Caroline's 10th Grade Photo

The last of the trio of school pictures.  Caroline in the 10th grade at Calvary Baptist Day School.  As you can tell, this dad is in big trouble.  Fortunately, the boys are - for some strange reason - already scared of me.

WIRN: 12/14/06

What I'm Reading Now, as of December 14, 2006...

Fantasyland by Sam Walker.  A reporter from the Wall Street Journal joins an "expert" fantasy baseball league for the 2004 season, and chronicles it here in the same excruciating detail of the worst sort of roto geek who buttonholes you to talk about his own team.  It's actually a decently written book, with many interesting looks at the hobby, only veering off into bore-dom once the author actually drafts his team.

Take a Picture... It'll Last Longer?

Random thought of the night... 

Remember that silly phrase, perhaps made most famous by the now infamous Pee Wee Herman, of "Take a picture; it'll last longer" (do you think Pee Wee included the semi-colon?)?  Is that necessarily true?

The human brain can do amazing things, one of which i'm sure is store & recall life-scenes for a long, long time.  Perhaps long after a photograph degrades, what with its chemicals and cheap paper stock and all.  Maybe an old-timer could tell us. 

I thought of this while watching an old U2 concert on VH1 Classic.  These dudes (media?) in the front row were snapping away with Bono in sneezing range.  Missing the real reality to capture a two-dimensional archive.  I could have sworn i noticed a smirk on Bono's face; maybe he was thinking the same dumb thoughts as me. 

And could we not say the same about the artificial reality of the internet, with faux friends in ourspace, faux conversations on message boards, not to mention the faux intimacy that so many seek in this medium.  How much of real life are we all missing, i ask of the ether?

Emily's 3rd Grade Photo

Finally got Emily's school photo from 3rd grade scanned in...

What I'm Reading Now (WIRN)

I used to keep up with a separate webpage devoted to books & reading - my favorites, and what i'm reading now.  I've got enough separate things to keep up with, so i'll fold that into this particular AOL journal. 

What I'm Reading Now (hereafter WIRN) will cover books that i'm in the middle of, or just recently finished.

The Accidental by Ali Smith - quite the post-modern novel, a loathsome appellation to be sure, although one that works for the fan of the literary, the inventive, the novel-as-gimmick.  A bit freaky, and too much foul language, but every page makes you think.

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan - remember in The Grapes in Wrath, those sad-sacks that fled the midwest dust bowl for the promised land of California?  Well, this is the story of those that were too stubborn or too poor or too dullard to flee, gutting it out in western Oklahoma or the Texas panhandle.  This is the story of my ancestors, more or less.  And i say that proudly.

 

Jackson Starts His Hoops Career

Jackson started playing basketball recently, in the Upward program at Calvary.  His Tigers had their first game on Saturday.  Upward is a very structured program, with mandated roughly-equal playing time.  At this age, they don't keep score and have a constant clock.  To prevent the hoop equivalent of beehive soccer, each kid on the floor gets a colored wristband, matching the color of one of the 5 kids on the other team.  That's how they know who to guard. 

One of my friends at work has a son on the team, too.  And my boss had a daughter who cheers for us (well, they cheer for all the teams at once).

In his first game, Jackson was awarded what we considered the top award:  "Most Christ-like".  (at the risk of being un-Christ-like by thinking of it as the top award)  He is such a good-hearted kid.

Aqua-Girl

Caroline has joined the swim team at her high school.  They compete against other private HSs around the area.  So far, she has swum the 50m freestyle, the 100m freestyle, and a freestyle relay.  She's pretty fast in the sprint, and competes well in the 100.

Minor Surgery for David

I bet most readers of this journal already know this, but David recently had some minor surgery done.  He had the tear duct in his left eye unblocked.  Fortunately, it was of the simplest solution - a quick clearing out of a small membrane, no cutting or tubes or complicated procedures.  Doctor was over & done within a half-hour, catching Julie and me off-guard grabbing a quick (but not quick enough) breakfast in the hospital cafeteria.

We left the hospital by noon, and by the time i got home from work, David was running around like normal.  The only tough part for his mom & dad was watching him get wheeled off without us by his side.

We thank everyone for their prayers and concerns.

Marvin vs. Terrell

In my brother's blog, he wrote a recent post about the relative performance of Marvin Harrison and Terrell Owens, two superstar wide receivers in the NFL.  This is my arena, my wheelhouse, so i decided to look deeper into the numbers. 

The crux of his argument was that the two WRs have played for different types of offenses.  But are those differences more than nominal?  He claimed that Owens' teams threw more to their RBs and TEs, a claim easily checked, but only by dorks like me.  In their 10+ seasons, here's what i found:

Marvin's teams averaged only 2% more passing attempts, generating 5% more pass completions and 7% more passing yards.  And it was true that the RBs/TEs were less involved on Harrison's teams, but only to the tune of 5% less.  If that was close to the margin of difference between the two players' statistics, I'd say The Calvinator has a point.  Instead, Harrison has logged a whopping 27% more receptions than TO, and 16% more receiving yards.

So, not even counting the possibility that Marvin's team threw to their WRs more because of Marvin, and certainly not even counting the turmoil that seems to follow TO, this is a no-brainer.  Marvin has had the better career.