Zoom Zoom, Take 2

This weekend I had another opportunity to smoke the tires and boil the brake fluid of Mazda's latest offerings. As I did last year, I attended Mazda's Zoom Zoom Live event, a marketing junket that basically involves adults driving real cars the way they would drive bumpercars. This year, Mazda offered several different opportunities to send their products to the scrap heap early, all on autocross-type courses laid out with cones on one of the expansive parking lots at the California Speedway in Fontana: a very short untimed circuit for Miatas and RX-8s; a target course for CX-7s, in which you must drive precisely over several electronic plates within an allotted time; a matching-time gymkhana, in which you must match a target time while driving one of several different products; and the featured event, the timed autocross in Mazdaspeed 6s.



Last year, the timed event was for Miatas, which had been newly redesigned:




This year, the Mazda 6 sedan (in full afterburner mode) was the choice. My friend Mike and I paired up for our first shots at the course, then drove separately for our respective "hot" laps. We could tell from the waiting area that there was a tricky decreasing radius right hand turn about halfway through the course; half the drivers noisily ground their tires into dust as they carried too much speed into the corner. Several drivers plowed throught the cones altogether. My first lap was very satisfactory, as I turned a 34.4 second lap against a target-to-beat time of 34 seconds flat. I figured a sub-34 lap was in the bag, to avenge my too-slow-by-.01 second letdown from last year.





Alas, it was not to be. In the first major corner of the course about ten seconds in, I committed the cardinal sin of forgetting to look ahead through the corner, instead focusing on the wall of cones I was rapidly approaching. Unlike the first car I drove, this one refused to take the corner, understeering heavily, forcing me to scrub off all of the speed I had accumulated. By the time everything was under control, I was late for the corner and too slow to get a good run down the back straight. The same behavior repeated itself from there on out. Rattled by my amateurish failure in the first corner, I was simultaneously too cautious and insufficiently attentive to look into the coming corners. As a result, I was consistent slower through just about every corner and ended up a full second slower than my first run.

I put on a poor display, but the car was quite clearly showing the strain of a morning of slammed brakes, excessive slip angles and clutch abuse. The last corner, in particular, required at least 90 more degrees of steering lock than the first car; I had to reposition my hands mid-corner, which I had not had to do previously. Still, had I not made so many mistakes, I might have been able to overcome the car's weaknesses.

On the whole, of course, I had a blast. Driving new cars is always fun. Plus, my first run on the timed course was very good, considering that there were two of us in the car, and that only about two dozen people over the course of two days beat the target time. Mike came within .015 seconds of matching the target time on the matching time course. To our amazement, about five minutes after our run, someone actually matched the target of 27.000 seconds (yes, down to the thousandth of a second). He won a Bose radio on the spot.

We also learned the key to these kinds of events, which have become very popular over the past few years: go early. These sorts of things always require the partcipant to sign up for a time slot, but the reservation only holds a place, not a time. Last year, we showed up at about 11 and endured lines that got longer as the day went on. This year, we showed up at 8 and, as at all amusement parks, we enjoyed the run of the place for the first hour or so. Because you only get about thirty seconds in the car at a time, the less time spent waiting in line, the better.

Stay tuned for our next adventure, coming up in two weeks!

Fall, Schmall

October 20th, you say? Well, here we are at 3:15 pm:



I just figured that would brighten your day.

Okay, everybody back in the pool!

Honorable Discharge

You may have heard that golfer Arnold Palmer decided to retire from competitive golf last week. The 77 year old legend hasn't been truly competitive in a long time, but he still regularly tees it up. Unfortunately, after dumping golf balls in a water hazard repeatedly early in his round, he finally came to the realization that he can't do it any more. However, he soldiered on through the round without keeping score, because he felt an obligation to the fans, Arnie's Army, to carry on. It was his dedication to his fans that kept him going for as many years as he did, long after he was capable of putting up competitive scores. He was one of the first sports superstars, who brought both the sport of golf and the cult of personality to the culture at large. Well played, sir.

One of my very few brushes with celebrities involves Arnold Palmer. About twenty years ago I had the opportunity to attend a Senior golf event in Lake Tahoe. Palmer was the featured player. The crowds were relatively sparse, so it was possible to get right up to the action just about anywhere on the course. Unfortunately, being that I was but a callow youth, I had heard of almost none of the players, so while the golf was interesting, I was not terribly star-struck.

Until late in the day, that is, when we followed Mr. Palmer down one of the last fairways. On that beautiful day in the mountains, with a brisk breeze blowing in off the lake, Arnie had not had a very good day. As we tracked with him from behind the yellow rope that separated the players from the crowd, which at that time was just myself and my stepdad, he made a rather poor shot from the fairway. Shockingly, instead of trudging up the fairway toward whereever it was that his ball had landed, he walked directly toward us. From thirty feet away, as he approached, he looked me directly in the eyes with an expression that showed his resigned frustration at his poor play. In that split second, I processed a whole bunch of competing thoughts: ohmygod, here he comes; wow, he looks really sad; well, he should -- that was a terrible shot; oh man, he wants me to say something; geez, all I can think to say is "sorry that was such a bad shot" -- no! don't say that! To my everlasting regret, with all of these thoughts swirling in my brain, I simply stared back, unable to say anything at all. I may not have even managed to muster up a cognizable facial expression. Then (and the memory still pains me), he gave a little grimace, looked down, and headed up the edge of the fairway ahead of us. Just to twist the knife a bit more, the two guys walking ten yards ahead of us engaged Palmer in a friendly, animated conversation. Gah! That could have been me!

I learned a lot in those brief seconds. The ability to engage in small talk is a valuable skill. A friendly word, no matter how innocuous, is always welcome. And Arnold Palmer really was a man of the people. I am convinced that he would have been happy just to gab with a fan for a few minutes. Meanwhile, I stewed about not breaking his concentration by saying anything, or by saying the wrong thing, so I said nothing. I determined much later that what I should have said, and what I will say if I'm ever in a similar position again, is simply that it was fun for me to watch him play.

I can only imagine how difficult it was for Palmer to end his career in the middle of a round because he was no longer able to do thing one thing to which he had devoted his life's work. That is the dark side of the coin for athletes, or anyone else whose identity comes from skills that deteriorate over time. Most people are permitted to preserve their dignity by aging in private, a luxury that celebrities are not afforded. They are well compensated in the meantime, but every now and then their humanity shows through and we see the void appear. At least Arnold Palmer can say that he played better, for longer, than nearly everyone else of his time.

Who's the Published Writer Now?

Well, well. My old English 2B classmate, Professor Monk, has hit the bright lights of the media world. The Professor has an article at Newsday.com in his area of scholarly expertise, the effect of distractions on driving performance and safety.

In this instance, The Professor addresses the oft-ignored issue of statistical relevance, and the way that failure to bring context to scary numbers can make for great headlines without really providing useful information. I love it when experts in statistics point out stuff like this -- Disraeli was right, after all.

I particularly enjoyed the seemingly random cross-reference between the Long Island counties that are the subject of the piece and Santa Clara County. Only those who know the good Professor would be likely to pick up on why that comparison was made. Also, I must nod in appreciation to the properly pluralized phrase "these data are..."

Being an expert in how drivers deal with distractions, in this era of cell-phones and the execrable iDrive system seems likely to lead to many more opportunities to conduct research and inform the public. Can an appearance on The Today Show be far behind?

On Athletes Dying Young, and Old Men

In a weird confluence of the political and sports worlds, the airplane that crashed into a Manhattan highrise yesterday, rekindling 9/11 jitters in New Yorkers and plenty of others, belonged to and was transporting New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle. Just about the time that the population in general calmed down about the possibility of a terrorist threat, the news began to emerge about the identity of the victims, which caused the sports world to run with the story.

One of the plotlines was the fact that Lidle was not the first Yankees player to lose his life in a small aircraft crash. Thurmon Munson, an All-Star catcher for the Yankees during the Bronx Zoo era of the late 1970s, died in August 1979 when an airplane he was piloting crashed upon approach to an airfield.

The Munson crash resonates with me to this day. At that time, I was a couple of years into my boyhood baseball frenzy. My earliest memories of baseball are of the 1977 World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees, and it seemed that one or the other of those teams was on NBC’s Game of the Week every Saturday. Those two teams had staged an epic World Series the past fall, as well.

Just down the road from my grandparents’ little farm was an elderly couple. During the summer, we would drop in on them from time to time. Mr. Still, who was probably in eighties, would gladly talk baseball with me. Considering that he was a contemporary of Babe Ruth, he had a deep-rooted love of the game, and seemed to enjoy gabbing about it with me.

In 1979, the world was not as small as it is now. News did not enter the collective conscience within seconds, as it does now thanks to the internet. News waited for the evening broadcasts, or the morning paper. And for a nine year old boy, news of the world was largely irrelevant anyway, so I missed the announcement that Munson had died. However, a few days later, I received a letter in the mail, which was an extraordinary event. It was from Mr. Still, who, in the careful yet slightly shaky handwriting of an old man, advised me of the plane crash, and commiserated with me in what he knew would be a shared mourning for a great baseball player. He was right that I was very saddened by the loss, as death was not something that I had learned much about up to that point.

More extraordinary, though, was that Mr. Still wrote to me at all. He reached across hundreds of miles and decades of life lived to connect with a fellow baseball fan. I had always thought that it was wonderful of him to remember little ol’ me. I realize now that my short, infrequent visits probably meant even more to him than they did to me. I simply saw my visits with Mr. Still as a chance to indulge in my passion for baseball, to enjoy fellowship with another fan. I think for him, living out what would be his final days in the quiet isolation of a little home in the country away from any other family of his own, he was given a chance to share a lifetime of love for the game with a kindred spirit, even one removed by two or three generations. Our conversations enabled him to slip away from the burden of his years, if only for a little while.

Baseball, with its well-known affinity for its own history, can do that. It can tie generations together. It can restore lost youth. That is why, despite the worst efforts of union heads, television executives and medically enhanced players, baseball is still America’s pastime.

Brainteaser of the Day

Do you have a few minutes? Good. How about a couple of hours? If you do, try this flash-based set of puzzles. They are very light on directions, so good luck.

Beam Me Up, Scotty

Teleportation is reality!

Well, it is if you happen to be a "macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms" and would like to be transported instantly across the vast expanse of half a meter. This, of course, is a vast improvement on prior efforts in which one single atom was teleported a distance of a fraction of a millimeter. I'm guess I'm going to have to ride my bike a lot more before this will be useful to me.

Scientists involved in this stuff claim that perfected teleportation will result in a completely new, and totally secure, way to transmit information on a far larger scale than is currently the norm. But teleportation is also one of those emerging science areas that has its own lingo that is nearly impenetrable to the outside world, which, frankly, is the entire world less a few propellerheads in Denmark. If you are into entanglement, quantum measurement and quantum feedback, then this is the field for you.

Listen To Your Mother

Researchers have recently determined that children are far more likely to be roused from sleep in an emergency by the sound of their mother's voice than the sound made by a typical alarm. In a study involving 24 children between the ages of 6 and 12, 23 awoke quickly to the sound of their mothers commanding them to get out of bed (median time: 20 seconds). The regular alarm awoke only 14 of the 24 children, with a median awakening time of three minutes, which is an eternity in an emergency situation. At least one company already has a suitable product on the market.

Just don't set the alarm to say "clean your room!" There is a 100% chance that the command will be ignored.

Epilepsy Drug Warning

There are so many risk factors to take into account when deciding to have a baby; the need to take medication for a chronic condition adds an unavoidably stressful element to the mix. We went through this, knowing that the medications Cheryl was on added to the risks of birth defects to a non-trivial degree. We wrestled with the issue before having the kids, knowing that we were taking larger chance than normal of bringing children into the world who would have special needs. A very unfeeling genetic advisor with whom we met several years before Kelly came along was particularly harsh in her assessment of our chances of having a normal baby. Cheryl left that meeting in tears, and I with a rock in my stomach, considering the future with fear rather than hope.

Nevertheless, we took the chance, and Cheryl and her doctors chose medications that were the least likely to cause defects. Cheryl loaded up on folic acid to enahance early embrionic development and avoid spina bifida, a common affect of certain anti-seizure medications. Cheryl also went through lots of extra tests during both pregnancies (although no amniocentesis either time), and everything always turned out the way it should. Still, we held our breath all the way through until we could hold the kids in our arms and see for sure that they were healthy and normal. Because Downs Syndrome is another one of the primary birth defects caused by Cheryl's medications, seeing Kelly's red hair gave me a real scare until the APGAR tests came back perfect a few minutes later. Thankfully, both Kelly and Michael arrived in perfect condition, and they have been nothing but a blessing to us ever since.

Over time, Cheryl's old medications have lost their effectiveness. She has been on a slow crossfade to a new medication over the past couple of years. Our lives will probably follow that pattern: use a new drug for ten years or so until her body no longer responds to it, then transition to some new drug that was developed during the course of those years. I am glad that our child-bearing days are over, though, as word has just come down that Cheryl's primary drug now, Lamictal, is showing evidence that it causes birth defects to a significant degree. While nearly every drug carries with it an elevated risk of birth defects, these recent findings appear to be new and more serious than the usual increased risk.

Pregnancy, while usually a joyous time, is stressful enough without the mother knowing that something she must ingest for her own well-being could harm that young life growing inside her. We held our collective breath through both of our pregancies and were blessed with no complications. If we were in the position to have kids now, knowing of these elevated risks, I think the decision to proceed would be much more difficult than it was, and the pregancy itself would be much more scary. I feel bad for other women who must face these questions.

Objects On Your Shelf May Be Smaller Than They Appear

It has been a major peeve of mine over the years that the products we buy, particularly at the grocery store, have become smaller without an attendant reduction in price. It is a relative of the classic drug pusher scenario: you get hooked on the good stuff, then they go on to charge you more for less.

The first experience with this that I recall had to do with Kudo bars, the chocolate covered granola-ish snacks. These things were a revelation when they appeared in the 1980s: candy bars that Mom would put in your lunch! I have no hard evidence to back this up, but my subjective impression has always been that a few years after they were introduced, the size of the bars was reduced. They still packed the same number of bars in the box, but each had gone on a diet.

Ice cream has quite clearly gone on the product decontentization program. Remember half-gallons? The standard, rectangular box of ice cream? The freezer section of your local grocer still holds those, but the trendy brands like Breyers and Dreyers put out their product in little boxes that look like half gallons ... but are not. Like my favorite here:



It comes in the handy size of 1.75 quarts. The silent switch away from the half gallon has apparently been going on for a little while now. The manufacturers are pretty blunt about their motivation. The linked article quotes a spokesman as saying "do you raise the unit price or reduce the unit?" Brilliant! Pay more for less.

It seems someone else is interested in silly marketing techniques as well. This site tracks what it terms "mouseprint," the too-small-to-read fine print found in just about every product advertisement these days. I like the toilet paper package that promises the same number of squares as before, but doesn't mention that each square is smaller than it used to be. Or the "quart" of mayonnaise that is now 30 oz. rather than 32 oz. This post, in particular, describes clearly the phenomenon I'm talking about.

The manufacturers continually claim that these measures are taken to avoid a price increase. Really? Does that mean that no price increases will follow for a while in the future to make up for the reduction in product? Certainly not. The standard upward creep of pricing can continue without pause, not giving a break to the buyer, while the manufacturer can reap the benefit of the big jump in profit margin.

We are all just grocery-buying frogs in the big stew pot, failing to notice how warm it's been getting lately, while clever marketing wizards stand at the controls, turning up the heat ever so gradually while telling us that they are giving us what we really wanted.

What I want is my missing .25 quarts of ice cream.

Happy 5th Birthday, Michael!

This is one of those years when we lost our sanity and invited everybody Michael knows, or has met, or has seen from across a street somewhere. Thankfully, these days parents can relieve themselves of the burden of organizing clever games to entertain a score of restless pre-kindergartners by ordering a jumphouse. A portable amusement park that we did not have as kids, the state of the art of bounce houses has advanced significantly in the five years since we had one of these kinds of parties for Kelly (after which we vowed never to do it again. Short memories.). Whereas Kelly's bounce house was a basic square, Michael's had a main bounce area, with an interior ladder that led to an exterior slide. Very slick, and amazingly effective at keeping a whole bunch of small children occupied for more than an hour.







(The weird light is due to the large quantity of smoke in the air from our regional fires.)

Then a quick stop for pizza and cake before more bouncing. No untoward reappearances of dinner were reported.











After everyone left (and left Michael's loot), it was family time for opening presents. The force was clearly with Michael this year.





And for a final demonstration at how much the big media companies control us, here is Michael, courtesy of Disney, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox:

An Overdue Memoriam

I believe that most people can identify at least one teacher in their educational experience who had a particularly notable impact on their lives, whether in the academic arena or simply in growing up. I was fortunate to grow up in an area that was famously and rightly proud of the quality of its public education system, although I think the district's successes had as much to do with the importance placed on education by the many highly educated parents that lived there, in what was only beginning to be known as Silicon Valley. We are told that iron sharpens iron; I believe that it was the high standards and motivational level of my classmates, particularly in high school, that shaped much of who I was as a student. Our efforts were matched, however, by many of our teachers, who fed off of our competitiveness and pushed us to achieve great things. For some reason, I managed to avoid several of the duds my sister had.

One teacher has always stood out in my mind as one who gave me confidence in myself that, as a 13 year old, I did not come by easily. Jim Grayson was my seventh grade English and History teacher at Cupertino Junior High School. Our class, if I remember correctly, met for a double-length period in an unusually oversized classroom. Mr. Grayson enjoyed engaging his students in large, creative projects. One of those projects, something that I doubt would be attempted today due to the subject matter, was an essay assignment entitled "Fight After School." (I suppose the assignment was in conjunction with life lessons about how to deal with difficult social issues, although I do not recall that specifically.) Mr. Grayson set up the scenario, which I think involved a bully, and we were to finish the story.

I dutifully produced my story, which was takes a surprisingly violent turn. It makes me wonder just a little about my view of the world at the time. The basic storyline was that the big confrontation with the bully ended prematurely when the scared, pick-on kid accidentally stabs himself with the knife he had hidden in his pocket. I think I was intrigued by how difficult it is to project force when you are not accustomed to doing so.

The amazing development for me was not just that I received an A+. Mr. Grayson also selected my story to be the one that the class would film, for which I worked as an assistant director of sorts. While immensely flattering, I remember nothing about the filming, other than the fact that he used Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die" as the theme song. It was the first time I had ever heard the tune; I thought it was a pretty weird choice at the time, but I have had a soft spot in my heart for it ever since.

What I will never, ever forget, though, were the words he wrote at the top of my paper in clear red ink: "Someday I will pay to read your writing." To be shown that kind of esteem by an adult was a very new experience at the time, and humbles me to this day. Does any teacher know the full extent of their potential impact when they write something like that? It is life-changing. I had been a successful student writer to that point already, having participated with some success in Brotherhood Essay contests and young writers' fair events, but Mr. Grayson's words solidified something deep within me. That I instantly acquired an unshakeable confidence in my own ability to write was only part of the story; Mr. Grayson also solidified something about my own view of myself. (Of course, the wit in me says Mr. Grayson could have been proven correct if he had just paid my retainer fee, but somehow I don't think that is what he meant.)

Society at large today frets often about the eroding self-confidence of young people. Yet, there is perhaps nothing an adult can do to prepare an youth to be the confident adult we all hope he will be than to express genuine admiration for something that child can do. I refer not to the all-too-common practice now of giving out real or virtual trophies to everyone for just showing up. Kids see through that; they know that when everyone is special, nobody is special (one of the best lines of the excellent movie "The Incredibles"). What everyone craves is for someone they respect to respond positively, genuinely, to something they do. Whether it is solving difficult math problems or setting the table just so, the payoff of the heartfelt approval of an adult can be felt far out of proportion to the effort required of the adult to give it. (Sadly, the same principle applies to mean-spirited cricism.) I was very lucky to have Mr. Grayson give me that kind of boost.

I ran across a box the other day that contains a lot of my old schoolwork, including my "Fight After School" paper. I had not remembered that I still had it in my possession, and was suprised and delighted to see it again. It got me to thinking about Mr. Grayson again, and how much he deserved to hear how much his words, which took him only a few seconds to write, influenced the rest of my life. Unfortunately, it turns out that I'm almost seven years too late. Mr. Grayson passed away after a quick fight with cancer in February 2000. Reading about him in the local paper, I see even more clearly how he could have a lasting impact on a student's life. He was a life-long teacher, he mentored other teachers, and was named Teacher of the Year for the district the year before he died. According to the article linked above, his friends remembered his teaching style: "He told kids they would succeed, and they believed him and performed up to his standards." Quite true.

What I find equally amazing about all of this is that at the time I was his student, he was the age I am now. First, I thought he was a pretty old guy (whoops). Second, would I have the sensitivity, foresight and wisdom to nuture a student the way he nutured me, if I were in his shoes? I would like to think so, but that seems to have been his unique talent.

Sorry I'm so tardy, Mr. Grayson, but thank you.

Yeah, What Have You Done Lately, MIT?

Proving yet again my prescience for choosing the university on America's Riviera as my institution of higher learning, UC Santa Barbara announced today that it and Intel have developed the world's first hybrid silicon laser. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it says "hybrid" in there, so it must be cool and trendy.

People Braver Than I, In A Totally Useless Way

Have you ever struggled to understand performance art? Does it usually involve too much self-mutilation and/or debasement for your taste? Did you not quite "get" Andy Kaufman? There is a group of clever hipsters out there who make it okay, even fun, to enjoy bizarre, semi-comedic performance art.

This troupe of loosely affiliated comedians calls itself Improv Everywhere. Their gig is performing benign, amusing acts in the middle of ordinary places, usually by engaging in slightly odd behavior while appearing to be otherwise quite ordinary. The joke comes from how unsuspecting civilians react to them. It will take you some time to read these accounts, but I assure you that you will find at least one of them at least slightly amusing. In one "mission," a guy gets lost on his way back to his seat at a baseball game, much to the eventual concern of most of the upper deck at Yankee Stadium. In another mission, the troupe amusingly invades a Best Buy. In another harmless assault on a big retailer, the troupe infiltrates a Home Depot; don't miss the video clip with the action accelerated. I believe I may have actually heard of these folks last year when they put on a faux rooftop U2 concert.

I have to admit that I love the creativity and generally harmless sense of mischief that these "missions" involve. I also have to admit that there is no way I would be inclined to participate. I'm sure that reveals some deep psychological truth about me, but that's okay. That's why these people exist to do these things, so I don't have to.

Where Were You?

September 11 is a hard date. On Sunday, our pastor aptly said that that no matter how we are getting along now, a shadow falls on that day. I was not around for Pearl Harbor, or the Kennedy assassination. Until 9/11, the most profound moment of shared memory for my generation was the Challenger explosion in 1986. I still vividly remember where I was and what I was doing at that time.

9/11 is, of course, more akin to Pearl Harbor in that it is not just tragic, but scary in its implications. Plus, 9/11 took place on the continental soil, in heavily populated areas. Worst of all, thanks to television and the internet, we all had front row seats to the destruction, in vivid color. The information overload softens the edges of my memories, so that there is very little that sticks out other than recalling that I spent hours in front of the TV that first day, and the many days of hitting the "refresh" button on internet browsers to get the very lastest from CNN or MSNBC.

The one clear, specific memory I have, though, is of turning on the Today show at about 7:26 in the morning and the very confusing scene that came up. We couldn't tell immediately whether what we were seeing was in LA or elsewhere. Right about the time we figured out that this was New York, and that it was big, the second tower came down in front of our eyes. That's an image that will not go away. Even all of the video disclosed later, dramatic shots of airplanes inexplicably flying into buildings, cannot compare to my memory of looking at the TV in confusion and disbelief, which was closely followed by the realization that this was going to be a very different kind of day.

I was reminded this morning of the other strong memory I have of those days, something I hadn't seen in a while but which was common five years ago. Today, someone put up an American flag on a pedestrian overpass over the freeway. Simple, unadorned and a little sad.

And beautiful.

School's In

Kelly, in her year round schedule sort of way, is well into her second month of fourth grade. Michael, having a traditional schedule with a long summer break, headed back to school this week for pre-kindergarten:



He fell right back into step with all of his friends from last year: Isabella, Emily, Natalie ...

Yes, he is already a bit of a lady-killer.

Soccer Morning in America

AYSO's season started this morning. Our region supports more than 3,000 kids, so the minivans were out in force today. There wasn't a large patch of grass anywhere within a ten mile radius of here that didn't have brightly garbed tykes roaming around in chase of a ball while parents screeched from the sidelines.

Today was the inaguration of our latest family insanity: two kids on soccer teams.



The logistics of game attendance, snack duty and banner toting are dizzying. Today, the two of them had games that started half an hour apart on fields half a mile from each other. Michael's division, Under-5 boys, is comprised of five person teams that play three players at a time, and spend half of the "game" time in practice mode with a master coach on the field. The actual gameplay then follows for a short while, on a tiny field with little goals and no goalies. By all accounts, a fine time was had by all, especially since Michael's best friend was added to the team today.

Kelly is in her second year of the Under 10, so she is now one of the big kids on the team. You may recall that her team went pretty far in the playoffs last year, but that she didn't see much of the field other than her own goal box. This year, she is off to quite a different start. She played center forward the entire game and had a good (if tiring) time doing it. Unfortunately, the other team had the next iteration of Mia Hamm, who scored on our inexperienced defense three times within the first five minutes. Much cringing among the parents.

Then, Kelly scored our first goal of the season on a breakaway, following up her own shot that had bounded away from the keeper. That seemed to inspire everyone. We put in our "star" player for the second quarter, and she scored three more goals, at least one of which off an assist from Kelly. The star for the other team also scored two more, though, and the 5-4 score at halftime held through the second half. The girls started to figure out how to play as a team by the fourth quarter. Our defenders became more tenacious, our goalies became very aggressive, and our forwards started passing the ball instead of swarming to it. We had a great opportunity to tie the game late when one of our wingers sent a ball forward through the defense to an open area off the corner of the penalty box. Kelly outran the defense to it and attacked the goal. Unfortunately, her sharp angle approach to the goal caused her shot to bounce off the far post. She followed up her shot (as dear old Dad had coached her to), but missed on the rebound. As is often the case at the beginning of the season, the girls were all a bit timid, but there is reason to believe that they will do just fine this year. The parents also seem to be a friendly, cohesive group, which makes the year much more fun for us sideline dwellers.

After watching Kelly trudge to the goal quarter after quarter last year, it was thrilling to see her break free into the opposition's zone a dozen times. She is soaking this stuff up and having a great time. That's what it is all about.

Well, that and winning a whole bunch of games.

No! Kidding! Winning is just secondary!

(Kind of...)

A Question for the Drivers

When you are approaching an intersection in which another car is waiting to turn left across traffic and you intend to push through a yellow light, should you flash your lights to warn the car waiting to turn? Or does the flash indicate to the turning driver that it is safe for him to commence his turn?

It is a good idea to get these things squared away before trying to use them.

Goodbye, Wake Island

At least for a little while. A Category V typhoon is scheduled to sweep over the remote Pacific island tomorrow, and is expected to submerge the island and destroy anything not made of concrete. There are no permanent residents on the island, and those working there are being evacuted to Hawaii, but this is a sobering reminder that an island in a storm is often not a safe place. We saw during our trip to the Bahamas how low the land is relative to the calm water; a storm surge of any strength can devastate low lying areas. When the entire expanse of the land is a low-lying area, the island simply disappears from the map for a while. It is a very unsettling thought to this life-long continental dweller.

Soccer Update

Michael starts in AYSO's youngest division this year. The teams have five boys each, and play short 3-on-3 games that are more open play time than a real soccer game. It should be very cute and fun.

The uniform for the team is a very sharp blue with a red and white diagonal slash. The boys selected their team name: Team America! Yeah!

We're going to go without a team song this year, in case you were wondering.