18° N 66° W

Very green. Fertile Soil.  Borikén

Thank You

I’d like to take this moment to offer a thank you that is long overdue and  too often overlooked.  This thank you goes out for an incredible constancy in character and willingness to always help out in a pinch. Praise is deserved for always performing well and never asking too much. Tonight I’d like to give it up for Totino’s Party Pizza.  Thanks friend. Please forgive me when I forget about you and all that you have to offer.

Morning or Night?

In the morning there is the risk of the water drying out but at night there is the risk of fungus. Can’t water during the day because evaporation will claim most of the efforts. Maybe morning then late afternoon? Either way we still need to keep the dog off. She gets too excited and pushes disturbs the turf.

So that's done (part 3)

With 25 rolls left we seized the opportunity to replace the thin spots in the front yard. We hoped to finish by 09:00 in order to get to a rock climbing excursion in Taylors Falls.  By 09:30 we had made a lot of progress but still had a bit to go.  Rock climbing was out. But it was a classic lose win situation because the cancelled rock climbing meant we could meet up with my parents and siblings for our annual Memorial Day picnic breakfast which was awesome and delicious.  We finished with the sod by 14:00 and with a congratulatory high five we were finally able to declare – So that’s done.

So that's done (part 2)

As promised I’m picking up where I nodded off yesterday though I’m not sure where I was going with the quieeeeeeee etc.  Oh well. Onward.   The grading showed some small low spots but also one gaping slope toward the sidewalk.  This was a known problem as water entombs the sidewalk each winter in several inches of ice. The sidewalk which then awakens from its hibernation with the rest of the wild animals that recon winter as a time for sleep not walking around (or being walked on as it were).

The sloping grade paired with no buffer of vegetation to absorb the water resulted in a quick and (quite) dirty pool in its regular place.  We knew there was action needed but at the same time we were paralyzed by the torrent of liquid currently falling on our plot.  So we waited and watched out the window and watched out the new window, AKA the internet, and anticipated the moment we’d be back on the ground to continue with our plans. And then the sod arrived. 

True it was 2 hours early and we didn’t have one square foot of completely prepped yard but we accepted it with gladness and as a reminder of things to come.  And then the reinforcements arrived.

Our dear friends pulled up just as the rain dimmed to a soft drizzle and we reassessed the work to be done.  The former sod man in the group took on a quiet leadership and in the absence of direction rightly acted out of common sense.  It went on this way for the next several hours until finally we laid the first roll of sod.  The vibrant green brought a striking contrast to the scalped earth and with it arrived a new energy and most importantly a light at the end of the tunnel.  The turf unfurled nicely and soon the lawn was lush and green and finished.

That is until today when our home team tackled the front boulevard.  As it turns out an overcast 70 something and intermittent showers is a lot nicer than mostly sunny and 90s. 

I just caught myself dangerously leaning on the delet key (thank you CTRL Z) so again I better wrap it up.

Until next time.

So that's done (Part 1)

The alarm went off at 6:05 which is normal except that today was a Saturday.  It was set to prompt the initiation of my day, but not that early, oh well what’s one more hour in bed anyway.  By 6:30 I was back in the yard, faced with classic raking and dirt cutting scenarios.  You know like a dirt pull except smaller in scale and urban rather than rural. I worked alongside my youngest scraping, pulling, hauling, talking. 10:00 marked the first break, the beginning of the rain and time for breakfast. The little guy preceded me to the kitchen and cracked 6 eggs for us to split. Unfortunately the 6^th egg introduced a bloody tinge to the bowl so we scrapped those in favor of splitting the remaining 2 eggs and the newly arrived donuts. I had a slice of pizza from the fridge too.  We watched the rain from the kitchen window reveal the flaws in my attempts at grading the south and quieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Just fell asleep with my finger on the e key so I’ll pick this up tomorrow.

Work Harder not Smarter

The first percentage of a new project can require that mantra.  Today it did but I learned a lot so now I’m smarter which will help me work hard and get more done. 

Yard Worked Out

2500 square feet of yard at 4 pounds per square foot = 10,000 pounds of yard to cut and remove.  Repeat in reverse order.

6 cubic feet per wheel barrow for 625 cubic feet = just over 100 loads.

I’m not sure on the estimates but it sounds like fun.

Now where to put it all?

The Great Improvisation

In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.

Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)

Darwin was brilliant and eclectic and productive and plagued by physical illness and debilitated by emotional turmoil.  I’m always amazed at the minds from history and their ability to think and work so productively, especially in light of the obstacles they faced.  Yesterday my  friend Keith Shields wrote about Newton who, like Darwin, had assorted interests and extreme levels of output .  Their lives and work explored the nature of nature because it was in their nature. These men were caught up in the great creative collaboration and improvisation we all participate in because we bear the image of God.

Why so lame you ask?

Some of you faithful readers way have wondered why the posts have degraded to levels of mindless drivel and downright incoherent thought. Well the truth is I haven’t had a tone of time to write and even worse I think that my ability to think has been a bit low. In short I’m pretty confident that I’m pretty dumb right now.  Oh sure I can come up with some insightful musings on direct questions but musing from my own meandering mind has been all but unthinkable.  I’d say there are a few factors at play; one of which is baseball.  A good portion of my mental energy outside of work has been allocated toward generating lineups, analyzing at bats and generally considering the consequences of the defensive cohorts that will take the field  5 or 6 times a night.

 Below is a sample of part of an evening’s work.  Winning isn’t my primary goal (though no one likes to lose). Fielding a competitive team in which all players get a chance to play in the outfield, infield and sit on the bench is my prime personal directive. I like it a lot, but it doesn’t leave time for much else. GO CUBS! The season is half over!

Pre-Dawn Pre-Dawn

What a magnificent and descriptive time. I imagine cool fresh air, cold ears and nose, lungs refreshed with every breath.  That and a hot cup of black coffee would be great in a few hours.

The dose makes the poison

Too much of anything is never a good things.  For me it was Godfathers Pizza buffet.  Ouch.

Three Chords and the Truth

And ice cream and pancakes and time and dedication and sore fingers and teachers and dogs and pickup trucks and brothers and double dutch and baseball and so forth.

Beware the Hidden Costs

In our house we consume Netflix 30 days at a time.  We wait until they offer a free month and we take it.  Free movies and TV may sound like a great deal and we appreciate it but that’s not to say that there aren’t costs involved.

 Late nights in front of the TV. Sore back from hours on the couch.  Skewed sense of reality from fictionalized portrayals of motor cycle gangs and drug traffickers.  These are the hidden costs.

Buyer beware.

Weird

I know I’m in the minority on this but I think it is weird that there is a multibillion dollar industry that promotes adorning people with items whose practical claims include cutting hard things and being heat sinks in microelectronics.

Free, Free, Free Everyone Wants Something for Free

About a year ago I worked with a filmmaker whose team used Maya to create some scenes and animations for us at work.  As part of the contract with him we were given access to the models and other source files from the projects.  This was awesome but we also had a problem.  We had no way to use the models because we didn’t have the software to open it. 

Yesterday as I was back in the folder of unattainable assets I thought there must be a way to open them.  A quick Google search later I came across a solution so brilliant it’s as if it was actually made for the situation and in fact it was.  To open the program it was as easy as putting the software that created it on my computer. 

I thought this solution would have been out of the question because of the high cost of the professional software that was used to create the models.  I was surprised to find that the program is available for free from the publishers of the software at http://students.autodesk.com/ .  In fact you can download the entire suite of Autodesk software as a students or an educator. Thanks Autodesk.  That was awesome.

What do you get?

What do you get when you take a perfectly good cabinet, a 1 ½” spade auger bit, a cordless drill and 2 guys? A perfectly good cabinet with a number of holes in it.  You also get a solution to a bunch of cords running across the top and front of the cabinet.  Not too bad for a few hours work.  Nice work men. M&M’s and oatmeal for everyone.

Conundrum

What do you get when an unstoppable force encounters an immoveable object? We’ll find out at tomorrow night’s little league game when the 3-0 Cubs face the 3-0 Mets.  Should be epic.

Convergence of Calamity and Opportunity

I’m writing tonight, as usual, from my living room but tonight the setting is far more cavernous and echo inducing.  The acoustics have changed because the furnishings have dwindled to two lawn chairs and the TV cabinet.  Yesterdays lice sighting was followed by an intense period of people decontamination and house cleansing. 

Earlier in the day we had received word of an opportunity for a sideways couch acquisition and when it was time to vacuum and treat our current couches the memory of the opportunity bubbled to the surface and rather than swabbing the sofas we carried them to the curb and hollowed out our living room in preparation for the new constituents.

I also got some new sideways shirts today.  Great, great, great.

Rough Life

These guys have it bad.  All of their life they are hated and scorned for their very existence.  For many the thought of these guys makes their skin crawl. And when they are discovered living in our neighborhoods the reaction is swift and severe. 

At first detection there is often brief doubt with thoughts such as, “surely not in my neighborhood” which follow by the enigmatic combination of acceptance and denial.  “If they are here now one of those other neighbors must have brought them in.” Soon, however, energy previously rationed for outrage is reallocated toward extermination.

Chemical warfare followed by intense systematic sweeps for the survivors and additional biochemical attacks. Patrols continue for weeks as complacency may breed a more insidious and resistant infestation than was brought on with the initial contact with the parasitic vermin.

As paranoia increases alerts radiate to anyone who may have unknowingly harbored the fugitives to new and unsuspecting territories. And then the waiting begins. Waiting for any further sign, any nit, egg or louse.

Donuts in the Kitchen

Really it all comes down to good planning. Assess the current situation in light of the available assets and the upcoming risks and opportunities. Apply your knowledge of local resources to the upcoming timetable.  Act swiftly and decisively in order to allocate the supplies needed. Eat the donuts in the morning when you wake up. Not a bad position to be in. 

Nothing for Something

Super busy kids have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. 

Orangutans learning to communicate through an iPad.  Good thing they’re not using a Galaxy because it might force close the app then the apes might get pissed.

Homework until 10 and wanting to do more.  Ask to get up early to finish project.

School is out in about a month.

The dog barks at the cars while the feet bark at the stander.

To ensure hits keep your head on the ball, but be sure to wear a helmet because we don’t want any injuries.

3 for 1

Tonight I wrote three lineups for tomorrow’s game. The first went unfinished for over an hour because I couldn’t make it work.  My challenge is in balancing relatively equal playing time with fielding a competitive team while giving everyone a chance to play infield a few times during the game. 

The second lineup was produced by the recognition that there’s an app for that.  After a brief search of the Market my lovely wife found and downloaded an app for generating lineups that balance playing time and bench time.  The computer did a decent job of distributing playing time and provided enough control to assign pitchers and catchers.  However, where it excelled in efficiency it lacked in the human element (as you might expect from a mindless computer with limited data available). This lineup could have worked but it left us exposed in ways defensively that would have made us less competitive and put players in positions they were not ready for.

The third lineup started with a very systematic distribution of bench time. This method benched one player from the top, middle and bottom thirds of the batting order. In this way I was guaranteed to have a balanced team on the field and avoided having to schedule an inning where “I had to” bench two top players to avoid over sitting the middle and bottom players.  Pitchers and catchers went in after the bench positions then shortstop and first base followed by second third and the outfield positions.  This was a nice way to get the kids evenly distributed while still having a bit more control on the positions and personnel filling each role.  This method was pretty good but I fear its mechanical nature has led me to miss something that I’ll have to either endure or question and adjust in the middle of the game. And as I’ve told my team, it’s best to not ask me questions during the game because there is just too much to think about to think. 

Solution

Usually a medium Blizzard doesn’t fill me up and I’m left wanting more.  I have a really hard time justifying the outrageous cost of a large blizzard but I found a very nice solution to the too small medium problem: Get a chili dog too and eat that first. Problem solved.

If you want to do more reading tonight and are craving proof that robots won’t be taking over the written word any time soon check this story out undoubtedly written by a human.

Light and Shadow

I can’t say enough about how much I enjoy looking at things that look real but aren’t real.  The attempt to recreate the ultimate creation has been the pursuit of artists through the ages. And I think it’s awesome.  The color of light impacts our moods and the emotions that go along with them. The degree of light can obscure or refine.  It’s what makes movies and TV and advertisements and anything else that we look at, but that are not real, awesome.

Skynet Not Just in the News but Writing It

Below you will find a news story written by a computer.  No, not written on a computer, but written by a computer.  The story was generated by Narrative Science, a company that designs artificial intelligence capable of writing stories based on data.  The data for this story came from the pitch by pitch account of the Robbinsdale Cubs Little League home opener fed into an iPod app.  I’d report a bit on the game myself but as you’ll read below Skynet (oops I mean Narrative Science) did a fine job.

The Cubs 2012 seize victory thanks to late double, drop the White Sox 7-6

The Cubs 2012 outlasted the White Sox on Saturday after four lead changes, squeaking out a 7-6 win at LVT N. The Cubs 2012 staved off the White Sox as the White Sox were unable to match the Cubs 2012 down the stretch.

The White Sox scored two runs in the fifth on an error and an RBI single by Tyrese Roberts. Unfortunately, the White Sox weren't able to take the lead back. The Cubs 2012's Riley Evans was perfect at the dish, going 2-2. He singled in the second and fifth innings.

The top of the first saw the Cubs 2012 take an early lead, 1-0. Simon Broberg kicked things off for the Cubs 2012 with a single. Luke Pilon doubled, plating Isaac Pilon. The Cubs 2012 matched their one-run second inning with one more in the fourth. In the second, the Cubs 2012 scored, scoring Evans.

After a quick strike from the Cubs 2012, the White Sox responded with three runs in the second. The White Sox scored on a three-run single by Brandon Flores. The lead stayed with the Cubs 2012 after the fifth, when they scored four runs on two doubles and two singles.

"Powered by Narrative Science and GameChanger. Copyright 2012. All rights reserved." Any reuse or republication of this story must include the preceding attribution.

Game Recaps are automatically generated from plays and linescore data. If you believe there is an error, please read this or contact our Customer Support.

RGP in My Own Back Yard

A while back I wrote about RGPs and their outstanding ability to see the world around them as an opportunity for expression, creativity and productivity. Tonight I witnessed a 12 year old RGP in action as he bid on, monitored and won several items at a silent auction for a group of friends going to an orphanage in Liberia. 

At first I was puzzled by the strange assortment he penned his name under and a bit annoyed that he would “throw his money away” at such odd items that he couldn’t possibly have a use for.  I soon learned that each buy was strange for a 12 year old boy because none were meant for him.

This wasn’t the first time I have been puzzled by this guys decisions or thought processes but it showed me again that his oddity is one of generosity, a quality to strive for and appreciate and commend.  

The Opener

Opening day is upon us.  The uniforms are crisp and distributed but after 9 o’clock pictures the prominent pinstripes of our team pants will give way to an alternating pattern of green grass stain and red infield clay.  First Pitch 11:30.

How do you hit with 2 strikes on you?

Tonight we scrimmaged and as you’d expect we had several strikeouts.  It was interesting to watch the kids approach the at bat when they had two strikes on them.  There were two basic reactions.  There were a few who seized up and didn’t swing at all.  It was as if the fear of striking out became a self fulfilling prophecy and, as long as the pitcher put the ball over the plate, a backwards K was inevitable.   The others were so committed to not watching the 3^rd strike go by that they either swung at balls far out of the zone or were way too early.  With these kids their desire to hit and their aggressive approach limited their chance even for contact.

So the question is how to improve.  If there is one thing that is sure a two strike count is pretty tough.  There are the physical challenges of making contact with the ball if it’s close while letting balls out of the zone go by and there are the mental challenges of the added pressure of an impending strikeout.

Notice I haven’t offered any advice for a two strike approach? I’m planning to work with the team on this and give them a few tools to work with.  They will all have to do with increasing the likelihood of making contact with the ball: Move closer to the plate to be able to cover the outside corner better, choke up on the bat to increase bat speed and control and practice making contact when faced (mentally at least) with 2 strikes (in practice).

Would you rather?

Would you rather be a dam or the hydroelectric generator?  The dam has to work so hard to passively hold back an irresistible force. The generator welcomes the force and converts it into useable energy. Hard and impossible or active and generative.  I think the choice is clear.

This may seem like a choice you’ll never have to make but I actually decided today, and yesterday, and I hope to do it again. I bet you decided one way or the other today too.

April Showers in May

Rolling in the rain encroaches on the boundaries of the neighborhood and the awnings of our homes. The snare drum picks up its cadence as the drops per minute reaches a crescendo. Just as quickly as it came on the tempo slows and the decibel level falls with the size of the descending drops.  A steady pace  settles in, saturates the ground and tests the gutters for debris, a passing grade means water passes freely, flooding indicates failure.