Charlotte Goes Home

Our latest foster dog Charlotte is going home today after 7 months of being a guest in our house. She's gotten along great with Hunny Bear, Cocoa, and Jasmine. We'll miss her a lot -- Monica a lot more than me cuz she bounds too much with foster dogs -- but are thrilled that she's found a great forever home.

She's also improved her condition tremendously while she's been here as you can see in these photos. No camera tricks here. When she came to Beagle Rescue she was 53 pounds and at her most recent vet exam she was down to an almost svelte 36 pounds. She could still stand to loose a few pounds -- couldn't we all after Thanksgiving -- but she's no longer horribly obese. She loves playing and going for a walk, both of which have helped her trim down.



Here's one more set of before and after photos.

Return to normalcy

Well, sort of. Our hardwoods are in and dry. Our rugs are down and our furniture is out of storage. The real work is done. See photos at the link in the previous post.

We still need to move everything back into the buffet, china cabinet, and baker's rack. And of course a few things were damaged in the move and will need to be replaced. And there are a couple of little fixes with the hardwood install.

But at least it feels like a house again. Let us know if/when you'd like to come over and see the finished results.

More remodelling

Our final (I hope) major remodel project, replacing our crapets (sic) with hardwood floors, officially started on Friday. Unofficially the project started a couple weeks before as we started emptying out the rooms so they could pull up the carpets.

After 3+ years here, our carpets are horribly (and embarrassingly) urine stained from dogs -- mainly foster dogs and guests but our dogs aren't perfect either. And if you don't clean (or notice) a stain right away, you can never get it out. So we're ripping out the carpets in our dining room, living room, and piano room and installing hardwood floors. We're also refinishing the hardwood floors in the rest of downstairs to match.

I've started a photo album on snapfish to track the progress. So far all you can see is what's been ripped up. Have to get better to get worse, right?

Pro Football

Truly the NFL has become the most bizarre major professional league out there. With a couple of exceptions on any given Sunday any team can win or lose.

The Bears got crushed in the fourth quarter against the Lions last week. And then Brett Favre tore them apart in the first half last night -- 19 of 22 for 243 yards and at least one incompletion was a spike. The Packers had played 4.5 solid games at this point. In the second half, Favre was 10 of 18 for only 79 yards and two interceptions and half the yardage came against the Bears prevent defense in the last series. Hard to believe it was the same two teams out there as it had been so far this season.

But it's bigger than the Bears, who moved to 2-3 with the win. The top four teams in the NFC last year were the Bears, Saints, Eagles, and Seahawks. The Seahawks are 3-2, the Eagles are 1-3, and the Saints are 0-4 and among the worst handful of teams in the NFL. In the AFC, the Chargers were 14-2 last year and have already lost three games, and the Jets went from the playoffs to 1-4. If the season ended today, the Raiders, Redskins, and Titans would be in the playoffs. Of course, there are still 12 weeks to go, so we'll see how it sorts out.

Cubs

Blech! Wait 'til next year, I guess.

People will point to Piniella's decision to pull Zambrano or other moves, but simply the Cubs didn't hit or didn't hit in the right spots. In a best of five anything can happen, though a sweep is unlikely. And we almost had a four-way sweep in the first round. Barring a big Yankees comeback tonight, in four series you'd have to describe as near even, the losing team is going to win a total of ONE game.

New Job

I started a new job last Tuesday. I'm a senior SDET (software development engineer in test) at ascentium. While it's a new job title, it's effectively the same kind of work -- software testing (finding bugs and improving product quality before the customer gets the product) with an emphasis on writing and understanding code to test the product.

I never blogged much about my job search though I had some interesting experiences to share. In this technology era, I think many responsible interviewers will look for a candidates personal blog, and blog with lots of posts griping about other interviews could be strike one against me before I get my foot in the door. Likewise while it may be cathartic to vent about your job and many people have blogs full of job gripes, in the tech world you have to realize your boss and your co-workers are reading it, so don't expect much about my job here.

That said, so far so good. I like the people I'm working with, which is key, and so far I've gotten enough guidance to get running and then been left alone to do my own thing. I am jumping in to the fire with both feet as our first ZBR/RC0 goal is this week and I'm the one tester on the project. (Tech people will understand that, non-tech people don't worry about it.)

Oh, one thing of note. I'm trying something different and being a morning person at this job. Monica has been getting up at 5/5:30 for her classes at Boeing and as long as I'm up, I'm trying to be productive (note the time of this post). That said I don't think I'll make it out of the house by 7 today.

Shana Tova

Here's wishing a very happy and sweet 5768 to friends, family, and any other readers out there, especially those of you who are rooting for the Cubs.

Cubs

<sigh>

Baseball Prospectus runs a daily Post Season Odds report. The math and process isn't that important but the end result gives you a good idea of a team's chances of making the playoffs. Since shortly after the all-star break, the Cubs have had a better than 50% chance of making the playoffs even breaking 60% a few times as recently as August 31st. With yesterday's loss and the Brewers win, not only did the Cubs drop out of first place but their post season chances feel to 36%, the lowest it's been since July 1.

Of more concern the Cubs have been playing some pretty bad baseball for a while now. Since peaking on July 30th, they're 17-22 and have been outscored 156-188. The starting pitching has been lousy, especially Zambrano and Hill who are supposed to be the aces of the staff. But they haven't helped themselves by replacing Sean Marshall with Steve Tracshel -- on what universe is that an upgrade -- or penciling in Jason Kendall's no hit, no field name into the top of the lineup. Kendall may be the worst player in major league baseball. Geovany Soto hit .353 with 31 2B and 26 HR in only 385 AB in AAA this year. Even the non-baseball fans reading this blog know that's pretty good. He's not the catcher of the future, he's by far the best catcher the Cubs have now. Play him!

Edited to add: Who says "they" can't hear you through the TV set? I made the post above and turned on the Cub game just as Derrek Lee hit a home run. The Cubs added four more runs and now lead 6-1.

Fall TV

Every fall the networks roll out 40-50 new shows for us (the viewers) to pass judgment on. As a prime time viewer one of the challenges I have is figuring out what's good before you're deep into the season as well as getting hooked on something that's going to die mid year and leave you wanting closure. Sure there some critic reviews, but that's one person's opinion, and I can see promos on TV, but really that's enough to tell me what I won't like (cavemen, really?, uggh) but not what I will. So the critic's season pass on Variety's blog is fantastic.

I stumbled over this from Jon Weisman's Dodgers blog which I read occasionally. They've had eight critics/bloggers watch the previews for the fall season and rate them. This gives a consensus all in one place. Of course most shows are mixed though that's seems dead on as most new shows tend to be "meh" -- not awful, but not must see. The scores for some shows are pretty interesting, for example Private Practice (the Grey's Anatomy spin-off) three critics gave it a thumbs up while four gave it two thumbs down -- like it or hate it.

Best received potential hits -- Chuck (NBC, premiers Monday 8 PM on 9/24), Dirty Sexy Money (ABC, Wednesday 10 PM on 9/26), Gossip Girl (CW, Wednesday 9 PM on 9/19), Pushing Daisies (ABC, Wednesday 8PM on 10/3), The Reaper (CW, Tuesday 9 PM on 9/25), and hey the sit-com may be back Aliens in America (CW, Monday 8:30 on 10/1), Back to You (FOX, Wednesday 8PM), Big Bang Theory (CBS, Monday 8:30 PM on 9/24), Return of Jezebel James (FOX, Wednesday 8:30 in 2008). Of to set my TiVo; setting a season pass on the ones in bold.

Stein

It never ceases to amaze me that people can't pronounce or spell "Stein". I had both happen in the past couple of days. The local grocery store has a policy of thanking customers by name, which I'm OK with, but it's almost insulting when they pronounce it wrong which happens about one in four times. I realize my name isn't as common as Jones, Smith, Johnson, or Suzuki. And it does violate the "i before e..." rule.

However, stein is a word that's been part of the English language for 100 years. And there's a fairly famous scientist named Einstein, spelled and pronounced the same way.

No one pronounces the President's name as if it rhymes with "hush".

Bregel is hard, Aristodemo is pretty tricky, Kline and Klein are both common, Saltalamacchia and Yastrzemski are tongue twisters. But Stein should be easy for anyone old enough to order a beer.

Cubs win, one month to go

The Cubs just finished the last difficult part of their schedule, playing the leading contenders in the NL Central at home and on the road against NL West leading Arizona and San Francisco. During that stretch they managed to go 7-5 and GAIN ground on the rest of the division.

The schedule the rest of the way is the easiest in baseball except that they're in a stretch where they play 24 games in 23 days thanks to a couple of makeup games against the Cardinals. On the other hand, the Cardinals don't have an off day the rest of the season. The Cubs have four games left against a team with a winning record. 15 of their remaining games are against Houston, Pittsburgh, and Florida, three of the four worst teams in the National League.

While the lead is only 2.5 games, it will take an incredible choke to not win the division.

You Don't See This Everyday

First off, haven't blogged much over the past couple of months. I've been busy looking for a job (more on that later), playing and reading about poker, taking care of dogs and our house and watching a lot of baseball.

They say if you live long enough, you'll see everything. While I've watched hundreds of baseball games in person and thousands on TV, I just saw something I'd never seen before -- a 2-1 (catcher to pitcher) double play. The Tigers are playing the Yankees and had runners on first and third with one out. With a 3-2 count the runner on first broke for second, the batter struck out and the catcher threw to second base, which is all pretty normal. But the pitcher Roger Clemens cut off the throw and had Brandon Inge trapped between third and home. He ran him down and tagged him out without a throw. Pretty good for a 40+ something guy.

New addition

No, Monica isn't pregnant.

As a fifth anniversary present to each other, Monica and I adopted our foster cocker spaniel Cocoa. Cocoa is very sweet and has fit in well here. Much like Emily did, he searches for any great place to snuggle with someone. When I watch TV, he jumps on my lap, and not just his head on my lap.

Welcome to the family Cocoa.

Cubs and Steins

On June 2nd, the Cubs lost their sixth game in a row to fall to a season worst 22-31 putting them in 5th place.

On June 3rd, Monica and I flew to Chicago. The Cubs not only snapped their losing streak that day but crushed the Braves 10-1.

Since Monica and I arrived, the Cubs are 27-13 and have moved into second place and are in the hunt for the NL Central title and the wild card.

You can call this a coincidence if you want, but I think it’s causation we just don’t understand yet. "Coincidentally" the Mariners have been hot since June 2nd as well.

Cool picture

This is really from Monica

Amid all the 787 roll-out hoopla, perhaps the coolest event went unnoticed. On Saturday night, Boeing had all of the 787 airline representatives at an event at the Museum of Flight. At 7:07 PM, an Omega Air Refueling Services 707 landed in front of the crowd (after taking off from Paine Field in Everrett). At 7:17, an AirTran 717 landed. This continued until 8:17 when an Air France 777-300ER landed. In the end, the 717, 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, and 777 were lined up nose-to-tail on the taxiway. It is the first time Boeing has had every 7-series airplane in the same place (not counting the 787, which couldn't make the flight, of course).

From right to left, 707, 717, 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, 777.

To the right of the 777, perpendicular to the 777 is the dreamlifter. This is a modified 747 that transports 787 parts.

Not a good view but similar to a 747 but with the hump extended towards back of airplane.

On the right, towards the top of photo is 5 airplanes. One is the first 747 (the largest one) and the concorde should speak for itself.

The other 3, I have no idea.

Enjoy!

See us on TV

It's not quite King of Queens, but Monica and I should be on TV tonight during the Storm-Sparks game at 6:30 Pacific, 9:30 Eastern. The game is on ESPN2 and our seats are dead center court on the same side as the team benches. Usually we're easiest to see clearly when they show the announcers.

Hargrove Resigns

In my years as a sports fan, I've seen a lot of strange things. But this has to be one of the weirdest. The Mariners manager resigned Sunday in the middle of an eight-game winning streak. I've seen plenty of managers/coaches quit when things were going poorly and they figured they were likely to be fired anyway.

Hargrove really didn't give a good answer why -- he said it was harder to give 100% than it had been in the past. There's lots of speculation but it boils down to two ideas -- one is Hargrove is battling with depression, two is with the last kid graduating high school his wife wanted/needed him home more and/or he felt the need to be home more.

On a personal level, this is sad for Hargrove. On a baseball level, this is good for the Mariners. Managers simply don't matter much in major league baseball (unlike football or basketball coaches, they aren't making plays and minute-by-minute substitutions), though Hargrove was a lousy manager who should have been fired at the end of last season if not before. I don't know much about John McLaren, but if he doesn't cost us games that's an improvement.

We're Back

We had a great time on our trip and on the cruise and are back home. I really wanted to blog while we were gone, but online access was so sloooow, that it wasn't feasible.

One quick observation. Everywhere we went, has was 1.30 to 1.40 euro/liter which is $6.50 to $7.00 per gallon. Think about that the next time you pay $60 to fill your tank. We don't know how good we have it.

Crusing...

Monica and I are off on our big vacation of the year. As most of you know, we're taking a 10-day Mediterranean cruise for my parents 40th anniversary. (Yes, they're coming too :)).

First we're making a three-day stop in Chicago for Monica's mom's 60th birthday. Edith was very surprised to see us; I'd describe it as close to hysterical. I'll try to write more later.

Wednesday afternoon we fly to Rome and the cruise starts Saturday. We're on the Holland American Westerdam if you want to follow the itinerary.

Off to the Museum of Science and Industry today, I think.

Charlotte and Cocoa

Here are the two recent additions to our household. We're fostering a couple dogs for Seattle Beagle Rescue -- Charlotte the tri-color Beagle and Cocoa the chocolate Cocker Spaniel. This being Seattle, Monica pronounces her name Char-latte. Charlotte is very sweet, though she's fat, and not like Cindy Crawford. We just got Cocoa on Tuesday so don't know a lot about him yet. He is very affectionate and well-behaved so far, though he occassionally likes to mark his territory. This is a strange story -- he came from a "good" home and was well taken care of but he kept running away and his parents decided they didn't want to keep him anymore.

Veronica Mars cancelled

Not a surprise, but it's sad to see one of the few good shows on television go away. The season finale, which will technically be a series finale, is a two hour episode next Tuesday.

What is sad is that they couldn't make this decision two months ago when they were still writing/filming so that season 3 could lead to a true series finale that wraps up loose ends. While I believe those involved with the show knew in their heads that season 4 wasn't likely, it sounds like the season finale sets up things for season 4 rather than wrapping up the series.

While the poor ratings make the cancellation somewhat an obvious choice, there's a greater decision by CW what the network wants to stand for and what business plan it has. In the short run, it's all about ratings which convert to advertising dollars. But putting a bunch of trash on television (quick, name a show on CW other than Everybody Hates Chris), especially reality TV with cheap stunts, may give them a ratings boost short term, but in the long run they have inferior knock offs of shows the big 4 networks are doing and those fail. Remember all of the attempts to copy "Friends"; actually you probably don't remember them but there was one on the fall schedule every yea. CW has no "theme" or style other than we show the crap that CBS is too good to show. Despite its stuggles, UPN always had shows that appealed to the black crowd and could market to that demographic. CW used to have young, hip family dramas (with cult followings) but it's killed all of them.

My prediction: in six months, CW is consistently the sixth-highest rated network, is scrambling for mid-season replacements and Dawn Ostroff's job is in real jeopardy.

Other's comments and blogs:
Chicago Tribune

Softball Season

(or our 15 minutes of fame isn't over yet)

Most of you know that Monica and I met playing softball and continue to play in the league making us busy on Sundays throughout the summer. What you may not know (or not remember) is that I'm the chair of the league softball committee which oversees the league, effectively making me the commissioner. The season started May 6th and we played and won our first game this past Sunday. When I say "we", I mean the Jay Berry's team. Monica has decided to play on a different team this year for a number of reasons.

Also the seattle Jewish newspaper has a story about the league on their new web site; I'm not sure if it will make the print edition. I was interviewed for the article and the story of how Monica and I met is the lead. Check it out!

Catching Up

Haven't written anything in a couple of weeks.

One reflection on the trip not related to the scenery. I'm amazed at the Internet connectivity we had on the road. When we travelled across country three years ago, it was mainly hit-or-miss. A few places had Internet hubs in the room and you could check-out a cable to connect and having free WiFi was a big deal. This trip I everywhere we stayed had WiFi, even if they didn't advertise it on their web site. I did in part look for WiFi access, but our priorities were location and hotels that allowed dogs and had free breakfast. WiFi in a hotel has become as common as cable television. That said, we mainly stayed in small towns in 2-star and 3-star hotels. I'm curious what the fancier properties are doing. I always found it ironic than in the "cheap" hotel you get lots for free (breakfast, Internet access, computer room) but the more expensive places want to charge you for everything. Shouldn't it be the other way around.

Veronica Mars is back. I really liked the stand-alone episode format a lot. The season-long or 1/3-season long mysteries were cool with their complexity but it made for a long, drawn out plot. Check it out if you haven't already before they cancel it for good.

I'm sure you've heard about Josh Hancock, the Cardinals pitcher who died in an auto accident Sunday morning. It's always sad when some dies and often called tragic when someone dies young. What happened at Virginia Tech a couple weeks ago was a horrible tragedy. As the details emerge, I'm not sure "tragedy" is really the right word for what happened to Hancock. According to the latest reports, Hancock was plastered (BA of twice the legal limit), speeding, talking on his cell phone, and not wearing a seat belt. He may also have been smoking marijuana. That sounds like a time bomb waiting to go off. I think Darwinism is the word that applies here. I feel for his friends and family for their loss, but really I blame his teammates and the Cardinals organization more than having sympathy for them.

Monica and I went to two local Humane Society auctions the weekend of April 20/21st. Humane Society of King County (which we often call "the Humane Society" had it's annual Tuxes and Tails event on Saturday which was amazing and fancy as always. Sunday we went to the Humane Society aka Happy Paws farm which wasn't so nice. I joked with Monica that we should leave before dinner and I think she was actually ready to go. The more I attend auctions, the more I think about starting an auction consulting business. It's actually sad how poorly thought out some events are.

Back home, safe and sound

Whew!

Actually the drive wasn't that bad. About 5 hours Sunday, 5 1/2 Monday and 7 on Tuesday. Got back about 5 PM PDT. Hunny Bear was very well behaved in the car and in the hotel rooms.

More later...

Bryce and Grand Canyons

Haven't posted in a few days. We had limited/sporadic Internet access at the Grand Canyon, but mainly I forgot.

We had a few long days in there, but we successfully saw Bryce Canyon, drove around the Grand Canyon to the South rim for a couple of days, celebrated Monica's birthday, and drove back around the Grand Canyon to St George. Monica is already off to her class this morning. I'm repacking the car and getting ready to start the trek back to Sammamish. I'll post more later tonight, but some quick highlights.

I hate when people -- usually athletes -- explicitly say "literally" when they're obviously speaking figuratively, such as "they're literally killing us out there". Now that's an ugly basketball game. That said, Bryce Canyon was literally breath taking. Now only was it a stunning view, unlike anything we're seen in person, but at an elevation of 8000 feet, a short walk made it hard to breathe.

While Bryce (and St. George, Kanab, and Springdale) aren't that far from the south rim as the crow flies (about 70 miles), there's a huge crevice in the ground :) that you have to drive around to get from the north side to the south side and it takes about five hours. And you thought driving around Lake Washington was bad. So we got to the Grand Canyon later than we expected but still had a great time. Like Bryce, there's simply nothing like it. And depending where you are, there are a lot of different features. It was very, very cool and one of the nice things about GCNP is that it's phenomenally more pet friendly than any National Park we've visited. When I get the pictures up, you'll see a lot of Hunny Bear at the Grand Canyon.

For Monica's birthday she wanted to visit a deer farm that's an hour south of where we were staying. So we headed to Williams for the afternoon. It was like a mini-zoo or a super sized petting zoo. The video of Monica feeding the deer is awesome, but the photos are good too.

Saturday, we saw the East rim of the Grand Canyon on our way out of town, stopped to check out Glen Canyon Dam over the Colorado river and headed to St George for the night with a few adventures along the way.

SLC to Zion

Slight change in plans. We were staying South of SLC so we'd miss rush hour and have a shorter drive to Springdale/Zion. Monica decided she wanted to see Salt Lake City, so we went into the city for a few hours and mainly walked around downtown. Very strange experience. While it was a Monday at 9:30-11, downtown was empty. Is Easter Monday a holiday? Businesses were open at 10, but there didn't seem to be the downtown hubbub you'd see in any other major city. Coolest place we found was a bookstore that is similar to Powell's in Portland. Took off about 2 and drove straight to our hotel.

Today was our first adventure in more ways than one. When we arrived Monday night, we found out we couldn't leave Hunny Bear in the room while we were out. Most pet friendly places say not to leave the pets unattended but they all turn a blind eye if you go to eat for an hour and don't care much about well behaved pets. It's like a speed limit -- driving 61 in a 60 zone is illegal but no one really enforces. But there are places where they will ticket you for that, so you need to be cautious. And the vibe that was we shouldn't leave Hunny Bear. We had passed a dog day care a couple miles before our hotel and they had an opening. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as our running around took longer than expected.

We had planned to be at Best Friends for a tour about 10, but didn't arrive until 10:45. Dropping off HB, and traffic (slow drivers) through the park slowed us down. So we caught the abbreviated tour at 11. By the time we finished at Best Friends, hit the gift shop and had lunch; we realized there was no way to fit Bryce Canyon in. So we headed straight for Zion National Park. My parents had been there a few years ago and said it was pretty quick to see. But now that it's gotten busier, they don't allow cars on the scenic drive (the best part). The shuttle system is pretty efficient but it does slow you down a lot. We did the shuttle tour where you can see the highlights and took a lot of photos (sorry, I'm slow on getting any photos uploaded). Monica and I actually split up so she could get Hunny Bear before 5 and I spent an extra 45 minutes in the park.

We'll hit Bryce Canyon tomorrow as it's one of the must see items on the agenda. We'll see how much of Glen Canyon and the Staricase we can fit in.

On TV

At long last, we got to see the episode of King of Queens where Monica and I were extras. We had to race from dinner to see the start of the show. I actually missed the intro, but I'd seen it 10 times already.

While Monica and I had seen the show several times, at least in pieces, we didn't actually see how our scene turned out until it ran on TV. We didn't know we'd be on so much. (We did know we were both in it, but tried to keep some element of surprise.) Monica says "it was weird to see me [Adam] there" and wishes she would have seen more of herself. She wonders why people were watching Carrie and Doug and listening to their boring conversation about how their friends are cheap, when Monica and I are better looking and were having a scintillating conversation :)

It's funny. Probably several million people watched the episode and only a handful knew there was anything different about the people at the table behind the main players in the dinner scene. At least, I hope we looked like normal dinner patrons as that's what we were supposed to be (well, aside from not eating a single bite of food).

I looked for the episode, or our scene, online but don't see it yet. CBS is playing out the string with KoQ, so the don't have full episodes up like most of their shows.

Boise to Salt Lake City

A pretty unevenful day. Easy drive. It rained most of the AM, but the sun came out in the afternoon. We're staying South of Salt Lake City but drove back into town to eat at a Brazilian restaurant. Very tasty food; even the rattlesnake sausage.

On a side note, XM radio is pretty cool. I really didn't think I'd like it -- it came with our new car -- but I was able to listen to the baseball games (Cubs) as we drove yesterday and today as well as always having the same stations even though we're 800 miles away from home.

Long first day

Well, we got a late start -- about 11:30. If you know us, you know why. I won't go into details.

With stops for lunch and dinner and the time change, we got to our hotel about 9 PM. Hotel is being remodelled and is really nice. But they don't allow dogs any more (shhh). Quick check of email and going to bed.

Our trip to the National Parks

Monica and I start our trip tomorrow morning. In talking to some people I realize we may not have let everyone know about our planned adventure.

Monica is taking the final session of her T-Touch class at Best Friends, starting April 15. Best Friends is in Kanab, Utah, which is in the middle of nowhere and the middle of everywhere. Best Friends' site notes that it's a four-hour drive from Las Vegas or an hour and a half if you fly into the regional airport in St. George. But it's also right in the middle of Zion, Bryce Canyon, and the Grand Canyon National Parks. Given that we've never seen that part of the country, I thought it would be fun to join her and vacation in the area for a few days. And if I drove down, we could bring Hunny Bear with us.

Here's our itinerary, which is always subject to change. We hope to be online most evenings and able to post updates, but I'm not quite sure of our Internet access in the middle of the trip.

4/7: Sammamish to Boise
4/8: Boise to Salt Lake City
4/9: Salt Lake City to Springdale, UT; watch King of Queens
4/10: The real vacation begins with a tour of Best Friends, Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park. Zion isn't pet friendly, so Hunny Bear will miss out.
4/11: Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Lake Powell, then drive to the Grand Canyon for the night
4/12 - 4/13: Grand Canyon, Red Feather Lodge
4/14: Retrace our steps around the Grand Canyon, back to St George to pick up a rental car for Monica while she's there, then drive back to Kanab for the night
4/15: Monica's class starts, Hunny Bear and Adam begin the drive home

Travelling

Not vacationing, but travelling as in basketball.

I still don't know what to make of the final play in Vanderbilt's loss to Georgetown. ESPN along with every news story, including the Washington Post, raised the issue of travelling before the winning shot, which suggests he travelled before shooting (wisdom of crowds). But in reading definitions of travelling including on the NCAA's site, and watching the replay, I just don't see it.



Certainly Jeff Green lifted his pivot foot, but my understanding is it's OK to lift the pivot foot to shoot or pass. As I mentioned to a friend if you couldn't ever lift your pivot foot, every layup or dunk would be a walk. You clearly can't put it down (that's two steps) and you can't lift it to dribble.

The more I watch the more I think he may have hopped when he first caught the ball. His right foot certainly moves, it's unclear if his left slides or comes up before the dribble. And I'm not clear if since he picked the foot up and then spun, if he pivotted off his non-pivot foot, and when the ball came loose that may have been a double dribble. In football we'd have the reverse angle camera but I guess CBS doesn't use that. Legal or not, it certainly was an ugly setup before a great shot.

Regardless, Vanderbilt's execution in the last 2.5 seconds was horrible. That's a lot of time especially if you can pass the ball the first 30 or 40 feet upcourt. Call a timeout, set up a play and get the ball to Byars or Foster. Heck when I was an assistant manager at Vanderbilt, we had a play where we'd fire the ball up the sidelines to mid court and get a quick time out. That would have given then 2 seconds, enough time to get the ball in to Foster or Byars with time to make a move and get a good look. Or even dump in underneath if the defense all ran to the perimeter.

King of Queens Air Date

According to information on CBS.com and elsewhere, Monica's walk on role will be on TV April 9th at 9:30 PM Eastern/Pacific, that's 8:30 for those of you who are slow.

We'll be on the road, so call Monica's cell phone if you want to say "hi" after the show. Remember that we won't have seen it, but we know what happens.

If you have no clue what I'm talking about see my earlier post http://monicaandadam.blogspot.com/2007/01/princess-of-queens.html

NCAA Tournament

Every year on this weekend, the NCAA committees select and seed the teams for the men's and women's NCAA tournaments. We've come to expect a fair amount of controversy with both the final teams that are in and out, as well as with the seeding process.

Quite honestly I haven't followed college basketball closely enough to make any judgement on what the committee did this year. I do believe that we all should accept that if a team isn't obviously in -- by virtue of performance or winning its conference tournament -- it's at the mercy of the committee. And way too much energy goes into arguing who the 40th or so best team in the country is. Having had it happen to my team, I know how frustrating it is to miss. But the truth is that team had no shot to win anyway and wasn't likely to get past the second round. If you want to be in, don't leave any doubt in the committee's mind.

But one thing I've heard really bothers me. In her ESPN chat tonight and I'd read this last week as well, Judy Southard, chair of the women's committee, said, "We did an incredible amount of research and spent hundreds of hours watching game film." OK, but why and why call this out? If this is a completely objective process why watch the teams play? Isn't it about the numbers (wins, loses, strentgth of schedule, last ten games, RPI, etc.)? Which part of the seeding process is about how good a team looks on tape? No doubt the committee members are fans and enjoy watching basketball as recreation and I do see wanting people in the know making decisions. But having watched the teams play can only make one less objective, especially since if you only see a team once or twice AND you're watching them against top competition, you become negatively biased.

I'm not saying the committee shouldn't watch the teams play. But to go out of your way to watch -- watching film not live TV -- and bragging about it seems to be an admission of subjectively.

Enough whining. Vanderbilt's men's and women's teams are both in the tournament. The women have a #2 seed and a chance to go a long way in the tournament starting on Sunday against Delaware St. The men have a #6 seed and take on George Washington Thursday afternoon. If they win, they get matched with local favorite Washington State.

Go 'Dores!

Poker pet peeve

After playing in a poker tournament yesterday, I have a new #1 poker pet peeve -- when the short stack initiates talk about chopping.*

I don't mean a situation where it's heads up or the stacks are basically even and it's a reasonable discussion. It's the scenario where someone realizes he's going to bubble (bust out short of the money) and tries to make a ridiculous deal to salvage something for getting "close".

Yesterday we were down to six players where the top four got paid. The guy on my right says, "if we chop now, we'd each get $100 (on a $30 buy-in tournament)". I was second in chips at the time and he and one other player had pretty short stacks. I thought why on earth would I or any of the top three stacks take even money, since we aren't close to even in stacks. And given the short stacks, why would any of the big stacks chop now since waiting a few hands is likely to knock out a player with zero money.

I'm not opposed to chopping, though I get closer and closer to the viewpoint of a friend of mine who says he never chops, when I keep hearing crazy offers like this.

* For those who don't play poker or don't play tournaments very often, here's a bit about chopping. Tournament payouts tend to be very top heavy -- yesterday was $295 for 1st, $195 for second, $95 for third. Typically at the end of a small tournament (the stuff you and I can afford, not the stuff you see on TV), every player has a small stack relative to the size of the initial bet. So one hand can dramatically shift the distribution of chips, and it's typically hard to fold. Thus you aren't really playing poker in the traditional sense as much as you're hoping to get lucky. If the stacks are close to even, effectively you're drawing straws to see who gets $95, who gets $195, and who gets $295. To avoid this wide variation based almost totally on luck, players often agree to chop the prize pool, not necessarily evenly, at this stage. When we got to two players yesterday, we did wind up chopping with me taking a smaller cut of the money since I had fewer chips.

Happy Birthday Emily

If Emily were still with us, she'd be 11 today. Or maybe she'd be 10; she never did talk about her age.

We miss you lots sweetie. Thanks for sending the snow.

Veronica Mars

I hit the nail on the head with the killer and basically with the details. I've unhidden my analsys/prediction in the previous post. Of course there were some key reveals in the final episode so being unspoiled I didn't have everything figured out.

Veronica Mars returns May 1. What will I do for the next two months on Tuesday nights?!?

Veronica Mars: Dean O'Dell's killer

My theory is below, but it's white text on white background so you won't see it until after Tuesday's show It's now after Tuesday. I'm unspoiled, meaning I don't have any inside info though I have seen the previews for next week as well as reading the summary that shows up in TV guides and similar places.






The killer is Tim Foyle. Here's why:

Flow of the show/plot. Finding Mercer, getting him off, and finding he was actually the rapist was a neat twist. But the general M.O. has been to have red herring after red herring only for the criminal to be discovered out of the blue in the last or next-to-last episode. However, the character has been involved as a second tier character throughout the arc. And the key suspects, Mindy O'Dell and Professor Landry in this case, turn out to be possible answers but not guilty in the end. And the guilty party seems like a normal guy but we've gotten a taste of his evil side. Remember the scene where Tim confronts Bonnie at the frat party and flies off the handle. As well, Tim is in the final episode and is breaking into Mars Investigations. Of course, just because they've gone this route before doesn't mean they have to do it again.

Motive. Jealousy/revenge/inferiority complex. On a side, this is where I think Landry falls short. He's already humiliated the dean, why does he want/have to kill him? Tim is pissed that he's no longer Landry's teacher's pet and has been replaced by Veronica. Veronica has also become the dean's buddy. I suspect he saw Veronica's FBI internship application with Landry and the dean's glowing recommendations. He wants to prove he can pull off a crime which shows his true brilliance. Or perhaps his anger at the dean for calling Veronica "the brightest ever" inspires him to kill the dean. He also wants to get Landry, thus framing him for the murder. He already ratted out Landry's affair. And perhaps there's something more we don't know about related to why Tim doesn't like the dean. Or maybe he just figures the dean has so many enemies that they'd never think of Tim.

Details: I can't be coincidence that the fake suicide note is verbatim what Veronica wrote in her perfect murder paper. That makes people likely to have seen the paper the most likely suspects -- Landry, Tim, possibly Mindy. And if Landry and Mindy didn't do it, Tim did. It's also possible someone else saw Veronica's paper, but who and how? I don't believe it actually was posted on the Internet. He's added a twist to make it look like Landry did it and is framing Mindy's ex for it. Landry is too bright to dispose of his clothes where they'd eventually be found. He would have buried or burned them. I have no idea how/why Steve's fingerprints were on the keyboard in the dean's office. Did anyone check WHICH keys they were on? Maybe he and Tim were in on it together? Anyway, I don't have every bit figured out, but I'd be stunned if Tim wasn't behind the murder.

We're #1

Continuing where the last post left off, and no, I'm not a drunken idiot who thinks his team is #1 beacuse it beat #1.

Vanderbilt's baseball team moved up to #1 in the college baseball poll this week. This is the first time Vanderbilt has been ranked #1 in a major college sport in 14 years. Sorry, women's golf doesn't count.

Go Dores!

Vanderbilt basketball stuns #1 Florida

Had to post on this -- 83-70 on Saturday. It was front page news on ESPN.com for much of the weekend.

Vanderbilt hasn't been a basketball power in my lifetime. A season that ends with an NIT appearance is often a big deal. But not too long ago they used to be a force to be reckoned with at home, even when it wasn't a good year. Memorial Gym is the only one in the nation with the benches on the ends, not the sides and the student section is next to the court which creates a large home court edge. They had a series of upsets of top 5 teams in the 80s and early 90s and typically had only one or two home losses each season. But in the past 10 years, the program has really been down. In fact earlier this year, I harped on the fact that national power ratings had Vanderbilt not even in the top 100. At home, they had lost to noted power Furman ;), had close victories over Lipscomb and Toledo and beat Elon (4-20 and one of the 50 worst division one teams) by only 11. I noted this was embarassing and they should fire the coach.

Somewhere around the new year, this became a new team. They had a close loss on the road at Auburn which was perhaps foreshadowing. Then in the course of two weeks, they beat a ranked Tennessee and Alabama teams (who may have been overrated in retrospect) and went into Rupp Arena and beat Kentucky for the second time ever. They had a clunker at Tennessee but the turnaround hit a peak with the upset of #1 Florida.

What's amazing is that in six weeks this team has gone from playing like a not top 100 team with no post-season hope, to a top 15, or even top 10 team that's a lock for the NCAA tournament. ESPN predicted them as a 5 seed this week, but if they keep playing at this new level, they'd improve on that.

That said, I still think it's time to fire the coach. There's pretty clearly top 15 talent here; how bad do you have to coach to make them play like #115?

P.S. I guess the down period is a bit longer than I think. Vanderbilt is #17 in the AP poll this week, their highest ranking since 1993.

P.P.S. The Vanderbilt baseball team is #3 in the nation.

The Best TV show you aren't watching

Veronica Mars got a couple of national mentions in yesterday's newspapers. National advice columnist Amy Dickinson aka Ask Amy mentioned that Veronica Mars was one of her favorite TV shows and Frazz referred to Kristin Bell.

I'll be the first to admit, that as a serial it's hard to start watching in the middle and follow the major mystery. And next Tuesday's episode is the conclusion of a two-parter, so you might really be lost. But check it out Tuesdays at 9PM/8 Central. This season has been down a bit, but the last episode was one of the best. Even if you don't follow everything that's going on, you'll enjoy the dialogue which is perhaps the best written on TV.

As for who killed Dean O'Dell. I think I know, but I'm not saying :). I've also read some interesting theories on the internet that could prove to be right. I'm pretty sure all the key clues are in place already and it's almost as obvious as it seems.

Event Planning and Scheduling

The lack of foresight by generally intelligent people never ceases to surprise me. Monica and I spent a couple of years working on a large dinner and fundraising auction and likely will again for a different organization. So I always pay attention to how other people plan their events and take mental notes on things they do and don't think about.

And one thing people don't think about is scheduling. Monica found a charity auction for a Jewish organization she wanted to attend. But when she told me the date, I realized it was Super Bowl Sunday. I realize not everyone cares about the Super Bowl at the level I do, but on average 1/3 of the country was watching and nearly 50% of all people in the United States watched part of the game. Why schedule any event opposite that, unless it's a direct appeal to the non-football crowd?

A couple of days ago we got a "Save the Date" for Village Theatre's auction; that's the event where Monica won her walk on role in Hello Dolly and we were looking forward to going this year. They've moved the event from a March weeknight to a May weekend, where it conflicts with a couple things for us. (And they doubled the price to $200 and changed the venue from Issaquah to Seattle. Three strikes you're out.) The conflicts are somewhat specific to us, but when you pick the 3rd Saturday in May a number of people who are used to going to VT are going to have a conflicting event and you'll lose them. Not to say you can't do this, but I doubt there was much thought put into this.

And the kicker! This week I was emailed about two fun events. One is about Jews and chocolate with lots of chocolate samples (yum) and the other is a presentation at EMP about the music behind the Disney theme parks. I'd like to go to both and Monica would like the chocolate one. However both are the evening of February 14th. As my financial planner said "Remember, February 14...and don't think you can get away with doing something early and skipping the special notes, cards and flowers on the 14th." Personally Valentine's Day is my least favorite holiday, but even I recognize that most people are going to have plans that night.

With only 365 days and thousands of events, obviously there are going to be conflicts. But you think you'd think reasonable people would try to avoid major conflicts, whether "major" is the significance of the event or the sheer number of people impacted by it.

Super Bowl Redux

I wasn't going to blog on the Super Bowl. But after rewatching the game to see the commercials I missed I did have a few general observations. But first I wanted to share this quote from Nate Silver:

It’s not a good day to be writing. Sunday was the Super Bowl, and while I managed to avoid a serious hangover, our spirit is down in Chi-town, and so is the temperature, which at last glance was lower than Rex Grossman’s passer rating. On the four-block walk to Best Buy to purchase a new mouse, I encountered no fewer than three frozen-over piles of vomit; that sort of encapsulates the mood of the city.

The temperature in Chicago was 3 degrees this morning but don't worry it's supposed to get up to 11 today and 16 tomorrow. And with the sun out, it feels like it's in the 20s.

Back to the game:

• It's really a shame that such an important game had to be decided it such horrible weather. I'm not saying that the weather was a factor, but the NFL puts the Super Bowl in warm weather or domed locations specifically to avoid a day like Sunday.
• As always the game came down to taking advantage of opportunities. The Colts hit their open wide receiver for a touchdown and the Bears missed two chances -- and both became interceptions. And it's a game of inches -- if Grossman gets a little more on the sideline pass, Muhammed would have had a big gain, maybe a touchdown or if the DB is an inch to the left, he steps out of bounds at midfield instead of returning it all the way. Somewhat an exaggeration, but that play was potentially a 14-point swing.
• The TV coverage was really poor. On Wayne's TD there was never a shot or discussion of how he got so wide open. On the (phantom) fourth-quarter holding penalty that negated a Thomas Jones run and put the Bears at 1st and 20, again there was not a replay or discussion. On the 4th down pass to Desmond Clark the offically ended the Bears last chance there was no talk on if it might be a catch. And all of these were key plays.
  
• And on those lines, I wish the NFL would decide or change the rules on what is and isn't a catch. Clark had control, got both feet down and took a step before the ball was knocked loose; Indianapolis would have recovered a fumble but that play sure used to be catch and fumble not an incomplete pass. Likewise I've seen catches where the ball moves at the receiver hits the ground overruled as incomplete for that reason and what looks like the same play where an incompletion is changed to a catch. I like instant replay, but sometimes it adds to the controversy instead of preventing it.
• I was disappointed, though not surprised, that they gave MVP to Peyton Manning. The Colts defense was the MVP of this game, but there wasn't one outstanding player to give it to. On offense, the running game killed the Bears; Manning was just OK. I would have split it between Addai and Rhodes.
  

Super Bowl

Oh well. Wait 'til next year.

In brighter news, Monica and I became an aunt and uncle for the second time* last week. Her sister delivered Arianna Aristodemo Monday night just before 9 PM central time. She was 6 lbs, 11 oz and 18 1/4 inches long. She joins big brother Jonah who is three years old as Sandra and Gio's children. Monica is headed to Chicago this weekend to visit Jonah who's feeling a little bit neglected; part of that is he has a cold and can't be near the baby.

I post some pictures, but I haven't seen any yet :(


* Yeh, I know that doesn't really make sense, but you get the idea.

Bulls beat the Sonics

(Note: don't miss my Super Bowl post below this one)

Monica and I watched the visiting Bulls beat the Sonics last night. This was another item we got at a charity auction. The game was on ESPN, so I imagine anyone who cares already saw it. It was a surprisingly good game in that it was close the whole way a relatively high scoring. This is likely the only NBA game I'll attend this season.

Many years ago I used to have a six or seven game plan for Sonics tickets. I watched them a lot on TV. I sat outside in line for tickets for the NBA Finals the year they lost game 7 in Houston. I went to the NBA Finals when they played the Bulls. Then they had their mid-90s implosion.

They became the first #1 seed to lose to a #8 seed in playoffs. The next season they tore down the Coliseum to build Key Arena and played in Tacoma. After making the fans trek to Tacoma (easily an hour in rush hour traffic), they rewarded them by being upset again in the first round of the playoffs after winning the first game. When they re-signed George Karl as coach after those two disasters, I decided they were hopeless and cancelled my ticket package and gave up on this team. I still look in the paper to see how they're doing and root for them to do well when they aren't playing the Bulls. I usually go once or twice a season when offered a free ticket, though I also turn down free tickets as often as I accept. To be fair, some of that is that the NBA in general is unwatchable at times -- when the final score is 86-79 I feel like they still owe us another quarter. I don't need to see 130-125 shootouts, but I'd like to see some offense. I believe I've bought tickets to one Sonics game in the past ten years, and that was to see Michael Jordan in his last season. Charity auctions don't count because the tickets are already paid for and neither the Sonics or the original buyer get any money.

For those who don't follow the NBA, the Sonics now have the fourth worst record in the league and are working on a 12-game road losing streak.

Super Bowl Prediction

I think ESPN summed it up best -- "Super Bowl picks are like opinions, everyone has one". And opinions are like... well, never mind. And prior to the Saints-Bears game I wrote a lot about the fallacy on trying to pick an individual game.

The consensus is the Colts are likely to win. 14 of 21 ESPN experts picked the Colts. 68% of 340,000 voters in ESPN SportsNation picked them, 71 of 98 "celebrities" picked them, and the Vegas money line is -240/+200. All of which says the Colts have a 2 in 3 chance of winning according to a wide number of sources. Of course, whether that's reasoned analysis or believing what you hear, I don't know and by definition the Vegas line reflects popular opinion not reality.

That said, while I acknowledge that Indianapolis is the better team, I pick the Bears to win 30-21. Here's why.

• The emotional reason. The Bears are my team and in a close game it seems silly to pick against your team. And while the Colts are better, they're only 2-3 points better in my mind.
• The Bears are on a roll. Did you see the NFC Championship game!!
  
• The match-ups. The Colts have trouble stopping the run, an all-time worst run defense I believe, though they've done well in the playoffs, and the Bears like to run with Jones and Benson to control the game. Even if the Bears have some trouble stopping the run, the Colts run offense isn't good enough to beat them. The Bears have a strong pass defense which matches up against the Colts greatest strength. And the Bears kickoff and punt return team should take advantage of the Colts bottom of the league kick coverage.
• Peyton Manning. Manning is one of the great quarterbacks of all time. But he's consistently been erratic in the playoffs. For every good game he's played, he's also had a clunker. Even this year with the Colts in the Super Bowl, his post season passer rating is lower than Rex Grossman's (!), and they have the same number of TD passes though Manning has played an additional game. In his great performance against the Patriots, his rating was 79.1. The week before against Baltimore his rating was 39.6 and they won in spite of him not because of him. I don't know whether it's nerves, playing against consistently good competition, teams being more focused on stopping the Colts passing offense, too many TV commercials, or something else. Whatever it is, there's no reason to believe it won't continue against a strong Bears defense. While the QB story of the week has been which Rex Grossman will show up, really the question should be asked about Peyton Manning.
  

I won't be surprised if the Colts win. Manning is certainly capable of a big game and the Bears are capable of repeating their performance against Arizona or Miami. But it's also possible that the Bears play like they did against the Saints and the Colts play like they did against Baltimore or New England, and that would make the Bears Super Bowl Champions. 29 hours until kickoff

The greatest King of all

With apologies to Doug Heffernan, I had to share this with my poker playing friends.


Monica adds, "There are 10 types of people in the world...


those who understand binary and those who don't."

Princess of Queens?

Friday was the highlight of our trip. Monica got to walk on The King of Queens. We spent the day at Sony Studios and got to see what goes on behind the scenes. Since it's her experience, I'll let her blog about it. My two cents -- it was much better than I expected but I have a feeling she has less air time that we would have hoped. We'll see on April 16th.

Paramount Studios

After our Wednesday adventures, we were hoping this trip wasn't jinxed. Thursday turned out fine. Running on limited sleep, we picked up our cousins Sonny and Sheri and drove to Paramount studios for a tour. We won a VIP tour in an auction last year and were excited to finally be able to redeem it. Paramount used to have tours open to the public but after 9/11/01, they discontinued them. Not sure if they've restarted public tours. Either way, it's pretty exclusive; they had to have our names at the security gate so we could get on the lot. There were only 14 people for the 10 AM tour, split into groups of 6 and 8.

The tour started with some info about the history of Paramount and RKO (?) and we saw us a number of historic photos of Paramount artists. We saw all of the Oscars the studio had won. Then we then got to ride around the lot on a golf cart and see various sound stages and were told what shows were shot where. Trivia tidbit -- Cheers and Fraiser were both filmed in stage 25, also the location for The Lucy Show and Bosom Buddies. However, if a show is off the air, there's nothing to see but a plaque.

We drove by a tree that was used in a few episodes of Brady Bunch. One of the guys on our trip was a huge BB fan and had to have his picture taken several times near the tree. He was so excited, you'd have thought Marsha, Cindy, and Jan had walked by.


Next we got to walk on the set of The Insider. Neither of us have ever watched but if you do you'll recognize it in the picture below. We got it just before the kicked us out so Cojo could film a segment. He's even creepier looking in person than he is in that photo if you can believe that.


Then we went in the back entrance (our guide was great) and into the control room for the Insider to see how they put together various segments of the show and watch the download from New York.

We saw Dr. Phil (the man, not the TV show). He's taller in person. But the highlight for me was getting to walk through the stage where Dirt is being filmed. Dirt is new on FX this season, and has some high-end, hip LA offices and homes. It was something to be able to walk through it all. It does kill the illusion of multiple locations scattered across LA to see them all the sets together. Here's Monica on Lucy Spiller's (Courteney Cox) couch. Watch Tuesdays at 10 PM (9 Central) and for every indoor scene, we've been there.

After the tour we grabbed some lunch in the Paramount cafeteria, where once upon a time the stars ate, then went back to our hotel to crash.

Traveling Adventures

The first in a series of posts about our trip to Los Angeles.

While Monica like planes and works for the largest aviation firm in the country, she hates flying, mainly because she's claustrophobic. On the other hand, I generally enjoy flying. I like being away from all your worries for a few hours and being able to read a good book or do a crossword puzzle. Also I find it a bit surreal that in a few hours I can get from to Seattle to someplace warm and sunny or to see family that I think of as so, so far away (or both). However since 9/11 and Robert Reid, flying has changed and we find ourselves on the same page some days. Wednesday's trip to LA was one of those days.

Our flight to LA was scheduled for 6:30. I called United at 4 and confirmed the flight was on time. When we arrived at the airport at 5, we were told the flight was now scheduled for 9 PM and the plane had mechanical problems and was still in San Francisco. When we arrived at the counter, we found they were moving people to the Alaska Air flight which was great. (If ever you're on a flight that's delayed more than an hour and it's not a weather issue affecting all flights, do anything you can to get on another flight. One hour often becomes two which becomes three which becomes a cancelled flight. Since they were already moving people, I knew this flight was going to be cancelled.) Unfortunately, Alaska's flight was at 8:50 PM and they couldn't transfer Monica's first class seat to a first class seat on Alaska, and they weren't very accomodating. Though really their failure was to keep "looking into it" rather than to clearly say that there wasn't a first class seat on ANY plane going from SeaTac to LA that night. After talking with them for at least 30 minutes and my running back and forth to the Alaska counter, I figured out the best we could do was get seats on Alaska and be on the wait list for first class upgrades for $50. After United transfered our ticket over to Alaska, we went to the Alaska desk and got a better seating arrangement in 5 minutes than we had in 45 minutes with United. (8A and 8C, no one in between and on the wait list for first class).

Unfortunately our adventure was just beginning. Because we now had paper tickets, we got selected for extra screening when passing through security. That was annoying but OK aside from someone forgetting she had a bottle of water in her bag. With a couple of hours to kill, we decided to have a sit down dinner an Anthony's. Service was slow; it took forever to take our order and bring my glass of wine. The bread (which was $2) arrived about a minute before our meals. Finally after we had finished and were thinking about dessert, we sat for 15-20 minutes and no one came by, not even to clear my plate. I saw our server a couple of times but apparently, she was too busy for us. Finally, I added up our bill as best I could remember, left cash on the table and walked out.

So we got to our gate and learned there were two no shows for first class; however Monica was third on the wait list. But the flight there was fine and we had plenty of room. There was a bit of delay taxiing to our gate and finally we made it to baggage claim at 11:40. We got our bags and went to catch the shuttle to Enterprise which runs every 5 minutes. After waiting a bit, and seeing other rental car shuttles pass, Monica wondered if Enterprise was still open. Having picked up cars at 2AM, I hadn't thought about this, but I called and found out they closed at 10 PM. Oh shit! It looked like there was a shuttle to our hotel, but it turned out the one that comes by every 10 minutes actually goes to a different Four Points. So finally we grabbed the Avis shuttle -- after confirming they have cars -- and figured we'll just get a car there.

We got a car and got going, but we wound up with a minivan and paying 3 times as much as our rate with Enterprise which is why I didn't rent from Avis in the first place. We loaded the car and got ready to go. But when I turned the key, nothing happened -- no noise, no lights, the car battery is dead. At this point we could only laugh. I went back, got a different car, picked up Monica and the bags and ten minutes later we were at our hotel. Fortunately our room was available though we had two double beds instead of one king; hard to care much about that after this day.

We wound up getting to bed about 2 AM and had to wake up at 7:45 to get to Paramount Studios for the tour the next morning. Off to a great start...

Off to California

Yes, I know the Super Bowl is in Miami.

At an auction last fall, Monica "won" a walk on role on The King of Queens. (I quote "won" because you don't really win an auction; if you get an item it simply means that you bid more than anyone else in the room -- or on the Internet for online auctions -- thought the item was worth.) We're heading to Los Angeles for the weekend so she can make her screen debut. As most of you know, she made her stage debut last spring after similarly winning a walk on role in the local theater's auction gala. But this is National TV so it's an order of magnitude bigger. Since people always ask -- no she won't have a speaking role (SAG rules), she'll just be in the background of a scene or two. From what I hear we'll be at CBS studios in Culver City all day (10-9) on Friday for rehearsal and filming. The studio audience arrives at 5PM and I'm hoping it doesn't take 4 hours to get it right, but we'll see. They do say lots of food and drink are provided. I'm bringing a book all the same. I guess we'll get to see how a TV show comes together. I'd be more excited if it were a show we watched regularly, but Monica is pretty psyched.

We don't know exactly when the show will air. Currently KoQ is scheduled to return to the air on April 9 and we think this is the second episode once they're back from hiatus. But it could be the first or CBS could change their mind. Watch CBS.com and here for updates.

From another auction, we also have a VIP tour of Paramount studios planned for Thursday morning.

More on Monday.

Da Bears!!!

Woo hoo! We're going to the Super Bowl.

In my last post I noted that the teams were close and those backing the loser might not concede the other team was better even after the game. Well, scratch that. The Bears killed 'em. It was 39-14 and not even that close. Strange as it is to say, in a game where the Saints had almost 400 yards of offense, the Bears defense dominated. Then again 166 of those yards were in the space of five minutes where the Saints had the Bears number. After the Saints nearly took the lead with a field goal, in their final six drives, they totaled 49 yards. It will be interesting to hear what those pundits have to say now.

I think my analysis of the Saints was on the money -- "Those that favor the Saints overlook some of their weaknesses, like being 10-6 against weak competition, a negative turnover ratio and having to play on the road". The Saints had four turnovers plus a safety and the crowd, if not the weather, was a factor. As well an early luck break -- the fumbled kickoff where the Saints return man appeared to be down -- played a role.

Miami here we come.

Bears-Saints and small sample size

There's a basic principle in statistics known as small sample size error. It means if you don't have enough data, your can't draw conclusions that are accurate. If you ask five people who they're voting for in an upcoming election and four pick the same candidate, you really can't conclude anything much less that "80% of voters support Smith".

An individual sporting event and thus single elimination tournaments like the NFL playoffs suffer from the same fate, which is why you rarely see the best team win the NCAA basketball championship. Over the course of the 16-game season, it's pretty easy to conclude that the Bears are better than the Dolphins and the Saints are better than the Redskins. But when they met on the field, the teams that will be playing on Sunday both lost.

I already wrote my thoughts on the game. I think the Bears have a 60-65% chance of winning. The national view is pretty interesting. On ESPN, all eight of their experts picked the Saints to win though their computer picked the Bears. In their unscientific poll, about 61% of the voters have picked the Saints (though of course that's popularity as much ability). When people have to put their money where their mouth is though, the Bears are still 2 1/2 point favorites.

The truth (as much as one can divine truth from subjective data) is that the teams are close. Those that favor the Saints overlook some of their weaknesses, like being 10-6 against weak competition, a negative turnover ratio and having to play on the road, while playing up the Bears weaknesses like Grossman's wide variance and the Bears defense having fallen off the past few weeks. I think there's also the destiny and "great story" card in play here. It's just the opposite for those who favor the Bears.

Come Sunday, one team will win and one will go home. But, and here's the interesting part, because it's just one game, the people who picked the losing team weren't necessarily wrong in their analysis. It's possible the game is a blowout and the backers of the team that loses really say "oops, we were wrong". But the likely outcome is a close game where the "fans" of the winners say "I told you so" and the losers claim the better team didn't win or got unlucky. (While as fans we hate to admit it, luck plays a huge role in the outcome of a game -- we're a couple of "lucky" breaks away from this game being the Cowboys and Eagles; the total margin of victory in the four NFC games so far is 10 points.) And really we have no way of knowing if team X won because they were better or if this time was the 30-40% of the time the lesser team won. While the outcome will determine the NFC Champion, I don't think it will change many people's minds on the two teams involved.

It's Been One Week

... since the big snow and there's still plenty left on the ground. Despite forecasts that "tomorrow" would be high 30s and sunny, it hasn't happened. We even got a little more snow on Saturday and about half an inch yesterday. I think Seattle got hit harder than we did this time.

Monday was the first day since the snow that the temperature got above freezing but it was overcast, and once the sun set the temperatures dropped below again. Yesterday the high was only 32. Today is really the first good melting day. It was 33 when I woke up and got as high as 39 (!) and is still 34 as I write. I found out that one of our friends nearby has a weather station in his yard so I'm able to get very accurate historical data for our house.

Our driveway which gets sun is down to a thin layer and the trees are all snowfree. Where I shoveled the deck, it's actually dry. But the shady parts of the deck still have a couple inches of snow and our "grass" is all white. The forecast is more snow tomorrow though Friday is supposed to be rainy and should wash away what's left. In 14 years here I've never seen snow stick around this long.

Thankfully, the roads are all fine though it's a bit dicey between our cul-de-sac and the main road.

Duke and Duchess

Oops, just realized I wrote this up, but never posted it.
These are our latest foster dogs from Seattle Beagle Rescue. They're eight-year old brother and sister and came to us via Eastern Washington. Duke is the one in the back. We were planning to foster them for just a week until an adoption event. But when the Chanukah storm hit and the whole Eastside lost power, the event was cancelled. The dogs were transferred to Beagle Rescue, and here we are. They are the sweetest and cutest Beagles we've had in quite some time. Unlike Monica, I don't say that about every dog.

You can read more about them on PetFinder or find out how to adopt them.

Go Bears!

Bears win, Bears win!

While many people in the Seattle area are bummed about the end of the Seahawks season, you can tell we're not. I thought the game would be a blowout -- and had Tillman made that early interception it might have been -- but the Seahawks played pretty well and sent the game to overtime. There the Seahawks achilles heel -- poor pass defense -- did them in once again.

Bring on the 'aints.

A funny story about the ending of the game. Monica ordered pizza for lunch which arrived just before overtime, so I paused the game on TiVo and was watching the game delayed by about a minute. As the Bears lined up to kick the field goal, I got concerned because the phone wasn't ringing (my dad wasn't calling after the win). Finally as they got ready to snap the ball, the phone rang and we knew the kick was good even before the snap.

Let it stop, let it stop, let it stop

There's a reason the famous lyric is since we've no place to go, let it snow...

If you have places to go, snow isn't any fun. And it's an order of magnitude worse here where we simply aren't used to it and don't know how to deal with it. It snowed in Seattle Wednesday night starting about 4:30. On the plateau, we got seven inches. Monica left work in Everett at 4:20 and by 7:20 she had only made it to Redmond -- 30 miles, all highway and usually an hour in traffic. And that was the fast part. Of course, this incident didn't help. She never made it home and wound up turning around and heading back to Bellevue (8 miles, 15 minutes) and spending the night at a friend's house.

Right now everything is still covered in snow, though it's melted down to a couple of inches in the sunny area and three or four in the shade. It was supposed to be mid 30s and sunny today but was overcast and never got above freezing and we actually got some more flurries. Tommorow is supposed to be 35; we can only hope, though I'll be inside watching football either way.

Welcome to our Blog

After years of resisting I got inspired to create a blog. In theory this is a blog for both Monica and me (and Hunny Bear and Jasmine too, though lacking an opposable thumb I don't think either will be blogging much), though I expect I'll create at least 95% of the content.

My goal is to create semi-regular posts to share with friends and family what's happening in our lives or just what we're thinking about. As well, finding the photos from Monica's stage debut for our holiday letter made it clear that I really need a good place to upload an occassional photo or two.

I expect I'll talk mainly about sports, poker, vacations, and dogs (really, just wait) but it could be anything that's topical, like the weather (!).