The last weekend of the season should be a warm funfest basking in mid 50s blue sunny gloriously languid days of skiing. That wasn't how it worked out last year in Vail when we had ice storms and freezing winds on the last day of the season and it's not how it seems to be unfolding here in Tahoe.

Today there was some sunshine, and when the sun graced us with its presence, it was quite lovely, but more often than not, good ole sole would hide behind fast moving ominous black clouds. Normally this wouldn't be such a problem. The snow was perfect, which is was unexpected this time of year, but since I was determined to have a serious spring day, I wore only one of my old Samoan shirts on my torso and was colder than a popsicle in the deep freeze.

In the afternoon, when Russell quit to set up the barbeque and Kristen left to check out the band playing at the Gondola, it only got worse, even after I had gone down to the car with them to grab a sweater. I skied a few more runs and then made my way to the top of the gondola the watch the pond skimming contest.

Last year, I went to Vail's World Alpine Pond Skimming Championships. It was a big deal. There were sponsors, there were announcers, there were judges, tons of be costumed contestants, and a massive pool of clean, cold mountain water over which they all tried to skim. Heavenly, in comparison, was a sad joke.

The pond was just that, a small dirty pond. It was maybe 30 feet long and 15 wide. It was lined with a black glad bag, but it must have been punctured because dirt had seeped in from somewhere leaving a pool of brown water. There were no judges. There didn't seem to be any rules. The pond was so short that most of the contestants came screaming across it, spraying the assembled fans with water or piling into the "protective" webbing at the edge of the pond.

It was cold. It started snowing a little even. I gave up after about 20 people went over with about 75% of the folks making it across the way.

I took some pics with my microcompact Canon S400. It overcast and they didn't come out all that but it will give the flavor of the event.

Days Skied This Season: 24

Posted by andrew at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Heading up to Tahoe for the last weekend of what has been a truly awesome season. I don't know how much skiing is going to happen, but there is definitely going to be a lot of drinking and foolishness. Should be fun.

Posted by andrew at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I almost had a heart attack last night. I think anyone would have likely had some palpitations under the circumstances. It was brought on, of course, by my shithead and extremely lucky Samoan cat, Makelani.

I've documented Mak's inferior intellect multiple times on this site. Earlier in the evening, in a typical Mak event, he stuck his head in the handle of a brown paper bag and since he couldn't figure out how to extricate himself, he just dragged the bag around the apartment as if nothing was wrong.

Around 7:30 or so, I let the cats out on the balcony for their evening perambulation. I watered the little basil that I bought, and stood on the left end of the railing to prevent Fil, my female cat, from jumping onto the roof and escaping, which she has done several times.

When it came time to herd the cats back into the apartment, I grabbed Fil first because she's the troublemaker. I put her inside and as I shut the door and turned to get Mak, I could him see crouching down, going into the butt-wiggle, I'm about to the leap on the roof and there's nothing you can do to stop me, mutherfucka. Everything that followed sort of happened in slow motion.

I usually leave Mak out on the railing and put Fil inside first because while not having two brain cells to keep each other warm, Mak has always been on the cautious side. Some would say chickenshit, but I give him the benefit of the doubt and say cautious. But something snapped in his little brain. For a second, Mak thought he could fly. He forgot about three things. First, he's a nine pound cat and not a hummingbird. Second, the Theory of Gravity. Third, and most important, the little balcony railing that he was on is 35 feet above the ground.

As I stood there in the doorway, I saw Mak jump up to the sloping roof, desperately try to hang on the ledge, fail and disappear from sight, falling at roughly 9.8 meters per second per second. HOLY FUCKING SHIT!! MY CAT JUST FELL THREE STORIES TO THE GROUND!!

I ran to the balcony and looked down. Mak was down there, walking around and mewing like a crazed beast. I ran out the door, down the stairs and outside where I found a freaked out Mak, tail poofed out about three times normal size, covered in mud and looking for a way to get back in the building.

I swooped him up and whisked him upstairs, all the while trying to calm him down, to no avail. Other than being slathered in mud, he didn't seem to have any major damage. I was shocked.

Back inside I put him on the floor and watched him walk around. He was walking with a pronounced limp, favoring his hind right leg. I tired to pick him back him. He wasn't happy. I prodded him and pushed him to look for sore or broken spots. He was tender for sure. He didn't want me touching his hid leg. He was sore under his forearms. But didn't seem broken. He's a fucking tough cat. Coming from Samoa, the land of people impervious to pain, that's not hard to believe. (Twice when I was in was living in the village, I had a host brother who broke a foot, had it reset by a masseuse and was walking around on it the next day as if nothing had happened).

Everything seemed fine, but I wanted to take him to the vet just to be sure. But it was late now, after 8 o'clock and all the vet offices in Alameda were closed. I could take him to the emergency hospital in San Leandro, but it's ten miles away, and Mak doesn't travel all that well so with the all the trauma that he'd suffered already, I didn't want to have to pile it on if I didn't have to.

I gave Makkie a sponge bath and cleaned him up a little and went off to a dark corner of the house to lick his wounds. He was eating. That was a good sign. I could hear go in and out of the litter box twice. That was positive too. He could leap from the ground to the couch and from there to the condo. Everything seemed good.

Then he came to sit in map, like normal, except, he wasn't normal. He was shaking ever so slightly, more than his normal high octane purr. I got worried. I thought, fuck, if something is really wrong with him and I didn't have him looked at by a professional when I had the chance, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

So, I grabbed him, took him downstairs and into the car. He started freaking immediately, as he normally does anytime he gets anywhere near my car. I gave him some treats which calmed him down, but he kept a low grade caterwaul all the way to the Bay Area Veterinary Specialists.

Inside Mak was calm, which was surprised. I borrowed a pet taxi to keep him from running around or coming into contact with a dog, so nothing bad happened. I was asked into the exam room. A tech came in asked me a bunch of questions about what happened, and gave him a cursory check, including an anal temperature reading that might have been more traumatic than the fall. I know if someone scruffed me by the neck and jammed a rod up my ass, I wouldn't have been in a cooperative mood.

The doc came in, felt Makkie up, watching him walk around and declared that nothing was broken. There was a possibility of internal damage, but since he was eating and using the litter box, it was unlikely. He was probably just sore and in pain and prescribed a liquid pain killer to ease his suffering and help him heal.

I was so relieved. Nothing major wrong. Almost even better, no overnight stay, no x-rays, no bandages. I got away with a $110 bill, happily paid and went home, a sedate Makkie in the back making no one peep.

Mak has to be one of the luckiest cats in the world. First he was saved from a life of torture at the hands of village idiot kids in a remote part of Samoa by some soft hearted human. Now he survived a 35 foot fall without a scratch, only some residual soreness and damaged pride.

Needless to say, balcony privileges have been permanently revoked and it's time for me to find a more suitable place for me and the cats to reside.

Posted by andrew at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was walking in the parking garage from my car to the elevator when I crossed paths with this woman coming from the opposite direction who was looking at me funny like she wanted to say something, like "hello", but didn't know how to open her mouth when she says, have you seen the hummingbird nest, and points over my left shoulder.

I turned around and looked up and saw the tinniest of nests suspended in midair from a couple of looping ropes that were wrapped around the pipes that run the breadth and width of the garage ceiling. Inside was a hummingbird, so still that at first I thought it wasn't alive, that it was a doll or something, but when I moved closer I could see the tiniest of movements, the little was shaking.

This minuscule bird had built a nest suspended from the ceiling in my parking garage in Alameda. I had never seen anything like it. I snapped off a few pics and when I finally figured out how to focus on the tiny object, this was the result.

Posted by andrew at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tony Shalhoub has a leading role in the USA series Monk about an obsessive-compulsive private eye, but to me he will always be a character actor, and a great one.

Shaloub is so versatile that fans who love his work in Monk will not recognize him in many of his roles. Most people will recall him as Jeebs, the alien who got his head blown off in Men in Black. He had a memorable role in Life or Something Like It as the prescient Prophet Jack and was on the bridge as Tech Sgt. Chen in the Star Trek spoof Galaxy Quest.

These roles are many and varied but hardly represent Shalhoub's finest work. To find his quintissential roles you have to look to the Coen Brothers who recognize the brilliance of Shalhoub.

I first saw Shaloub as the slick tough-talking studio producer Ben Geisler in Barton Fink. He fits into that early Hollywood 40s archetype so effortlessly. Contrary to the meek Adrian Monk viewers have come to love, he runs roughshod over the cowering, insecure Barton Fink on the business of writing a wrestling picture and it's great. He steals every scene he's in.

In The Man Who Wasn't There, Shalhoub portrays high-powered defense attorney Freddy Riedenschneider, possibly the best supporting character ever seen on film. Shalhoub's Riedenschneider is cocky beyond belief and he has some many great lines. The Joel and Ethan Coen wrote inspired dialogue and Shalhoub brought it the screen with unbelievable panache. Riedenschneider arrives like a tornado in the middle of the movie after a murder has been committed, and simply takes over and starts laying down the law.

MAN ...not fried, poached. Three of 'em for two minutes. A strip steak medium rare, flapjacks, potatoes, tomato juice, and plenty of hot coffee.

He flips the menu over

MAN
...Do you have prairie oysters?

WAITRESS
No, sir.

MAN
Then bring me a fruit cocktail while I wait.

He looks up at Ed

MAN
...You're Ed Crane?

ED
Yeah--

MAN
Barber, right? I'm Freddy Riedenschneider. Hungry? They tell me the chow's OK here. I made some inquiries.

ED
No thanks, I--

The waitress sets a fruit cocktail in front of Riedenschneider

RIEDENSCHNEIDER
Look, I don't wanna waste your time so I'll eat while we talk. Ya mind? *You* don't mind. So while I'm in town I'll be staying at the Hotel Metropole, the Turandot Suite. Yeah, it's goofy, the suites're named after operas; room's OK though, I poked around. I'm having 'em hold it for me on account of I'll be back and forth. In addition to my retainer, you're paying hotel, living expenses, secretarial, private eye if we need to make inquiries, headshrinker should we go that way. We'll talk about appeals if, as and when. For right now, has she confessed?

ED
No. Of course not. She didn't do it.

RIEDENSCHNEIDER
Good! That helps. Not that she didn't do it, that she didn't confess. Of course, there's ways to deal with a confession, but that's good!--one less thing to think about. Now. Interview. I'm seeing her tomorrow. You should be there. Three o'clock. One more thing: you keep your mouth shut. I get the lay of the land, I tell *you* what to say. No talking out of school. What's out of school? Everything's out of school. I do the talking; you keep your trap shut. I'm an attorney, you're a barber; you don't know anything. Understood?

ED
...OK.

RIEDENSCHNEIDER
Good! Any questions give me a ring--Turandot suite; if I'm out leave a message. You sure you don't want anything? No?

He points a finger at Ed

RIEDENSCHNEIDER
...You're OK, pal. You're OK, she's OK. Everything's gonna be hunky-dory.

The waitress puts down a plate of steak and eggs

RIEDENSCHNEIDER
...And the flapjacks, honey.

...They got this guy, in Germany. Fritz something-or-other. Or is it. Maybe it's Werner. Anyway, he's got this theory, you wanna test something, you know, scientifically--how the planets go round the sun, what sunspots are made of, why the water comes out of the tap--well, you gotta look at it. But sometimes, you look at it, your looking *changes* it. Ya can't know the reality of what happened, or what *would've* happened if you hadden a stuck in your goddamn schnozz. So there *is* no 'what happened.' Not in any sense that we can grasp with our puny minds. Because our minds...our minds get in the way. Looking at something changes it. They call it the 'Uncertainty Principle.' Sure, it sounds screwy, but even Einstein says the guy's on to something. Science. Perception. Reality. Doubt... ...Reasonable doubt. I'm sayin', sometimes, the more you look, the less you really know. It's a fact. A proved fact. In a way, it's the only fact there is. This heinie even wrote it out in numbers.

Posted by andrew at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The poor, poor, sad-ass Dodgers, once possessors of the best record in baseball have lost 6 of 7 games including being swept in the last three by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Over that span their run production has fallen in half, their era has doubled and they not only have relinquished the best record in the MLB but no longer even have the lead in the National League West. The start that looked so promising was merely a mirage meant to give stalward fans a false sense of hope, much in the way the Dodgers have been doing for most of their history with notable exceptions (55,58,63,81,88). The season is still young and the Dodgers' dismal last week might yet prove an aberration.

Posted by andrew at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Word is that Al Franken is considering a run for a Minnesota Senate seat in 2008 against Republican Norm Coleman. It's a long way off and who knows if he can win, but it would be great for Minnesota and for the country.

Coleman, a former Democrat, who garners great support from Bush, Cheney & Co. would never have even been a senator had extremely popular incumbent Paul Wellstone not died in a plane crash just 11 days before the 2002 election. If Franken could unseat him, it will go a long way to returning the Senate to the hands of the Democrats.

Posted by andrew at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you get a kick out political cartoons like I do, you'll want to check out the work of Nick Anderson from the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Anderson won the Pulitzer Prize for a series of 20 scathing cartoons about current events including abuses of power, the quagmire in Iraq and the missteps of the present administration, which, I suppose, are all the same thing. He beat out Garry Trudeau for the $10,000 prize, so you know his stuff is good. His cartoons are richly drawn with beautiful color and reveal not only biting satire, but also potent wit while elucidating serious problems that deeply affect this country.

You can find all his cartoons here. If you want to read more cartoons by other editorial artists, Slate.com has a great archive.

Posted by andrew at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm bugging me for a long time now, but I finally have this nasty CCS bug fixed. When I converted my site over from the old html tables layout and converted it to a CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) design conforming to web standards, everything was cool, except this one little problem. I had a two column layout, one for the main content and one for the navigation sidebar. Whenever the content in the sidebar was longer than the content of the navigation, the sidebar would run over the bottom border and over the footer. It looked horrible and made feel like a crappy designer.

But, now, with the help of Web Standards Solutions, I've fixed this problem and the site, while still not perfect, works a hell of lot better. I'm still having a problem with some spacing in the header when the site is viewed in IE. It works perfectly in Firefox, yet another reason for everyone in the world to scrap Microsoft's lousy browser and move into the 21st century with a browser that works the way a browser should.

Posted by andrew at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

However, on religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.'

Who do you think spoke those words? Some wild-eyed Democrat? Some hellbound atheist? Not quite. It was Senator Barry Goldwater, torch bearer of the Republican party and it's nominee for the presidency in 1964. Would he recognize the GOP today? Would he be accepted within its ranks? Doubtful.

Posted by andrew at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night was the first Friday night since the first week of the season that I slept in my own bed. I've either been skiing or traveling almost every weekend this year, so it was really nice to change things up, not have to go anywhere and sleep in.

There's only a few days left in the ski season. We did get more snow this past week, but it was an inch or so, and it just didn't seem worth it to go up to the house in Tahoe. No one else RSVP'd and the house would have been empty again. Then there's always the possibility like last Sunday that the Sky Chair would be closed. And that's a problem.

When the Sky Chair is closed, and it was closed for a good reason, namely 60 MPH gusts, there is no way to ski from the California side of Heavenly to the Nevada side. This traps skiers in a bottleneck at the Canyon Express that results in long lifts lines on a day when there should be none. It also means that half of the terrain on the top of the mountain, where the best snow can be found on increasingly hot days, is inaccessible.

Now you can ski down, get in the car, and drive over to Nevada, but that's not much fun. If you're game, you can hike from the top of the Canyon Express to the top of the Sky chair. It might take 45 minutes or so. Maybe less. It's really not that far, but it is a hike. Then you can ski down the cat track to Nevada and take any of three chairs back from Nevada to California. I was down for this, Russell, who took a hard digger the day before was not, so we just skied for the few hours and then took off in the early afternoon.

I'll be up next weekend, the last of the season for Heavenly. I want to ski to get the last few runs before the long drought of summer. We're also having a blowout party, so it should be pretty wild.

Days Skied This Season: 23

Posted by andrew at 06:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I finally took Mak out for a walk last night. It was his first time out of the house, other than hanging out on the balcony, since he escaped while I was carving a pumpkin last Halloween. He needed it. He's starting to look portly and he needs some exercise.

Typically, there was tons of activity on my street, exactly what I didn't need with a nervous cat on my hands. After I carried him downstairs, I put him on the grass and he was freaking out at every little sign of movement. There were some people walking in the garage. There were some cars in the street. There were some guys playing hoops at the little court down the way. Any chance I had of coaxing him down the sidewalk was lost.

So I picked him up and carried him to the shoreline/mudflat/jetty thing that's at the end of the street. The whole time Mak is caterwauling like I'm taking him to the kitty abattoir. He only calmed down when I put him in the ice plant and let him explore, but just barely.

The whole time he kept his belly to the ground and slinked through the vegetation like the WWII in the hedges of Normandy. The sounds of the baseball game at the high school and the squawking birds and my shuffling feet would sent him for cover. He continued to meow like he was having a near death experience.

After about ten or fifteen minutes, he calmed down enough to do some rock climbing over the jumbled pile of concrete that forms the jetty. He wanted to poke his little head into every nook and cranny, nose constantly vibrating, sniffing the shit out of everything he could find. I think he might actually have been enjoying himself at that point.

When it came time to head home, he was a champ, more or less. Still with his belly scraping the pavement, he let me lead him right back to the apartment building, crossing the street twice and stopping only once to play around in the ivy. He flew up the stairs and when we reached my floor, he zipped down the hallway right to my door. Inside we cleaned himself for a few minutes and them crashed, hard.

I don't know if I'll take him out anytime soon. The whole experience was enough to give both of us a heart attack.

Posted by andrew at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning I was listening to a debate right now on KQED about whether or not pharmacists have a right not to fill legal prescriptions based on their personal morals and values. Basically this topic has come up because there have been some pharmacists not filling birth control prescriptions and not selling people condoms. Some of these pharmacists have even harassed their customers and even withheld the actual prescription so that it could be fulfilled elsewhere. This is totally outrageous.

Pharmacists should not be substituting their "professional judgment" for the that of the doctor and the patient. They have no fucking business doing any such thing no matter what their conscious tells them. Their job is ensure that legal prescriptions are filled accurately and in a timely fashion. Anything short of that should be grounds for decreditation. As long as these drugs are legal and deemed to be safe by the FDA they have an obligation to provide them to anyone with a prescription. If they have a problem with that then they shouldn't be pharmacists. Period. End of story.

It's shocking to me that this is even an issue. Democrats in the Senate are dancing around it by trying to work both sides, granting pharmacists their "rights" not to fill any Rx's they find morally objectionable while holding that the pharmacy itself is responsible for making sure that the Rx gets filled. This is silliness.

Something really needs to be done to end the empowerment of the faith based community that manifests itself in harassing 16 year old girls trying to obtain birth control pills. Hopefully this is just another example of the right going way to far that the left will be able to bludgeon them with in the mid term elections. Terri Schiavo, refusniks pharmacists, anti-abortionist bombers. It's enough to drive an atheist insane.

Posted by andrew at 09:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I first came across Greek yogurt when I was traveling around the Mediterranean about 5 years ago. It was towards the end of the trip. I was in Istanbul staying in the Oriental, a little youth hostel in the Sultanahmet section of town. The hostel had a restaurant on the third floor that had a commanding view of the Bosporus. I would sit up just after sunrise, watch the ships go by and enjoy a leisurely breakfast that almost every day had a good portion of lovely Greek yogurt.

The yogurt is rich, thick and creamy, probably really fatty too, but what the fuck did I care? I was walking more than 10 miles a day. It's incredibly sour and I can't imagine eating it straight, but with the magic touch of a little, it turns into something incredibly sublime. Breakfast quickly became my favorite part of the week or so I spent hanging around Istanbul.

When I returned home, I thought I add my new discovery into my own culinary routine. I went to the market, grabbed and tub of vanilla yogurt and jar of honey, but when I got home and mixed, there was no magic, there was just a sticky mess of yogurt encrusted honey crystals. I tried a few more times, but eventually gave up.

One of the best things about returning to California after the spending the winter in Vail was access to Trader Joe's. Around the time I started shopping at TJ's again, they started carrying Greek yogurt. At first they had a brand called FAGE which is actually made in Greece. They had two kinds, one with a little pocket of honey that could be easily added and one without.

At first I bought the one with the honey because, well, it was easier, but it was also more expensive. So then I started buying the larger one without the honey. But TJ's didn't sell jars of Greek honey. The first honey I tried, which I think was clover, didn't work. It totally crystallized. The next one I tired, the mesquite, blended perfectly. It was delicious and I was so happy. Then they stopped carrying the yogurt.

I was couldn't believe it. The yogurt was so popular. There was always a chance you could in the store and it would be out of stock. I called TJ's customer service to find out what was going on. They said their distributor in Greece was having some problems and they were trying to work an alternate source. They eventually did. Themselves.

They started producing their own "Mediterranean Style" yogurt. It was just as good if not better than the FAGE stuff. And now FAGE has sorted out its problems and TJ's carries both. It's pure bliss for a yogurt lover.

Posted by andrew at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I finally saw Sideways last night. I had wanted to see it on the big screen when it came out, but I'm actually glad that I waited until last night. That's because if I saw it in the theater, I wouldn't have had a great meal and a nice bottle of wine in front of me. I wouldn't have had steamed artichokes with melted butter. I wouldn't have had seared ahi tuna. I wouldn't have had a baby green salad with blue cheese crumble and balsamic vinaigrette. And I wouldn't have had a bottle of Bonny Doon Big House, nor would I have been able to share it with my friend Jennifer. It was the perfect way to watch the movie.

For the record, I thought Sideways was great. It made me laugh out loud, and it wasn't just because of the wine. I enjoyed the repartee between Miles and Jack. Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church had great chemistry and even though they are so different, you could easily buy into their friendship, especially described by Miles, "I'm not Jack, I'm just his freshman roommate from San Diego State." That just struck a chord for me about the randomness of relationships.

I sense that I am like a lot of guys who related completely to Miles, but secretly wanted to relate to Jack. Miles was a sad and pathetic loser, and I'm not a sad pathetic loser (yet), but there were elements of his character that I see in myself. There's very little of Jack that I see in myself except enjoying wines that taste good without having to understand every little facet of its production.

I'm very familiar with the landscape of the film. I can't count the number of times I've driven the 101 between northern and southern California, passing through the wine country between Santa Barbara and Paso Robles. Solvang and Buellton are incredibly cheesy, but you can't help love them.

Miles seems to fit into that setting perfectly. He's as comfortable around the vineyards as he is uncomfortable around women. His interactions with Virginia Madsen made me want to cringe because I've seen myself do some of the same things. I've even looked at myself in the mirror and said something like, you're such a fucking loser, under similar circumstances. But in the end, even though his novel is unpublished and his life is just as much of a wreck as his car, he is redeemed through the love of a good a woman. That's really any of us on the road to pathetic loserdom can hope for.

Posted by andrew at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One of the great ones bowed out tonight. Reggie Miller played his last regular season game for the Indiana Pacers after 18 stellar Hall of Fame seasons. Reggie was one of the greatest clutch shooter the games ever saw and probably the biggest underdog overachiever in the history of the game.

I love Reggie. Reggie played for UCLA when I was in High School, back in the days when I used to go to Pauley Pavilion every chance I could to see my Bruins. He was barely given a scholarship when he came out of Riverside, a 6'7" stick figure playing second fiddle to his older sister Cheryl who was winning championships across town at USC.

Those years were not great for the Bruins, but Reggie did led the team to the NIT Championship in his sophomore season. I can remember looking up at the banner, which seemed rather pathetic alongside so many NCAA championship banners, but it was something. Reggie averaged over 15 points a game that year, but he really turned it as a junior pumping in almost 26 a contest. He finished his career as the second leading scorer in school history behind only Kareem, and he would have scored much more if the NCAA instituted the 3 point line before his senior season.

Reggie was more than just points. He was about enthusiasm. He played defense like a possessed demon. He rarely missed free throws. He could shoot from anywhere in the building and would pour in rainbow jumpers that would bring down the house. Those were exciting, fun times for a young basketball fan.

When Reggie was drafted in the 1st round by the Indiana Pacers, I was crushed. I knew I wouldn't be seeing much of him, and I haven't except in the playoffs. Reggie played his whole career with the same team, such a rarity in today's game where free agency lures players from one team to the next. He never did lead the Pacers the promised land, but they were in the playoffs almost every year. And almost every year they would meet the Knicks.

In the Garden, Reggie would almost single handedly take on the Knicks and the crazies in the crowd. Who could ever forget Miller's most memorable moment, when he scored eight points in the final 8.9 seconds in Game 1 of the 1995 Eastern Conference semifinals and led the Pacers to an amazing come-from-behind 107-105 victory against New York at Madison Square Garden. Suck on that Spike Lee.

He's one of the most accurate free-throw shooters in league history at roughly 88.8 percent. He has played the sixth-most games in league history, with close to 1,400. He's 14th on the all-time scoring list with more than 25,000 points. He's drained the more 3's than anyone to play the game, ever.

He's nothing but ears and pencil legs and heart. He's an all around class act and he will be really, really missed. So Long, 31.

Posted by andrew at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thanks to the incredible generosity of my online buddy Kelly in Virginia, I now have a Pro Flickr account which means I'm no longer limited to 100 pictures or three sets, at least for the next year. So I've got a lot of work to do, combing through my digital photos and scanning in film and slides (need to get a new scanner, too) to get my stuff online. Thanks, Kelly. You're the best.

Posted by andrew at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

With the caveat that it's still April and the season is barely underway, I have to wonder what is going on with this Dodger team and where they are headed. Let's look at the record.

After tonight's come from behind extra inning game (the second in three games, I might add), the Dodgers are 12-2 having won 8 straight. That's still the best record in the MLB. That's not the whole story. I know no one cares, but that doesn't bother me at all.

The Dodgers have won every one of their series so far. They took 2 of 3 from the Giants, 2 of 3 from the Diamondbacks (both on the road) and have won every game since, including sweeps of the Padres, the Giants, and the Brewers, and now have won the first two games of the three game set in San Diego.

They are 4.5 games up on the Diamondbacks who won't be anywhere close to the top of the division when the season ends. They 5.5 up on San Diego and 6 big games ahead of the preseason favorite Giants, who were shutout by the Diamondbacks. The National League West, which looked so tight before the season is turning into a laugher.

J.D. Drew is coming around. Jose Valentin has stayed hot, driving in the winning runs with a 10th inning triple. The pitching is solid. Derek Lowe came away with a no decision tonight, but he only gave up one run on five hits to lower his ERA to 1.27. The staff is solid and is only going to get better in the next few weeks when Gagne returns to action.

In 1955 the Brooklyn Dodgers also started the season 12-2. That team won 22 of it first 24 games, won the pennant by 13 1/2 games and went on to finally break through in the series against the hated Yankees. Again, it's early, but these 2005 Dodgers are starting to show some of the same magic.

Posted by andrew at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My buddy Peter writes:

So, in an effort to reach out to new constituencies and bridge the growing divide between Catholic fundametalists and everyone else, the Vatican cardinals have elected... a hard-liner former Nazi. Nicely done, fellows.

It seems more like they were reaching out to John Stewart, David Letterman and Jay Leno. Anyway, he's an old guy so it looks like we might be do this all over again in the not too distant future.

Posted by andrew at 02:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A new pope has been elected. I'm listening to the coverage on NPR. The white smoke went up and the bells of St. Peter's started ringing about 50 minutes ago. The curtain on the balcony has opened. Three men are up there announcing the new pope. (Habemus Papum - We have a pope!) The crowd is going nuts. Still no one outside the College of Cardinals knows who the new pope is.

Update 9:44. The name of the new pope is the 78 year old Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany named Benedict XVI. The front runner, slighty boring, a little bit of a disappointment. Oh, well. There's always the next conclave. Congratulations and best wishes to all my Catholic friends.

Posted by andrew at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Want to get some action on the conclave? Just head over to paddypower.com, check out the odds, the candidates, fill yourself in on the process and the history of papal elections.

Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria is the front runner, but I suspect this is mostly wishful thinking. As cool as it would be to have an African or Latin American pope, I suspect when the voting is all done, we'll find a return to traditional Western European, if not Italian, pontiff.

As a Jewish atheist, I shouldn't find this all that interesting, but I can't help but be fascinated. The papacy is such a huge part of our world culture. There's even a genre of fiction devoted to the topic. The secrecy, the pomp and circumstance, the rituals of burning the ballots, the visuals of crimson robed cardinals congregating beneath Michaelangelo's Last Judgment. It's all so intriguing.

There have been several votes so far and only plumes of black smoke have arisen from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel to signify a lack of consensus on a new pontiff. Eventually the Papal Interregnum will end and we can get on with our lives, but in the meantime, the world waits as a few old men chose a new leader and decide on the future path of the Catholic church.

Here are the odds for you punters who are thinking of placing a bet or putting together an office pool.

Posted by andrew at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know that no one who comes to this site cares one wit about the Los Angeles Dodgers, and that's fine, but I care, and for a good reason, so I'm going to write about them. If you have a problem with that, go away.

I grew up in LA, and I'm a sports fan, so naturally, I follow the Dodgers. But it goes deeper than that. It's in my blood. Literally.

My dad was born in Brooklyn in 1936. Like most kids in that era, he was a huge baseball fan. He loved the Dodgers. He used to sneak in to Ebbets Field with his buddies as a kid. Then the Dodgers up and moved from Brooklyn and relocated in Los Angeles in 1958. My dad was 22. He followed the Dodgers west to Southern California soon after.

My dad grew up in the age of radio. He didn't see ballplayers on TV all the time. There was no Superstation. There was no ESPN. The players were like gods. I used to imagine what it was like for my dad to go to Ebbets Field on the day of the game. Tons of people streaming into the stadium, he and his friends with no money desperate to get just a glance at the players, sneaking peaks through the outfield fence. It must have been amazing.

I got some of the sense of what it must have been like last week when I went to see the Dodgers playing the Giants at SBC Park a few weeks back. I left for the game early. I took BART across the bay and walked from downtown to the stadium. Out in right field, there's a section outside the park where fans without a ticket can look on and see the action. I had heard about it. I had seen it from inside the stadium, but I had never been there myself.

As I was walking around the stadium, I could look in through the right field fence and see the Dodgers taking batting practice. I stopped by the fence and watched Eric Gange and Derek Lowe shagging fly balls and talking to fans. They looked like giants to me. I looked down at the grass which looked so perfect and so green. The chalk was perfect. Even the dirt on the warning track was perfect. Fans were hanging out in the right field stands begging the players for a ball or an autograph. I thought immediately of my dad and his friends back at Ebbets Field in the late 40s.

Ok. On to current matters at hand. When I wrote about the Dodgers last Friday, they were 6-2 with the best record in the National League. Over the weekend they swept the Padres including two shutouts by Lowe and Weaver and at 9-2, now have the best record in baseball and are off to their best start since 1955. Now I'm not saying they are going to win the World Series or anything. They haven't won a playoff series since I was a freshman in college in 1988, but things are looking good for a decent season.

I was watching Sportscenter last night, and I was shocked that there was no coverage of the Dodgers. None. They didn't even make the show. Yankess. Yes. Red Sox. Yes. Nationals and Marlins and Phillies and Mets, but no Dodgers. No reporting on the best team in the game. Talk about your East Coast bias.

Posted by andrew at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, so they don't really ask questions that specific when you donate blood, but they get pretty close and pretty damn personal. I understand the need to be thorough to ensure a safe blood supply. That I get. What I don't get is after you have answered the questions, the ARC volunteer tech gives you a sheet of paper with two barcode stickers, one if you want them to use your blood, one if you don't. You're supposed to place the sticker of your choice on the answer sheet after the tech walks away.

It just seems strange to me that someone would go through the process of answering all these questions, lie about the answers, put the "don't use my blood sticker on the form" and then have their blood drawn, wasting valuable time and resources of the blood bank. The need for confidentiality is great, but this seems like taking it a little too far. And obviously it's being used, or the Red Cross would stop giving people the option.

Posted by andrew at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since I had a good idea that Russell and I were going to be only people up at the house this weekend, I decided it was time to pick up all the clothes that have lined my bedroom floor or been stuffed in the closet up to Tahoe and run them all through the washing machine. I brought four bags of laundry. Russell was laughing at me when I jammed them all in the Pig, but, fuck it, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to clean and purge.

So we get up here, move all the bags into the house and I start running loads. The first load goes fine, but I use up the last of the laundry powder. When I put the second load it, I just grabbed the plastic bottle and started pouring it on top of my clothes before I looked at the label. As I was pouring, I noticed the word "Bleach" prominently featured on the label. Fuck!

I tried to wash of the bleach under the flume of water streaming down on the clothes, but to no avail. Large white and magenta spots started to appear all over the clothes. Sigh. I just ran the load and just planned to deal with it when it was all dry.

There were a few causalities, a few shirts I liked, a pair of khakis from the Gap, some sheets, but nothing in there was less than 5 years old and in general, my wardrobe is pretty dated. I haven't bought much in the way of clothes since I got back from Samoa which means that most of what I wear is at least two years old. Some it dates back to college.

So it's probably time to rid myself of some of these old duds anyway and if it takes a laundry room mishap to force my hand, so be it.

Posted by andrew at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Russell and I drove up to Tahoe in his "pig" of car, a circa 1980s Jeep Cherokee. We figured the house would be empty since no one other than us RSVP'd, but it was still a shock to arrive at the house around 9:30, see no cars in the driveway and without anyone there to greet us. No one drinking beer. No one cracking jokes or telling stories. No one sitting around the fire playing games. No one. Eerie.

There was no snow on the ground. The same driveway that I spent an hour shoveling the previous Saturday was clean as a whistle. There was no snow on the grass, little on the balcony and there was a clear path in the backyard through the snow pack to the dock. A week of 50 degree afternoons had seen to that.

We slapped together a dinner of chicken and veggie curry, watched a movie(The Player), and crashed, me in a bedroom for only the second time all season.

In the morning, we awoke to clear skies and the rising sun. It was going to be a scorcher. We took out time, lingering over a lengthy breakfast of chicken apple sausage and cheddar scramble. There's not much point in hitting the hill too early after a hot day because the snow which melted the previous afternoon, freezes into a cement-like consistency overnight. It's best for the knees and any other body part that might come in contact with the mountain (like my melon) to wait until the middle of the morning when the surface has softened up somewhat.

We arrived at Heavenly around 10. The place was an empty as the house. We geared up, took the tram to the top of Gunbarrel and made our way up the hill. On the first run, Russell who had a mishap last week when one of Ed's friends plowed into in him, took a nasty digger and was done for the day. I was bummed. I wasn't going to stop skiing. It was too good, but it's always more fun to ski with someone, especially someone like Russell who's much better than I am and pushes me around the hill.

We planned to meet up at 1:30 at the California Bar and Russell downloaded, and I took off. There mountain was empty. The were no lift lines anywhere. I skied all over the mountain. Run after run after glorious run. It was hot. I was skiing in a t-shirt and a Samoan shirt. I skied from California to Nevada, back to California, to Nevada again and finally back to California. I was all over the place. The snow was soft and a little sticky in the flat spots towards the bottom, but it was nothing but fun.

Around 1:15, I was getting ready to head down to the California Bar to meet Russell for lunch. The snow was getting really soft. I made a command decision to go down the face of Gunbarrel instead of taking the cat track Roundabout. Roundabout is the easiest way down, and it's fun to wind around the face, but when it's hot, the coverage can be bag with exposed roots and rocks and it was going to be sticky. On the other hand, Gunbarrel was a straight mogul laden shot down to the lodge. But today, the mogul would be soft and forgiving and if there was ever a time I was going to hit Gunbarrel, this would be it, so I made the plunge.

It's steep and bumpy, but it was no problem really because a lot of the moguls had been flattened out by previous skiers. I cruised down with no problem, right until the end that is. I was right on top of the little run called World Cup that is adjacent to an eponymous lift and forms the last section of run linking Gunbarrel to the base. I was one turn away from the top of World Cup when I lost my balance and went down, instinctively putting my gloveless hand down on the snow, this snow which seemed oh so soft when I was skiing on it ripped through the back of my hand, turning my knuckles into a bloody mess.

It didn't hurt because my hand spot-numbed when it hit the snow and it actually looked pretty cool to have blood streaming from the back of my hand as I strolled into the California Bar.

Days Skied This Season: 22

Posted by andrew at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ok, I know it's early, but the Dodgers are kicking ass. In fact, they have the best record in the National League, not bad for a sutured Frankenstein of team. They are 6-2. They are not going to win 75% of their remaining games, but if they can win somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4s, they will shock the hell out of me and finish over .500.

The Dodgers have played 3 series so far and won them all. The bested the Giants in SF 2 out of three (I went to game 2 of that series and saw the boys in blue pummel the Giants 10-4). They went to take 2 of 3 from the Diamondbacks. Then the Dodgers came home and swept the Giants in a modest 2 game home opening stand. Still. The Dodgers have taken 4 out 5 from the hated Giants who are expected to win the division. We'll see about that.

Even better these wins have come with the Dodgers' best player, Eric Gagne on the shelf with a bum elbow, and top acquisition J.D. Drew has only 4 hits in 32 ABs, a paltry .125 clip. That certainly will not continue. Jeff Kent is also not going to hit over .400 for the season, but he's hot and so are Jose Valentín and Cesar Izturis. These three along with some solid pitching from Jeff Weaver and Odalis Perez have propelled the Dodgers to this start. Will it continue? Who knows, but it's better to start slow and fade then never to start at all.

Posted by andrew at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm done with my taxes, federal and California, and in the nick of time. I don't usually leave it to the last minute like this, it's such a headache when you do, but there was some things that I had trouble tracking down, and I had no other choice.

I did most of the leg work weeks ago, but the whole picture didn't materialize until yesterday when I ran down to my local Scottrade office to open an IRA. In typical Andrew fashion, it was only when I left the office after finishing the paperwork and writing a huge check ($3,500) that I realized that the maximum allowable is only $3,000. So I had to run back there today during lunch.

It's done now. $3,000 in the tank for the next 25 years. Hopefully it will grow through the glory of compound tax-free interest and, with the addition of some more cash through the years, and a few 401K contributions here and there, maybe, just maybe, I won't die a pauper, although that possibility looms large what with all the presidential bamboozlepalooza business going on.

Anyway, my total federal tax refund, after the sizeable IRA contribution, is 8 bucks. That's right. 8 bucks. Now I've always held that it's better to owe on the 15th because when the IRS writes you a refund check, you've essentially given the government a tax free loan from the time the taxes were collected to the time you refund check clears. So based on that, I'm pretty thrilled with my miniscule refund. On the other hand, it would be nice to be getting a fat check and go on shopping spree, for the purposes of helping out the American economy through conspicuous consumption, naturally. Since that's not happening, I just have to the satisfied that I don't have to write a check to Uncle Sam.

Posted by andrew at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by andrew at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you were to name an information related project with a Greek name from mythology, history or literature, what would you call it? I initially thought of Hermes, the God of Information, but that's too obvious. It should be something far more obscure and much cooler sounding, so Athena or Atlas will not work either. I thought of Delphi, which might, but I'm not convinced. Maybe Perseus? Sophocles? Daedalus? Morpheus? Orpheus? Any help?

Posted by andrew at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Cost Of Living Now Outweighs Benefits

WASHINGTON, DC - A report released Monday by the Federal Consumer Quality-Of-Life Control Board indicates that the cost of living now outstrips life's benefits for many Americans.

"This is sobering news," said study director Jack Farness. "For the first time, we have statistical evidence of what we've suspected for the past 40 years: Life really isn't worth living."

To arrive at their conclusions, study directors first identified the average yearly costs and benefits of life. Tangible benefits such as median income ($43,000) were weighed against such tangible costs as home-ownership ($18,000). Next, scientists assigned a financial value to intangibles such as finding inner peace ($15,000), establishing emotional closeness with family members ($3,000), and brief moments of joy ($5 each). Taken together, the study results indicate that "it is unwise to go on living."

[MORE]

Gawd, how I love The Onion. It makes life worth living. So sweet is irony.

Posted by andrew at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today after I took a shower, I caught Mak drinking the water out of the shower door track. It was so disgusting, but there he was, slurping it up like nobody's business. I thought maybe their water bowl was empty, but when I went to check it, the bowl was half full. I topped it off with fresh, filtered water, put Mak in front of it and he would not drink. He just squirmed away. He's not working with a full deck.

Posted by andrew at 12:15 PM |