June 1st is my wife’s birthday.
It is also the Official First Day of Hurricane Season. I merely note that as a point of interest and imply no correlation.
With our hectic schedule, it is often hard to find the time to celebrate special occasions, and yesterday was no exception.
Because of the birthday, I thought it would be nice if I cooked for my bride. I tried to recall what makes for a traditional Chinese meal for such an occasion. I was able to get the chicken part correct, as well as the greens, (there were green colored things in the salad); but, I believe I missed the noodles.
Thank goodness they were just pulling the chickens out of the oven when I got to Super Target and the potato salad and other side dishes were just made as well. You now know my secret to cooking, the Deli.
Yesterday was also the 5th game in the Mavericks and Suns NBA series. I understand that the Mav’s won. I understand this because I read it on the web this morning. I read it on the web this morning, because yesterday was my wife’s birthday. It was also the 1st ever-Prime Time coverage of the Scripps Spelling Bee. ABC covered it…not making this up.
As it turns out my wife, the engineer actually competed in Spelling Bees in her younger years. She was beyond thrilled that it was being covered LIVE on network television. I did not share this thought, but did I mention it was her birthday?
Well, to say the tension was intense would be understating the obvious. Thirteen ‘engineers to be’ took the stage and it was ON.
Game faces, a tug of the jersey and little rituals abounded….one by one they asked questions of the judges.
“What is the origin of the word?”
“Are there any other phrasings of the word?”
You could just imagine sitting beside these ‘Geeks’ years later in a Project meeting: “What is the reason for this project?”
“Have we asked the managers if they really want this project?”
Well, you get the drift.
There was controversy... it was spellbinding. At one point, a young lady was ‘booted’ from the competition for incorrectly spelling some word I had never heard of.
Apparently, they were using the ‘Refs’ from the Super Bowl to judge this competition. Unlike the Super Bowl, (he was never in the end zone and Jackson did get a TD!); they actually reversed themselves and brought the disgraced contestant back into the ‘bee’.
Well, in the end, someone won and another contestant came in second. I think it went into extra innings.
There are few suggestions I do have:
Slow Motion! We want to see the utter look of defeat and fear when a word is spelt wrong and these kids are forced to walk over to their parents who are seated on the same stage.
Cheerleaders! “A…B…C…D”...or something like that…
Friday, June 02, 2006
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Moving a Desk can cause this???
So I tore my hamstring, which is why Steve Martin making sappy movies seems to make sense.
When I was in my 20’s and 30’s, Steve Martin was just out there. He was the bright, innovative guy in a white leisure suit, playing his banjo, and generally cracking the ‘mold’ on stand up comics. He was as bold and fresh as “Saturday Night Live” on NBC. Lest we forget “King Tut” as so aptly performed on the afore mentioned show.
Back then if I tore or sprained anything, use an ace bandage and all was good. Healing was quick, just like Steve Martin’s wit.
I skied off a cliff on my 21st birthday. It seemed in my ‘drunken and smoke induced’ mind that there clearly was a shortcut ahead and if I just took it, I could pass my friends to the bottom. Getting to the bottom first is pretty darn important at that age; only later, would I learn the true meaning of getting to the bottom.
Night skiing is tricky, well it shouldn’t be; but, for me, it was. Apparently, if there are no lights on certain parts of the slopes, one might reconsider skiing in that direction. I opted to ignore this sage advice and launched myself off an abrupt ‘cliff looking thing’.
You know the part where folks say that your life passes before your eyes during moments of certain death?
Well, it is true.
I’ll give you at 21, there is not a ton of interesting stuff to review; but, it did seem as if I was suspended in the air for 15 minutes, as opposed to the 10 seconds, it took to come crashing to the ground. I recall laughing my head off when I finally came to rest.
When I hit the ground, I blew out of my skis and did a far amount of rolling and tumbling. The laughter was simply ‘relief that I wasn’t dead’, the broken leg would work itself out.
After the kind folks at the University of Washington fitted me with a Jones cast (a cast that is stuffed full of huge cotton balls, mostly to compensate for the huge amount of swelling of the leg), life pretty well got back to normal…a bit inconvenient, but manageable.
This Hamstring thing is way worse… a bit like Steve Martin’s new movies...“The Jerk”, “The Man with Two Brains”, and “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” to name just a few can be considered ‘classics’. Now it’s “The Parent Trap”, “Cheaper by the Dozen 1” and 2…no need to go on.
This getting “old” is sometimes painful, physically and culturally, but it is inevitable, I guess.
Steve is making money and certainly who am I to question what works for him.
I would march right down to the local movie place and share my thoughts; but, clearly I don’t heal as well these days.
When I was in my 20’s and 30’s, Steve Martin was just out there. He was the bright, innovative guy in a white leisure suit, playing his banjo, and generally cracking the ‘mold’ on stand up comics. He was as bold and fresh as “Saturday Night Live” on NBC. Lest we forget “King Tut” as so aptly performed on the afore mentioned show.
Back then if I tore or sprained anything, use an ace bandage and all was good. Healing was quick, just like Steve Martin’s wit.
I skied off a cliff on my 21st birthday. It seemed in my ‘drunken and smoke induced’ mind that there clearly was a shortcut ahead and if I just took it, I could pass my friends to the bottom. Getting to the bottom first is pretty darn important at that age; only later, would I learn the true meaning of getting to the bottom.
Night skiing is tricky, well it shouldn’t be; but, for me, it was. Apparently, if there are no lights on certain parts of the slopes, one might reconsider skiing in that direction. I opted to ignore this sage advice and launched myself off an abrupt ‘cliff looking thing’.
You know the part where folks say that your life passes before your eyes during moments of certain death?
Well, it is true.
I’ll give you at 21, there is not a ton of interesting stuff to review; but, it did seem as if I was suspended in the air for 15 minutes, as opposed to the 10 seconds, it took to come crashing to the ground. I recall laughing my head off when I finally came to rest.
When I hit the ground, I blew out of my skis and did a far amount of rolling and tumbling. The laughter was simply ‘relief that I wasn’t dead’, the broken leg would work itself out.
After the kind folks at the University of Washington fitted me with a Jones cast (a cast that is stuffed full of huge cotton balls, mostly to compensate for the huge amount of swelling of the leg), life pretty well got back to normal…a bit inconvenient, but manageable.
This Hamstring thing is way worse… a bit like Steve Martin’s new movies...“The Jerk”, “The Man with Two Brains”, and “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” to name just a few can be considered ‘classics’. Now it’s “The Parent Trap”, “Cheaper by the Dozen 1” and 2…no need to go on.
This getting “old” is sometimes painful, physically and culturally, but it is inevitable, I guess.
Steve is making money and certainly who am I to question what works for him.
I would march right down to the local movie place and share my thoughts; but, clearly I don’t heal as well these days.