to people despising him. He still hasn't hit a homerun, but I'm not worried about his hitting ability, for two reasons. First, he hit one ball off his back foot to about a foot below the top of the fence in straightaway center. That was pretty impressive. Second, he's still drawing walks and being patient at the plate. Given those two things, I'm willing to chalk it up to small sample size and bank on the homeruns to start coming. Although the Giants have started off pretty well, they'll need Barry at his best to be competitive, even in a division as weak as the NL West.

Power of the Stache

I'm back from the bay area. It was a very nice trip visiting Tiffany and spending Easter with my relatives. Unfortunately, I contracted a sore throat at some point during the weekend and I'm still suffering from the effects of it.

As you can see below, it's International Mustache Day once again. I've been working on my beard for over a month now and it's finally time to see the rewards. Although I'm beginning to doubt the legitimacy of International Mustache Day since my friends seem to change their minds on a weekly basis as to when it actually is.

Re-living the Horror

I'm in Berkeley now with Tiffany. We're about to go off to a banquet for the Ecology law journal she's a part of . In the Tucson airport I wrote this little bit about being a baseball fan.

I was watching Wednesday Night Baseball the other day with Joe Morgan and Chris "Boomer" Berman calling a game between the Cubs and the Cardinals when the topic of the Anaheim Angels 2002 team came up. Immediately, I entered a state of rage, tossing things around the room and shouting at Joe and Boomer to shut their pieholes. Naturally, they didn't come close to listening. I had the sheer "pleasure" of re-living the memories of the 5-0 lead the Giants let slip away in Game 6, and I got to hear Joe gush about how the Angels could beat you so many different ways, blah blah blah. Thanks Joe! Really appreciated that one.

This got me to thinking the blasphemous thought that real Yankee fans (i.e. not fairweather) might actually have it tough. I mean, how often have they had to re-live Luis Gonzalez bloop single off Mariano Rivera to end Game 7? Sure, I was rejoicing when it happened, but if you're a die-hard Yankee fan that's as bad a way to go as the Giants in Game 6. And then, blowing a 3-0 lead against the Red Sox? Being the first team ever to lead a series 3-0 and still lose? They'll never hear the end of that one. Still though, they have a $200 million-plus payroll and they should be soundly ridiculed for it.

Then I thought about Red Sox fans. Now, it's definitely true that Red Sox fans have had it tough for a long time and they had my sympathy for that reason. But, as we all know, that changed two seasons ago. As a result, they no longer deserve sympathy by default. I can look at their fans with a more objective eye now, and what I see ain't so pretty. Basically, they're extremely biased. As a sports fan, you should be biased because you support your own team and hate your rivals. But Red Sox fans go way out of line. For instance, I ear endless complaints from them about the Yankee payrool, and yes, they are far beyond anyone else. But look who's at number 2, way ahead of number 3: the Red Sox. Subjectivity is good in baseball fandom, but not when it's carried to absurd proportions (btw, a DH should never be considered for MVP).

Observing at the SMT

I've been observing at the SMT for the past two days. I drove here in my car Monday afternoon and I'll be leaving after I eat lunch today. The drive up the mountain, by the way, was a blast in my Focus. Tons of tight turns and plenty of chances to go kareening off the edge of a cliff =). I anticipate the drive down being just as fun.

The reason I'm here is to help set up DesertStar at the SMT. As of about midnight last night, the instrument is operating reasonably well. It's not perfect, but it's still going to be a quantum leap forward over the previous instrument. As I type this, we're observing some sort of astronomical source. When I got here on Monday it was cloudy and very windy and we couldn't do any observing at all. Then on Tuesday it cleared up, but there were problems with DesertStar that we needed to fix, so we didn't really start observing until earlier this morning. But things are looking pretty good now. The weather is especially excellent.

I've also had plenty of time to work on other research. It's amazing how much you can get done when you live where you work and don't do anything else besides work. Of course, if I did this for a period longer than 48 hours I'd probably go insane...

The Cross-Gender Huck

I'd like to talk about one issue on which I find my viewpoint outside the mainstream of society. Anyone who has played co-ed ultimate has observed some guy (usually many guys) who demonstrate a strong tendency to throw only to guys. This leads to an unhealthy game where the girls aren't happy because they never get the disc and guys are stupid idiots who keep making turnovers.

My premise is that instead of introducing artificial rules designed to enhance the co-ed nature of a sport, we should be focusing on the attitude of the athletes involved.

For instance, in city league co-ed softball, there are stupid rules like you have to make your lineup be guy/girl/guy/girl etc. To me, this just makes the game silly and doesn't do anything to get to the root of the issue. An example of a good rule for co-ed sports is the cross-gender huck rule in co-ed ultimate, where if a guy throws to a girl or vice-versa from over half the field away for a score, it counts double. This is a good rule because it encourages guys to look for girls when they're throwing the disc, but it doesn't affect the game so much that it becomes silly.

Even with this rule in place though, it's still up to the athletes playing to include everyone. Many players lock on to whoever is moving the fastest on the field. Since, on average, guys run faster than girls, this means that they're looking at guys 95% of the time. The thing they're missing when they do this, however, is that the person who is covering them is also moving faster! What's important is the speed of the person cutting relative to the speed of their defender. Another major problem guys have is going for the "long bomb". In this situation, guys are taller and can jump higher (again, on average), so the dude with the p/roverbial blinders on is only going to look at guys going deep.

A perhaps more insidious way that this "guys are more capable than girls at sports" concept manifests itself is the comment that an idiot guy will often make after a girl throws to another girl for a score is "Hey, girl power all right!" Don't get me wrong--I'm all for congratulating anybody when they do something well on the field. But why not congratulate them just like you would congratulate anyone else: "Hey, great job out there!" The answer, according to me, is that idiot guy didn't expect the girls to do anything to useful. To him, the best thing they can do is get out of the way and let the "big strong men" get the job done. That idea is total bullshit to me. Insidious, by the way, is the perfect word here. At first, I thought it was cool to say things like "girl power" because I thought it was a form of praise. Now, however, my viewpoint has changed completely. As far as I'm concerend, if a girl does well it's just the same as if a guy does well.

My Pesky Hamstring

Two Sundays ago, I sprained (strained? I looked up the difference between the two, and I'm still not sure!) my left hamstring. The following Wednesday and Sunday I re-sprained it by not giving it enough time to rest and not stretching enough. Consequently, I decided to skip softball on Tuesday and really stretch the crap out of it before league on Wednesday. I also played in fewer points and played at maybe 75% on those points where I was in. Furthermore, I stretched for about 20 minutes before the game, during the game, and after the game. It worked really well and my hamstring felt fine all night. Then, I skipped a scrimmage against the college team thursday night even though the hamstring felt ok. Yesterday, I played Friday pick-up as usual, except this time I stretched the crap out of my hamstring before starting. It worked again, so I think I've got it under control. However, there is a tournament this weekend that I'd like to play in, so we'll see how it holds up under that kind of pressure.

This year's Matt Jankowski Memorial Fantasy Baseball League draft is set to take place at 10am today. As I will be out tossing the disc, I won't be around to draft my team and instead yahoo is going to auto-pick [a bunch of losers] for my team. If I was going to be at the draft, here are a few players I think would go lower than they should: Brad Wilkerson (going to have a monster year in Texas), Richie Weeks, Josh Willingham, Jeremy Hermida, and J. D. Drew. The key is to take the top players not at these positions (1B, 2B, C, OF) during the early rounds, since you can rely on these players to give you quality numbers at these postions later on in the draft.

A Keys Jingler

I'm the son of a son of a daughter of a keys jingler. Well, that's about as much as I can emulate Jimmy Buffett. It is true, though, that my dad's maternal grandpa was a keys jingler and it's also true that his blood runs in my veins. I often feel the urge, when I'm hanging out with friends or family, to 'get moving.' For my great-grandpa, this spirit always manifested itself in the form of him jingling his keys in his pocket. I don't have the jingling bit down yet, but there are definitely times when I just get restless and need to move around or simply leave. And it's for no other reason than I just have 'keys-jingling' syndrome. It could be another fantastic Saturday night in Livingston and I'd still be jingling my keys. I used to think I was abnormally restless, that I should be rolling with the punches like a cowboy in a jungle and make the best of whatever comes my way. But now I think I should learn to trust my intuition, and my gut says if my great grandpa can do it, then so can I.

What Cutey-Pies

In honor of all the rain and cold weather the bay area has been getting recently, I thought I would post this picture from the mid-80s. It doesn't snow very often in San Jose (in fact, you might not even call that gigantic mound of whiteness lying on the ground snow, but I say nitpicking is for nincumpoops), but on that particular day the normal rules didn't apply. What can we learn from this picture? For one thing, I was a ruthlessly efficient child--no shoelaces for me, no sir. The stripes on my sweatpants helped me look really fast when I ran. Back in those days I thought I was pretty fast. I was a member of the brontosaurus fan club. I still think dinosaurs are pretty cool, but sadly I have no t-shirts to prove it. I used to have Mom cut my hair. Generally, I'd be so impatient about it that she could only do it while I was watching ST:TNG. Interestingly, when I smile today like I smiled in the picture below, it's usually when I'm drunk. Maybe I was drunk on snow. I'm not sure what Jeffra is looking at. Or really why we have those odd looks on our faces. Or what we're doing with our hands. She might know though, since she's always had a better memory than me, especially about childhood stuff. The fence in the background on the left is no longer around. The house (in the background on the right) is still there but is painted green. The hedges in background center are long since gone (replaced by a wood fence with vines growing on it). The cement we're standing on has also been replaced, but only by more cement. I really like velcro shoes. When I'm a senior citizen I think those are the shoes I'll wear all the time.

The Smell of Fish

If you see something you don't like, you can always close your eyes or look in a different direction. If you hear something you dislike, you can plug your ears temporarily, or put on headphones and listen to music for longer time periods. But what do you do if you smell something you don't like? It can be incredibly oppressive because noses are omni-directional receivers and because it is a pain in the ass to plug your nose and breath through your mouth for an extended time.

Last night, Eric cooked salmon on the George Foreman grill and the smell pervaded every crook and cranny of the house for the rest of the night. I took a shower almost two hours after the salmon was cooked and the smell dominated the smell of the shampoo and soap. I can smell it within a 10-20 foot radius of the exterior of the house. It's almost as bad as scigarette smoke. Somehow, Eric doesn't notice it. Maybe because he actually likes salmon.

I tried putting baking soda on the George Foreman grill, but it was too late. I think the salmon smell clung to the walls and won't be gone for quite awhile. I bet it won't even be gone by the time I wake up tomorrow [I wrote this on paper last night. True to form, the stench still prevailed this morning -- although significantly attenuated].

I'm leaving my laptop at work for the near future. Paradoxically, I'm expecting this to increase my blog posting rate. Look for topics in the next few days related to the evil nature of TV, fantasy basecall, steroids, ultimate frisbee, pictures of me as a youngster, and pontifications about ethics, perhaps in relation to messages from the bible.

Catastrophe in the Kitchen

I was all set to cook Cajun Skillet Beans from the Moosewood cookbook tonight, but I screwed up royally. I bought some dried beans at the grocery store over the weekend, then soaked them in water overnight. For some reason, however, I skipped the part where the beans get cooked and dumped them straight into the rest of the food that I cooked tonight. It had been looking like a tasty combination of bell peppers, celery, onions, and spices until I put the beans in. They were hard as rocks and yet somehow it didn't click in my mind that they were not cooked. Sometimes I amaze myself. Live and learn, as they say. Maybe there are some other cliches I can throw out there.

In other news, my hamstring has been bothering me. I've been icing it down each night after I exercise, but it's still pretty tight. Basically, I need to get more flexible if I want to keep playing competitive Ultimate.