Future Poltergeist

Over on Facebook I did a long list of jokey suggestions for Olympic events.  This has led to people associating me with strange former Olympic events.  Which is fine.  I've gotten to see some articles I otherwise wouldn't have, including this one here .  But that's not what this post is about.  I told you that so I can tell you this: the article has a paragraph on how the Olympics chooses what events it will have.  I haven't seen that anywhere before so I thought I'd share.  From the link: At the first modern Olympic Games held in Athens in 1896, nine sports were contested: wrestling, fencing, athletics (track and field events), cycling, tennis, swimming, weightlifting, gymnastics and shooting. Over the years, that number has increased significantly with the inclusion of everything from table tennis to taekwondo, from basketball to badminton. While many of these new additions have stuck around, others have been phased out indefinitely for on...

I covered the Opening Ceremonies yesterday .  Today I want to talk about what I would have done with them.  Pretty much every one agrees that the Beijing opening is now the gold standard for Olympics ceremonies.  What did they do?  They decided that they would show off their history and progress.  They wanted to show the world just how far they'd come.  If anyone had visions of China as poor people in huts, tending rice, they wanted to show how wrong they were.  The planners did this with stunning visuals (remember the giant screen on the floor?) and a stunning multitude of people (remember the hundreds of drummers?).  You came away thinking 'wow, China has its problems but they can really put something special together'.  Two years later Vancouver hosted the winter games.  Their budget was less than half of what they used for Beijing.  What did they do?  They used a methodical and easy to understand format to introduce the c...

The FP Gal and I watched the opening ceremonies last night and I wanted to get some thoughts down. The time difference thing was very strange.  Before it had even started we both read some leaks and spoilers.  We both heard that it was very strange.  There were a couple of weird moments but for the most part it didn't strike me as that strange.   The whole first segment was amazing from a technical standpoint.  I'm referring to the 'agricultural' segment where people milled around and did farm-y type things.  The switch-over to the industrial revolution was quite a bit of work.  Amazing.  (Note, I'm not saying that it made for good TV...) The forging of the ring was very impressive too.  And when it rose up and joined the other rings?  That was the one time that I really, really wished I could be in the stadium watching it all live.   The high point of the whole ceremony was certainly the pairing of the Queen with James Bo...

I've pretty much abandoned the 'What I'm Reading' list on the sidebar but I thought some of you might still be interested to see what books have been coming into my life.  In the past few weeks I've gotten: The Tipping Point - Gladwell, heard a bunch about it and should read it at some point Island of the Blue Dolphins - O'Dell, remember it well from when I was younger Philosophy of Aristotle, will come in handy with the book project The Story of Dr Dolittle - Lofting, another old favorite, I'm reading it to Relia right now The Voyages of Dr Dolittle - Lofting, next in the series Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids - Caplan, very interesting reading on making parenting easier Gamesmanship - Potter, was highly recommended Remembrance of Things Past - Proust, on my 'someday' list The Looming Tower - Wright, featured in yesterdays picture, fascinating book Football Outsiders Almanac 2012, to get ready for the upcoming season, go Vikes! Little ...

  DF and I are trying very hard to understand the world around us.  (Very interesting book, btw.)

Inspired by Siskoid . 1. Tense endings 2. The 'actual' El Guapo speech 3. Ghibli Studios 4. Harrison Ford: "No tickets." 5. The song 'One Hand, One Heart' 6. The opening to 'Manhattan' 7. The score to 'In Her Majesty's Secret Service' 8. Sentimental Christmas movies 9. Bill Murray in 'Lost in Translation' 10. The light-cycles in Tron 11. "I have wasted thousands and thousands of kisses on you." 12. The soundtrack to 'Amelie' 13. The set to 'Rear Window' 14. The wisecracking skills of Han Solo 15. The Goat Herd song 16. Susan Sarandon in 'Bull Durham'. ("Oh my.) 17. Racing through Paris in 'Ronin' 18. Racing to find a fix in 'Apollo 13' 19. "I want my two dollars..." 20. The Marx Brothers 21. Kenneth Branagh 22. Smart war movies 23. Blooper reels in the credits 24. Every theory in 'High Fidelity' 25. The cast of 'It's a Mad, M...

This morning it was gray and drizzly.  And wonderful.  Still more humid than I'd like but such a welcome break.  We've had plenty of hot days, not quite the heat from earlier in the month but still 88 degrees and high humidty is no fun either. More cool rainy days, please.

Some suggestions I put on Facebook: 1. Give Cirque du Soleil an automatic entry into the gymnastics events. 2. International karaoke competition. 3. Dance marathon 4. Competitive weight loss 5. Frisbee golf/Ultimate frisbee 6. Amish style barn raising race 7. Abstract art contest 8. Six shooter quick draw tournament. Single elimination format 9. An 'In Memoriam' film montage. Those things always get me. 10. Have the sprinters chase a rabbit. 11. The ‘Get-Clothes-on-a-Toddler’ rodeo. 12. Lawn curling. 13. Long distance running competitions to be done on a figure eight track where the runners must criss cross. 14. Long distance ocean swimming. (All swimmers start at the same time and swim until they can’t go any further.) 15. Child/parent three legged race. 16. Competitive dramatic monologue 17. All countries pick one athlete to compete in a King of the Mountain style event 18. Have the sprinters be chased by a tiger 19. Mariokart tournament 20. BMX off road unicycle racing 21....

While at Target today, Relia got into a conversation with the check out lady.  It used to be my goal to be the most interesting (in a positive way) customer that a check out person/restaurant server/retail salesperson would deal with in a given day.  Now my kids have taken over that job.  I mostly just smile, nod and try not to upstage them. Relia: (deep in the conversation) And what's your name? Target lady: (amused and enjoying herself) Nancy.  And what is your name? Relia: Aurelia. Nancy: Oh, what a pretty name. Relia: I know.  Everybody says that.  (laughs all around) DF: And my name is Felix! (more laughs) Me: Yeah, I don't really have shy kids...

With just under a week to go, I thought I'd do one more post on the Olympics with various whatnot.  Ready? While the Opening ceremonies are next Friday night (July 27th), some of the events start earlier.  Notably the soccer games start on Wednesday.  Otherwise they can't fit the whole tournament into just two weeks.  You can find the schedule here .  The 2014 Winter games will be in Sochi, Russia.  2016 will have the first Olympic games to be held in South America as Rio de Janeiro hosts.  (Those Opening ceremonies will be something!)  In 2018 Pyeongchang, South Korea will have the winter games.  2020?  That won't be selected until September of 2013.  It's down to Istanbul, Tokyo or Madrid.  For reasons of geographical diversity, I'm guessing it will be Madrid. The U.S. hasn't hosted since 2002 in Salt Lake City.  When will they do it again?  For the past few years there has been an ongoing dispute between the U....

Last weekend I found a book at a garage sale called 'A Minnesota Travel Companion' by Richard Olsenius.  The book is arranged by major byways and tells little stories about various towns and counties.  Most of stories are about when places were founded.  It includes this story of Austin: An interesting story surrounds the naming of Austin as the county seat in 1857. In northeastern Mower, a town by the name of Frankford was the original county seat. But Frankford neglected to build a courthouse. newly elected commissioners from Austin were unhappy about the distance they had to travel for meetings. They reasoned that since a courthouse had never been built, wherever the 'tin box' containing the county records was kept, would be the site of the county seat. One day they stole the box while attending a meeting at Frankford and rode for Austin with the sheriff and townsfolk of Frankford following in hot pursuit. The posse caught up with the men at the stage way-station ...

After DF woke up today it was snack time.  He asked for a cookie.  As I was getting them out I decided to give him two.  (These are sandwich cookies, or as they are called in our house, beef cookies.)  He looked at them and this conversation happened: DF: Two cookies? Me: Yes.  I thought I'd be generous. DF: Thank you daddy!  (pauses and looks at them again)  Can I have three cookies?

I'm late for Bastille Day, but what the heck.  Also, I'm enjoying the heck out of watching the Tour de France each morning.  What a beautiful country to see in HD.

This was played in the car today. After it was done the kids said I was singing too loud...

In a little over four months, the greatest of the sailing races, the Vendee Globe, will start.  I'm interested in it so I'll be doing some blogging as it gets nearer.  On their website right now is a short interview about sailors and their superstitions .  It's very interesting and I learned a lot.  Before this I never understood the custom of christening a ship, for instance.  Also, there is this bit with a coin: For instance you have the golden coin that yachtsmen are supposed to put down under their masts. Once again, it is about the notion of sacrifice: when putting a very precious gold coin under the mast, the sailor will obviously not be able to use it later. Thus, by doing so, he proves his « good will » to the gods of the sea. Do they do this with navy ships too?

A couple of weeks ago we went out to the garage sales and I found a serious bargain.  A very nice lady was selling a full set of World Book encyclopedias for $1.50.  This is the same set that we had in my house as I was growing up.  Possibly the same edition.  The FP Gal wasn't sure it was a good purchase but for that small an amount I could hardly go wrong.  The nice lady told me that she had offered the set to each of her children and they all refused.  It's not hard to figure out why.  If I have question about a subject I go to Wikipedia or maybe just Google for an answer.  Someday when I have a smart phone I'll be able to check them out anywhere I can get decent phone service.  So why but a set of very heavy books? I remember times when I was young when I'd look something up.  Sometimes I'd just page through and see what kind of interesting things I would run across.  And I want my kids to have that same joy.  Also, I'm v...

The FP Gal took a last minute gig examining some test questions so, for the first time, I had all three kids today.  Now, I've done quite a bit of solo parenting so this wasn't that big of a deal.  But it's a little different when you're watching a two year old and a three month old.  There is more balancing that has to be done, more planning. It went . . . ok.  I had hoped to get them all out to the MOA.  It's a controlled environment and it kind of feels like home territory for me.  But when I was trying to plan out the timing I realized that I would need to feed Leo a bottle while we were out there.  And I couldn't think of any way that I could do that while keeping DF nearby.  Relia, I wasn't worried about.  She is responsible enough that I can trust her to stay near. So we stayed in and did stuff.  The kids didn't have quite the fulfilling day that I had hoped for but, well, c'est la vie.  When the FP Gal got home we talked a...

An interesting list from io9, listing '10 Science Fiction novels you pretend to read, and why you should actually read them'.  The idea is that these are books that people have and talk about but haven't actually read through.  Here is the list, with my comments: Cryptonomicon, Stephenson - A very long book with lots of interesting stuff.  A bit weak on the ending.  I've read it twice and almost certainly will again at some point.   Dune, Herbert - I'm surprised that this is on the list as plenty have people 'actually' read it.  It didn't tickle me but I've read it.  From what I understand the sequels aren't nearly as good and I've avoided them. Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon - I've tried one of Pynchon's books, 'V'.  Got about sixty pages in and put it down, maybe forever.  'Rainbow' has a reputation for being impossible to finish.  I would need some major convincing before I'd even pick this up. Foundation,...

We made a quick run down to Austin today to meet up with the Bremners.  They are on leave and back in the States.  We met at the bandshell park, somewhere I had not been in some time.  (Got to see how they changed it for the flood plans.  The church down there is no longer a church.  Instead it's a pavilion with picnic tables.  Who knew?)  It was very nice.  Our kids got swept up into the tornado that is the Bremner children and they loved it.  We got to sit with Steve and Micah and talk about adult stuff.  Yay!  And then it was over, all too quickly and we went back to the Cities.

This will be the last of these posts, though obviously I'll have more to say about the Olympics when it actually starts.  For the rest of this series, click on the 'Olympics' tag down at the bottom. The 1998 winter games were held in Nagano, Japan.  The organizers worked hard to make certain that the games were all held in a centralized area.  Nagano was the most southerly city to ever host the winter games.  It suffered weather problems, this time they had too much snow.  Some of the skiing events had to be postponed.  New events included curling and women's hockey.  Denmark won the curling gold even though there was not a curling rink in all of Denmark.  US women won the gold in hockey.  (Nagano is located about 125 miles west of Tokyo.  Any readers ever visit there?) Sydney hosted the 2000 summer games and they were a huge success.  During the closing ceremony, Olympic president Samaranch declared them the best games ever....

With all of this warm weather, I could use a bit of cool weather.  I'm not ready for winter by any means . . . but, well, maybe I could spend a weekend there.  (This pic is from Germany.)

In the backyard, talking with a neighbor over the fence. Neighbor: (to DF)  It's a good thing you're so cautious! DF: Actually, I'm two!

For the past week or so we've been 'enjoying' a heat wave.  Well, no, that's not true.  We've been enduring a heat wave.  Temps up above 100 degrees and of course Minnesota doesn't understand the concept of a 'dry heat'.  Miserable stuff. Until last night, that is.  We had some thunderstorms roll through and it immediately became much cooler.  We lost twenty, twenty-five degrees in a couple of hours.  The change is heavenly.  Today we had the door and the window open.  We were outside playing at a park.  We could simply relax.  The weather didn't seem like something that must be beaten at every turn.  I could still use a good five or six days of overcast and drizzle but, for now, this is fine.  Better at least.

This time lapse video from orbit is amazing. I especially liked the aurora from orbit, which is nothing short of spectacular. Near the end you can see flashy clouds. That's what a thunderstorm looks like from far above.

Here is a very interesting article on how different cultures divide the colors in the world.  What is especially interesting to me is how recently developed cultures like the Japanese divided up blue from green.  (Hint: It wasn't that long ago.) DF is working on colors.  He knows that we talk about red and green when it comes to stoplights but he doesn't always get them right.  He also knows that one of our cars is the 'black car' but again, I don't know that he has the color actually figured out.

DF has taken to calling elevators, 'alligators'.  Which is kind of fun when we're at the Mall and getting into the glass ones. 

We had a very hot Independence Day.  In fact, we're in a stretch of really hot days.  I mention the hotness today because we had some power issues.  A transformer on our block blew out.  We still had power in some places, notably the air conditioning and TV.  We did not have any internet(!) and, even worse, all of my work stuff was down. After a couple of hours the rest of the power went out for about 45 minutes or so as they replaced the transformer.  Then it all came back up, with the blessed, blessed cool air. We went back and forth on whether DF could stay up for fireworks or not.  It turned out no, he could not.  So I brought him home early and missed the fireworks.  He went down nice and easy.  And it turned out that my neighbors across the street put on a very professional fireworks show of their own.  (I'm curious, if you added up all of the fireworks bought in a two block radius of our house, would it exceed the amount s...

For earlier posts in this series, click on the 'Olympics' tag at the bottom.  The 1992 winter games were held in Albertville, France, making France a three time winter games host.  Albertville is in the Savoy region and they saw the Olympics as a chance to develop their winter tourism.  The events were spread out, leading to protests from environmental groups.  After this the IOC declared that future games could be spread further to reduce environmental damage.  Big political changes had happened since '88.  The Baltic States competed under their own flags for the first time since the 30s.  The former Soviet Union competed as 'the Unified Team' and German athletes were unified into one team.  Short track ice skating and mogul skiing were new events. Barcelona got the 1992 summer games.  The IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch had helped to bring the Olympics to his home region.  He was a big supporter of commercialism and openly than...

Per the FP Gal's request, here are the various events for the upcoming games.  I've gotten my info from here and rearranged it in a way that makes sense to me.  There are 26 total recognized sports.  I've grouped them together in various categories.  For event schedules you can go here .  Athletics - These are the track and field events: running, throwing and so on.  I'd also group some other things in the pure athletic heading such as the various gymnastic and weight lifting events.  The ancient Greeks would have recognized these without much problem. Aquatics - These are the swimming and diving events of various distances and heights.  Boats - Three different categories here: canoeing , rowing and sailing .  It's a shame that they can't somehow incorporate the Vendee Globe challenge that will be held later this year.  Fighting - Two people, trying to best each other in an immitation of actual combat.  Here you would fi...

Due to popular demand (or the closest that this blog gets to such a thing), I'm going to keep writing about the Olympics.  The book I have goes up to the 2004 games.  That's eight more sets, which is about two more 'past Olympics' entries.  Bonus points to anyone who can remember the host cities for all eight without looking it up! I've got a couple of other related items in my head that I'll write about as well.  For instance, the FP Gal asked me to write something about the events that will happen in London.  I've checked that out and it looks interesting to me, so expect that sometime this week.  I'm open for other suggestions so if you have any post ideas or questions you'd like me to dig into, please leave a comment.