Citius, Altius, Fortius ... Fecundius?

Olympic athletes represent the pinnacle of human physical ability (except, perhaps, for curlers). "Faster, higher, stronger" is an apt phrase for the Olympic motto.

Olympians do not confine their prodigious capabilities to their chosen sporting arenas, apparently. The 7,000 athletes and officials have nearly exhausted their supply of 100,000 complementary condoms. That's 14 condoms per person, gone. In news sure to ease the concerns of all involved, an emergency supply of 8,500 additional prophylactics has been rushed to Vancouver.

This is in Vancouver. A lovely little city on the cozy west coast of prim, polite Canada. What will happen to the world's stock of latex in 2016, when the summer games take place in Rio de Janeiro, whose very name is synonymous with sensual decadence? NBC will have to run its telecasts at night just to guard the morals of our youth. So the International Olympic Committee got its knickers in a twist over a few female Canadian hockey players swigging beer on the ice after they won the gold medal? Committee members had better pack some defibrillators when they head to Rio.

The Horror

Due to some technical glitch, I was without e-mail or Internet access for six hours yesterday. That was the day, of course, that I also left my iPhone at home for probably the second time in 18 months I have had it. That left me with absolutely no ability to contact or hear from the rest of the world, other than my office telephone.

Please don't take my interwebs away again.

Except for those rare occasions when I will intentionally substitute an ever-present connection to the Internet with overpowering natural beauty (camping in the high Sierras, sipping daiquiris on a South Pacific beach), I'm afraid I am too far gone to be saved. I have been assimilated into the technological web. The temporary inability to look up random facts on a whim, like the altitude of Nepal's capital city or Sandy Koufax's winning percentage (Kathmandu, 4,600 feet - surprisingly low - and .655 - highest in history, respectively) left me with the shakes and clammy hands.

As that noted blogger, Scarlett O'Hara, tweeted, "As God is my witness, I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be offline again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be offline again!"

Adventures In Advertising

The sport of basketball, and especially its collegiate variant, is particularly vulnerable to influence by gamblers. Although it is a team game, individuals have a much greater effect on the outcome of games than in other popular team sport. Football squads are too big for a single player (other than, perhaps, the quarterback) to influence the outcome of the game. Although baseball is nominally a team game, its unique structure boils down to a series of individual confrontations between pitcher and batter, with random outcomes dictated by where the ball happens to be hit. In contrast, only five players are on the floor in basketball at any one time, which allows each of them the opportunity to have a significant impact on game action. Basketball is particularly prone to point shaving, the preferred illicit tactic of professional gamblers.

The NCAA has an uneasy detente with gambling interests. It educates its student-athletes about the dangers of gambling and tries to prevent gambling scandals at its institutions. However, the annual NCAA men's basketball tournament is one of the biggest and most popular gambling events in the world. People who have never set foot in a casino or horse track routinely throw a few dollars into their office bracket pool every March. It is a practice that the NCAA, the IRS and the FBI are powerless to stop.

College basketball players, like college students of all stripes, are particularly vulnerable to influence the gamblers because they are, generally speaking, poor. The promise of a cash payout for simply having a bad shooting night can be difficult for a morally conflicted basketball player to resist. Many institutions with prominent basketball teams have fallen victim to point shaving scandals, most recently Arizona State.

All of this makes what I heard on the radio yesterday particularly jarring. Stanford, rightfully known for drawing the best and brightest to its campus, aired a radio ad for its men's basketball team. The tagline at the end of the ad was, "we’re all in." Of all the slogans Stanford could have used to express enthusiasm and commitment to a cause, why use a well-known poker phrase?

I have no particular beef with gambling, but I think the dangerous influence major gambling interests can have on college student-athletes is obvious. For that reason, the "appearance of impropriety" that governs the ethical conduct of judges and lawyers is a concept relevant to collegiate athletics. Stanford is needlessly relying on gambling terminology to advertise its upcoming basketball game, unnecessarily dragging a shadow over its sport and institution. Stanford's opponent in the game advertised on the radio? Arizona State.

(Could it be that Stanford's clever band of tricksters in the athletic department intentionally alluded to gambling because the opponent is Arizona State? I'd say there is a slight chance of that; if it were confirmed that any member of the notorious Stanford band was involved in the production of the radio spot, that likelihood goes straight to 100%.)

An Overdue Thanks

As the news industry turns its focus to economy's struggle to survive under its own weight and the intensified war in Afganistan, let's not forget the work of our men and women in Iraq. Thankfully, the military's activities in that region have largely disappeared from the front pages, not because its efforts are not worthy of comment, but because the customary criteria for major coverage (failure, real or perceived) has not been applicable in quite some time.

Among the many units over there, the Oregon National Guard's 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team has been serving with distinction in Iraq since last May. The best news is the last line in the linked report: "The 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team will return to Oregon in May."

Well done, Sgt. Beverly. Keep up the good work, and come home safe and on time.

Least Surprising News Story of theYear

File this under the category "Dog Bites Man":

"Man on 'bad trip' found hugging tree in Santa Cruz."

A 23 year old transient was picked up in Santa Cruz for public intoxication, hugging a palm tree while on a self-described "bad LSD trip."

Turning now to other equally shocking news, there are reports coming out of Beverly Hills that a Mercedes Benz parked next to a BMW. And in Omaha, Nebraska today, McDonald's sold a cheeseburger.

Sparkling Vistas

As the eastern seaboard hunkers down under record snowfalls, Los Angeles is bidding farewell to its latest bout with crummy weather. The unexpectedly heavy rainfall this past weekend finally loosened the La Canada hillsides denuded by last fall's wildfires.

The payoff for storms in LA, though, is the natural beauty the area displays after it has been scrubbed clean by rain. In the winter, that includes snow in the mountains that form the northern boundary of the region.

The Mt. Wilson webcam that supplied dramatic views of those oncoming wildfires even as it seemed to chronicle its own demise seems to have survived just fine:


In larger form, this is my new desktop picture.

An Epic Journey

Two months from now, we'll be on the biggest adventure of our lives. We will be taking a trip, over the kids' spring break, to carry through on our promise to visit our old friends wherever they find themselves posted by the United States State Department . We visited them twice at their first post, in the Bahamas. Go figure.

Like the classic Clipper Pan Am routes of old, at the beginning of April we will be winging our way from San Francisco to our friends' current assignment Shanghai, China.


Today we booked passage on one of these:


Don't recognize it? It is the livery of Asiana Airlines. One of Korea's two major airlines, Asiana is generally considered to be one of the finest airlines for customer service in the world.

Our original travel preference was for a 13-hour nonstop United flight between San Francisco and Shanghai. However, because of uncertainties about medical bills a couple of months ago, we were unable to commit to the trip when that flight’s prices were at its lowest. With that flight now 40% more expensive, we were forced to look at lower-cost alternatives that still did not unduly extend the total travel time. For a while, we were considering an Air China flight that was only three hours longer because of a stopover in Beijing. However, the online reviews from various sources are uniformly terrible for that airline. If you are going to be trapped in a metal tube for 13 straight hours, basic comfort and cleanliness take on greater importance than they might otherwise for short haul trips.

By the time we started to have real misgivings about the Air China option, only three tickets were left, which took it out of contention. The next lowest cost flight was a combined United/Asiana flight that was significantly longer and had two stops. However, the more we looked at it, the more we realized that it might work very well for us. The first leg is simply a United flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles late in the evening. We were planning to take the kids out of school for Thursday and Friday of the week we left anyway; we realized that we could also travel late Wednesday night if the flight scheduling required it. The second leg of the flight, on Asiana, goes from Los Angeles to Seoul, Korea. After a moderate layover, it is only a one-hour hop to Shanghai, arriving Friday morning.

By taking this flight, we would be able to arrive about eight hours earlier in Shanghai than we originally expected, without taking any additional time off from work or school. More importantly, not only is the flight cheaper than the nonstop we originally targeted, but we may well have a more pleasant travel experience. Everything we have read about Asiana and Seoul’s Incheon Airport suggests that the travel itself might actually be a pleasurable part of the trip, not simply something to be endured. The airport, in particular, sounds like a marvel for the weary traveler. Having the opportunity to refresh ourselves before the short hop from Seoul to Shanghai to see our friends could prove to be very beneficial.

The delights of the Orient await. This trip will undoubtedly be a lifetime highlight for each of us.

That doesn't mean we aren't already looking forward to our next visit to our diplomatic buddies. Their next posting: the Barbados.


China is exotic and all, but there are some real attractive advantages to becoming a specialist in Caribbean issues.

The Boys of Summer in Winter

It is common knowledge that elite athletes become so through a combination of God-given talent and sheer hard work. At the youth level, there is a long-established dual track system of recreational leagues and competition leagues. Up until now, both kids have been involved only in recreational leagues, which generally require 60 to 90 minutes of practice a week plus a game on the weekend. The amount of competitive fire in the team depends solely on the motivations of the individual players. Having fun and learning the sport are the hallmarks of recreational leagues

Starting this week, Michael stepped up to a competitive league for baseball. He loves the sport and has been excited to do this ever since last season ended. We bought all the gear, attended the preseason meetings, and hit the ground running on Monday.

And running.

And running.

As he got into the car on Tuesday evening after his second 90 minute practice in as many days, Michael sighed and said "I had no idea baseball was this much work." Michael's practices have consisted of simple throwing and catching drills and footwork/running drills, all conducted at a high pace. (There are not too many other ways to keep 12 eight-year-old boys engaged in any activity for more than an hour.)

Because the school district is fanatically protective of its fields, all of the league's teams have been forced to practice on blacktop this week due to a little bit of wet weather. Given the basic nature of the skills Michael and his teammates need to develop, this has not been a serious impediment. It has not prevented them from working very hard at those basic skills.

The only kid at the practice is smaller than Michael is the coach’s six-year-old son who tags along (and, frankly, shows more skill than all but about three of the players actually on the team), but Michael's throwing and catching are among the best on the team, and the others are improving rapidly. Michael is reasonably quick as well, but he is so small that it is all he can do to keep up with some of his taller teammates (i.e., all of them). This weekend, Michael will have another four hours of practice. Weather permitting, the boys will be allowed to use the fields and start hitting for the first time. That is sure to be chaotic but great fun as well.

The progress all of the boys have made in just two days of practice is remarkable, and illustrates the most fundamental difference between recreational leagues and competitive leagues. There is simply not enough time in recreational leagues to practice enough to develop skills quickly or significantly. In a competitive league, the pace and duration of practice is dramatically higher, with corresponding results. In addition, the teams will practice for a month before games begin, so that their skills will have developed significantly before they have to learn to use them in game situations.

Thankfully, Michael loves baseball. He is tired after practice, but he plays because he enjoys the game. As long as that remains true, the extra workload will be a joy, not a burden.

Moonshot

The biggest full moon of the year was last night, when the full moon phase coincided with the perigee of the moon's elliptical orbit around the earth. The moon at that point is 31,000 miles closer to the earth than at the apogee of the orbit, giving the full moon its greatest effect, not only visually but for tidal pull as well. It was a little cloudy last night, but tonight was relatively clear, with just a hint of light fog.

I couldn't resist pulling out the camera, the big lens and the tripod. I have a lot to learn about manually controlling all of the settings, but even with what little I know, and a 2-second timer setting, I got some decent shots of the moon (as I took several in series, the slideshow reveals how the moon marches across the sky, as the image of the moon crept across the frame of the fixed camera position).

Here's the best, cropped heavily (the lens is big, but not big enough to fill the frame with the moon):


(Click to enlarge and see the image properly centered)

The encroaching shadow of the earth is just visible at the top of the moon disc. This is through a bit of fog; a truly clear night (and a more competent photographer) should yield an even sharper image.

Saturday Sports Highlights

Last weekend being a holiday weekend and the first break in the bad weather we had seen in more than a week, our basketball squad was down to four players as half the team headed to Lake Tahoe for epic skiing. Our boys managed to get a tie anyway, with Michael throwing in a basket to help the cause. Playing four-on-four with no substitutes tired the players out, but the extra space on the floor helped them understand better how to move without the ball.

This weekend, everything was back to normal, as our Buckeyes blew out the local favorite Cal Bears. Michael again tossed in a score, plus a bunch of rebounds, assists and steals. The whole team is starting to play team basketball much better, by making more passes, moving without the ball to help teammates, and playing better zone defense. The Cal team was tall, but our skilled boys carried the day.



Before the basketball game, it was picture day for the upcoming baseball season. Michael is now in the more serious Pony league, which will mean several practices and two games each week (once games start in March). Along with the more intensive practice schedule, he has now hit the big time for equipment. In the past, sweatpants and soccer cleats sufficed to go with the league-supplied t-shirt/uniform. This season, we were sent to the sporting goods store with a long list of items to fill the locker: multiple sets of baseball pants (white game pants and grey practice pants), sliding shorts, color-coordinated half-sleeve shirt, baseball cleats, long socks and, ahem, a cup. We also got an equipment bag, which holds all that stuff plus the new batting helmet. The league provided the uniform top and cap (official MLB licensed merchandise), belt and socks. It's a snazzy look:


This ensemble will show up here many more times between now and June.

An Event-Full Day

History is a pretty big place, so it should not be surprising that any given day on the calendar will mark a variety of momentous occasions. Still, January 27 seems to cover more than its share of events of particularly historical note:

Mozart was born (1756).

Verdi died (1901).

Thomas Edison received a patent for the electric incandescent lamp (1880).

The siege of Leningrad ended (1944).

The concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau were liberated (1945).

Atomic bomb testing in Nevada began (1951).

Astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee died in the Apollo 1 launch pad fire (1967).

The Vietnam peace accords were signed (1973).

President Reagan greeted the former American hostages released by Iran at the White House (1981).

Finally, January 27th is the birthday of both Chief Justice John Roberts and TV talking head Keith Olbermann. I'm guessing that the chances they will text birthday greetings to each other are pretty slim.

Saab Lives!

Welcome to the latest installment of my inexplicably long-running account of the saga of the demise of a middling automaker. Just as I thought Saab was dead, someone swooped in to rescue it from oblivion.

No less weird a carmaker than Konigsegg, Saab's last jilted suitor, the Dutch specialty automaker Spyker has stepped up to the altar to save Saab from extinction. For the low, low price of $74 million in cash, plus stock and a loan from the Swedish government, it looks like Saab will live to see another day. What kind of company it can be under the leadership of the tiny Spyker is still to be determined. Dutch and Swedish ownership, however, should ensure that whatever models bear the Saab name in the future will carry on the marque's fading hallmarks of innovation and random weirdness.

Stormwatch 2010!

Nearly all of California (and Oregon, too) is coping with a series of major El Niño-type rainstorms this week. The first came through the Bay Area yesterday, with heavy morning rain that dwindled away to nothing by the afternoon. The next storm arrived early this morning, dumping nearly 2 inches of rain, but again gave way to blue skies by the early afternoon.

Until the line of thunderstorms swept through, that is. They turned day into night in a hurry. Here is a view from my office on a typically clear afternoon:


(That ghostly thing in the left side of the image is not a hideous, multi-limbed creature striding in from the north bay; those are reflections in the window of some office plants. My apologies.)

From mostly sunny to this, within a span of about 15 minutes:


(It was even darker than the picture shows, because the camera tried to compensate for the low light.)

Ever fickle, here is what the storm is offering us just now:


Tomorrow's storm is expected to be the worst of the three. That is cause for some concern, because the benchmark has been set pretty high so far.

Saturday Sports Highlights

Following the holidays, basketball resumed for our men of "Ohio State." Once again, thanks to one superior athlete and a couple of capable shooters, our team dominated the opponent, although we gave up more points than usual. Michael played smart defense, made some nice passes, and took a few shots. No success yet, but it will come eventually.



Our Saturday started early in the morning, though. We bundled up and huddled in the morning mist as our little Boys of Summer went through their evaluation session for the coming baseball season. Michael had not picked up a ball in a month, but he put in a fine showing. There are some kids who have played in this particular league for several years already, who are well ahead of him in experience and skills (and height), but Michael showed that he has the potential to be a contributing member of his team. Enjoy a brief clip of a couple of the drills.



The neverending sports calendar marches on ... we registered Kelly for the spring season of volleyball today. Swim season will be here before we know it.

It's still January, right?

Local Airport Makes Good

According to an organization that apparently is tasked with the fascinating duty of recording on-time airport arrivals, the Oakland airport is the very best on this continent at receiving people who, for reasons best know only to themselves, want to go to Oakland. Among the 40 busiest North American airports, Oakland is number one with 87% of inbound flights arriving within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time. It helps that Oakland's two most active airlines, Southwest and Hawaiian, are themeselves the top nation and regional airlines, respectively, for on-time arrivals.

In the fifty or so arrivals I've had in the last two years, my general sense is that these statistics are correct. My flight Friday night was actually several minutes early, which has happened more than once.

This must sting the San Francsico airport people just a bit. Far larger and more glamorous by name, SFO is a well-known delay generator. The slightest amount of fog or cloud cover will trigger flight pattern restrictions. In a city notorious for its foggy conditions, SFO has no hope of ever being a paragon of timeliness. Most savvy buisinesspeople fly to the Bay Area through Oakland because it is just as easy to get to San Francisco by BART from the Oakland airport, and the likelihood of arriving on time at the airport itself is much higher. The time saved walking through the much smaller Oakland terminal is a significant, albeit not often considered, factor as well.

So, the good news is that if you are flying to Oakland, chances are very good that you will get there on time. The bad news, of course, is that you are flying to Oakland.

The Saturday Morning Dilemma

On the Saturday that marks the end of the holiday season, before real life returns at full volume, this Saturday morning presents a conundrum. Do I get up early to enjoy the morning to the fullest and not waste one of my last gentle days by sleeping it away? Or do I luxuriate in the rare absence of scheduled commitments by remaining in bed, staying as unproductive as possible for as long as I can?

I haven't reached a firm conclusion. I'm awake and blogging ... from my bed with the iPhone.

Scenes From A Bounteous Christmas Tree

This afternoon of Christmas Eve, as ever more presents appeared under the boughs, Michael took to counting his gifts. Again.

As he began to fret about how many (or few, in his estimation) presents he would get to unwrap tomorrow, Kelly pointed out that Jesus only received three gifts.

Michael shot back,

"Yeah, but he got gold."

Baghdad Bob Has Found More Work

Thankfully, nobody was killed when an American Airlines jet skidded off the runway while landing in Jamaica in a rainstorm. The airline has an interesting way of assessing the condition of its aircraft, though:

Tim Smith, an American Airlines spokesman, denied reports that the Boeing 737 broke into pieces but did say that there was damage to the fuselage, some cracks and the landing gear on one side of the plane collapsed.

Hmm.


"Some cracks"? Yeah, those are some cracks, all right.

Now Boarding, Flight 53 From Dock 10 ...

The California Emergency Management Agency has released maps detailing the effect on the California coastline of tsunamis generated by most conceivable earthquakes off the western shore of North America. Some communities could suffer substantial damage. Much of San Francisco's Marina district could be under water, as would be most of low-lying Alameda and the eastern approach to the Bay Bridge, several marinas in San Diego, and parts of Marina Del Rey. UCSB's lagoon could be swamped, and we could lose one of our favorite eateries, the Beachside Cafe on Goleta Beach, which would be well within the projected tsunami zone.

Faring particularly poorly are some airports, which often lie on low ground near water. San Francisco International could lose some taxiways, which would impact its capacity (considering a single low cloud will cause 45 minute delays on a daily basis, any limit on the airport's ability to handle traffic would inevitably have an immediate and significant effect). Santa Barbara's airport, situated alongside a slough, would be wiped out. Oakland's airport would not be able to pick up San Francisco's excess traffic, because it, too, would be under water.

These maps are only estimates of one worst-case scenario. In this state, it is only a matter of time until someone latches onto these projections to justify some obnoxious building code or restriction on land use. (The San Francisco Chronicle article describing the maps makes no notice of the fact that the maps describe a possible outcome of all tsunami events at once.) Still, the information is potentially sobering. Especially if you left your car in long term parking at the Oakland Airport.

Saturday Sports Highlights

After missing a week due to illness, Michael was back with his "Ohio State" teammates on the basketball court. They are an energetic bunch with several very good players, so they annihilated their opponent. More importantly, they showed signs of beginning to understand their coaches' instructions about how to play their positions on defense. One of the stated goals of the league for this age group is to get the kids to begin to understand how to play the game properly. To their credit, the coaches would immediately send to the bench any player to wandered around the court instead of playing his assigned defensive position. Everybody got plenty of playing time and opportunities to contribute.

Michael did not score, but he played his position well, had some steals, and made some good passes. As usual, it seems, he is not the star, but a good teammate.

Eying the bucket (he passed the ball a moment later):


Working hard in traffic:


Protecting the ball while looking to pass: