Someone Said that Life is in the Journey, Not the Destination ...
[Recent Entries][Archive][Friends][User Info]
Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "John" journal:[<< Previous 10 entries]
|
07:19 pm
[Link] |
It's 2012? Must be time for another entry ... and a meme?
Greetings! I'm still alive, although obviously not posting much. Work has been crazy, although they seem to like the job that I've been doing. I've been spending a lot of time trying to be a reasonably good partner and uncle, and I've been playing and watching a lot of baseball. That and a few karaoke outings for fun.
The craziest was in West Virginia, where I went for work. The hotel that I was staying at had karaoke on Wednesday night, and because it was a fairly small place (only a couple of dozen people) everyone got to sing a lot. At one point as I was preparing to sing a song the guy running the show exhorted more people to sing. "Don't MAKE me sing all night" I said, and after a pause added "because I WILL." As it was I sang:
Almost Heaven
Freedom '90
Gimme Three Steps
Paradise by the Dashboard Light
Dead or Alive
And a couple of other songs. The crowd went nuts for the first (West Virginia, go figure), but the George Michael song got a confused, polite response. Sensing which way they weres going, I came back with Lynyrd Skynyrd - which they loved. Pay attention to your audience! ;) Other highlights included one of the women from the work team singing "Baby Got Back" - she knew ALL the words. Didn't see that coming! Another was the two guys who sang I've Got You, Babe - the bald guy singing the Cher part flipped his non-existent hair at one point, to much hilarity.
Thanks to the crazy/warm weather in DC this year (favorite FB status post of a friend this year: "Winter isn't coming;" I told him that was a Stark assessment), I was able to start bicycling to work for a few days in February, and then regularly in March. The cherry blossoms were out a full ten days early, but since I bicycle past the Tidal Basin twice every workday I at least got to see them. We didn't get to go down for a close look this year, which I try to do very year. The cherry blossoms are one of my favorite things about living in the DC area. Despite the warm weather, though, my baseball season has gotten off to a rocky start. Most of my games have been at 8am on Sundays (blech), and two of them were on days that were actually chilly. The two weeks before this week the games were postponed because of rain. AFTER I got up early and drove out to the fields. Was really glad to get back to playing today, pitching three innings and getting three hits in five at bats, with one stolen base and three runs scored. A guy on the team called me "sneaky fast" today; I asked him if that meant that I'm not quite as slow as I look. "Basically" he replied. We look after each other on the team :D
There's a lot more, but as Inigo Montoya once said "Eez too much, lemme sum up." Life has its ups and downs, but I still feel very lucky overall. And one way to stay lucky is to honor one's internet obligations, right?
And so, a meme, fulfilling an obligation, to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) booknerdguru. Comment on this post with "I love libraries" and I’ll give you seven things I want you to talk about. They may make sense or they may be totally random. Then post that list to your journal with your commentary. Other people can get lists from you and the meme merrily perpetuates itself. The topics that she left for me:
Baseball: It's hard for me to be even a little bit brief on baseball. It's funny; neither of my parents were fans. Despite the fact that I have memories from when they were here, I have no memory at all of the Senators. Being nerds, when my brother and I discovered baseball, the first thing that we did was read everything we could about it. And since if you read about baseball history you're reading about the Yankees, we became Yankee fans. This notwithstanding that the Yankees were pretty terrible at the time and the Orioles and A's were the class of the American League (you could look it up). Still a big Yankee fan, but since DC (finally) got its own baseball team, I've become a Nationals fan as well. It's been fun to watch the Nationals get so much better over the past three years; as I write this they are in first place, despite a series of injuries that would have devastated most teams. The Yankees have had their own set of injuries, and are still sorting out their impact. Who needs reality TV, with entertainment and plot lines like these?
I also love playing baseball. I was cut (quickly) from my HS baseball team, but in my late 20's began playing in various local leagues. It's a big part of my life; there's something pure about being in the moment as you're playing that is hard to explain. It helps keep me young :)
Choir: Singing is also really important to me. I don't come from a very musical family, although my Mom sings. When I'm on there's a certain ring in my upper register (I'm a tenor) that I think she has, too. I'm not sure I've ever told Mom that :) I didn't start to sing much until college, and also have sung in church choirs for many years as well. I also sang for a year with a chamber chorale, Voce. Along the way I also found musical theater (at law school?) and have done around 40 shows. But although my views on religion are complicated, I will say that singing praise music is special.
Biking: I do ride, but I'm not a serious cyclist. Serious cyclists love to get up at oh-dark-thirty on weekend mornings and go get their century in before 3pm. Me? I'd rather sleep late. I will train and do long bicycle rides, but only for charities. I've done bundle of charity bicycling events, and have raised over $70,000 for various HIV/AIDS charities. Longest ride I've ever done was from San Francisco to Los Angeles (seven days, 560 miles). Longest single day's ride was 116.7 miles (oy). I've bicycled from Raleigh NC to Washington DC (four days, 330 miles) several times. I'll probably do another charity event again soon, but in the meantime I bicycle commute for most of the year. So, 11 miles a day. I love it - the scenery around DC is great, I spare the planet some energy and some pollution, and for most of the year I don't have to schedule my cardio. That, and it's a great way to put the workplace behind me at the end of a long day.
hilarious memories of booknerdguru's mother: Hm. I had to mull this over; I am keenly aware that dkesler can exact serious revenge if I am not very careful with this one! But I think I can share this memory. Back in the day, dkesler and I went to see the movie Hair. This was also when the country was reinstating selective service registration (for a military draft, if necessary). When I expressed that I would serve if I was called upon to do so, dkesler made it clear that she disagreed - to the extent of threatening to knock me out, throw me in the trunk of her car and drive me to Canada to keep me from joining up. Fortunately for all concerned, that ambition was not tested. And since her husband Phillip served in the Army, her views have obviously evolved over time!
Hockey: I don't mind hockey, but it's not my thing particularly. I've been to a few Caps games and enjoyed them, and it's nice when they win, but I doubt that hockey will never approach baseball and football in my sports interests.
Favorite recent book: I wish I had more to report here; I love to read, but most of my reading these days is periodicals. This keeps me up on current events, but it doesn't really feed the mind. But I have recently read Coming of Age in the Milky Way, and I highly recommend it. Most of the book is a wonderful, readable walk through the expanding sense of awareness of the universe and our place in it through human history. I won't pretend that I completely understood the abstract mathematical concepts in the last couple of chapters. But I'm still trying :)
Favorite film. Wow, this is really hard; and ultimately I couldn't choose just one single favorite movie. I'm a big fan of The Princess Bride, Love, Actually and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. While having a real weakness for romantic comedies (The Notebook, Don Juan Demarco and Serendipity are honorable mentions on this list), I also own and watch the LOTR movies (the Extended Versions, of course - aka, the real movies). I love Galaxy Quest, and always take time for a good superhero movie. A long non-answer, but that's the best I can do ... because I am outta here!
Current Mood:  cheerful
|
|
12:19 am
[Link] |
I exist! And ... I like Baseball :-)
It happens every Spring ... but this time with a difference. The Nationals, fresh off their 80 win season last year, are looking to have a full season from Jordan Zimmermann, Gio Gonzalez, and Edwin Jackson together with about five months of Stephen Strasburg, are being talked up as possible playoff contenders. Add pitching to young and promising position players like Wilson Ramos, Danny Espinosa, Ryan Zimmerman, and uber prospect Bryce Harper, and things look bright in Nats Town. Heady stuff for a downtrodden DC sports scene! But though the Nationals are young and talented, they play in the tough NL East. With three aces in Philadelphia, a free agent frenzy in Miami, and another young and talented team in Atlanta, it could mean a rough road for the Nationals. It's a long way to October baseball, but it should be fun to watch regardless. And I have tickets! Join us ...
As most of you know, since the Nationals arrived I've had a 1/7 share (11 games) of a group with four season tickets that I've used to share baseball with friends and family. This year, freed from my ten year contract for club seats with the local NFL team, I have upgraded to my own 21 game plan, four seats in the fourth row of Section 310 (upper deck, behind home plate). My brother picked up his own 21 game plan with two seats in nearby Section 314. We each have tickets to Opening Day, and then 20 different games each. That's 126 tickets to 81 games - that's a lot of baseball! Which means many opportunities to come see baseball. You can come watch the Nationals as they try to beat every National League team, as well as the Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays in interleague play. The games in our plans are found here. My four tickets are on "Teddy's Plan" and my brother's two are on "Abe's Plan" (Friday nights). If there's a game that you want that is NOT on those plans, don't worry - we also have the ability to swap our tickets for other games. So let me know if there are specific games that you are interested in seeing. Those of you that are out of town, I post this just in case you are planning travel to DC during baseball season. Or, if you can't plan months in advance, if you would like us to check with you if games are open on a short term basis, just let me know how you want me to do that.
Another perk of these tickets is that, even if the game is a "premium" game, the tickets are only $22 - the partial season ticket rate. It makes these seats, in my humble opinion, the best bargains in the ballpark. We are open to letting these seats go in any combination of numbers - so up to four tickets together may be available. Let me know, and we will try to put it all together and make it work.
See you soon - maybe at the ballpark!
Current Mood: hopeful
|
|
11:59 pm
[Link] |
Yeah, so, OK there was an earthquake in DC today
But today's first observation is totally different. I have noticed, in my long appreciation of the sport of baseball, that the only thing holding the game back is one basic fact. At any one time, the 30 dumbest people on the planet are the 30 managers of the major league baseball teams. At least if you listen to fans or go to any site where fans post. How these ignorant bastards paid gobs of money to manage MLB teams ever got a job at all is mind boggling, because each and every one of them is blind (utterly incapable of seeing things that to teh fan is incredibly obvious), deaf (utterly unable to hear the words of wisdom being shouted in their ears by the long suffering fans) and (of course) dumb. All of their moves are idiotic. Pinch hitting. Not pinch hitting. Leaving a pitcher in the game or taking him out. Who they have warming up, and when they are warming up. And don't get me started on lineups.
Heck, I second guess managers all the time. But I also am open to the fact that managers have been involved in baseball much longer than I have and therefore just might have some insight that I lack. Further, the manager is privy to information that I don't have, especially involving injuries and other things that can affect a player's performance from day to day. And finally, explaining all of their brilliant rationales to Joe Fan may not only be not helpful from their perspective, it may be counterproductive. And therefore you should take anything they say in a press conference with scoops of salt.
Just remember, fans, that if you were in the manager's position you, too, could be one of the 30 dumbest people on the planet.
( Oh yeah, that earthquake )
Current Mood:  thoughtful
|
|
10:59 pm
[Link] |
Today ... I played baseball
For the first time since July 2009, I played baseball. After rupturing my plantar fascia waaay back then, I had to sit out the remainder of the season. Well, limp out the rest of the season. Then in January last year, January of last year, a torn labrum, hip impingement and a herniated disc in my back.
Today, I played baseball. I played six innings in the field, performing pretty well (made several routine defensive plays, playing one grounder with my chest when I got a higher hop off of the artificial turf than I expected; 0 for 3 at the plate, win one walk and no strikeouts and an RBI. I may be sore tomorrow. But today? I played baseball.
Tonight, Mother Nature is putting on a spectacular lightning display across the DC skyline. Enough to put yesterday's Cherry Blossom Festival fireworks. I know it's not for me - but I'll enjoy it nonetheless. Because you know what? I played baseball!
Current Mood: cheerful
|
|
06:05 pm
[Link] |
Baseball Season! Want to go to a game?
As most of you probably already know, I am part of a group that splits a set of season tickets for the Washington Nationals - no longer the worst team in MLB! Woot! Anyway, Opening Day is this Thursday, and I've finally received my allocation of tickets. If you're interested in joining me for a games, post here and let me know. I will forward you a list of the games that I have and hopefully it will all work out - the way it does year after year even though my approach can only be described as haphazard. :)
Current Mood: cheerful
|
|
03:42 am
[Link] |
Everyone Gets To Write Their Own History
As I exercised at the gym tonight I had to take a break from obsessive watching of the horrible situation in Japan, and in channel flipping I found The World at War - oddly not on The Military Channel or The History Channel, but on PBS. I watched this BBC program when it first ran on US television in the 1970's, and I remember how impressed I was with the program as a young history nerd. Watching now as an (ahem) adult, I was once again reminded how everyone gets their own version of history. WatW is a UK show, written during the Vietnam War, and in the world of WatW the USA was apparently pretty much a bit player. The episode (Episode #19: Pincers) included the Battle of the Bulge. Americans get mentioned early on, as being inexperienced troops and the program does mention 7,000 Americans surrendering at once. Thanks so much for mentioning THAT, BBC. Bastogne? Not so much. The German offensive "loses momentum" and runs out of petrol, no thanks to the Americans. And then the Panzers are destroyed by fighter-bombers - to judge by the footage, all of them Hawker Typhoons and Tempests. When the Americans and British link up to cut off the Bulge, the English drive up in tanks, Americans come out of the woods and shake their hands, and the Brits drive on. For that matter, very few of the Allied tanks shown are Shermans.
The crossing of the Rhine is similar. There's talk about what a barrier the Rhine was for the Allies, and how preparations for a crossing began as soon as the Allies reached the Western shore. Landing craft are shown being trucked up, British troops and equipment are loaded on gliders pulled by Lancasters (not DC-3s), and there are some lovely shots of Field Marshall Montgomery crossing the Rhine in a small boat. There is no mention at all of the Bridge at Remagen, taken by the Americans two weeks before the British crossed the Rhine. Well, thank goodness we had the Brits there to pull our bits out of the fire, or we'd have had quite a rum go of it, wouldn't we? ;-)
Of course we do this, too - which partially explains why most Americans are quite ignorant of the fact that... the vast majority of the fighting and dying done by the Allies in Europe was in fact done by the Russians. But for anyone with a knowledge of the history, the stories not told by WatW are as fascinating as the ones the program dwells on.
Current Mood: thoughtful
|
|
03:39 pm
[Link] |
Merry Christmas for those who celebrate it!
Though I've been away for a while, I've not entirely forgotten LJ! I do read my flist, even if I only check in every week or so instead of daily/hourly. May the joy of the season surround you all, whatever significance this season has in your life. Peace and happiness in your hearts now, and in the new year to come. :)
Current Mood: cheerful
|
|
12:34 am
[Link] |
Stephen Strasburg - Wow
That was, all things considered, the most impressive pitching performance I've ever witnessed in person (I saw Mike Mussina's near-perfect game on TV). I saw John Candelaria whiff 14 "Bash Bros" A's in 1988 in a complete game win at Yankees Stadium. Yes, that was a better lineup (the Pirates are just awful). But this was in a debut, and Strasburg whiffed 14 with no walks! Amazing.
Tonight, Washington DC was Baseball's Capitol. The ballpark was rocking, the energy amazing. And while some people left after Strasburg was lifted, most stayed. A great day that I will remember for a long time!
Current Mood: happy
|
|
10:34 pm
[Link] |
Washington Nationals: Great Story, Lousy Ownership
The Washington Nationals have been a pleasant surprise this season; they've played .500 baseball despite having one of the most challenging early season schedules in the National League. This may not sound all that impressive until you remember that the team has lost 100+ games in back-to-back seasons, posting the worst record in the league both years. As a fan, I'll tell you that the biggest difference is the eyeball test: watching the team on the field no longer hurts. Over the last two seasons their defense and the fundamentals were painfully awful; the team was losing on merit. But although the team is better now and hope is on the way with some highly touted players, team management is still painfully tone deaf to their customer base while squeezing every last dollar out of the team. This short term thinking is building anger in the fans, and if there are no fans the team cannot survive.
This year, even when the Nats lose, they're competitive almost every game. They have some players who seem to be building blocks for the future in Ryan Zimmerman, Ian Desmond and Josh Willingham. With new GM Mike Rizzo, the team is at least arguably heading in the right direction. And they have a new pitcher on the way, you might have heard of him: Stephen Strasburg. The buzz about him is pretty amazing; he's considered the best pitching prospect in the past 20 or so years. Drafted #1 overall, he signed seconds before the deadline last August, was the team's best pitcher in spring training already, and has blazed his way through the minor leagues. With another #1 overall draft pick this year the Nats are also in line to draft another player who has generated a lot of buzz - Bryce Harper. Wonder of wonders, the Nats may have perfectly timed their collapse so that they have not only received the #1 overall pick in back-to-back years, but in each year there was a truly special player available at that slot. Hope, which hadn't been seen in Natstown for the past couple of years, has come to town.
Bryce Harper won't be up for at least 2-3 years; he's only 17 years old (he actually got his GED in order to make himself eligible for this year's draft). But Strasburg's callup is imminent. He's been kept out until now for complicated money reasons. That impediment is now gone. If the team actually spent any money on marketing (the team is largely invisible in the DC area) then Strasburg's arrival would be a golden opportunity. If you don't want to put that much pressure on a 22 year old player who has never pitched in the big leagues, the team would overtly discourage hype and keep their plans mum. But Nats ownership seems intent on making lemons out of lemonade. What they've done instead is split the difference, allowing hype but not directing it; seeing speculation without correcting it - until it was most advantageous for them to do so. All of which at least creates the impression that they're just trying to play the fans for suckers.
It has long been rumored that the plan was for Strasburg to make five starts at AA, five at AAA, then be called up after June 1. This Saturday is his fifth start in AAA, and he's been great. From ESPN to the WaPo to the blogosphere, speculation ran rampant that the Nats' first home game in June, June 4 versus the Reds, would be D-Day. The Nats largely maintained a dignified silence ... until the tickets for the June 4 game were sold out. Within hours AFTER the sellout, the team finally issued strong statements - that no date had been selected, but that they're looking to the next series, June 8-10 against the Pirates. How convenient. At least I have tickets to the June 10 game, so it's no skin off my nose. But it still stinks.
It stinks because it's really hard to see any baseball reason for holding Strasburg back unless he gets shelled in his next outing. But with a late shift, the team gets a “bait & switch” near-sellout on the 4th, PLUS a good crowd (probably not a sellout, although it’s possible) on a weeknight game against an unglamorous opponent that would otherwise draw squadoosh. And Strasburg gets two starts in the NEXT home stand against the White Sox and Royals after a road start at Cleveland. From a "take the money and run" standpoint it all makes sense - but it's still fan abuse. Not as bad as the Opening Day fiasco where the team overtly marketed its Opening Day tickets to excursion groups from Philadelphia, the opposing team's city.* But a poke in the eye, albeit not with a pointed stick, to any casual fan that the team may have someday wanted to turn into a passionate fan.
The short-term financial benefit is an obvious temptation for the team, but mistreating your fan base is a crappy way to build a foundation for future success. Look, they don't have to worry so much about me. I actually like baseball, I’m already a Nats fan and happily go to between 8-12 games a year. I love Friday nights at Nats park because it’s baseball, it’s Friday, and it’s fireworks night. But it’s the 25,000 extra people pulled in by the always deniable coy-to-the-point-of-cuteness whisper campaign who the team can ill afford to piss off after dropping back-to-back 100+ loss seasons on the town. If the team goes 2-8 on their current road trip and then the 4th is a non-Strasburg sellout that turns into a bad loss, then you may hear a couple of innings of loud booing followed by silence as the fans leave the building. THAT is your disaster scenario, and it is UGLY.
I understand that there's been no actual promise by the team when Strasburg will debut, and legitimate baseball reasons to keep him down another start or two may develop. I have no objection to Strasburg not starting in DC on the 4th, IF the reason is an actual, sensible baseball reason. If Strasburg gets roughed up Saturday and they want to give him another start in Syracuse, or weather moves his schedule, no problem. But don't keep him down on the farm to generate a few thousand dollars in extra ticket sales. You don't need the money short term, and you DO need the fans long term.
If this was an incident in isolation, that would be one thing. But this whole debut process has been of a piece with the impression of an ownership group that only cares about short term profits and couldn't care less about its own fans. The Nats won't spend the money to make the team visible in the DC market, but instead go to Philadelphia to sell tickets to Philadelphia tour groups? The team nickles and dimes the city over payments for a stadium they are already playing in? The team hires Bowden and fields a team based on cheap gimmicks and retreads that loses 100+ games a year? Lovely. This cheapness makes fans irate when they read in Forbes magazine that the Nats have the third highest positive cashflow in MLB and that the team's owner, Theodore Lerner, is one of baseball's richest owners. Between running on a team on the cheap while cashing revenue sharing and MLB TV contract checks while esconced in a lovely $625 million ballpark paid for by taxpayers, even other baseball teams are becoming angry with a Nats management that sits in a top 10 market and acts like a small market team. The Lerner family is even in a position to dismiss dismal TV ratings because, what the heck, MASN is Angelos's problem anyway. But in squeezing every last dollar of hope today, Nats team management may well find that they've managed to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
*As a note, Philly fans clearly have the highest asshole contingent of any fandom. I've seen a lot of visiting fans take over DC for sporting events; Steeler fans famously embarrassed the Redskins a couple of years ago. But for boorish behavior, rude drunkenness, fights and overall mayhem, fans of any of the Philly sports teams are clearly #1 and no one else is really close. My BIL got hit by an empty beer bottle at Opening Day thrown by a Philly fan; no one was surprised.
Current Mood:  Miffed
|
|
01:06 am
[Link] |
Long Time ...
What a long, strange trip it's been. The surgery (4/9) went reasonably well (at least so far). I'd been given the usual list of warnings before the surgery, including a potential condition known as "pudendal palsy." Wha- ?
You see, to do this particular procedure they have to dislocate your leg at the hip so they can get into the joint. This they do by sticking a steel post between your legs and yanking really hard until your leg pops out of the hip socket. Fortunately, I was unconscious during this part! Anyway this puts a lot of stress on some very sensitive areas, and one possible side effect is nerve loss from compression on ... those very sensitive areas. Once I clarified that this meant exactly what I thought it meant, I said: "You know, Doc, I think this hip thing is starting to clear right up!"
But then they clarified - it's never permanent, and no last damage results. Whew! So we went ahead, and no side effects. So far. Thank goodness. *knocks on wood*
I was on crutches for three weeks, and became renowned for my mad crutch skilz (moving sideways and occasionally pivoting as well as normal crutch mobility). I still have hard patches on the pad of my hands from calluses and blisters (under the calluses) that developed during the crutch days, but they are slowly healing up. I'm still doing PT regularly, attending the occasional Nats game and working like mad. I'm hoping to be back on the bicycle some time in June, and back to dancing and baseball and whatnot by the end of the summer.
There's so much more, but it would take too long and it's late. Onwards and upwards!
Current Mood:  sleepy
|
[<< Previous 10 entries] |
