Personal news, commentary and ramblings
Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
Recent listening: Crooked Fingers, Before and After Science, Slip Stitch and Pass
Recent viewing: Saturday Night Live, Ford Championship at Doral, Cash Cab, World’s Most Shocking Videos
Imperative To Do: Rebates, renew prescription, recycle
Cool link: The Simpsons come alive (link fixed)
Yesterday was a great day in the history of Pinewood Derby cars at the Ring household. I knew it was going to be a good day after only two races when both Thomas and Graham came in first with a big lead.
The track that we race on has four lanes with electronic timing. Each car gets to race on every lane in order to minimize the impact of slower/faster lanes. A computer schedules all the races and tabulates the time for each car. At the end of the round-robin tournament, each racer has four times that are added together. The two lowest total times are chosen as 1st and 2nd place for each of the four dens in our pack. These winners may all participate in the regional competition. The eight den winners then compete for the honor of best in the pack.
After the round-robin, Thomas and Graham were both first in their den and participated in the pack championship round. Thomas took first in 3 out of his 4 races, but Graham didn’t fare as well in the stiffer competition. Graham finished 4th or 5th in the pack and Thomas finished 1st!
I went to the post office in the morning to make sure that both cars were regulation weight (no more than five ounces), and so we had some last minute weight stuck to both cars. Both boys had two golf club weights on their cars because they are light enough to get you very close to regulation weight (more weight means more speed). In these pictures, they are the flat, rectangular weights that are light silver in color. On Graham’s they are mounted vertically (at his insistence) and on Thomas’ they are are flat against the body near the rear (by the fin):
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During one of the two races where Graham and Thomas raced against each other, all four weights came off their cars. Evidently, that had been happening to Graham’s car for awhile, so the race official just slapped all four onto Graham’s car where they remained until after the racing was all done. When I picked up Graham’s car after it was all over, I was perplexed to find the extra weights on the car. I couldn’t figure it out until I saw Thomas’ car without the weights and then it all became clear.
I weighed Graham’s car right before we left and it said 5.4 ounces, which might have been a big advantage to Graham, but probably was also a disadvantage to Thomas. Or was it a disadvantage? Physics experts, please weigh in!
There are more pictures here.
Tina’s blog entry is here.
Pinewood Derby is tomorrow and once again we’re down to the wire in finishing the cars. This year I had three months to get the job done, but that still was not enough. I am a lifelong procrastinator. Fortunately, we have Tina to help us with the finish, so the cars look really cool again this year. We’ll have to see how we do tomorrow.
Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
Recent listening: De-Loused in the Comatorium, 12 Songs, Dark Side of the Moon, The Beatles
Recent viewing: Sportscenter, Attack of the Show, My Name Is Earl
Imperative To Do: Rebates
Cool link: State of Oregon Surplus
Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
Recent listening: Avalon/Roxy Music, De-Loused in the Comatorium/The Mars Volta, Frances the Mute/The Mars Volta, 12 Songs/Neil Diamond, DrugMusic
Recent viewing: Sportscenter, Distraction, CSI: Miami, Olympics: men’s curling (medal round), closing ceremony
Imperative To Do: Pinewood Derby: Finish and assemble, rebates
Cool link: German Hissy Fit
Last fall while I was following the Hurricane Katrina disaster, I stumbled upon quite a few excellent resources for the liberal-minded thinker. One of these was Countdown With Keith Olbermann, a news and commentary show on MSNBC with a liberal slant. One of the features that attracts me is that the format is very Tivo-friendly.
As the name implies, the show counts down the top five stories of the day, providing a summary followed by analysis by Keith, staff reporters and guest commentators. Each story is covered in one of the show’s six segments over the hour that it is aired (twice a night):
If I’m not in the mood for the political stories, I go right to “Oddball” in the middle of the show and then proceed to the “Worst Person in the World” award which very often goes to Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly presumably has gotten sick of this and recently called for MSNBC to fire Keith and bring back Phil Donahue, who used to occupy the time slot on MSNBC. Although Keith does throw out an occasional reference to the sexual harrassment lawsuit against O’Reilly, mostly he merely quotes O’Reilly’s words in order to show how he is the worst person in the world for that day. I totally dig it.
Olbermann was a favorite of mine when ESPN started out and now I often find myself in agreement with his political sensibilities. I recommend the show highly for all my readers, right or left, conservative or liberal.
Here’s a few related links:
Update 2/28/06: Someone started a petition to replace O’Reilly with Donahue. Here’s what bloggers are saying:
As the week ends, I will note that I am done with the testing project that brought me to San Francisco last week and that I finally have my Tivo back after one of the hard drives crashed a couple of weeks ago. Not only does it have more space for saving shows, but a co-worker “hacked” it for me to enable network access, a web interface and the ability to pull content from it for burning to DVD.
Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles, 9-11 by Noam Chomsky
Recent listening: KBOO Bike Show, 12 Songs/Neil Diamond, Somewhere Far Beyond/Blind Guardian, Rid of Me/PJ Harvey, DrugMusic
Recent viewing: Six Feet Under: Season Three, Olympics: women’s curling, men’s hockey
Imperative To Do: Pinewood Derby: Sand and repaint, rebates, expense report
Cool link: Top Ten Most Welcome Movie Deaths
If you’re like me, you might have wondered if the recent brouhaha over the Dubai ports deal was thinly disguised xenophobia or politically motivated Democratic bloviating. I’m just as jaded as most liberals when it comes to the Bush administration’s rejection of criticism, but I’m also a realist when it comes to the other side criticizing the administration. That’s why I was pleased to find this from CNN’s Lou Dobbs:
“President Bush has put forth a challenge tonight that I simply can’t ignore. The president yesterday said he wanted those who are critical and questioning of this port deal to “step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company.”
Well, first of all, Mr. President, to equate any country to your principal partner in the coalition ignores that special relationship this country’s enjoyed with the United Kingdom for decades and decades. This also is not just a British company and an Arab company, as I think you well know.
Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation is a British privately owned digital marketing agency . Dubai Ports World is a UAE government controlled and owned company. You see the difference, of course.
And furthermore, the money used to fund the 9/11 attacks, most of it, in fact, was sent to the hijackers through the UAE banking system. In fact, two of the hijackers were originally from the UAE.
The UAE stonewalled U.S. efforts to track al Qaeda bank accounts after 9/11. In addition, the Emirates does not recognize Israel as a sovereign state. And the UAE was a transfer point for shipments of nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
And if those aren’t good enough reasons, I would just suggest I’m at a complete loss to offer what might be considered good reasons.”
You can see the full transcript here.
Did anybody else see the ice dancing fallathon the other night. I totally dug it when the Italians faced off at center ice and just stared each other down for 20 seconds. She was pissed! Unfortunately, the Canadian couple had to withdraw because her injury was too severe. You can read all about it in this search of Google News for “ice dancing”.
Bike odometer: 5772 miles
Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles
Recent listening: New Roman Times/Camper Van Beethoven, Still Feel Gone/Uncle Tupelo, Coverville, Ebert & Roeper, DrugMusic
Recent viewing: Olympics: men’s speed skating, ice dancing
Imperative To Do: Pinewood Derby: Sand and repaint, rebates
Cool link: Explanation of the Mac OS X “virus” reported in the news recently
Thomas got his hand slammed in a neighbor’s car door on Friday and had to go to the doctor. All is well but dealing with the neighbors has been difficult. Tina talks about it here.
Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles
Recent listening: Zoe’s Radio Show, DrugMusic, Blast Tyrant/Clutch
Recent viewing: Olympics: curling, ice dancing, men’s hockey
Recent playing: Halo (finished)
Imperative To Do: Pinewood Derby: Sand and repaint, rebates
It has been wicked cold her since I got back from San Francisco. Last night, as I attempted to hurry home in order to make last-second dinner plans, I discovered that I had not dressed warm enough for the biting cold wind. The cold weather had caused some of the tracks on the Max line to freeze over which resulted in delays and cancellation of the entire Red Line for the night. That cut the number of trains that I could catch in half. I discovered this after watching two Yellow Line trains go by as I waited in the whipping wind at Pioneer Courthouse Square. A TriMet guy was walking around telling people the scoop and informed me that the Blue Line was delayed because it was “hung up” for some reason.
When the next Yellow Line train (which follows the same route as the Red and Blue lines for a time) arrived again, I hopped on to warm up. I stayed on as long as I could before hopping off at the last stop before the Yellow line veers north from the route the Blue and Red Lines follow. I stood there shivering in the cold wind for another 20 minutes or so before a Blue Line train rolled up. My hope started to fade when I saw that the train was completely packed (although not as much as the picture on the right). There was another train waiting at the stop behind it, but the headlights on the Max trains are so bright you can’t tell the color of the placard on the front until it’s almost upon you. Not wishing to spend another second in the freezing cold, I apologized and pushed my way onto the train.
Two stops later it was still just as crowded when the driver announced that the train would be stopped for a bit to deal with a medical emergency. Since I was standing in the doorway, I got off to see what was going on. I found a girl in the back car had fainted and suspected it was because she was pregnant. Nevertheless, medical personnel were called and we had to wait until they arrived. I noticed that the train behind us was still behind us, which meant that it was another Blue Line train (i.e. it had not veered North). I asked the driver if I had enough time to run to the other train and she replied that I did.
So I raced down the block to find a Blue Line train that was not even half full. I sat in my favorite spot when I am without bike (middle of the car), and settled in to read my book. By now I knew I was horribly late to meet Tina at Gateway Transit Center but also completely unable to do anything about it. A few stops later, the driver came on to tell us there would be another delay. Evidently, a fight had broken out on the crowded train in front of us and they were waiting for the police to arrive. Everybody on my new train had a good laugh over that. The delay wasn’t long, though, and we made it to Gateway soon after that.
Current reading: Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles
McCartney Trivia: Paul’s mother Mary (yes, that Mother Mary) died of breast cancer when he was 14. 42 years later, his wife Linda died of the same thing.
Recent listening: Coverville, Zoe’s Radio Show, DrugMusic
Recent viewing: Olympics: Snowboardcross, Short Track Skating, Curling, Speed Skating
Recent playing: Halo
Imperative To Do: Pinewood Derby: Sand and repaint, rebates