Letters to Holly

Friday, September 8

The Children Are Our Future

I left work early to talk to the high school newspaper staff. I met with them a few times a year before to help them launch the semester’s first issue but hadn’t spoken to them since. They asked me this time to help them with layout, and I quickly browsed their papers Wednesday night. When I arrived yesterday, they asked for some tips on using InDesign, the pagemaking software, and then we moved on to specific adjustments with the paper. We talked for about an hour and a half, and they asked good questions. It’s clear they want to make the best product and know they need to alter some elements. But they don’t have that far to go. Their paper looks better than the county biweekly. I don’t get the sense they want to be told what to do, just advised on the best way to do it. And I like that attitude.

Your Sister and I picked out football teams as has become our new pro-football tradition. We chatted it up over dinner, and this is what we decided on:


YOUR SISTER’S TEAMS:

NFC: Detroit Lions/Philadelphia Eagles
AFC: Oakland Raiders/New England Patriots (New York Jets as additional option)

MY TEAMS:

NFC: Carolina Panthers/Philadelphia Eagles
AFC: Miami Dolphins/Pittsburgh Steelers

Miami and Pittsburgh opened the season last night, and Miami showed they have no running game. Pittsburgh won with hard defense and a nice passing strategy.

Picture of the Day
Pirate Kitty at DragonCon.

Thursday, September 7

Runnin' Dirty. Or Not.

I found myself on the Bad Treadmill yesterday. The gym has three versions of treadmills to choose from: a late '80s version, a mid '90s version, and a late '90s version. I prefer the middle ones as they keep a good pace. Usually. But I know there's one of them that will sucker you into a painful run. The tread belt is slack, and makes running a real effort. The slack belt and my run make the whole apparatus wobble, and it'slike running on a miniature pirate ship in a storm. My shins have a sharp ache. I did manage my two miles, but it took some internal bargaining. I couldn't move to another machine because they were all occupied, and pride kept me going. I don't want to rely on a specific running environment. But this did keep me from running further, which was my plan. I'm already running faster than I plan to in the 5k race, and I have seven more weeks of training to go.

We watched the Sharapova/Golovin U.S. Open match yesterday, and it was awful. Neither woman could rise above meditocrity to end it. It took two hours+ to play two sets. There was also some controversy about Sharapova's coaches using signals from their seats to tell her when to eat and drink. That level of coaching is a no-no. But she did win.

Picture of the Day
My world is a little sadder at the knowledge this will happen.



Here's the problem with it; everyone's a nerd now. If you carry a laptop, PDA, an iPod or pimped-out cellphone, use MySpace or Second Life, or blog the minute details of your life to strangers, you are as nerds were back in the mid-'80s. We're all plugged in to technology, something that just wasn't the norm 20 years ago. The guys from the first film didn't have serious, mainstream job prospects back then. It was NASA or Lockheed Martin. Now? Best Buy offers you the Geek Squad for national repairs. Macs use PC chips. 1337 speak is legible to most teens. Nerds run the world. They won. Game over. Now if they want to make a film about nerds vs. geeks (the fanboys, the hardcore online gamers, the mega critics), then you got a fun film for a current audience.

In the News
Say what you will about the newsbloggers, but they've proven to be correct about the administration more than a few times. They passed along items about military policies, wiretapping, and the Plame scandal before they reached mainstream table conversation. And now Bush admits that, why yes, we do have secret prisons outside the U.S. The trikc here is that the prisons were set up to avoid the Red Cross humanitarin investigations and U.S. law on torture. But Bush claims we don't torture anyone. So why make the prisons secret? The prisoners can't be aware if the facilities are known to anyone, so the secrecy is not for them. It must be for people who would have a reason to object to them. So what would be the reason? The methods used to interrogate them.

Wednesday, September 6

Ridin' Dirty. Or Not.

Every once in a while (a long while), Your Sister will announce she discovered a song on the radio. Oddly enough, they're always hip-hop. The latest song was unearthed last week as she drove somewhere at her usual 9,000 MPH. All she would tell me at the time is that it's called "Ridin' Dirty", and the lyricw flew by too fast to catch. Being the pop-culure expert of the two and the guy who can work with online music files, I went hunting for it. iTunes lists 15 songs titled "Ridin' Dirty," most of which have quick tempos. I downloaded the five basic tracks (no remixes) and saved them to the iPod. When we drove down to Spartanburg, I played them on the radio. None was the right song. Your Sister than gives me details about the right song -- including lyrics -- details I could have used to find that song the first time and saved myself $5. That night, I run a Yahoo search on the lyrics and immediately find the song that fits her tardy description. I got to iTunes, find it, buy it, download it, and play it for her the next morning. She confirms it's the one. The real bitch of it is that it's not called "Ridin' Dirty." It's just called "Ridin'," a title used by 20 other songs on iTunes.

We got the second season of "Lost" on DVD yesterday and started watching the bonus material. There's a great mini-documentary on assembling a network show.

Moving Picture of the Day
A map of Iraq marking fatalities by nation and day, updated as recently as July.



In The News
I couldn't decide if Steve Irwin's willingness to risk his life made him a noble conservationist or a bad father. It''s not fair, I suppose, to expect the man to change his job once he has kids. The wife met him at his preserve and was allegedly won over by his love of animals and trademark energy. She knew whom she was marrying. As with all his specials, he warns viewers not to approach a dangerous animal just because he is. And then he gets killed by such an animal. There's no need for him to approach those animals to make his point that all animals are wonderful and deserve conservation. He didn't have to swim with them, but it made for great TV, and that's the true source of dismay. He took an unneccesary risk, and, while that doesn't make him a bad father, it does make him as stupid as the people he was trying to warn.

Tuesday, September 5

Labor Weekend

I got home Friday just in time to watch the high school football game, but we left at halftime due to heavy rain. And most of the crowd left with us. I assume our team won. The college had its second football game the next day, and I assume they lost.

On Saturday, we went to Flat Rock Playhouse to see Agatha Christie's "The Unexpected Guest." This makes three of her plays I've either seen or performed in. It was tight, and the actors did a nice job. But the facilities are underwhelming. This is the state's theatre, and I expected something like the Greenville Little Theatre's huge building that screams Fine Art Here. No, this is more like a forest lodge. The seats are nice and comfy (and wide), but the rows are packed together too tight for foot traffic, and the aisle isn't slanted enough to allow you to see over the guy in front of you. I've heard about Flat Rock Playhouse all my life; it was THE theatre in the area that one simply must experience. And it looks like a summer camp. The ticket booth is on the back of one wood-slat building, the theatre is by itself, and the concessions are over in another wood-slat building. We ate dinner at a nearby inn, and that was damn good eats. Would I go back to the Flat Rock? Maybe. But it would have to be a killer show. I've seen churches with better accomodations.

On Sunday we visited my parents for a bit and discussed the Thanksgiving trip to Alabama.

On Monday, we hiked for a few hours before Your Sister went to work. We found our favorite Mexican eatery closed for the holiday and instead ate hot dogs. Travis and Kathy's baby is due this weekend, but they are still planning to watch the Ohio State/Texas game on Saturday.

Picture of the Day
the Hooker Ridge hiking trail in DuPont Forest.