Ah, Dartmouth (students)

Have a happy happy happy happy Hanukkah!

Our friend Cara had us over for a joint Hanukkah / Gingerbread house decorating party last Sunday. It was the 7th night of Hanukkah, which meant there were just enough candles for each of us to light one. She gave us a quick refresher on the Hanukkah story, and we made a valiant attempt at repeating the Hebrew prayer that went with the lighting of each candle. For dinner, Cara served Potato Latkes with sour cream and applesauce, which were crispy and delicious. They are a traditional Hanukkah food because they are made with lots of oil, which pays homage to the tiny oil lamp that burned for 8 days during the holiday.









After dinner, we all played dreidel for Hershey-kiss prizes. Tom and I lost pretty early, but there was a good matchup between Cara and her roommate Karen for the top prize. Tom even made his dreidel spin upside down like the pros do.

We also built and decorated Gingerbread houses in the Ebel family tradition. We baked them 2/3 scale this year so they wouldn't be quite as daunting. Tom and I decided to do a pirate theme on our house/boat this year. Tom made some very impressive sails complete with rigging and a "bowsprit" for the front of the boat. He also amputated the leg off of a gummi bear in order to make a swarthy peg-legged captain. For my contribution, I created a gingerbread island complete with candy-cane coconut palm and an overflowing treasure chest on a red "x-marks-the-spot". I also added some sea creatures including a couple circling sharks, a very angry octopus who is attacking our boat, and a little yellow duck. Yum!

A sad, sad day

Last Sunday was the fourth annual "Kate and Maggie go to the Broncos-Raiders" game day. I've posted about it before, but this year's game had a decidedly different flavor.

The day started off promisingly - Maggie and I both got there early and had a good time roaming around in the tailgate areas making some new friends with Broncos fans and Raiders fans alike. One of the more creative jabs at the Broncos that we saw was this make-shift portapottie that one group had set up in the back of the lot. I apologize if this photo offends anyone, but I thought it was pretty funny. In case you can't read it, the "bucket" is labelled "White Donkey Beer".

Morale was high on both sides of the parking lot, and everyone was having a good time. Improbably, we even ran into a Raiders fan we had taken a picture of two years ago, and he graciously posed for a sequel this year. He has the exact same haircut that he had back then, which makes me wonder if he really goes through life with "RAIDERS" carved into the back of his head or if that is just a special Broncos-game-day "do".

We headed into the stadium about an hour before the game and found our seats (about 30 rows up in one of the corners of the stadium). We happened to be surrounded by a big group of female Raiders fans, which was an interesting twist. They were just as knowledgeable and pumped-up as we were, so we had a good time bantering back and forth. Anyway, the day went downhill from there, as the Broncos turned in one of their worst performances of the season. We were really never in the game and ended up losing 34-20. This was the first year we've left the Coliseum without a victory and Maggie and I were both very very sad.

Notes of consolation will be accepted in lieu of flower arrangements.

My 15 minutes

Look! I'm famous:

The article about our telescope is linked above. I thought this quote was pretty good:

The science is known as helioseismology, and it is no small task. "It's like deducing the interior structure of a piano by listening to it fall down a flight of stairs," Scherrer said.

In case you couldn't tell by the eyebrows, I'm the guy in the bunny suit on top. Actually, this picture was taken about a year ago before we were done building our telescope, but now that we have delivered it to Goddard (why I've been in DC a couple times recently) the press releases are coming out. Kinda funny - in that picture there's no screw anywhere near where I'm putting the wrench, the photographer just wanted to make it look like I was doing something and apparently that was a photogenic place to act like I was screwing something in. And he spent some 20 minutes getting the angle just right so the flash would glint off the telescope's front window like that.

The Tech Museum of San Jose

A couple weekends ago, Tom, Erin, and I decided to check out the Tech Museum of San Jose. We had heard good things about it, but had never made the trip down.

Boy was it fun. Anyone who comes to visit us in the future will hereby be taken to the Tech for at least a day.

True to its name, the Tech had a bunch of cool technologies on display. One of the first exhibits we enjoyed was a huge 3 dimensional globe that had satellite images of the entire earth projected on it in very high definition. They were linked to a bunch of different databases, so you could bring up images of the world at night, or during hurricane Katrina, or heat based images of the wildfires or a whole bunch of other things and then manipulate them to your heart's content. It should be no surprise that Tom particularly loved this exhibit.

Throughout the museum there were little ticket scanners related to individual exhibits. Then, for example, if you stand in front of a thermal camera and scan your ticket, it will take your "picture" and post it online for you to retrieve at home. Can you tell which one of those hot people is Kate, Tom, and Erin?

I also got a 3-d scan of my head done at one point, which was pretty cool. Unfortunately you have to download some software onto your computer to view it from home, so I probably won't post it online. It is very surreal, though, to be able to spin your own head around at will.

Another exhibit worth mentioning was the hover-craft space vehicle that you could sit in and drive around. They had a cool "laser" attached to the top and you could try to hit various light-reactive targets on the ceiling within a one-minute time limit. Erin got 3, Kate almost got 1, and Tom got 5, which tied the all-time high that the ride operator had ever seen.

Still another exhibit worth mentioning was the earthquake simulator. They had the shock wave patterns from various large historical earthquakes (Loma Prieta, 1906 San Fran earthquake, etc) programmed into a shaker table that you could stand on and feel. Those quakes are definitely more violent than anything we've felt in our tenure here in earthquake country.

Still another exhibit worth mentioning... well, you get the point. I could go on all day. And believe it or not, regular adult admission to the museum was the bargain basement price of $8 (which included an IMAX dome movie)!

So if any of you guys were debating taking another trip out here to visit Tommenkate, add the Tech museum of San Jose to the "pros" column...

Thanks!

Tom and I hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for our friends again this year. We've decided we really love being at home (and not traveling) for Thanksgiving - it gives us a chance to relax, avoid the crowds, and make a fabulous meal just how we like it.

Our college friend Erin came from Boulder to spend the weekend with us, since she just moved out to Colorado and doesn't have any family nearby. She got in on Wednesday night just in time to go to bed, but we rousted her early Thursday morning to start cooking.

I won't belabor the cooking of the meal too much, since you all probably are quite familiar with the process, but briefly we made: 1 (brined) 15 lb Turkey, Homemade stuffing (without any dried fruits!), green beans with almonds and garlic, two types of cranberry sauce, about 35 cubic feet of mashed potatoes, and four cups of gravy. We had 7 additional friends come and join us for the festivities, and they contributed home-brewed beer, a sinful butter-filled sweet potato casserole, more stuffing, a vegetable stew cooked inside an enormous pumpkin, and pumpkin and pecan pies. Suffice it to say no one went home hungry.

After dinner we turned on some music and busted out the board games. First we played "Bandu" which is an Ebel family favorite. It is basically the opposite of Jenga, where you try to build the biggest structure you can with oddly shaped wooden blocks. Afterwards, we played Apples-to-Apples, which is becoming a very well known party game, so most of you have probably played it. Our deck is particularly fun, though, because we always put some sharpie markers on the table and encourage people to change their "cards" however they wish. It is always fun for Tom and I to look back at those cards and remember the inside jokes and parties and friends that helped create them.

All in all, it was a wonderful day. We are thankful for good friends in all parts of the country, and of course for our families too! We hope you all had Thanksgivings as happy as ours!

Scrapbooking, Digital Style

One of my projects over the last couple of weeks has been sorting through all our digital photos and making "real" scrapbooks out of them. I wanted to have a book that I could hold to look through, and hopefully something that we can show our families more easily and maybe even our kids someday. (Before you ask, no, this blog post does not have any announcements in that regard...) There are lots of websites that allow you to create your own books using their design templates and will send you a nicely assembled and bound book when you are done.

So, without further ado, here are links to the three scrapbooks I put together via Shutterfly. You shouldn't have to log in or anything to see them. Tom is putting together a 2007 version as well (very Banjo-heavy!), but we are hoping we'll still have some good pictures from the next month to add to it. We'll post the link to that when it is finished!

2004
2005
2006

A Day in the District

Today being my only day off while I'm out east for work, I spent it being a tourist in DC and had quite an enjoyable time, so I thought I'd share in the form of a picture-and-link-filled post. As you can see, it was a gloriously sunny fall day, perfect for a long walk along the mall amidst the fall colors. But before that I went to the National Gallery to look at paintings.

On the east side I went to the current Edward Hopper exhibit, which was really enjoyable. I, like most Americans, was familiar with his "Nighthawks" piece and some others of New York everyday scenes, but I didn't know as much about his paintings done during his time spent on Cape Cod and coastal Maine. These were neat to see - there was even one piece depicting Vermont's White River, East Branch that showed a section I could swear we canoed a time or two while at Dartmouth. The way that Hopper portrays the ambiguity of his scenes and subjects is perhaps what is most intriguing. As in Nighthawks, and others, there are any number of ways to imagine what the people in his paintings are thinking, feeling, wondering, or anticipating. As the museum brochure states more eloquently than I can, "From his distillations emerge poignant and enigmatic pictures filled with audible silences and pregnant pauses: Hopper's art speaks volumes without uttering a word." Highly recommended. Over in the West Gallery there was an exhibit on J.W.M Turner, who seemed to enjoy painting large British warships of the early 1800s, but that one didn't inspire me quite as much. Also, there were lots of old paintings, including some neat ones by that guy over there on the right.

In keeping with the dog-themed birthday cards, I thought I'd look for dog-themed paintings. Here's the three that I found, sorry if they are blurry, I was avoiding use of the flash:

Fancy Woman with Pug - apparently they (pugs) were en vogue back then too.

Hunting Guy with Dead Bird and Ferocious Dog - How safe is your left hand, mister?

Dog in a Punt (that's the actual name of the painting) - The look on that face says "I know I'm probably not supposed to, but I'm about to jump in and you can't stop me." Kinda looks like a labradoodle, no?

After the National Gallery I found the Capitol City Brewing Company for lunch, then continued to wander down the mall to the Lincoln, Korean War, FDR, and Jefferson Memorials. I hadn't seen the FDR memorial before, and was struck by the particular current relevance of some of the quotes inscribed into this "walk-through" monument of stone, waterfalls, and sculpture.

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

"We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization."

(I had to include this one because of the dog)

If you are curious, all of the quotes from the FDR memorial can be found here.

At the Jefferson Memorial, there are four texts inside the dome, and I thought this one was worth reading a second time:

I am certainly not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

All in all, a good time being a DC tourist, and I got to visit with Mei-Yen (of the sidebar fame from her New Zealand trip) and some of her friends for a pot-luck dinner! Two more days and then home for Thanksgiving.

28 Years!

Well, I celebrated my birthday this year by flying out to Washington (DC), to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, for the delivery of the solar telescope I've been working on for the past 3 years, HMI. Getting our hardware to Goddard was a big milestone and it's been exciting and busy getting it integrated with the spacecraft in the giant NASA cleanrooms, but before that I had a nice pre-birthday celebration with some friends at home, and I got some very nice birthday cards! I particularly liked the dog-themed ones. Here's a couple I thought I'd share.

This is the envelope sent from my grandparents, covered with really neat old stamps from my grandpa's stamp collection! There are some classic ones of places like Yosemite, Zion, the Everglades, and Minnesota, Alaska, and Oregon statehood stamps. Very cool.


Next up is a quality "musical" card from my Aunt and Uncle, which was one of the popular dog-themed ones this year. Watch the video to see how cool it was. Be sure you have the sound on.

Anyways, I hope to be home just in time to celebrate Thanksgiving with some local friends as well as Erin, who's coming to visit us for Turkey-Day this year! Can't wait!

Fraaaaaaank

Our buddy Frank drove down to the bay area from Seattle last weekend. He came with a couple of his friends in order to cheer the UW Husky football team on against Stanford.

Frank arrived on Friday night and we met him (along with two other Dartmouth '02s) in Palo Alto for dinner and Friday night festivities. We ate at Nola's, a Cajun restaurant that had highly recommended Mojitos. The five of us tried a variety of traditional (and untraditional) Cajun fare including jumbalaya, etoufee, and a teriyaki skirt steak with mashed potatoes. Each dish was spectacular, we all left full and extremely happy. Frank was especially happy after polishing off a "Moron Bowl" beverage with his dinner - a drink that came with the caveat that the purchaser "may only order one and must have a ride home".

After dinner, the five of us went to Blue Chalk - a bar (and apparantly the local Palo Alto meat market) that has a bunch of pool tables and a mini shuffleboard table. We managed to score one of the pool tables upstairs and spent a couple hours cueing it up and then an hour or so sweatily dancing with the crowd downstairs.

We woke up late the next morning and had a leisurely breakfast. Then we decided to head on over to Stanford a couple hours before the game in order to see if there were any other sporting events occurring on campus. We found a field hockey game going on first - none of us really










knew much about the rules, but it was a fun, fast-paced game and we got to see a couple of good goals. Next we wandered over to the Stanford outdoor pool to take in a little men's water polo. Turns out Frank had played water polo at some point in his past (who knew?) so he filled us in on what was going on. Tom and I were really surprised at how violent a game Water Polo is - the players always seem to be kicking, pulling or whacking each other to the verge of drowning.

Anyway, after a couple hours wandering around, we headed to the Stanford Stadium for the football game. Neither Tom nor I really follows the college football scene, but Frank informs us that UW is an up-and-coming squad with a lot of young talent. They had only won two games coming into the game vs. Stanford (who knocked of #1 USC earlier this season), but Frank and his friends were all optimistic anyway. Frank brought Tom and I purple UW tee-shirts and a pair of tickets in exchange for a night on our pull-out couch and our enthusiastic cheers (or Woofs) at the game. The UW fans there were a force! They filled up an entire section (top to bottom) of the stadium and were every bit as loud as the Stanford fans the entire game. The Husky football team came through, too. Lead by a 255-yard rushing performance by Louie Rankin, the Huskies won 27-9. After the game, Frank and his friends started the long drive back to Seattle - glad that the football team could provide a happy ending to their pilgrimage.

Pumpkin Carving Party

I realize it's a little late, but we went to a pumpkin carving party hosted by our friends Rachel and Adam up in Daly City (land of the eternal fog) just before Halloween, and they just posted some pictures from the festivities that I thought I'd share. Below is the group with most all of the pumpkins (some people had left) and below that our creations - can you tell who they are?

Here's a link to Rachel's whole album of pumpkin carving party photos. If you're resourceful, you might find some pictures of a San Francisco scavenger hunt that Tom, Kate, and Dustin participated in earlier this year around there somewhere...

What did you all carve your pumpkins into this year?

Left Brain/Right Brain

Wow, we have been quite delinquent lately with the blogging, mostly due to busyness at work. I'm getting ready to finally deliver our telescope to NASA (I get to fly out on my birthday, woo hoo) and Kate has been doing field work in Salinas. But in between all of this activity we've had a fun visit with Frank, who came down from Seattle for the Washington-Stanford football game. Maybe you'll get a blog about that later...

Also, I recently got this via email from my sister, by way of a family friend. Click on the image for the real test.


Which way do you see the dancer/nudist rotating? Clockwise or counterclockwise? According to the website that published this:

If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

I definitely see her spinning clockwise by default, but if I block everything from the ankles up, I can make her feet rotate the other way, and then see the whole picture that way when I scroll back up. Although I'm confused by the results, as I would say I'm a pretty left-brained person. But clockwise pretty consistently wins out for me. How about you? Here's a list of general left/right brained characteristics, there's a longer one at the link above.

Left Brained:

• Logical
• Sequential
• Rational
• Analytical
• Objective
• Looks at parts

Right Brained:

• Random
• Intuitive
• Holistic
• Synthesizing
• Subjective
• Looks at wholes

Banjo Nichols, CGC, TDI

Banjo officially has the most graduate degrees in the family!

Over the past few months, I've been thinking that Banjo would make a really nice therapy dog. He's amazingly mellow (especially for a two-year-old male), likes to be petted by anyone, and doesn't have an aggressive bone in his body. I think volunteering at a hospice or assisted-living home would be great fun for both of us - good for him to meet new people and see the world, and fun for me to interact with a cross-section of society (elderly people) I don't get to talk to very often.

So today I took the little fellow to a dog show in Pleasanton, where a Mastiff breeder was administering CGC (Canine Good Citizen) and TDI (Therapy Dog International) tests in between her stints in the show ring. I wasn't entirely sure Banjo would pass, since there are actually entire 6-week classes designed to help dogs pass the CGC test, which Banjo hasn't taken. But I had read up on the "elements" which included items like: dog must not startle when medical equipment is used nearby, dog must successfully "leave" a food or treat on the ground, dog must stay, sit, lay, and come, dog must tolerate "rough petting", dog must not react to other dogs, etc. and it sounded like they were all items he could handle. And he did! He kept his cool, even when the judge accidentally whacked him in the face with a pill bottle that she was trying to throw in front of him.

We celebrated by sharing a teriyaki chicken sandwich and snickering at all the pooches who were dolled-up for the dog show. Pictured below are some Salukis and a whole lineup of Bulldogs. They didn't have a "best mutt" category, so Banjo will just have to be happy with his CGC.

Handy Tommenkate

So Tom and I fixed our toilet the other day. It had a slow (loud) leak that drove me up a wall. The landlady had a plumber come out and he tinkered with it a while, eventually replacing the flapper valve, which wasn't leaking at all. Anyway, instead of calling him out again we decided to tackle it ourselves. I took a photo of the part that was leaking to our friendly neighborhood OSH, and seven dollars later had a "universal toilet tank fill valve". Tom and I were a little apprehensive but figured it would be a good skill to learn to prepare ourselves for the rigors of home ownership.

Anyway, it turned out to be easy! Turn off the water, flush, unscrew one hose, screw in a new hose, turn on the water, flush! We both felt quite proud of ourselves and were able to justify extra scoops in the ice-cream sundae that afternoon. What a glamorous life we lead!

"AccuScore" needs some work

I thought this combination of predictions on the ESPN baseball playoffs webpage was kind of amusing:


It looks to me like "AccuScore" needs a little work if it's going to be more in line with the "experts" or the "public." A couple of caveats:

• Voting in that poll probably continued after the Rockies won the first, second, and then third games, so you'd have to be a fool not to vote for the Rockies now.
• It is possible that AccuScore is predicting Arizona to win game 4, but it doesn't really say that anywhere. Also, Colorado is listed as the visiting team, so I assume they mean overall for the series, because Game 4 is in Denver.
• I would assume that all of the "expert" picks were made before the games started, unlike the sportsnation poll.
  

Anyways, it made me laugh. All those fancy graphics and animations only to be made to look pretty dumb when put next to the overwhelming picks of the Rockies to win.

Playoff Predictions - Round 2

Well, I was right on a couple accounts and definitely wrong on a couple of accounts in my division series predictions. I (happily) missed the boat on the Yankees and ARod, although Jeter (0 BB, 3 H, 3 GIDP) and Wang (5.2 IP in 2 starts, 14 H, 3 HR, 19.06 ERA) deserve 10 times whatever criticisms ARod will get from the media.

Boston I got dead on with a sweep over the Angels, but even Beckett's biggest fans wouldn't have expected as historically great of a performance as he gave in Game 1. Beckett retired 19 straight batters in his 4-hit complete game shutout. Also, no walks, no extra-base hits, and 83/108 pitches were strikes. That is utter domination, perhaps not seen since the likes of Don Larsen.

Over in the NL I was way off base on the DBacks, but still don't really see how they keep winning. Drew, Young, and of course Webb all played exceptionally well - Drew and Young seem to be particularly valuable on defense. In this series, I think Ted Lilly and Rich Hill just happened to pitch poorly, while Doug Davis and Livan Hernandez surprised by pitching pretty well - along with the Arizona bullpen. The Cubs' heavy hitters also deserve some blame, with Soriano, Lee, and A-Ram going a combined 6 for 39 (all singles) and 3 walks.

The Rockies walked all over the Phillies in their sweep, continuing their amazing hot streak. I'm not sure if this was more of a case of Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, and Chase Utley all slumping at the same time for Philly, or if the Rockies pitching is actually decent. Either way, nobody could have predicted the contributions made by Kaz Matsui or Yorvit Torrealba.

So I'm 2 for 4 in series predictions. Let's see what's in store for round two:

Cleveland vs. Boston
With the way the Sox are clicking now, it's hard to pick against them. Beckett is in top form, Schilling is amped up on post-season adrenaline, and Manny and Papi are healthy and hitting. I think Paul Byrd doesn't get as lucky this time around, but the CC/Beckett and Fausto/Schilling matchups could be great pitching duels. This one is going at least 6 games, but I'll say the Red Sox take it, winning one of the first 2 and then games 3 and 4 easily. Sox prevail, 4-2, but I'll be rooting for the Indians (and the Fausto-Ubaldo matchup) again.


Colorado vs. Arizona
Ummm... I guess I shouldn't dismiss the DBacks again, but it's hard not to. Brandon Webb is the best pitcher in the NL and was on fire in his Game 1 start. He should be able to beat the Rocks twice, but I think Colorado easily takes the games at home against Livan Hernandez and Micah Owings. My guess is that Holliday, Helton, and Hawpe pick things up a little more in this series and put up some crooked numbers on the scoreboard more often. Rockies in 6, or 4-0 against pitchers not named Webb.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

Since this post is already outdated, I'll be brief. the 7th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival (which you can read about here) was a great weekend of fantastic weather, great (mostly) bluegrass music, lots of people, and amazingly enough it is all free. Saturday we met up with lots of friends over the course of the day and Sunday I went up by myself. Can't wait for next year! Below are some pictures from some of the acts that we saw. If you're curious to see the whole weekend's impressive schedule, there is a pdf here.

Bela Fleck and Keller Williams

The Mother Hips

Red Wine, a string group from Genoa (yes, Italy) who was my surprise favorite act. There are two videos of them performing at the bottom of the post. Really good and excited to be at HSB.

The Red Wine banjo player overwhelmed by demand for their CD after their performance

Hot Buttered Rum, a San Francisco original

As close as I bothered to get for David Grisman/Curly Seckler

Railroad Earth

Del McCoury Band, putting on a fantastic request-filled set to close the weekend

Kate with friends Bailey and Cara

Red Wine playing an acoustic number

And so you will believe me that they are from Italy, Red Wine singing an Italian bluegrass song. Bravo!

Playoff Predictions - Round 1

It's October and playoff baseball is here! Somehow regardless of how disinterested in the MLB season I may have become after 162 games, I always get excited for the playoffs, and I'm very seldom disappointed. I have some great memories of watching Atlanta's crazy NLCS win over the Pirates in 1992, Joe Carter's HR to beat the Phillies in 1993, the Padres great run in 1998, Arizona overcoming BY Kim's implosion to beat the Yankees in Steve's dorm room in 2001, the A's collapse in 2003, and of course the Aaron Boone, Papi, and the bloody sock in 2003 and 2004. Heck, I even vaguely remember crying foul at the 1987 WS when the home team won each game, but the Twins prevailed over my Cardinals in no small part due to the advantage they had being familiar with how to field fly balls in the Metrodome (I wonder if they turned on the air conditioning system for the home half back then, too...).

So without further ado, and definitely without anywhere near as much thought or analysis as Sky puts into his blog, I present my 2007 MLB playoff predictions:

Yankees vs. Indians
Man, I really like the Indians, and will be rooting heartily for them, but I think I have to pick the Stankees in this one. I see ARod having a huge postseason and finally putting to rest all those stories about how he can't handle the playoff pressure. Although, with CC and Fausto on their game, that could be an easy 3 wins for the Indians. I'm concerned about how their offense really struggled the last couple weeks, too. I think the Yankees score too many runs, most of which come after the 5th inning, and take this one 3-1.

Angels vs. Red Sox
I am definitely not as much of a Red Sox fan as I used to be, but I still think they are the best team in the playoffs. They shouldn't have too much trouble dispatching the Angels. Vlad is relegated to DHing, and there are major questions about the Angels pitchers not named Lackey, with Escobar's shoulder issues and Weaver and Santana's general inconsistency. Boston has a huge power advantage, and it'll be interesting to see if playing in Fenway stifles the Angels running game much outside plain SBs. I'll say Boston sweeps, 3-0.

Rockies vs. Phillies
I'm not going out on a limb at all by saying a lot of runs will be scored in this series. Good hitting + bad pitching + 2 of the most hitter-friendly parks out there = an exciting offensive series. I think this one could go either way and it would only be fitting, given the drama that got both of these teams into the playoffs, for it to go 5 games. Rockies take it in 5, with Jamie Moyer getting lit up like a neon Coors sign in game 5.

Diamondacks vs. Cubs
Does Bartman still have season tickets? No? Ok, then it should be safe to pick the Cubbies here. Aside from when Brandon Webb is pitching for the Snakes, I think Chicago is clearly the better team. Webb vs. Zambrano will be a good matchup to watch, and I'll give the first game to the D-Backs and Webb, but after that the Cubs take 3 straight. I mean, Doug Davis, Livan Hernandez, and Micah Owings? Sheesh, that doesn't sound like a winning playoff rotation. Arizona's lineup is equally unimpressive - after looking into this I don't know how they ended up ahead of the Rockies and Padres this season. Cubs, 3-1.

The Pete Rose Mafia

The other night Kate and I were celebrating our 1st anniversary with a dinner outside (but under the heat lamps, yes, we are California wimps) in downtown Mountain View. Afterwards, while walking down the main street in town back to our car, we were approached by a man who sported a vaguely homeless person-like large grey beard, but was clearly more clean shaven and polished than your average hobo, and this is Mountain View we're talking about. So, as this guy walks up to us I'm expecting a cash solicitation but instead the conversation went something like this:

Man: "Hey, do you think Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame?"

Tom: "Well, I guess I'd probably have to say no..."

Man, to Kate: "And how about you?"

Kate: "Uhhh... Sure!"

Man, excited: "Good! He definitely should be sent to the Hall! He has SIXTEEN major league records! He IS baseball history and needs to be in the Hall of Fame! Everyone agrees..."

Man goes on about Pete Rose and his mission to get him into Cooperstown, and explains there is a website where people can vote for one of three options, apparently of what "people" should do on this subject:

1. People should withhold all Rose-related memorabilia from the Hall of Fame until he is inducted
2. No change, i.e. status-quo on his purgatorial state (I guess)
3. Ban Pete forever from the Hall of Fame

In addition to voting he also implored us to not visit Cooperstown on the 14th of every month (ok, no problem) and withhold our own memorabilia from the Hall of Fame until he is enshrined (also shouldn't be an issue). So after a few minutes of mostly one-sided but entertaining conversation about Pete Rose's merits as a fixture of baseball history, we asked what the website was. He gave us the following, making sure to write "Pete Rose" on the card so we wouldn't forget what we were talking about:

What a great business card. We never would have guessed our local Pete Rose advocate was also an author, editor, WebMaster, and, of course singer. Don't forget about his being a world traveler from California. I guess this would qualify as another "only in California" moment.

So if you are curious, the website listed there has plenty of gems in addition to the Pete Rose thing. Ideas for humanity indeed. One thing that particularly cracked me up was that in the span of a 900 word "article" there are references to Pete Rose as

• Charlie Hustle
• Mr. Hits
• Mr. Games Played
• Mr. At Bats
• Mr. Hall of Fame
• Mr. Hustle (twice)
  
• Mr. Switch Hitter
• Mr. Consecutive
• Mr. Winning Games Played
• Mr. Walks (?)
  
• Mr. Five Positions
• Mr. Player of the 70s

Notably absent are any references to Mr. Rose as

• Mr. $10,000 per Game
  
• Mr. Umpire Shove
  
• Mr. Tax Evasion
• Mr. Permanent Ineligibility
  
• Mr. 15 Year Lie
• Mr. Wrestlemania XIV

So, what do you think? Pete Rose, in or out?

Things I don't expect to encounter while hiking

Pretty high up there on the list would have to be a man with a sword attacking another man with a baseball bat.

"Three men set off Sunday to meet a friend along the trail when an argument escalated and one of the hikers started swinging a baseball bat and another pulled out a large sword, investigators said.

"Evidently, he always goes hiking with a sword," [LA Sheriff's Detective] Barker said Monday."

And I thought the bachelor party we saw in Big Sur hiking with the blow-up doll was bizzare...

Free Museum Day

Late notice, but tomorrow is national "museum day" where a bunch of museums around the country offer free admission. Not sure if Tom and I will make it out to one as we're helping a friend move during the day, but it's definitely a good excuse to go out and get some culture!

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/articles/about.php

Happy Office Day

Woo Hoo! Season 4 of the Office starts tonight. We are excited. I rarely advocate the watching of television above and beyond whatever amount one may already watch, but if you haven't yet seen the Office you most definitely should check it out. Perhaps in celebration of tonight's new episode, there is (finally) a humorous new entry in Dwight's blog.

A Night at the Shark Tank

Kate was lucky enough to score free tickets to the first home pre-season San Jose Sharks game from work, so we spent a fun Friday exploring downtown San Jose which included Kate playing a pawn-shop concertina, some happy-hour mojitos (aren't we hip?), and sampling Dustin's favorite sushi restaurant in SJ.

After that we headed over to the HP Pavilion arena with the throngs of anxious Sharks fans, ready to get the hockey season underway. The Sharks were playing our rivals to the south, the Anaheim Ducks (they were once the Mighty Ducks, but alas no more - I guess some 15 years after the Disney movie people are wondering why ducks would be mighty, or indigenous to Anaheim). Friday's game featured a lot of power plays for the Sharks, which was fun because our favorite part of a Sharks game precedes each power play for the home team. Fortunately for you, Kate captured me getting in on the action on film.

In the end the Sharks won 3-1, while outshooting the Ducks by a wide margin. Both goalies made some great saves, and there was a lot of offense (probably due to the 23 penalties) and near-misses. One cool thing about the arena is the new HD video monitors that are huge and literally as clear as watching the actual game itself from the stands (pictures of its construction this summer are here). Pretty impressive, and it really improved watching replays, especially for a sport like hockey where it's hard to follow the puck sometimes. Finally, I always get cracked up by the local advertisers - look at center ice. The Sharks' primary sponsors are Seagate, SanDisk, Barracuda Networks, and Best Buy. Ahhhhhh, Silicon Valley.

Tarheel shenanigans

I was very delighted to read this story about Danny Ferry, former Duke basketball goon and current GM of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who was surprised by a great Carolina-themed practical joke while showing off his brand-new office, part of the Cavs' fancy new practice facility.


The story is also reported on a RDU-area radio station's blog, where I particularly liked this quote:

"Obviously, the culprit is thought to be someone with Carolina ties…but it also could have been an individual that took an elbow to the chops during Ferry’s last few years in the league. So, that makes about a half of the NBA a suspect. Revenge is expected to be swift and brutal and from where the humerus meets the ulna."

Like a true petulant Dookie, Ferry responded with "I have no sense of humor when it comes to that." What a grouch.

Way to go, Carolina pranksters!