Just WIlliam and Kate

So far, at least, the best thing about this whole royal wedding thing is that when I see"Kate" in a headline it no longer means that awful woman from the reality show with all the kids.

Oh, and when you see William singing "God Save The Queen," do you think he's thinking about his mother?

On to the next controversy

Was Donald Trump's "hair" manufactured in the US?

Owning up

I guess in my old age (I got my first ever Senior Discount today!) I am more secure in my abilities and therefore am less afraid to admit when I did something stupid. Fortunately, as I've gotten older I have gotten smarter and so don't make nearly as many mistakes as I used to. This fits together nicely and so, with the exception of the usual set of mea culpas that are an essential part of a marriage (on the man's side of it anyway) I am perfectly content acknowledging my occasional boneheadedness.

Today I came back home from dropping my daughter off at school and saw that our electric gate had remained open. I know, that sounds all snobby, electric gate and all, but really it's just so we don't have to have a fence around our pool. I guess that doesn't sound much better, but the gate behaves in a somewhat mysterious fashion and glitches on what seems like a monthly basis. When this happens, the only thing to do is to go in the basement and flip the circuit breaker to turn off the power. After a while, if I turn the power back on the gate will operate normally.

So I go to the basement and do this and then come back upstairs for breakfast. After breakfast, I notice that the Internet is out. This is, of course, a total disaster and cannot be tolerated, so I call Comcast and just ream them (politely, of course). We've been having intermittent problems for months and they refuse to change the outside cable and the TV's out too and I'm sick of it and what, you can't come until tomorrow? I'm inconvenienced and fuming, but I have stuff to do that I go out and do, finishing with a stop at a coffee shop so I can get on the internet for a little while.

When I get home I notice that the gate is still open, so I go down to the basement and notice that instead of one circuit breaker being off, there are two circuit breakers off. I flip them both back on and sure enough, the internet and TV are working again. Oops. Fortunately, I don't even need to apologize to anyone. Just cancel the service call and fire up the laptop. Life is good.

Just one more reason why being an adult is way more awesome than being a kid

You get to have serious conversations about whether you prefer the new dishwasher to the old one and why. For example,

"I really like the arrangement of the new dishwasher racks."

"I like the way the bottom rack works, but there's only room for 15 glasses on the top rack and that's not enough."

"Yeah, but I like the silverware holder being along the side instead of being in the middle."

"And it does get the dishes really clean."

Powerful stuff, yes?

Another great thing is that because you've lived so much longer, you can have a mess that you've left in a place for 5 years or more, almost waiting for someone to say something about it.

Pretty impressive, isn't it?

 

 

When a math teacher thinks about numbers

One of the real challenges in teaching math has nothing to do with teaching methods of calculation or analysis. I happen to feel an overwhelming responsibility to try to help students understand math in context. What do these numbers mean? What are they good for? Why would you need or want to solve a problem?

The problem is that while people have some intuitive understanding that numbers are an abstract concept, they still invest them with a level of precision and accuracy which they do not necessarily deserve. Numbers may be very good for measuring things, but that doesn't magically imbue those measurements with meaning or value. There's an interesting column in the New York Times today that made me more aware of how our vastly increased access to data has the potential to warp our behavior. The article is here. It also points to and interesting blog post called "Online Status Anxiety" about how online measurements (numbers of Facebook friends or Twitter followers, for example) affect our behavior.

I need to give this more thought and will share what I come up with if I do in fact come up with anything.

I am so going to hell

Bacon and eggs and matzo for breakfast.

Deep Thought

I just walked past a sign store. In the window was a sign that said SALE in big letters. So I was wondering if that meant there was a sale on signs or if they were just selling a SALE sign.

As much theater as baseball

Went to the game today, my first game this year not wearing a coat. I didn't sit in my usual seats this time. I was up by the foul pole in right field in the second row of the second deck. In the first row was a fellow who came in a few minutes after my friend and me. He unfurled a banner with the 4 recent championship flags attached to a curtain rod, suspended it over the front of the deck, and tied it to the railing with string.

This all seemed completely routine until the fifth inning, when one of the strings broke, causing one end of the banner to swing down. Somebody somewhere must have seen this because while the guy was retying it, a security guard shows up and tells him to take the banner down. They guy explains what happened and that he was a season ticket holder and had been hanging that banner every day for 3 years. The security guard said "they" said he couldn't have the banner up. The guy says something to the effect that it was f---ing ridiculous and that he always had the banner up but he would take it down now and bring it again to the next game. He never raised his voice, sounded annoyed but was never abusive and when the guy told him to stop cursing he did.

Then the guard, Matt, I think was his name, said that the guy was being ejected from the stadium for cursing at him. I'm amazed the guy didn't just explode then. He had done absolutely nothing to warrant getting ejected. He used a curse word once but he directly didn't curse the guy out and he stopped when asked. It was a power tripping security guy. As they left I calmly and quietly told the security guard that he was out of line and that ejecting the guy was uncalled for and that I didn't appreciate his standing right in front of me and making me miss 5 minutes of a close game. He looked at me and I could tell he was trying to decide between 3 options: (1) Ignore me, (2) eject me as well, and (3) taser me. Fortunately for everyone he chose option 1 and led the guy out.

For me, anyway, this reflects very badly on the Phillies. It's one thing to hire big strong guys to be security guards. To hire big strong guys with authority issues is another thing altogether. I came away thinking they need to hire less insecure security guys. I would have said that to Matt too, but I really didn't want to be tased. But I am going to write a letter to the Phillies.

New Blog

I've started co-writing a baseball blog with my daughter. You can see it at http://paintcorners.blogspot.com/. You can only link one blog to a Facebook page so it won't show up there, but there will be a prominent link on this site.

Kobe Bryant said something bad

I really don't understand people's outrage about this. Is it not well established that Kobe Bryant, while a marvelous basketbal player, is an awful human being? You mean aside from being a misogynist he's also a homophobe? I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you.

The think method

I just got back from New York, where my daughter performed with a group of around 200 high school singers in a presentation of choral music, written and conducted by a guy named Eric Whitacre. He has one album of his music out, which apparently has been a strong seller, and is probably best known for something called Virtual Choir, where he "conducts" a group of 2000 individual singers whose video auditions were accepted singing one of his compositions. It's actually pretty cool.

Once my daughter was accepted to Virtual Choir, she noticed on the web site that he was accepting audition videos for a live performance at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. So she auditioned for that and was accepted. At this point, alarm bells are going off in my head, as they should when one is "accepted" to something which they then tell you will cost hundreds of dollars to participate in. It absolutely smelled like a scam to me, but we went along with it because in this day and age we do these kinds of things for our kids..

When you see pictures of this guy and hear him speak, it's hard not to be convinced that he is some sort of shyster salesman, like Harold Hill selling instruments for a nonexistent band. Yeah, they were booked to play at Avery Fisher, but anyone can rent the hall and try to sell enough tickets to cover their cost. But this guy is model gorgeous with perfect, and I mean really perfect, hair. He is also glib, articulate, solicitous, funny, charismatic and full of big ideas, just as you would expect a scam artist to be.

But much like Harold Hill's band, this thing ended up being a great experience for pretty much everyone, including my daughter. She was blown away by the scale of the thing and by having the chance to meet and practice with Whitacre. She was also afforded some special attention because she was in Virtual Choir as well and because she was participating as an individual, not as part of a singing ensemble like majority of participants.

By the end, when we accidentally ended up walking to the post-concert reception with him and his manager, Eric had completely won me over. He does every single thing that makes me distrust someone- remembers your name instantly, asks meaningful questions and really listens to your response, makes unfailingly positive and sympathetic comments, and says "thank you" way too much. But after a while it was hard to not believe that the guy is actually like that, and though the NY concert may have just been a fundraiser for Eric and his sponsor, in the end it way okay by me.

Out on a pleasant Saturday

While walking my dog I noticed that several of the power poles are grounded. That means that they have a cable from the top of the pole down to where it attaches to a metal stake driven into the ground. This is similar to what we always called a lightning rod, where you have a met pole on top of your house connected to a grounding stake to conduct the electricity away from the house and into the ground.

I had a fun idea today. I will take a couple of those grounding wires, disconnect them from the grounding rods and attache them to each other. That way, if one of the poles get struck by lightning, I'm hoping that the current will get conducted down one wire and back up the other and the lightning will shoot back out of the top of the other pole. Wouldn't that be cool?

Thanks for that

Taking a break from the Cliff Lee extravaganza at the ballpark yesterday, I strolled by Guest Services, which for most people is where you go if you need some Advil or an ice pack, but for partial season ticket holders like myself, it's where we go to get our bonus prize for paying for our tickets in full early. Since I had lots of money in my Phillies account left over from their not going to the World Series last year, I was able to do that and so got a letter telling me to bring the letter in to get an exclusive Phillies aluminum water bottle, pictured so:

It came with but a single instruction, on a sticker on on the box, which read, PLEASE REMOVE PAPER INSERT FROM THE BOTTLE BEFORE USE.

Pretty obvious advice, don't you think, and curious that they would feel the need to include it. Then I opened the bottle and found that the piece of paper was about 3 inches square. This would be no problem except for one minor detail. Look at the size of the bottle top:

Note that it's about big enough to get exactly one finger inside, defeating our primate-specific advantage of opposable thumbs. It took me a good 5 minutes to get the stupid thing out with my pinkie, and all that it said was "We hope you enjoy this BPA-free aluminum bottle." Some reason that piece of paper couldn't go inside the box and yet outside of the bottle itself? Hmmm?

So I realized that they probably put that warning on the outside to discourage people who got frustrated trying to get the paper out and thought about just leaving it in from doing so. I guess there is a certain logic to it.

Opening Day Baseball

There are zillions of articles (like my precise, math way of expressing that?) on the Phillies opening day win, so I’m going to try to approach it from an non-sportswriter perspective.

I went to the game with my older daughter, a fan with an ‘f’ in the true sense of the word. This is good for me in a way, because I’ve seen a lot of baseball in my life and have gotten philosophical about it in the annoying way older baseball fans do after seeing thousands of wins and losses (yes, thousands- I estimate that I’ve attended around 1000 ballgames- 20 or so a year for 50 years- and have watched many more on TV). She lives and dies with every pitch.

It was snowing when I woke up and was still drizzling when we got to the ballpark, in spite of a promise via text message from the Phillies that the rain would have stopped by 11:45. We then had a choice- watch the misty festivities and get wet, or shop. We opted for shopping in the heated store. The temperature in the park was curiously inconsistent. In the seats, it was chilly but not unbearable, but in the concourse it was frigid because it was much windier, so the only time I got cold was when I went to get food.

It was crowded at the park, but not not overwhelming. I’ve been to enough sold out games there that I’m pretty used to it and so are the vendors. I never stood on line for more than a couple of minutes. Our three favorite vendors were still working our section, Marcus, who looks like a schlubby, bespectacled version of the Yankees’ Mark Teixeira, the “PISTACHIOS!” girl with the neon-dyed hair and extreme Philadelphia accent, and the program guy, who’s outside the park when we arrive and then ubiquitous inside, selling every non-food item he can carry. My two favorite beer stand ladies were there too, but in a nod to the temperature I limited myself to one from a closer, but still familiar man.

Like many Phillies fans, I’ve approach this season with a mix of anticipation of success and dread of what could go wrong. The spring injuries have not helped alleviate the dread part of the equation, but I could not put my finger on what was bothering me. Once the game was halfway through, it hit me.

For the first 6 innings, the Phillies played in a fashion that could best be described as lifeless. They did all the baseball stuff one normally does when playing, but without any noticeable spirit or verve (which do you mean Frank? Spirit or verve? Make up your mind). I suddenly recognized what they were experiencing- the crushing weight of expectations. Baseball is a game best played with joy. If you are not loving every minute of it, if you’re grinding your way through, you are not at your best. And that was the first 6 innings of Phillies. They looked grim. Baseball is not grim and cannot be played well by grim people.

By the way, I’m only talking about the players other than Roy Halladay, whose focus is keen enough that I don’t think the mood surrounding him really matters.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, the Phillies started with two hits. This caused much excitement in the stands and much woe with my game companion, because we were getting food at the time and had as a result missed all of the positive action there had been up to that point. We got back to our seats just in time to see two runs score, first on a long fly ball and the second on a groundout. This was not very exciting, but it was productive and exactly the kinds of runs that the Phillies struggled to score last year. A hopeful sign perhaps?

We got to the bottom of the ninth still behind 4-2, with the Phillies having gathered a paltry 4 hits over the first 8 innings.  About a third of the crowd had left. The weather had not improved and it had even drizzled a bit more, enough to get you damp though not enough to get you wet. Everyone left in the park was hanging on every pitch. I mentioned to my daughter that the Astros closer was not exactly an elite pitcher, but one who had done a good job the previous years in spite of no more than passable skills.

The first two batters hit singles. The pitcher seemed to be struggling both to throw the ball exactly where he wanted and to avoid contact. There were several foul balls but no swings and misses that I can recall. The next batter, fan favorite Raul Ibanez (he became Rauuuuuul two seasons ago after hitting a game-winning home run in the bottom of the 9th in a game I attended. They now play the “Ah-ooooooo” part of Warren Zevon’s classic “Werewolves of London” when he comes to the plate and the crowd howls along), hit a popup, invoking the enigmatic infield fly rule that only umpires seem to actually know.

This looked distressingly familiar, and it wasn’t improved by a mystifying play where Jimmy Rollins stole 3rd base and Ryan Howard, the runner on first dd not advance. Since we needed two runs, not one, this seemed pointless, but the next batter, Ben Francisco, known mostly as Jason Werth’s temporary replacement until top prospect Domonic Brown is ready, hit a single to score Rollins and send Howard to second.

This brought up another fan favorite, Carlos Ruiz, known as Chooch. It’s clear to me that fans simply like yelling things with OOOOO sounds. It used to be an occasional thing, dating back to Boog Powell, the former Oriole great and it was fun to say, “THey’re not booing, they’re saying Boog.” It’s kind of routine (pronounced ROOOOOOtine) now, thanks mostly to Broooooce Springsteen I think, but people still love Chooch. He sent a screaming line drive down the third base line, out of our line of sight. It landed foul, to everyone’s disappointment. He then hit a single to load the bases.

This brought up Wilson Valdez, who has done an admirable job filling in for injured players, but who last year was the player most likely to hit onto a double play in all of baseball. That was the big fear in all 30,000 of our minds, but he allayed our fears by hitting a game-tying line drive single that had every stranger within 10 feet of each other throwing semi-futile high-fives at each other.

We were all screaming at the top of our lungs at this point. My daughter had her arms outstretched, pleading to the heavens for one more hit. The Phillies now had more hits in the ninth inning than they had in the prior 8. Up came John Mayberry Jr. and I was in a quandary. What do I yell for him? John? Mayberry? John Junior? Then it struck me- JOOOOOOONIOR! And he obliged me and all the rest of us with a game-winning line drive single to center. More high ones and twos and palms and fists raised and celebration. And then just a bit of gloating over those fools who left early missed it, and then off to the parking lot we happily went.

Opening Day (not really about baseball)

I've noticed that I haven't written much recently and nothing at all in the past week. Then I was watching a terrific little documentary on Fran Lebowitz directed by Martin Scorcese (called Public Speaking). Lebowitz is a humorist who has a famously chronic case of writer's block (she says it's more of a writer's blockade in her case). And I was wondering if I was blocked in some way. But I don't think so.

I think the main thing is that March was just an awful month for me, any way you want to figure it, and I didn't write for the same reason I didn't do lots of things- I just didn't feel like it. This is a predictable consequence of being someone with a juvenile sensibility and an adult life. Also, because many of the people who read this blog know me, I don't really want to say anything that could be hurtful to anyone else.

Anyone who's ever been in a bad mood knows that you've got plenty of things and people to complain about when you're feeling lousy. But even at my worst and most selfish, I try not to consider myself the ultimate arbiter of who's right and and wrong. Maybe, at least for this particular time period, I just suck. So if I've got nothing positive to say and don't want to either be a whiner or hurtful, there's not much to blog about.

But forget all that, it's Opening Day. Actually, Thursday was baseball's actual opening day, but because I was so desperate for April to begin, I'm picking Friday as my opening day, and it helped that the Phillies opened that day as well. But the more important point is that it's a new beginning. It reminds me of something I read about baseball back when I was a kid.

There was a baseball player that I only knew about because I had his baseball card, named Hank Aguirre (pronounced "ah-GEAR-ee" with a hard g). No relation to the excellent basketball player Mark Aguirre, he was a moderately successful pitcher (633rd best pitcher in baseball history, whatever that means, according to one source) whose debut was a month before I was born and who played mostly Detroit, famous mostly for being an atrocious hitter.

When I was around 12, I bought something called Baseball Digest, which had a few articles and all the prior year's statistics. One of the articles contained a bunch of tongue-in-cheek predictions, and one caught my fancy:

Hank Aguirre reports to training camp and declares that he has a "new attitude," setting a major league record of 12 consecutive years with a new attitude by a pitcher. Aguirre said that his attitude this year would be surly.

So when I see you next week and you think I'm being surly, don't worry, I'm just approaching life with a new attitude.