To The Guy Standing Next To Me At The ATM

... reeking of the herb:

You're not fooling anybody.

Soccer Saturday

Another beautiful Saturday morning for soccer games. Kelly's team was back on the big field at St. Mary's, dominating the game but unable to finish, winning 1-0 on a penalty kick.


Michael's team played well again. Michael scored a great breakaway goal that had a couple of dads from the other team marveling at his speed and skill in the game. I'll admit to being pleased hearing that, especially since it was not entirely clear that Michael was going to enjoy playing soccer this year. Leading his team in goals has changed his attitude considerably.


This is what it looks like when the whistle has blown to end Spain's first winning game:


Sure, they're not supposed to keep score or tabulate wins and losses. But the boys know. This joy proves that there is value in honest, natural competition.

Post-Halloween Bazaar

This is a game called "Haggle":


The kids created this game on their own. They play it every year after Halloween. Even though it involves taking inventory of their respective candy hauls and trading candy back and forth, it almost never results in arguments. All told, they spent about two hours today doing this.

Halloween 2009

We have reached that point in life when Halloween no longer means leading the kids around the neighborhood for an hour in the evening. We now have competing Halloween parties (three this year) and gatherings of kids' friends demanding their participation. Kelly went off to prowl another neighborhood a couple of miles away with ten of her friends, while I followed Michael and fifteen of his friends (and many of their parents) around our neighborhood, while Cheryl handled the traffic at our house. Forming into roving hordes of trick-or-treaters seems to be the preferred method of candy acquisition around here. It is great fun, and wonderful to see both kids bonding so well with their peers. Even the parents marvel at it.

Kelly was, well, this:


She went to a school dance Friday night in this costume (a momentous event unto itself) to great acclaim. The parents, who presumably remember rainy day rec-rooms in the days before video games, were even more excited about her costume than the kids. The reputation of her costume preceded her; parents of friends she trick-or-treated with Saturday night had heard of it and were tickled to see it.

Michael was a Star Wars Clone Wars character:



This may be the last year for Star Wars characters, at least until Star Wars costumes make an intentionally ironic return in the teen years.

Soccer Saturday

Kelly played another game at St. Mary's today.




In one of her team's best games of the season, she set up a teammate for the first goal, and scored the deciding goal herself on a breakaway.






Michael's team is still winless, but he has scored a bunch of goals this season and shows signs of really understanding what he's doing out there.

Photography Fun

I have enjoyed working with the new camera, although most of the pictures I have taken have been at soccer games. Every once in a while, though, other opportunities present themselves.

A simple family dinner, or a Sunset magazine article about gracious autumn feasting?


Not bad for a 12 year old car and a cameraphone:


Both images are untouched. I'm still trying to figure out the basics of composition; Photoshop adds dimensions of complexity that I will not be prepared to approach for a while.

So I Had An MRI Yesterday...

I'm not the first to observe that aging is, in many respects, no fun. While The Professor was preparing to compete in his first triathlon, I spent a month battling intense neck and shoulder pain. Oddly enough, the pain was at its most severe when I was seated with my arms extended, as if, I don't know, reaching for a computer keyboard and mouse or something. Now, maybe if I had spent every working day for the past 15 years in that position, I could see how this could happen ... oh.

I have had the typical slept-wrong neck pain many times before, the kind that makes it difficult to look over your shoulder to back up the car for a couple of days. This was something new. I could not sit anywhere without substantial discomfort. It was clearly some kind of neck-related pain, but the pain included sharp, knitting-needle jabs in the front and back of my shoulder joint, with pain radiating down my upper arm to my elbow. The pain was accompanied, in an amusing little bonus, with a slight loss of strength in my left hand. No numbness, though, so I had that going for me.

After more than three weeks of assuming it would get better without anything to show for my patience, I finally gave in and went to a doctor. I went in expecting to hear "pinched nerve," and that's basically what I got ("nerve impingement," in doctor-speak). Instead of a prescription for therapeutic massage or something equally fun, though, I was sent across the hall for x-rays and instructed to set up an appointment with an orthopedist. What, you mean there's something actually wrong with me?

The x-rays revealed some narrowing between the vertebrae in my neck, which, according to the orthopedist, could mean herniation of the discs, which then presumably caused problems with the nerves. It wasn't so much a diagnosis that bothered me, but that everyone who saw the x-rays immediately came to exactly the same conclusion. It was that obvious. In other words, something is in fact wrong with me. I'm not happy about that.

In order to determine the scope of the soft tissue damage, if any, the orthopedist set me up with an MRI examination. The MRI machine is a marvelous piece of equipment that does amazing things. It is a very Star Trek way of doing medicine, though. There's something fundamentally odd about being jammed into a smooth white tube that glows futuristically, buzzes and clacks in almost sentient rhythms and never touches the patient, and we which we still call practicing medicine. Where are all the strange hammers and sharp pointy things that mean "doctor's work"?

The only real discomfort of the MRI was that the narrow bed supported my spine but left my shoulder to dangle, which caused additional pain right where I didn’t want it. During the procedure, I closed my eyes and counted seconds, imagining a secondhand sweeping around the clock face. I passed the time reasonably easy; it helped that the entire procedure lasted only about 20 minutes. Thankfully, I'm not claustrophobic (apparently). I am, however, reasonably musical. The machine is also incredibly loud, even through ear plugs, but very rhythmic. Each set of films yielded a different set of rhythms. A couple of times I almost stifled laughter as one rhythm would be added to another, to which a third of them would be added, creating very interesting polyrhythmic patterns. Groovy, almost.

Having never been through this before, I'll be very interested to see the films. On the other hand, I don't do well with medical issues. Having the orthopedist even mention surgery as a potential outcome while he looked at x-rays of my neck nearly had me in a swoon. Examining images of some squishy bits inside me may yet put me on the floor.

Saturday in Fall = Soccer

Both kids are well into their soccer seasons now. Michael's Team Spain is a spirited bunch, although they have yet to win a game. They played to a 1-1 draw last week, and were down 4-0 at halftime this week. With just a little coaching on proper positioning, though (ahem), Michael scored a hat trick in the third quarter. It wasn't enough to pull out a victory, but it brightened up the day for everybody.

Kelly's team is very well coached and undefeated so far this year. They went up against an extremely disciplined Orinda squad today at St. Mary's College. It looked like Team Italy was going to fall to their first loss until Kelly broke the tie midway through the first half with a textbook breakaway goal. A penalty shot off an Orinda handball in the penalty box completed the scoring for Italy's 2-0 victory.

Through it all, I get to play with my new toy.

Good Ol' (Chinese) Home Cookin'

Relying again on an iPhone app for guidance, I took on the task of preparing sweet and sour pork a couple of weekends ago. I originally got the inspiration a when I found a recipe that used pre-made sweet and sour sauce. I figured it would be a relatively quick and easy way to make a dish that I like. When I finally committed to make it, I left the family playing at the pool while I went to the store with the list of ingredients in my pocket. I thought.

Once at the store, I whipped out the iPhone. Unfortunately, none of the recipies I could find used pre-made sauce. The family was counting on me for dinner, so I found myself committed to doing it the hard way.

Cooking from scratch demands a lot of the kitchen's measuring cups, mixing bowls and stove space, but it is also remarkably liberating. Having control over every ingredient from its raw form to final plating is very satisfying, especially when it goes together well. That doesn't always happen. I've made casseroles that didn't quite gel, cakes that didn't quite stand straight, and entrees that just didn't taste as good (or look as appetizing) as the cookbook made them seem. Frustratingly, I would have nobody to blame but myself. When it all comes together correctly, though, it is a beautiful thing.

The sweet and sour pork was a beautiful thing.

The most unusual part was deep frying the pork. Finally, a legitimate use for the dutch oven, a dish I love for its solid appearance of utility that I have never actually used much at all. That is the part of the process that I need more practice with to keep the meat more tender and the coating more tasty, but it wasn't bad for a first effort. The sauce was interesting, because it was a vague watery mix of vegetables, pineapple syrup and vinegar (who thought up that combination?) until the very end when a small amount of corn starch is introduced. In a magical instant - poof! - sweet and sour sauce is conjured up. And it was every bit as tasty as any I have had in a restaurant (and far superior to Panda Express).

It took a lot of dishes and a bunch of time, but it was a complete success. Even the kids liked it, which is quite an achievement. I'm now two-for-two with recipes from the iPhone.

A Justification For War

A trade war, anyway. The Chinese government is in a huff about the U.S. government's institution of 25% import duties on Chinese-made automobile tires. China complains that the imposition of substantial tariffs amounts to protectionism, and has launched its own review of U.S. exports to China.

The Administration apparently imposed a lesser tariff than was recommended by U.S. International Trade Commission. Setting aside the political ramifications and posturing, both internationally and domestic, here is one reason to support the move: Chinese tires are garbage. In this recent tire test, the Chinese tires fared far worse than their competitors. Some revealing analytical notes from the article:

Consistently finishing last in all of the performance categories, the Ling Longs’ dry autocross performance was so far behind the other tires’ that we had to round its score up to zero to keep it from being negative.

Things got worse in the wet, where slip-and-slide behavior required a conservative effort to stay between the cones. The Ling Longs were a full five seconds off the autocross pace and needed 22 more feet—1.5 3-series car-lengths—to stop from 50 mph than did the best Hankooks.

On the street loop, we were irritated by a low-speed drone ...

... even though they cost half the price of many competing tires, they scored less than half the points of even the eighth-place tire. To us, that doesn’t qualify as a value ...

(I have read tire reviews like this one for years. Even though magazines like Car and Driver are generally thought to be under the considerable influence of the automakers they cover (and advertise), I trust the integrity of the blind testing methodology of tire tests like this one. It is not a perfect system, and may not be sufficiently rigorous to measure up to academic standards for true blind testing, but for the limited purpose for which these sorts of tests are offered - a direct, largely objective comparison between similar consumer goods - I think the tests provide useful information.)

There is something to be said for allowing the marketplace to discover this on its own and make the appropriate and inevitable corrections to the market share of the Chinese producers. However, China's ability and intention to manufacture products at a substantially lower sales price that its competitors, coupled with dramatically worse performance, gives plausible justification for imposing punitive tariffs. The decades-old jokes about substandard quality of products made in China (jokes that even my seven-year-old son makes, without parroting his parents) are amusing when referring to household knicknacks. The situation becomes a whole lot less amunsing when your family's safety depends on the products in question. As China climbs the ladder of the global consumer products market, producing tires and entire cars for sale outside of its own borders, China will have to learn, one way or another, to bring its products up to basic standards of quality that, frankly, they don't reach yet. (Go here for a review of a new Chinese-made car's utter failure during a European crash test.)

Once, lawsuits were an effective tool to force manufacturers to improve the quality of their products. Like them or not, consumer-interest legislation had an undeniable effect on the design of consumer goods, most of it positive in the area of safety. I would not want to be the next person to attempt to sue a Chinese company for negligent design or manufacturing, however. As a practical matter, the tort system simply will not be effective against Chinese interests for the relatively near future. A trade war may be the best, first method to force Chinese manufacturers to understand how products must be made for Western consumption.

Returning Safely To Earth

Maybe it's a little geeky, but I absolutely love this footage of the space shuttle Discovery's landing last week. I like any footage of shuttle landings. Chunky though it is, I find something deeply aesthetically satisfying about the form of the shuttle, particularly as it returns its considerable bulk delicately to the earth.

I think the whole scene is beautiful, but would be terrifying if airplanes landed this way. The video, while nicely focused on the orbiter, fails to convey how quickly the ship falls out of the sky. I wonder how the average mission specialist, who is not a combat or test pilot experienced with odd angles of attack in an aircraft, copes with the steep descent. The aggressive dive is intimidating enough, especially since much of the crew has no view out of the shuttle, but they are also feeling gravity again for the first time in a couple of weeks. That must be a gut-churning white knuckle ride for a few minutes.

Unless something changes, we will only be treated to six more of these landings before the whole fleet is mothballed (and we place our manned space flight cababilities in Russian hands until the Orion program is ready in 2015 or later). The shuttle can't fly forever; I just wish it were to be succeeded by another sleek flying craft rather than a tin can that will freefall into the ocean.