(.)_(.)
Monday, July 24, 2006
awwww
isn't this just the cutest thing you've ever seen?
If the cliched image of dad cursing his way through 6 pages of directions, trying to assemble the crib is to be believed, then we passed with flying colors. We read the directions, worked together and it was set up in less than an hour. 1 comments
isn't this just the cutest thing you've ever seen?
If the cliched image of dad cursing his way through 6 pages of directions, trying to assemble the crib is to be believed, then we passed with flying colors. We read the directions, worked together and it was set up in less than an hour. 1 comments
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
a season of growth...and pig heads
a coworker had given me some tomato seedlings a while back. We had them in the bay window for a while and then Reen potted them and they got moved outside. We watched them get larger and now the tiniest 'maters can be seen on the vine, in place of the pretty yellow flowers. I look forward to them growing up so that I can eat them.
also continuing to grow is Reen's belly. Reen commented the other day that although we don't typically go to many concert, baby O has been to concerts by BeauSoleil, Bruce Springsteen and Dar Williams. Not to shabby. Although I'm not sure if Wolfie's ear buds were developed enough to actually hear the BeauSoleil show.
Looking for an engineering job in Louisiana? How about Chief of the Hydrology and Hydraulics Branch of the US Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans? "Recruitment Bonus may be authorized." Well yes, I would think so.
And just so you know that the old world ways aren't completely fading away, I'll point out that it's still relatively easy to find concise instructions on how to split a pig's head in half. Can't decide between a saw or a cleaver? Wondering where to safely hold the porcine noggin whilst severing the Rational from the Intuitive? Look no further.
p.s. As for the pronunciation of Sesachacha, it's something like SACK-a-chuh or SACK-a-jah. I still pronounce it phonetically though because I like that way better. 0 comments
a coworker had given me some tomato seedlings a while back. We had them in the bay window for a while and then Reen potted them and they got moved outside. We watched them get larger and now the tiniest 'maters can be seen on the vine, in place of the pretty yellow flowers. I look forward to them growing up so that I can eat them.
also continuing to grow is Reen's belly. Reen commented the other day that although we don't typically go to many concert, baby O has been to concerts by BeauSoleil, Bruce Springsteen and Dar Williams. Not to shabby. Although I'm not sure if Wolfie's ear buds were developed enough to actually hear the BeauSoleil show.
Looking for an engineering job in Louisiana? How about Chief of the Hydrology and Hydraulics Branch of the US Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans? "Recruitment Bonus may be authorized." Well yes, I would think so.
And just so you know that the old world ways aren't completely fading away, I'll point out that it's still relatively easy to find concise instructions on how to split a pig's head in half. Can't decide between a saw or a cleaver? Wondering where to safely hold the porcine noggin whilst severing the Rational from the Intuitive? Look no further.
p.s. As for the pronunciation of Sesachacha, it's something like SACK-a-chuh or SACK-a-jah. I still pronounce it phonetically though because I like that way better. 0 comments
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
zizou's petals
it’s not fair to judge a career by one moment, but for most sports fans Zinédine Zidane is now that French guy who head butted the Italian guy and got thrown out of the World Cup final. It’s too bad, because Zidane gave the game a lot more than that throughout his career.
Insults and cheap shots are commonplace in the game, with players constantly trying to get under the skin of their opponent in the hopes that it will throw off their concentration, or even better, provoke the player to do something stupid and get a card. So I was astounded that Zidane would allow himself to get wound up like that, given all that was on the line, both for his team and country and for himself personally. I wonder if we’ll ever know what was said between the two players. The initial rumors are that he was called a terrorist or that the comment was a racial slur. The one part I found humorous is that in most sports, if something has snapped and you’re out to hurt the guy, you haul off and punch him. But this being soccer, you’re not allowed to use your hands, so Zidane’s first instinct was to head butt the guy. Too funny.
A final piece of interest in this whole incident was that we may have seen the first use of instant replay in the sport of soccer. The head butt occurred well behind the play that was going on upfield, so the main referee didn’t see it at all. Typically this sort of off the ball stuff is spotted by the linesman or 4th official. They get the ref’s attention, they pow-wow and the ref takes action based on what his team has told him happened. This did happen eventually with Zidane, but it came about very slowly. The referee only walked back to the play because Materazzi was still down on the field, not because he’d been called over by the linesman. During this time, they showed a replay of the incident on the screen inside the stadium (typically a no-no for controversial plays), then the refs all got together and finally Zidane was red carded. So it seemed fairly clear that the linesman only saw the play from the replay shown on the screen, not when it happened on the field. It was certainly the correct call, but strictly speaking it was a violation of the rules of the game for the refs to make a call based on a replay rather than what they had seen (or not seen) themselves. I will be curious to see if FIFA addresses this, and clarifies the policy going forward. 0 comments
it’s not fair to judge a career by one moment, but for most sports fans Zinédine Zidane is now that French guy who head butted the Italian guy and got thrown out of the World Cup final. It’s too bad, because Zidane gave the game a lot more than that throughout his career.
Insults and cheap shots are commonplace in the game, with players constantly trying to get under the skin of their opponent in the hopes that it will throw off their concentration, or even better, provoke the player to do something stupid and get a card. So I was astounded that Zidane would allow himself to get wound up like that, given all that was on the line, both for his team and country and for himself personally. I wonder if we’ll ever know what was said between the two players. The initial rumors are that he was called a terrorist or that the comment was a racial slur. The one part I found humorous is that in most sports, if something has snapped and you’re out to hurt the guy, you haul off and punch him. But this being soccer, you’re not allowed to use your hands, so Zidane’s first instinct was to head butt the guy. Too funny.
A final piece of interest in this whole incident was that we may have seen the first use of instant replay in the sport of soccer. The head butt occurred well behind the play that was going on upfield, so the main referee didn’t see it at all. Typically this sort of off the ball stuff is spotted by the linesman or 4th official. They get the ref’s attention, they pow-wow and the ref takes action based on what his team has told him happened. This did happen eventually with Zidane, but it came about very slowly. The referee only walked back to the play because Materazzi was still down on the field, not because he’d been called over by the linesman. During this time, they showed a replay of the incident on the screen inside the stadium (typically a no-no for controversial plays), then the refs all got together and finally Zidane was red carded. So it seemed fairly clear that the linesman only saw the play from the replay shown on the screen, not when it happened on the field. It was certainly the correct call, but strictly speaking it was a violation of the rules of the game for the refs to make a call based on a replay rather than what they had seen (or not seen) themselves. I will be curious to see if FIFA addresses this, and clarifies the policy going forward. 0 comments
Friday, July 07, 2006
postmortem
as for the US’s world cup performance this time around, there’s no doubt that I was supremely disappointed at the results. However, with some time to reflect I’ve come to feel that most of the pundits are overreacting. This World Cup came down to two things: the US team didn’t play well and it was in the tournament’s toughest group. Just consider the French team for a moment. They won the WC for the first time in 1998, and then in 2002, the defending champs failed to score a single goal and crashed out after the first round. Now they are in the finals again. So it’s a very fine line between success and failure even for the best teams and this time around, the US was on the wrong side of that line is all. There's plenty of blame to share about why the team didn't play well, but the fact remains that there's not a huge difference in the quality of play by the US between this World Cup and the last one. What was definitely different were the intangibles like confidence and luck, which both seemed to be in short supply this time around.
Watching Zinédine Zidane play these past few games for France has been a joy. He is truly the best player of his generation. My personal hope is that France wins the final, but I don't think that's likely unless it gets to penalties. The only player I enjoy watching from the Italian team is Cannavaro. This guy is 5’ 9”, 165 lbs, and has been the best defender in the World Cup. 0 comments
as for the US’s world cup performance this time around, there’s no doubt that I was supremely disappointed at the results. However, with some time to reflect I’ve come to feel that most of the pundits are overreacting. This World Cup came down to two things: the US team didn’t play well and it was in the tournament’s toughest group. Just consider the French team for a moment. They won the WC for the first time in 1998, and then in 2002, the defending champs failed to score a single goal and crashed out after the first round. Now they are in the finals again. So it’s a very fine line between success and failure even for the best teams and this time around, the US was on the wrong side of that line is all. There's plenty of blame to share about why the team didn't play well, but the fact remains that there's not a huge difference in the quality of play by the US between this World Cup and the last one. What was definitely different were the intangibles like confidence and luck, which both seemed to be in short supply this time around.
Watching Zinédine Zidane play these past few games for France has been a joy. He is truly the best player of his generation. My personal hope is that France wins the final, but I don't think that's likely unless it gets to penalties. The only player I enjoy watching from the Italian team is Cannavaro. This guy is 5’ 9”, 165 lbs, and has been the best defender in the World Cup. 0 comments
dawn the shoar
there must be a word to describe the feeling of having left too large a gap in your blog, and thus fearing that a single post will not be sufficient to cover all the stuff you would have mentioned if you had been posting on a regular basis. But I don’t know what that word is. So let’s just hope that such a large gap has simply left time for the winsome wheat to be separated from the common chaff of a typical post. Yeah right.
The yearly visit to Ocean City was great, as usual. The explosion of babies from the next generation is just crazy, and our time with Fiona and Sara and Samantha left Reen and I all schmoopy thinking of the imminent arrival of Wolfie. The house rentals this year were huge compared to past years and yet both places were filled to the rafters. We’ll be renting out a whole block before long. Some highlights of the week, as I remember them:
seeing in person that the mentos and soda trick actually works
Reen being more fired up about the US soccer games than I was
TT matching Nathaniel’s waffle intake during Chicken and Waffles/Ice Cream and Waffles dinner night. (they tied at 7 each)
Neil’s delight at seeing his older brother screw up at mini-golf
My winning another free game coupon on the last day of mini-golf, just like last year.
Holding Sara while she progressed from playful to calm to groggy to asleep.
Celebrating Tim’s birthday about 5 times.
The crazy guy at the rest stop Burger King being annoyed at Seamus and I joining Mike and the ladies ahead of him in line. That guy seemed entirely too young to be so close to snapping.
The Bruce concert with Mike, Amy, Reen and Seamus. I especially enjoyed the song John Henry and singing along with Pay Me My Money Down.
Fiona's funny face
0 comments
there must be a word to describe the feeling of having left too large a gap in your blog, and thus fearing that a single post will not be sufficient to cover all the stuff you would have mentioned if you had been posting on a regular basis. But I don’t know what that word is. So let’s just hope that such a large gap has simply left time for the winsome wheat to be separated from the common chaff of a typical post. Yeah right.
The yearly visit to Ocean City was great, as usual. The explosion of babies from the next generation is just crazy, and our time with Fiona and Sara and Samantha left Reen and I all schmoopy thinking of the imminent arrival of Wolfie. The house rentals this year were huge compared to past years and yet both places were filled to the rafters. We’ll be renting out a whole block before long. Some highlights of the week, as I remember them:
0 comments
