Talking to Myself Again

Snow Tennis

On Sunday evening, Lando declared that he wanted us to take him to the tennis courts next to Funshop (in Lincoln Park) so that we could play tennis. The high that day was 48°F. Strangely enough, we weren't especially eager to do this.

However, we would be going to Funshop on Monday to pick up the materials for the new session (which will begin on Feb 4), so I told him that we could play a bit of tennis then. True, it would be cold, but I knew that he would only want to play for about 5 minutes anyway.

I was wrong.

Worse than that, not only was it much colder (well below freezing) and dark, but we also had ice, snow, and wind to go with it. Perfect tennis weather!

I'm not sure how long we were out there, but it was at least 30 minutes, perhaps more. Long enough for Dawn to go inside the Funshop building, complete all of the necessary activities, then come back out and join us for a bit more tennis.

Lando plays tennis on our Nintendo Wii regularly. One of the activities involves hitting a tennis ball at a wall, so Lando wanted to be sure to do that. Incidentally, he's actually using a badminton racket, because he prefers it over (heavier) tennis rackets. Perhaps this will be a new trend in tennis!

One advantage to playing tennis at night in the middle of a snow/ice storm is that you don't have to wait for an open court. You have your choice of any of them. Or, if you prefer, all of them!

Lando originally was playing behind the backcourt, just like he's seen tennis players do on TV (and on the Wii). Luckily I was able to convince him that he was better off playing a little closer to the net.

"Lando, Mommy's frozen solid, so we should probably go home now."

The One with the Football Game

mood: energetic

The other day I did something that is very unusual for me -- I watched a football game. (Hey, I didn't say it was unusual; I said it was unusual for me.) I hadn't watched football in years. I watched the Superbowl a few years ago when the St. Louis Rams were in it, and I hadn't watched football in years before that. Actually, I haven't watched any sports at all in years. I don't think I've watched any since Dawn and I got married (in 2000) and I don't think I had watched any for years before that. It just takes way too much time.

Once upon a time I watched baseball (go, Cardinals!), but I never really got into football. I think probably that's because for years the St. Louis Cardinals football team kept threatening to leave, then they did leave and St. Louis didn't have a team, then the Rams moved to St. Louis, but they weren't really from St. Louis, were they? (Of course, the Cardinals players weren't really from St. Louis either, but having an entire team move from one city to another just emphasizes that fact.)

So why did I watch football the other day? Had I suddenly found myself with plenty of time on my hands? A sudden yearning to watch giant mutants pound other giant mutants into the mud? Nope. It was Lando.

Lando has recently taken an interest in football. As far as he's concerned, football players are just knights without the horses. They wear armor and try to knock each other down, so I guess that's pretty close. (Giving them swords would add an interesting dimension to the game, however.)

I'm not entirely sure how he got on this football kick. I think to some extent it was Disney's animated "Robin Hood". You remember, the one where Robin Hood is a fox and Little John is a bear? Well, there's one scene where Maid Marian's lady in waiting (a chicken) engages in a bit of broken field running, dodging guards (rhinoceroses) who are trying to tackle her, all while a football fight song plays in the background. Lando would mimic the action on screen, throwing himself to the floor each time a guard missed a tackle.

Anyway, somehow Lando gained an interest in football, so from time to time he will demand that we find a football game on TV.

So that's why I found myself last Sunday watching the Indianapolis Colts playing the San Diego Chargers. I won't go into great detail about what all happened in the game, because you don't care. I will say, however, that it was about the strangest football game I've ever seen. (Then again, as I said, I haven't seen that many, so take that into consideration.) Here are the highlights though:

• Chargers ran back the opening kickoff for a touchdown.
• Colts were down 23-0 in the first half.
• A fumble by the Chargers' quarterback in his own end zone was dropped on by the Colts for a touchdown.
• Colts fought back to 23-21, and with about 2 minutes left they were well within field goal range on 4th and 2. They opted not to kick a field goal (!?), got called for offsides, making it 4th down and 7, decided to go for the field goal -- and missed.
• Peyton Manning finished the game with 6 interceptions.

After several minutes of football, Lando was no longer interested, but by then I was, so I wound up watching the whole thing. :-)

We'll see how long his interest in football lasts. It's still nowhere near as intense as his obsession with knights.

Centralia Visit, Satellite TV, Software for Work, 4 Movies

Good heavens, how easily we fall out of habits -- when they're habits we didn't want to fall out of! I've missed a lot of days (as Mary has reminded me), so there is no way I'm going to be able to remember what happened over the last 11 days. Well, I'll just post what I remember and then try to get back on schedule.

Last Friday (June 6), right after I posted my previous entry, I hopped in the car to travel down south to visit my parents in Centralia, Illinois. They had called a few days earlier to ask about a computer problem they were having. It turned out that the monitor for they old Commodore Amiga 500 had died on them. Well, I've got 4 old Amigas scattered around my place, so I told them I'd grab a spare monitor and deliver it to them over the weekend.

While I was driving down Interstate 55, I saw a flatbed truck in front of me. On the back were some large containers labeled, in bold letters, "LIVE FISH." Three thoughts passed through my mind. The first thought was remembering that old joke. ("If you heard about a new movie coming out called 'Attack of the Killer Goldfish,' would you think it was about one great big goldfish or a whole bunch of little ones?" I love that joke.) The second thought was to wonder why they felt the need to label this thing. Did they think that people would drive more carefully if they knew that there were live fish traveling down the interstate? Did they think that emergency response personnel should be warned, in case of an accident? The third thought I had was to note that it is easy to obsess over trivia during a long car trip.

Saturday (June 7) they showed me their new camping trailer, a 37-foot 5th-wheel. Talk about massive! It just barely fits in the pole barn that Dad had built for his 32-foot trailer. There's probably about six inches to spare! In addition to being 37-feet long, it has three slide-outs, so it's nice and wide. It has the usual stuff, of course (kitchen, bathroom with shower, living room, bedroom, etc), but it also has some things I hadn't seen in a trailer before, such as a full-size couch that folds out into a bed, two full-size easy chairs, and even a computer desk!

While I was there, I also spent some time experimenting with Mom & Dad's new satellite TV setup. They went from something like 6 channels to 40 or so. We watched Monica Seles lose to Aranxa Sanchez Vacario (sp?) in the finals of the French Open, then just seconds after the match was over, we switched channels and watched the Triple Crown not get won.

Sunday afternoon I bid the folks goodbye and returned to Springfield.

Monday and Tuesday are a blur.

Remember a few weeks ago when I complained that I apparently wasn't going to get any of the stuff I asked for at work during our annual end-of-fiscal-year mad rush to buy things? Well, on Wednesday I actually received some stuff! Microsoft FrontPage 98 and Adobe PhotoShop arrived! I already had Frontpage at home, so that wasn't particularly exciting, but PhotoShop was something new for me. I quickly went out and bought a few books to learn how to use it. So far, I am extremely impressed! This is an incredibly powerful program and I have been amazed at how easily I am able to create some nifty looking graphics. Well, nifty looking for someone who has absolutely no artistic ability, that is. In addition, in reading through the license agreement, I was pleased to learn that I am allowed to install it on my computer at home as well! Considering that the program sells for something like $600, that's a very nice bonus! I spent most of the rest of the week and part of the weekend learning how to use it.

Wednesday night was gaming night, of course. We had pretty much a full house, so we had a massive, 8-player game going. If I remember correctly, my deck basically sucked the entire night. I really need to put together something new!

Friday, on the way home from work, I stopped off at Blockbuster to rent some videos. Ever since I got my DVD player, I've been buying DVDs instead of renting movies, so this was the first time I had rented any in quite awhile. Since virtually all DVDs are in wide-screen format, I even found myself being momentarily surprised to see that message about "this movie has been formatted to fit your television"!

On Saturday I watched "As Good as it Gets" and "Gattaca". "As Good as it Gets" was very good! Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson -- how could they go wrong! I enjoyed it alot. "Gattaca" was reasonably good, too. It's about a future society where genetic selection means that the elite are born without imperfections. Sort of a Brave New World kind of thing. It was interesting, but not great.

Sunday I watched "Boogie Nights" and "Brassed Off". "Boogie Nights" was something of a disappointment, given all of the good things the critics had said about it. It was interesting, but it seemed to lack a climax (no pun intended) or an ending. It was sort of like they just ran out of ideas and stopped shooting. I think it sort of lacked focus. "Brassed Off" was pretty good. It was about a British town where the local coal mine is being closed and the people rally around the coal miners' brass band. It wasn't exactly "Hamlet", but I enjoyed it.

Well, I think we're going to have to call that good enough for this entry. Hopefully I can get back on schedule after this! (Monica? Next time, I think.)

My Life by the Numbers

Plenty of days to catch up on. Are you really interested? No? Then skip this bit.

Last Saturday: I was visiting my parents, so I wasn't able to weigh myself.

Last Sunday: Ditto.

Last Monday: 232.5 pounds. I gained only a half-pound while visiting my parents, which is a good thing! My mom always thinks she's feeding an army when she cooks. :-) Walked 2 miles in 27:37. That's my fastest time yet!

Tuesday: 232 pounds. Walked 2 miles in 28:09. I'm rather surprised at that time, since I had decided not to try walking fast. A couple of weeks ago I would have been amazed at that time. I guess this means I'm getting into (relative) shape.

Wednesday: 232 pounds.

Thursday: 233 pounds.

Friday: 232 pounds. My weight seems to be stuck! Walked 2 miles in 27:30. That's another personal best time!

Saturday: 230.5 pounds. Coolness!

Sunday: 230.5 pounds.

Monday: 230 pounds. That's my lowest weight since October of last year. I've lost 15 pounds in 11 weeks.

Today: 231 pounds. Didn't walk, but I mowed the grass, so I figure that counts. :-)