Contract Karma by Fear the Beard

Got this off a site called Fear The Beard that claims to be the East Bay culture blog with a high basketball IQ. I'm not that up on the Warriors, but I think the name of the site is a play on a Warrior slogan. The Beard is a nickname of sorts for Baron Davis, ex-UCLA baller and current leader of the Warriors. It's like saying, "fear the Warriors...they're coming for ya with the Bearded one leading the way!"

Baron is hoping for a contract extension from the Warriors, but it's possible that one might not be forthcoming (they have younger players that could play the same position and he's been injury prone). He still has one year left on his contract for something around $17 million. He could opt out of this contract, but it's unlikely that he would get more than this amount for next season. On the other hand, he could opt out and sign a longer term contract with another club for a higher total amount, but less on an annual basis, but who's counting when you're talking about millions of smackeroos.

The clip below is of Baron trying to do good because he says, "it's better to give than to receive." But the FTB guys know what this is about given the title of the post: Contract Karma.

A Real Life Unicorn...Sort of

At the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, Italy (a town near Florence), a single-horned deer has been born. Deers with such a single horn are rare. This deer has a twin that has the normal set of two horns.

A Blast from the Past

I came across something the other day that I hadn't seen in quite some time. This is proof (I suppose) that you can find almost anything on YouTube.

When I was in Japan for a year in the 80s, there was a female singer who was all the rage. It was 24/7 Akina Nakamori. You could not escape her music, picture and videos.

We went to a robata one evening and they had a television blaring her video. Later at a kisaten (a Japanese cafe) near the train station there was more Akina on a television. Then at the train station there were near-life sized ads featuring every where you looked.

Another time, we went out and one of the stops was for karaoke. Stopping for karaoke in itself in Japan is not amazing, but seeing the same song sung over-and-over-and-over was bordering on too much. The Japanese pop idol wannabes that took the stage to be like Akina had their pop idol's every move down, able to exactly mimic Akina's every movements as they sang her hit "Desire."

Here's one of her many videos for the song "Desire":



And here's a site that has an English version of the same song: Desire

Swim Meet Versus Antioch Delta Skimmers

June 7, 2008. The swim season continues onward.

Naomi swam the freestyle, breaststroke and butterfly. Ethan swam the freestyle and backstroke. The following are videos of Naomi's breaststroke (in Lane 5) and Ethan's backstroke (in Lane 1).

"I Am From" by Ethan

I Am From

I am from China, Japan and Berkeley.
I am from visiting my cousin, our grandma and grandpa's,
going to karate and being at Boy Scouts.

I am from building a derby car with my dad,
going swimming in the summer and going to Seattle.

I am from chow fun, mochi and butter noodles.

I am from hugs, how was your day and poems before bed.

I am from Ojiichan, Obaachan, Casey and Dorothy.
I am from Naomi and Ryan.
I am from E.E. and Buddy.

I am Ethan Avery Emoto

The End of Another School Year

The end of the school year comes with a flurry of field trips and end of year activities. For us, the activities have included a visit to the Smith Family Farm, the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Los Vaqueros Dam and Reservoir, the 3rd graders' flute performance, the 1st graders' "How Does Your Garden Grow" musical, a preschool musical parade, the Boy Scouts bridging ceremony for Tiger Cubs to Wolf Cubs, and the Girl Scouts bridging ceremony for Brownies to Junior Cadets just to name a few. Now bring on summer!

Swim Meet Versus Pinole Seals

We had our first swim meet of the year today at our swim club against the Pinole Seals. Both Naomi and Ethan swam, with Naomi swimming the butterfly (also known as the fly) and the backstroke. Ethan was even busier, swimming in the breaststroke medley relay, freestyle, breaststroke, and backstroke.

Here's a video of Naomi's backstroke. She's in the second lane from the right (lane #2).

Summer's Here...Sort of!

We spent one day of the recent three-day weekend at a Six Flags amusement park in nearby Vallejo. Although it was not a scorching day, the water rides were still quite popular. You can't see her, but Naomi and some friends are on the boat in the video below. Yes, there were more than a few people who got soaked.

Mom's Going on a "Retreatment"

Ryan: I'm going to miss mom.

Dad: She's still here.

Ryan: But she's going to go away for her retreatment.

What Ryan was referring to was that Dorothy was going to be gone for a women's retreat for the weekend. He probably heard us use the word "retreat," and for some reason thought that he would add his own touch to the word.

When I told Dorothy about this, we had a good laugh! I suppose it is a treatment of sorts!

Oregon, where boys are boys and...

...girls play basketball.

Here's a story about a 12-year old girl in Beaverton, Oregon who has been banned from playing in a private boys' basketball league. The league cited an obscure league rule prohibiting mixed gender play saying that rules are rules. When asked why she had not been banned previously, the league said that they are under new management that enforces policies. Of course, policies are policies just like how in Oregon boys are boys, unless it comes to basketball.

In case you're wondering, the inspiration for the title of this blog was Susan Butcher. Over one five-year span, she won four Iditarods. This spawned the saying, "Alaska, where men are men and women win Iditarods,"

Skyping

We had our first experience earlier this week with video calling. In the words of our kids, "It was cool!"

Auntie Yuki has been trying to convince us to sign up with Skype for maybe a couple years now. Well, we finally signed up and placed our first call using our new web cam.

The web cam has a few other capabilities like being able to take pictures and save video clips. It's also possible to enhance photos. We used the web cam to take the picture below impossibly showing Ryan with facial hair.

3-2-1 Go, Race Cars!

Ethan is in his first year of scouting. One of the big events for Boy Scouting is pinewood derby cars. The scouts are given basic materials to build their own cars to enter in a race. Our Pack had its race earlier this month.

Ethan picked the colors. I tried to sway him away from Stanford colors to no avail. It's the only car with these candy cane colors. Ethan also helped with some of the sanding, painting and installation of wheels. He was also the official decal affixer. There is some science to this "kiddie" fun. It turns out, the real serious racers likely spend much time correctly weighting their cars and polishing and lubricating their wheels and axles. These are probably the keys to winning.

This was our first time racing pinewood derby cars. We did not really know what to expect. We did learn a lot for next year. We didn't win, but had a great time.

The video below was shot by one of the fathers in our den. Their car finished in 3rd place. Another car from our den won the top prize. We almost won a prize too: the Turtle Car Award for the slowest car able to make it to the finish line. After seeing the video, you'll probably agree that calling these "slower" cars "turtles" is a misnomer. We had "victory" snatched from our grasp when the winning car just barely rolled across the line a few second after our finish.

If you watch the start of the video closely, you'll see Dorothy.

New Soul

The MacBook Air commercial features a catchy tune. It's a song called "New Soul" by Yael Naim, a French-Israeli singer/songwriter. Here's the link to her web site: http://www.yaelweb.com/

And here's the video for the song. Enjoy!

What's a Middle Name Worth?

Today, we learned what Ryan thinks about middle names.

We have a picture of the family taped on the door to one of our bedroom closets. I pointed to the picture and asked him who was in the photo.

Me: Ryan, is this Michael?

Ryan: No, that's me.

Me: Yes, it's Michael.

Ryan: Please don't call me that. That's what people call me when they need to call me three times.

I Don't Like to Dress Up!

We were eating at a restaurant yesterday when my salad arrived ahead of the main course. Of course, the kids were clamoring for their food.

Ryan: I'm hungry. Where's my food?

Me: You want a crunchie (crouton)?

Ryan: Okay. [so I give him a few]

Ryan: Thanks, but you can have these back.

Me: Why?

Ryan: They have dress-up on them.

I figure out what he means. He didn't want the pieces with salad "dressing" on the croutons!

Electioneering

Much is made about the American public not turning out to vote. Given the many arcane and ridiculous voting rules in place, it's a wonder that fewer people don't decide to stay home.

Here's a case in point: The state of Washington has both a caucus and a primary. This one makes no sense. Their caucuses are today. Voters don't really know where they are suppose to go for their local caucus location. This is compounded by the fact caucuses start at 2pm when many people are out for weekend daytime activities. What's important is that it's these caucuses that are used to select delegates in Washington. The odd thing is that Washington holds primary elections on February 19. Since their delegates are selected through the caucus process, the primaries are essentially meaningless. This hasn't stopped the state from mailing out countless mail-in ballots.

Another case in point: An issue has surfaced with Washington's mail-in ballots. In order to vote through the mail-in process, voters are to mark their party affiliation on their ballots. The ballots are deemed invalid if this is not done. It turns out that a high percentage of ballots have been returned without such an indication. Although it's been noted that the place to mark the ballot is buried in fine print on the outside of the ballot, the real issue is why this is even necessary. Isn't vote counting automated these days? Shouldn't the election office already have information on voter registration? Why is there a need for voters to state their party affiliation?

Number of the Day: 3984

The state of Montana has its American Legion White Cross Highway Fatality Marker Program that has been around since 1953. The program was initiated as a way to remind motorists to drive carefully following the 1952 Labor Day weekend when six lives were lost in the Missoula area. The program has continued to the present, with the various American Legion Posts around the state responsible for posting white crosses to mark the location of traffic fatalities. Not all fatalities get marked. Due to a federal ruling, these white crosses are not allowed on interstate highways, although they are allowed on other federal and state highways and along forest service roadways. Since the inception of the program, it's estimated that over 2000 white crosses have been planted. This translates to about a five acre cemetery.

The photo above is not from Montana. It's not a reproduction of all the white crosses from Montana. The number of crosses on the hillside in the picture numbers nearly twice the number of white crosses in Montana. These crosses in the photo (Chronicle photo by Paul Chinn) are located along a busy stretch of State Route 24 across from the BART station in Lafayette, California. I observed the number 3984 on a large white board amongst the white crosses from the BART train today on the way home from work. Each cross represents one American soldier killed in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003. This number was 3173 on March 5, 2007.

Critics say that this display disrespects the memory of the soldiers killed in combat in Iraq because it was erected as a protest to the war. The other side says that this is a protest against the president and his staff who planned and executed the war, not a protest against the men and women serving in the military.

Meanwhile the number of crosses in Lafayette, California continues to increase and will likely surpass 4000 soon.

Flying out of Sand Point

This is a video clip showing a Lockheed Electra flying out of Sand Point, Alaska. The plane taxis down to the south end of the runway and then takes off north toward the mainland down the 4000-foot runway. The plane takes most of the length of the runway before it lifts off, then flies over the strait between Unga Island and Popof Island.


From merculiv on YouTube

Santa Claus at Six Flags

We went to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom to see Santa Claus. The kids were not disappointed although it was a bit chilly. The hot chocolate came in handy.

We had a first time experience: being one of the first in line to see Santa Claus. We expected a much larger crowd to see Santa, but were surprised to see only one person in line. Maybe it was this lack of a crowd that lowered our expectations, but in the end our visit with Santa was much better than expected. We even got to see Mrs. Claus.

Christmas and Holiday Cards

A funny thing happened today. We got four cards today that were obviously made at the same place. They were those photo cards where you supply the photo and choose the framing and a catchy holiday quote. Funny, huh?