April 2006 Archives

Swing batta batta,
Swing batta batta,
Swing batta batta,
Swing!

Those are the lyrics to the chorus of Trace Adkins' "Swing", his new country song about men picking up women using baseball metaphors. Because of its references to the game, somebody thought it would be a great marketing idea to release the song on MLB.com before releasing it on the radio. It isn't a bad idea because I know I wouldn't have heard of it and wouldn't be writing about it now if Adkins had released it through traditional media.

As for the song itself, it flows in the same vein as most of my favorite country songs. It's corny, yet catchy. It's tongue-in-cheek fun that follows in the footsteps "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk", the only other Adkins song I can think of at the moment.

I really dislike the previous paragraph, but I'll keep it in to benchmark the standard that all lazy writers should strive for in their own writings.

Anyway, "Swing" is one of those songs that I would secretly tap my foot to and sing along with in private, but would adamantly deny liking if asked in public. I would also deny attempting to perfect my imitation of the song's opening line, "Take me out to the ballgame." Although, I must admit that I nearly have Adkins' distinct baritone drawl down.

Half Dome... with Clouds!

The photos from my recent trip to Yosemite can be found hanging out here. As for this photo's caption, I thought it best to distinguish it from all of the other photos - all of the many, many photos - I've taken of the park's most famous feature.

The milk was missing. This much was certain as I looked in the refrigerator. The old milk was there, but the new milk was missing. I moved the old milk aside to make sure the new milk wasn't hiding behind it. It wasn't, so I closed the fridge.

Where was it? I opened the fridge again. I don't know why. I suppose it was just in case the new milk had sneaked in while I wasn't looking. It hadn't. I closed the fridge again.

The milk was missing. This raised the obvious question. When a milk carton is missing, does its picture end up on the side of a child? It also raised another question often asked in such situations. If I were a milk carton... Where did I last see it?

I don't know why people ask, but they do. I usually ask just to see the reaction on the other person's face. It's an annoying question because, as anybody knows, if I knew where I last saw whatever it was that was missing, it would be a lot less missing than it was now.

I tried my best to avoid the question. Perhaps I had misplaced the milk while unloading the groceries the night before. Hoping for a miracle, I searched through the cabinets, under the stove and in the freezer. I almost checked the refrigerator again, but stopped myself just in time. The milk wasn't there. I was stumped.

With a sigh, I surrendered to the question. Closing my eyes, I replayed the relevant events leading up to that point...

I'm at the grocery store. I'm shopping. I'm pulling a milk carton with a Sell By date of May 7 from the refrigerator rack and putting it in the cart. I'm shopping. I'm shopping. I'm at the checkout counter. I'm putting the carton on the counter. I'm paying for it. I'm putting it in the cart. I'm putting it in the car trunk with the rest of the groceries. I'm taking it out of the trunk. Wait. Uh-oh...

I frantically searched for the car keys, as though a sense of urgency now would help the situation. Finding them, I raced into the garage, popped the trunk and stopped.

The milk was there. It was on its side, tucked all the way in the back. Slowly, I reached in and felt it for any sign of life, a desirable trait in a person, less of one in a perishable food item. It was warm. Somberly, I removed it from the trunk and disposed of it.

Last night, I stopped by the grocery store and bought another carton of milk. When I got home, it was the first item to leave the car. I carefully put it in the refrigerator, closed the door and walked away.

Then I came back and opened the fridge again just in case the milk had sneaked out while I wasn't looking. It hadn't. I closed the fridge again and didn't give it a third thought.

We headed to Yosemite on Friday to see how the park was looking after a few months of rain. Somebody is probably thinking right now, "Well, I could have told you how it would look without moving an inch from this computer and saved you the gas money if you only asked. It would look wet. Very wet." And that somebody would have been right, but I'm one who likes to see things for himself, things like the astounding price of gas in El Portal ($3.77 a gallon for regular unleaded).

By pure chance, we happened to be in one of Earth's most beautiful places for this year's Earth Day. To celebrate, the park had a festival featuring activity booths for children, displays about the environment and sustainability, some of the park's hybrid and electric vehicles and samples of various organic foods and environmentally-friendly products. One of the booths that caught my attention showed the park's future development plans that aim to reduce the environmental and physical footprint of permanent structures in the Curry Village and Yosemite Lodge areas.

In honor of Earth Day and John Muir's birthday, which was April 21, Lee Stetson gave a free performance of his one-man show, "The Spirit of John Muir", at the Visitor Center Auditorium on Saturday night. Adopting the attire, accent and persona of Yosemite's greatest champion, Stetson retold some of Muir's wild adventures in California (Yosemite, Mt. Shasta) and Alaska (Glacier Bay). He told every tale with such emotion and enthusiasm that it only took a few seconds for my imagination to fool me into believing the man on the stage was Muir himself. It probably helped that part me wanted to believe.

While it wasn't as wild as a Muir experience, we had our own moment of excitement, a few hours before the show, as we sauntered along the Mirror Meadow Loop Trail.

We were perhaps a quarter of a mile beyond the furthest point we had ever traveled on the trail when we heard a loud snap, as loud as a thunderclap, come from somewhere up on Half Dome. We then heard what sounded like a series of firecrackers or shower of hail, with rumbling underneath.

A hundred yards ahead of us, a pair of hikers stopped and peered up at the mountain. We stopped and turned to look, too, but could barely make out the face of Half Dome through the trees.

Although we were far from the base of the mountain, with an entire lake separating us, I had the fleeting vision of a boulder charging down the cliff, crashing through the trees, taking a bad bounce (in slow motion) and landing on top of me. I tried to make out any evidence of boulders or rocks or dust clouds or snow, but saw nothing.

We waited nearly a minute before resuming our hike. We had barely gone another hundred feet or so, when there was another snap followed by more rumbling. Again we paused in awe. Although we couldn't see it firsthand, there was definitely something big coming down the mountain.

Later, when we were returning to camp, I took a moment to look at Half Dome. From what I could tell, the face of it didn't look any different. The best I can fathom is that we heard icy sheets of snow break from their granite seats high above Mirror Lake and shatter on the cliff wall before cascading down the mountain to the valley floor.

Whenever I'm out hiking, I'm usually aware, on some fundamental level, of how tiny I am compared to, well, almost everything, but every once in a while, there is a moment that makes me very aware, very suddenly, of my size and insignificance. I don't think that type of moment will ever cease to be humbling.

This weekend also marked the beginning of National Park Week, which runs from April 22 to April 30. (Technically, that's nine days, but apparently they round it down to the nearest week.) Parks across the country have special events and activities planned throughout the "week". So, if you have the chance and the itch to get outside and explore, this would be a good week to visit a national park near you.

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike." - John Muir

Because their baby's arrival has been a major headline in entertainment news and because I like to be in the know about topics that are likely to be introduced around the water cooler with the phrase, "Did you hear about…?", I thought I'd take a second to read more about the power couple popularly known as Suri's parents. I found this great resource, Teeveepedia, that gave me everything I needed to know about Tom and Katie. Plus, it gave me some insight into the Church of Scientology. And since they were conveniently cross-referenced, I brushed up on Katie's previous claim to fame and Tom's favorite show, Dawson's Creek, and her former castmate, Joshua Jackson, the one who wasn't Dawson, but won the girl anyway.

From now on, I know exactly where to turn when someone mentions an unfamiliar actor or show. Forget IMDB. Forget Television Without Pity. It's Teeveepedia for me, all the way and always.

The moon hangs in the morning sky and the sun peeks over the eastern hills. The air is cold and crisp like a fresh leaf of iceberg lettuce. Today would be a good day to escape from it all and soak up the sunlight. Unfortunately, I'm on my way to work. I need to put in a suggestion at the office for cubicles on the patio.

I'm rather embarrassed to report that Earl was right. Oh, I got to bed by 11:30 without a problem. I just forgot to adjust the alarm to beep annoyingly thirty minutes earlier, so I woke up at 6:00 as usual. Earl may have won today, but he's going down tomorrow.

Yesterday was the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. Every newspaper and local television station ran special articles or programs to mark the milestone. I always find it fascinating that when reporters talk about earthquakes, they never fail to conclude with the following remark, "Experts predict the next big quake will hit the Bay Area in the next thirty years." It's fascinating because the experts have had the same prediction for the last seventeen years, ever since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Because it was there and we were hungry, we dined at Willow Street at Westgate yesterday. It's much larger than the original restaurant in Willow Glen. Despite being a spin-off, the food was just as good. I had the $9.95 daily special, which was the grilled Hawaiian chicken with ginger rice. I also filled up on their complimentary honey wheat bread. We mowed through one loaf and took the second one home. Actually, that second loaf is in my lunch bag and will likely become my mid-morning snack.

One of yesterday's headlines read "Bush Taps Portman as New Budget Director". And the first question that popped into my head was, "What does Natalie know about federal spending?" And on that sad note of shame, I'll end this entry.

Could I, if I really wanted, shift my entire day back by thirty minutes? These days, I typically fall into bed around midnight and jump out of bed around six in the morning to catch some form of public transportation (train/bus/singing stingray) to work. The ride guarantees me thirty minutes to read or write every morning, but what if I were greedy and wanted an hour? Could I squeeze an extra thirty minutes into my day before my day actually began?

I suppose the obvious answer would be yes. Nothing is physically preventing me from getting to bed thirty minutes earlier. There's nowhere I need to be and nothing I need to do at that time of night. True, I would miss Jay Leno's monologue, but if I stopped watching it, I wouldn't receive an email or a phone call or a knock at the door politely threatening me to resume my late night television viewing habits or else. And though I personally find him funny, Those-In-The-Know would likely tell me that, in truth, Leno isn't all that funny - at least not in the true Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert sense of the word - and that I would be better served dedicating some time to refining my comedy tastes and developing a keener sense of humor.

Of course, the more honest complicated answer to the original question would be no. I just have this feeling (call it a gut feeling, call it a stomach sensation, call it Earl) that I wouldn't be able to do it. Sure, I would get to bed earlier, but I would likely rise at the same time as I always do or my morning ritual would magically balloon to fill the extra time or the whole world would discover my plan and do a little thirty minute shift of its own. Something (internal or external) would prevent me from using those wanted minutes for the purpose I intended. Earl is rarely wrong about these things.

This is one of those instances, though, when it would be nice to wipe that I-told-you-so smirk from Earl's face (yes, even gut feelings can have countenances if properly anthropomorphized). So, as an experiment, I will give it a try tonight. I will be in bed by 11:30 and up by 5:30 tomorrow morning. I won't sleep in, I won't move like a sloth and I won't let the world pull any last-minute shifts. I just want to see what it would be like to have those extra thirty minutes.

I might be mistaken, but I believe PBS released all of Ken Burns' documentaries on DVD around the same time. I say this because every one I've seen (four and counting) has included the same interview, "A Conversation with Ken Burns", as a featurette¹. I must have watched the conversation four or five times now. The sad thing is that I haven't tired of it yet.

It begins with Burns quoting a columnist, Gerald Early, who said, "I think there are only three things America will be known for 2,000 years from now, when they study this civilization: the Constitution, jazz music, and baseball."

That's the short answer to the question that Burns tries to tackle with every documentary he makes. The question being, "Who are we?" "We" being Americans. He must believe Early is on the right track because his two longest films are about jazz and baseball.

One of my favorite parts of the interview is when he responds to the comment that some people find his documentaries rather long. He says that he's been criticized for that and he thinks some critics are, frankly, "pissed off". They know they're going to write the same length review for his eighteen-and-a-half-hour documentary on baseball as they are for a thirty-minute sitcom (with commercials) and that makes them angry.

The interviewer then remarks that people aren't trained for the pacing of his documentaries, referring to how Burns likes to spend several seconds focused on an image before cutting to the next one. Burns replies that MTV has taught us that the human eye is capable of receiving a multitude of images in a second, but he would argue that images shown in such a way don't have meaning. This leads to my favorite quote of the interview...

"All meaning accrues in duration. The things that we are all proudest of - the work we've done, the relationships we have - occur in duration. It's the thing we've given our best attention to and we realize, in the end, the only thing we have is our attention."

If nothing else, I want to take away from my repeated viewings of the interview that concept of "best attention". Whatever I'm doing, be it reading or writing, working or playing, living or loving, I want to give it my best attention because I want it to have meaning.

Anyway, Easter weekend is here and today is Good Friday. For those who observe Easter: Happy Easter! And for those who observe Fridays²: Happy Friday!!

¹ It's easy to spot a featurette in a group of features. It's the one with long eyelashes, blonde hair and a white dress.

² You never know. There's always one or two who don't.

According to this article, the Giants were rained out for the second time in two days. Rain has postponed three of the first nine Giants games this season. I hope they like doubleheaders because they have a few to look forward to. The first one takes place today, weather permitting.

I wonder how badly the unscheduled three-day delay will impact San Francisco's four-man starting rotation. Matt Morris, who is pitching in the afternoon game, hasn't started since last Wednesday. That's a whole week away from the mound. Unless the Giants throw in a fifth starter, his next start will be on Sunday with just two days of rest. Only after that start - barring any other delays - will he be able to fall back into his routine of three rest days.

On an unrelated note, one of the players I'm following this year is Bronson Arroyo. He's a starting pitcher for the Reds. The guy is 29, lanky (6'-5", 190 lbs.) and has wild hair (not Johnny Damon wild, but still). He has played for the Pirates and Red Sox and was a member of Boston's 2004 championship team.

This year, he was willing to take a cut in pay to stay with the Red Sox and the team repaid his loyalty by trading him to Cincinnati for Wily Mo Pena. So far, Arroyo has two wins in two starts, a 1.98 ERA and two hits in four at-bats, including two home runs, which gives him two more than Wily Mo and Barry Bonds.

It was Tuesday evening in Smallville. It was likely Tuesday evening in other towns, too, but since he wasn't in those other towns, he'd have to assume.

The rain had stopped momentarily, which was good because he was standing outside on the train platform, paralyzed in thought.

He wanted pho. The trouble was finding a place that sold it. If he were still in Metropolis, it wouldn't be a problem. He would actually have difficulty finding a place that didn't sell it. But here, in Smallville, it was a different story.

He continued to stand and think. The train left the station. Cars left the parking lot. Light left the sky.

He was just about to give up when an image flashed across his brain. It was of a neon sign: a blue bowl with white steam rising into the word "pho" written in red cursive lettering. He grabbed the image before it slipped away and tried to mentally zoom out. A sign. A window. A Vietnamese cafe. A shopping center.

"Yes," he exclaimed, clapping his hands. By sheer coincidence, it began to rain again.

He ran to his car and reached the shopping center in a matter of minutes. (A whole series of events occurred between the car and the shopping center, but they're so boring and inconsequential to the story that they've been tidily compressed into the three-letter conjunction and.)

Everything was as he had seen it in his head, except for the part where the window with the neon sign for pho also had a neon sign for New York-style pizza. He paused for a moment, tried to reconcile the two signs, shook his head and entered the pizzeria noodle house.

"Go ahead and seat yourself," said the Vietnamese waitress, as she motioned vaguely to the room full of empty tables.

He chose one near the flat screen television that hung above the kitchen door. If there's an earthquake, he thought to himself, I'm not standing in that doorway.

He accepted a menu with a thank you, scanned the available pizzas out of curiosity and then found what he had been seeking. He motioned to the waitress and said, "May I have a large meatball pho and hot tea, please?"

While he waited, he opened the packaged chopsticks, carefully folded the wrapper into a holder, drank water from a foam cup and watched the television. Anderson Cooper 360 was on. He was fondly remembering the days of The Mole when the pho arrived.

He grabbed the chopsticks, added some bean sprouts and dug in. The pho tasted exactly how he imagined it would and he was happy.

Test Question: What was the significance of the Erie Canal?
Calvin's Response: In the cosmic sense, probably nil.
Calvin: We "big picture" people rarely become historians.

When I read this morning's Calvin and Hobbes (originally published on this day, eleven years ago), I thought somebody was playing a practical joke on me because I just happened to finish reading a book about the Erie Canal late last night. Coincidence? I don't think so. Obviously, Bill Watterson drew the strip knowing that Peter L. Bernstein would write Wedding of the Waters ten years later and that I would come across the book at the library a year after that, read it and complete it this week.

The construction of the original Erie Canal in New York took eight years and seven million dollars to complete. The 363-mile manmade waterway connected the Hudson River with Lake Erie (and the Mississippi River beyond that). When it opened in 1825, it not only revolutionized New York's economy, but America's economy as well. It was a catalyst for westward expansion and international trade. Considering the tools and technology available at the time, the Erie Canal was an engineering marvel and is one of the most impressive public works projects in American history.

I remember learning about the Erie Canal in the fifth grade. The memory is quite clear because I remember the teacher playing the piano and having us sing an old folk song called "Low Bridge, Everybody Down". As I recall, the teacher was very fond of playing the piano and increasing our appreciation of music. Her classroom must have been one of the few in the school that actually had an instrument in it. Anyway, the first verse was always my favorite part of the song.

I've got a mule, and her name is Sal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
She's a good ol' worker an' a good ol' pal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
We've hauled some barges in our day,
Filled with lumber, coal, and hay,
And we know every inch of the way
From Albany to Buffalo.

Upside: Noah Lowry pitched a scoreless one and two-thirds innings in yesterday's game in which the Giants beat the Braves by a score of 6 to 4.

Downside: After recording those five outs, Lowry left the game with a strained right lower back. The Giants don't know how severe his injury is or if they'll need to place him on the disable list, which means he may only miss a start or may miss several weeks. Hopefully, the strain won't be serious and Lowry will return the mound soon.

In the first three days of the season, big league sluggers hit 105 home runs. Batters from the National League West accounted for four of those. The Diamondbacks, Giants and Rockies are the only teams that have yet to hit one out of the park. I'm hoping San Francisco hits at least one today to avoid being the last team to homer, a distinction on par with being the first one voted off the island.

With so many home runs already, I thought it would be amusing to survey the various home run calls made by radio broadcasters around the league. For a sampling, I listened to highlights from Tuesday's games and this is what I heard...

• "High and deep to left/center/right field..."
• "Way back. Looking up. And it's gone!"
• "Fly ball. Well hit. It's a home run!"
• "Fly away!"
• "There she goes!"
• "That ball is history!"
• "Good-bye, baseball!"
• "Bang! Get up! Get up! Get outta here! Gone!"

Most announcers stick with rather conventional calls, but there are few that try to be original. I wonder how many of them stayed up late at night in their hotel rooms in search of that signature call, one they could call their own.

If I were announcing a game, the first two I'd try would be "And that one is up, up and away!" and "It's a bird. It's a plane! No, it's a home run!" I'm just not sure which one I'd use first since they're both equally lame.

Writing about this has me hankering to see a ball game at Insert-Latest-Name-of-Global-Telecommunications-Company-Here Park in San Francisco soon. The Giants are playing there this afternoon in their home opener against Atlanta.

The Giants won their first game of the season last night in San Diego behind the pitching of Matt Morris. Noah Lowry takes the mound today. He's one of three pitchers on my fantasy team this year (the free version offered by MLB), so I'm hoping he comes through for me. If he can also come through for the Giants, that would be a bonus.

The following is the result of riding the bus and reading Pratchett on another rainy day...

And the rain fell. So much had fallen for so long that most people believed they would never see the sun again. The more foolish ones assumed the bad weather would disappear with the changing of the seasons, but that hadn't happened at all. The icy block of winter had simply given way to the soggy lump of spring.

The effects of the rain were evident everywhere. In the country, rivers rose, trees fell, hills slid and fields flooded. The less paranoid farmers fitted their livestock with flotation devices. The more paranoid verified their ark manifests. In the city, roofs leaked, drains clogged and streets flooded. Sidewalks were so saturated, they were spongy and gave pedestrians an extra squish in their step.

The world was dripping wet. What it didn't need was more rain. What it wanted was a quick spin in the planetary dryer (with electronic moisture control to prevent shrinking) or, at the very least, a good toweling off. But as usual, it wasn't going to get what it wanted. And the rain continued to fall.